http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ed-at-DIY.html

Well SWMBO is welcome to any future 'jobs', I could never understand the
Pidgeon English instructions anyhow ;-)

Don.

On Tue, 9 Dec 2008 13:02:22 -0000, "Don" wrote:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ed-at-DIY.html

Well SWMBO is welcome to any future 'jobs', I could never understand the
Pidgeon English instructions anyhow ;-)

Don.


And they wonder why so many of our young men are such a problem ?
Has there been just ONE single article ANYWHERE, over the last couple of
decades, extolling the virtues of males ?

Andy

On Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:31:03 +0000, Andy Cap
wrote:

On Tue, 9 Dec 2008 13:02:22 -0000, "Don" wrote:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ed-at-DIY.html

Well SWMBO is welcome to any future 'jobs', I could never understand the
Pidgeon English instructions anyhow ;-)

Don.


And they wonder why so many of our young men are such a problem ?
Has there been just ONE single article ANYWHERE, over the last couple of
decades, extolling the virtues of males ?

Andy

Football?

Anna


--
Anna Kettle
Lime plaster repair and conservation
Freehand modelling in lime: overmantels, pargeting etc
Tel: (+44) 01359 230642
Mob: (+44) 07976 649862
Please look at my website for examples of my work at:
www.kettlenet.co.uk

On Dec 9, 1:31*pm, Andy Cap wrote:
On Tue, 9 Dec 2008 13:02:22 -0000, "Don" wrote:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news.../3686594/Women...

Well SWMBO is welcome to any future 'jobs', I could never understand the
Pidgeon English instructions anyhow ;-)

Don.

And they wonder why so many of our young men are such a problem ?
Has there been just ONE single article ANYWHERE, over the last couple of
decades, extolling the virtues of males ?

Andy


Read this:
http://tinyurl.com/5o9dgc

It's really good!

Jon.

In article ,
Don wrote:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ed-at-DIY.html

Well SWMBO is welcome to any future 'jobs', I could never understand the
Pidgeon English instructions anyhow ;-)

I'd say assembling flat pack furniture isn't really DIY. DIY means doing
something normally done by a tradesman.

--
*I took an IQ test and the results were negative.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Anna Kettle wrote:
On Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:31:03 +0000, Andy Cap
wrote:

On Tue, 9 Dec 2008 13:02:22 -0000, "Don" wrote:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ed-at-DIY.html

Well SWMBO is welcome to any future 'jobs', I could never understand the
Pidgeon English instructions anyhow ;-)

Don.

And they wonder why so many of our young men are such a problem ?
Has there been just ONE single article ANYWHERE, over the last couple of
decades, extolling the virtues of males ?

Andy

Football?

I doubt it.

half of them are of dubious gender anyway.




Anna

"Don" wrote in message
...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ed-at-DIY.html

Well SWMBO is welcome to any future 'jobs', I could never understand the
Pidgeon English instructions anyhow ;-)

What the writer of the article fails to understand is that any male who was
brought up on Meccano, quickly discovered that following the instructions
invariably produced something that did not work. so you had to decide what
the finished article should look like and wing it after that. It was not
until James May mentioned it in a programme, that I discovered that was a
deliberate policy by the inventor, to make us think about what we were
building.

Colin Bignell

On 9 Dec, 19:21, "nightjar" cpb@insert my surname here.me.uk
wrote:
"Don" wrote in message

...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news.../3686594/Women...

Well SWMBO is welcome to any future 'jobs', I could never understand the
Pidgeon English instructions anyhow ;-)

What the writer of the article fails to understand is that any male who was
brought up on Meccano, quickly discovered that following the instructions
invariably produced something that did not work. so you had to decide what
the finished article should look like and wing it after that. It was not
until James May mentioned it in a programme, that I discovered that was a
deliberate policy by the inventor, to make us think about what we were
building.

Colin Bignell

I'll back that one up - I could never get the Meccano instructions to
produce anything that worked. I suspect that in fact this was
deliberate in that it sorted the men from the boys - the inventors and
future DIY'ers from the rest.

To classify DIY and kit assembly in the same category is just not
realistic and shows the ignorance of the journalist and the Ikea
manager. But then this is the sort of c**p that papers thrive on -
no one ever really thinks things out properly.

Rob

In article ,
nightjar cpb@insert my surname here.me.uk wrote:
What the writer of the article fails to understand is that any male who
was brought up on Meccano, quickly discovered that following the
instructions invariably produced something that did not work. so you
had to decide what the finished article should look like and wing it
after that. It was not until James May mentioned it in a programme,
that I discovered that was a deliberate policy by the inventor, to make
us think about what we were building.

My first Meccano set was very secondhand and came without instructions or
even box. It was so old the colours were gold for the strips and blue with
a gold crosshatch for the plates. But was basically a No5. So I had to
build things simply from pictures I saw in ads etc.

--
*Procrastinate now

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Don" wrote in message
...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ed-at-DIY.html

Well SWMBO is welcome to any future 'jobs', I could never understand the
Pidgeon English instructions anyhow ;-)

Don.

Ikea have lazy male employees. If the women want to get their hands dirty,
why should us guys get involved. :-)

nightjar cpb@ wrote:
"Don" wrote in message
...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ed-at-DIY.html

Well SWMBO is welcome to any future 'jobs', I could never understand the
Pidgeon English instructions anyhow ;-)

What the writer of the article fails to understand is that any male who was
brought up on Meccano, quickly discovered that following the instructions
invariably produced something that did not work. so you had to decide what
the finished article should look like and wing it after that. It was not
until James May mentioned it in a programme, that I discovered that was a
deliberate policy by the inventor, to make us think about what we were
building.

Really? I never realised that...

I used to spend hours building stuff from Meccano, but very little of it
I did exactly according to the plans (glad I didn't bother now!) More
often it would be a case of use a documented project as inspiration for
something and then make it up as I went along.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Don wrote:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ed-at-DIY.html

Well SWMBO is welcome to any future 'jobs', I could never understand
the Pidgeon English instructions anyhow ;-)

I'd say assembling flat pack furniture isn't really DIY. DIY means
doing something normally done by a tradesman.

I'd agree, but fortunately many of my customers don't :-)

Two comments I've heard from customers; "My idea of purgatory is the never
ending assembly of flat pack" and "I'd rather have a tooth out than assemble
that".

T'other day I was chatting to 3 or 4 of the lads at my local plumbing
supplies place. My van was parked right outside the window & one of them
was reading the list of jobs I do.

"What's it mean by Flat Pack Assembly"? I explained that loads of people
pay me to assemble furniture they have bought.

They couldn't believe it. All practical lads, they couldn't comprehend that
people pay for something so simple.

Thankfully they do. I love it, money for old rope.

Takes all sorts.


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

On Dec 9, 7:21*pm, "nightjar" cpb@insert my surname here.me.uk
wrote:
"Don" wrote in message

...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news.../3686594/Women...

Well SWMBO is welcome to any future 'jobs', I could never understand the
Pidgeon English instructions anyhow ;-)

What the writer of the article fails to understand is that any male who was
brought up on Meccano, quickly discovered that following the instructions
invariably produced something that did not work. so you had to decide what
the finished article should look like and wing it after that. It was not
until James May mentioned it in a programme, that I discovered that was a
deliberate policy by the inventor, to make us think about what we were
building.

Colin Bignell

And you believe evrything James May says? The plans were fine, in my
experience.

MBQ

In article
,
Man at B&Q wrote:
What the writer of the article fails to understand is that any male
who was brought up on Meccano, quickly discovered that following the
instructions invariably produced something that did not work. so you
had to decide what the finished article should look like and wing it
after that. It was not until James May mentioned it in a programme,
that I discovered that was a deliberate policy by the inventor, to
make us think about what we were building.

Colin Bignell

And you believe evrything James May says? The plans were fine, in my
experience.

I must admit to being sceptical too. I collected Meccano as a kid - and
got the magazine - and never came across or heard of any errors.

Watching the way those three on Top Gear go about doing any mechanical
work I'd say non of them ever mastered Meccano. I wouldn't trust any of
them to fit a plug either. I've seen Kevin Webster wield a spanner with
more authority...

--
*I didn't fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Man at B&Q" wrote in message
...
....
And you believe evrything James May says? The plans were fine, in my
experience.

I suspect that only means that you didn't follow them step by step, so
didn't discover the errors. That works fine with the simpler projects, but
for something like this

http://www.dalefield.com/mwes/dragline/dragline1pg.html

which is a model I built too, you needed to follow the instructions as far
as possible and that is when you found they were not reliable.

Colin Bignell

On Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:05:56 UTC, "nightjar" cpb@insert my surname
here.me.uk wrote:


"Man at B&Q" wrote in message
...
...
And you believe evrything James May says? The plans were fine, in my
experience.

I suspect that only means that you didn't follow them step by step, so
didn't discover the errors. That works fine with the simpler projects, but
for something like this

http://www.dalefield.com/mwes/dragline/dragline1pg.html

which is a model I built too, you needed to follow the instructions as far
as possible and that is when you found they were not reliable.

I built that model in 1963! And yes, I remember having to modify bits of
it...

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

Bob Eager wrote:
On Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:05:56 UTC, "nightjar" cpb@insert my surname
here.me.uk wrote:

I suspect that only means that you didn't follow them step by step, so
didn't discover the errors. That works fine with the simpler projects, but
for something like this

http://www.dalefield.com/mwes/dragline/dragline1pg.html

which is a model I built too, you needed to follow the instructions as far
as possible and that is when you found they were not reliable.

I built that model in 1963! And yes, I remember having to modify bits of
it...


.... and I remember looking at the plans for things like that, and never
having enough bits to make them. Not like you rich B***rs!

Andy

On Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:49:21 UTC, Andy Champ wrote:

Bob Eager wrote:
On Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:05:56 UTC, "nightjar" cpb@insert my surname
here.me.uk wrote:

I suspect that only means that you didn't follow them step by step, so
didn't discover the errors. That works fine with the simpler projects, but
for something like this

http://www.dalefield.com/mwes/dragline/dragline1pg.html

which is a model I built too, you needed to follow the instructions as far
as possible and that is when you found they were not reliable.

I built that model in 1963! And yes, I remember having to modify bits of
it...


... and I remember looking at the plans for things like that, and never
having enough bits to make them. Not like you rich B***rs!

I spent my money on little else! And for some models, a friend and I
clubbed together...

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

"Andy Champ" wrote in message
...
Bob Eager wrote:
On Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:05:56 UTC, "nightjar" cpb@insert my surname
here.me.uk wrote:

I suspect that only means that you didn't follow them step by step, so
didn't discover the errors. That works fine with the simpler projects,
but for something like this

http://www.dalefield.com/mwes/dragline/dragline1pg.html

which is a model I built too, you needed to follow the instructions as
far as possible and that is when you found they were not reliable.

I built that model in 1963! And yes, I remember having to modify bits of
it...


... and I remember looking at the plans for things like that, and never
having enough bits to make them. Not like you rich B***rs!

My father bought a huge box of mixed Meccano parts, along with a couple of
books of projects, off a street market stall. It wasn't as pretty as a boxed
set and I had to buy extra nuts and bolts, but I don't recall ever running
out of parts.

Colin Bignell

On Dec 10, 6:05*pm, "nightjar" cpb@insert my surname here.me.uk
wrote:
"Man at B&Q" wrote in ...
...

And you believe evrything James May says? The plans were fine, in my
experience.

I suspect that only means that you didn't follow them step by step, so
didn't discover the errors. That works fine with the simpler projects, but
for something like this

http://www.dalefield.com/mwes/dragline/dragline1pg.html

Which Meccano set included the instructions for that?

MBQ