Lobster coughed up some electrons that declared:


I vividly remember my first time - as you do for many life events...

I was 5 or 6, playing with the mains-powered nightlight in my little
sister's nursery. It had a standard bayonet bulb under a plastic
lift-off wendy-house cover, and had a torpedo switch on the flex, which
in those days had no screws keeping it closed, but was just dismantled
by twisting and unscrewing the whole cover of the switch.

I came across this switch, and predictably enough just unscrewed the
thing 'to see how it worked'. Equally predictably I received I right
old belt up my arm. Wow, so that's what an Electric Shock is...

So what's a 5 or 6 year old boy to do, when he has a little sister to
play with? Yup. "Hey sis, come and touch this it feels really nice".

"Waa-aaa-aaah! - M - uuuu - m - yyyyyyy! - look what he's done now!"
and sure enough I got my second belt of the day.

David

Marvellous. I even remember those torpedo switches.

Mine was off some frayed flex on a lamp in a restaurant in froggy - probably
Dieppe. My Dad told me to touch the base with on finger and use another
finger on the same hand to touch the wire, whilst keeping the other hand
away from everything. That went upto the shoulder.

Next major one was off the back of a valve TV - feck knows how many volts
that was.

The Medway Handyman coughed up some electrons that declared:

Tim S wrote:

People don't have father who do things themselves so much, people are
busier so tend to get a man in for everything beyond nailing a
picture up and I doubt chemistry lessons involve making low to medium
grade explosives (unlike Johnny Gardner's "Christmas specials" bless
him).

People regularly get a man in to hang pictures - I'm glad to say :-)



Whilst I wouldn't deny you your livelihood Dave, I still have to say:

"Oh please!"...

Unless you're 90+ or blind or otherwise disabled there really is no
excuse...

Even Maggie Thatcher could bang her own picture hooks in.

In article , Stuart B
writes

Only if the panelling was flush .Loads of tenement flats in Glasgow
etc had the doors ruined by folk ripping the mouldings off before
hardboarding the doors . Luckily there is a place near me that does a
suitable replacement.

Hi Stuart,
Any chance you could share the source of those mouldings? I've not found
anyone who has a realistic match off the shelf.
--
fred
BBC3, ITV2/3/4, channels going to the DOGs

In article ,
ARWadsworth scribeth thus

"Lobster" wrote in message
...


I'm sure that's right. How many of the folk here of a certain age (that's
most of us I would think?!) can honestly say they've never had a mains
shock?

I vividly remember my first time - as you do for many life events...

I was 5 or 6, playing with the mains-powered nightlight in my little
sister's nursery. It had a standard bayonet bulb under a plastic lift-off
wendy-house cover, and had a torpedo switch on the flex, which in those
days had no screws keeping it closed, but was just dismantled by twisting
and unscrewing the whole cover of the switch.

I came across this switch, and predictably enough just unscrewed the thing
'to see how it worked'. Equally predictably I received I right old belt
up my arm. Wow, so that's what an Electric Shock is...

So what's a 5 or 6 year old boy to do, when he has a little sister to play
with? Yup. "Hey sis, come and touch this it feels really nice".

"Waa-aaa-aaah! - M - uuuu - m - yyyyyyy! - look what he's done now!" and
sure enough I got my second belt of the day.

David


LOL.

My first electric shock was when I put the terminals of the transformer from
an electric train set on my tounge. Not mains voltage but it hurt. What else
could I do but call my younger brother over saying "come and taste this".

Adam



I was told at Two years old I apparently stuck a nail file behind a two
pin connector can't think why I'd wanted to do that at such an age.

Seems it threw me several feet!.

Still that was at my grans old house one of the last to be connected to
the "electric light" in the area!...
--
Tony Sayer

I vividly remember my first time - as you do for many life events...

I was 5 or 6, playing with the mains-powered nightlight in my little
sister's nursery. It had a standard bayonet bulb under a plastic lift-off
wendy-house cover, and had a torpedo switch on the flex, which in those
days had no screws keeping it closed, but was just dismantled by twisting
and unscrewing the whole cover of the switch.

I came across this switch, and predictably enough just unscrewed the thing
'to see how it worked'. Equally predictably I received I right old belt
up my arm. Wow, so that's what an Electric Shock is...

So what's a 5 or 6 year old boy to do, when he has a little sister to play
with? Yup. "Hey sis, come and touch this it feels really nice".

"Waa-aaa-aaah! - M - uuuu - m - yyyyyyy! - look what he's done now!" and
sure enough I got my second belt of the day.

David


Remind me of the time I was working on the car ignition system. An annoying
lad came over and started touching things and asking questions like Mister,
what are you doing, can I help? I didn't fancy him hovering about when I was
working on the engine so I handed him a pencil and told him to put his thumb
the end and touch that bit there with the other end. That bit was of course
an exposed HT lead and the engine was running. He pulled back so I ask
what's wrong. Nothing says he (probably wondering how he could get a belt
from a pencil) so I asked him to do it again. He did then said he didn't
want to help anymore and went away. Result!

The Medway Handyman wrote:
Tim S wrote:

People don't have father who do things themselves so much, people are
busier so tend to get a man in for everything beyond nailing a
picture up and I doubt chemistry lessons involve making low to medium
grade explosives (unlike Johnny Gardner's "Christmas specials" bless
him).

People regularly get a man in to hang pictures - I'm glad to say :-)


Its extrarordinary how fast the so called middle classes, socialist to a
man, seem to adopt the trappings of the so called upper clases, and
revel in servants to exercise their every whim.

Even John Prescott, class warrior to his boots, plays croquet..

Tim S wrote:
Lobster coughed up some electrons that declared:


I was going to say: next thing will be a house blown up because the
householder noticed a massively strong smell of gas, phoned the gas board,
then sat down to have a fag while waiting.


If you call the gas emergency line to report a leak, they (quite
rightly) go through a whole script about no naked flames, don't operate
light switches, etc., so if someone did have a fag whilst they were
waiting (after being warned not to), then they truly would be a Darwin
candidate!

ARWadsworth wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
John Stumbles wrote:
On Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:40:36 +0100, whisky-dave wrote:

"ARWadsworth" wrote in message
m...
I got a call from a customer to say that she was getting electric
shocks off her kettle and deep fat frier (both shiney chrome beasts)
About 15 years ago I had a similar call from a friend that said she'd
got a shock of the shower head.
Some years ago my parents found they were getting a tingle off the Aga
and
the deep freeze. Turned out my dad had taken the CH thermostat from the
wall when redecorating. Putting it back he'd trapped the neutral
conductor
under the edge of the (metal) case of the (ancient) thermostat and
created
a N-PE short. And the house was on a TT, the earthing conductor of which
had got snipped sometime earlier.

Just glad he didn't pinch the L conductor instead of the N!

Which goes to prove my point that whilst totally 240v live surfaces are
comparatively commonplace, death by them is far far rarer.

Agreed, but still not desirable in a kitchen.


Oh, I totally agree. Death by electrocution in a domestic environment is
almost unheard of these days, and requires some flagrant bending of the
regulations to achieve.

The regulations are well worth the minimal effort to implement correctly.

My point was, that the fact that something is deemed 'outside acceptable
safety limits' does not mean its instant death to anyone who
transgresses them.

It's a peculiar attitudes that seems to be prevalent today - as evinced
by the 'road signs' thread - that legal equates to completely safe, and
illegal equates to profoundly dangerous.


Anyone remember old radios and TV sets where the HT was simply a half wave
rectifier off the mains? and the chassis was neutral and there was no
earth? Two wire feed..

Wire THEM up backwards and all the metalwork was live..but I only noticed
when I got a tingle off an oversized grubscrew my father had reaffixed a
bakelite knob with...

Too young to remember.


Ah..
Adam

"Tim S" wrote in message
...
The Medway Handyman coughed up some electrons that declared:

Tim S wrote:

People don't have father who do things themselves so much, people are
busier so tend to get a man in for everything beyond nailing a
picture up and I doubt chemistry lessons involve making low to medium
grade explosives (unlike Johnny Gardner's "Christmas specials" bless
him).

People regularly get a man in to hang pictures - I'm glad to say :-)



Whilst I wouldn't deny you your livelihood Dave, I still have to say:

"Oh please!"...

Unless you're 90+ or blind or otherwise disabled there really is no
excuse...

Even Maggie Thatcher could bang her own picture hooks in.

I still take money off people who nail/drill through cables whilst hanging a
picture.

She "Hang me that picture up please love"
He "Where do you want it?"
She "Directly above that lightswitch would be nice"

Adam

ARWadsworth coughed up some electrons that declared:


"Tim S" wrote in message
...
The Medway Handyman coughed up some electrons that declared:

Tim S wrote:

People don't have father who do things themselves so much, people are
busier so tend to get a man in for everything beyond nailing a
picture up and I doubt chemistry lessons involve making low to medium
grade explosives (unlike Johnny Gardner's "Christmas specials" bless
him).

People regularly get a man in to hang pictures - I'm glad to say :-)



Whilst I wouldn't deny you your livelihood Dave, I still have to say:

"Oh please!"...

Unless you're 90+ or blind or otherwise disabled there really is no
excuse...

Even Maggie Thatcher could bang her own picture hooks in.

I still take money off people who nail/drill through cables whilst hanging
a picture.

She "Hang me that picture up please love"
He "Where do you want it?"
She "Directly above that lightswitch would be nice"

Adam

She daft for not knowing
He dafter for actually doing it!

I'd love to set this up for a school class:

Cork board with painted light switches etc, foil on the back in all
the "zones" connected to electric fence generator.

Give children metal drawing pins...

I'd give a prize for the ones who avoid the 150mm corner bands :-)

On 1 May, 10:30, Tim S wrote:

Unless you're 90+ or blind or otherwise disabled there really is no
excuse...

Even Maggie Thatcher could bang her own picture hooks in.

It's one job I hate doing myself. I'd much rather be standing across
the room calling out "left a bit!" while someone else does the nail.
The nailer just can't see where they're putting it.

On 1 May, 11:39, Tim S wrote:
ARWadsworth coughed up some electrons that declared:

She "Hang me that picture up please love"
He "Where do you want it?"
She "Directly above that lightswitch would be nice"

She daft for not knowing
He dafter for actually doing it!


Present company excepted, just how many people (of our wonderful Hello-
reading, Jade-loving general population) would have the first clue
about this?

"Tim S" wrote in message
...
ARWadsworth coughed up some electrons that declared:


"Tim S" wrote in message
...
The Medway Handyman coughed up some electrons that declared:

Tim S wrote:

People don't have father who do things themselves so much, people are
busier so tend to get a man in for everything beyond nailing a
picture up and I doubt chemistry lessons involve making low to medium
grade explosives (unlike Johnny Gardner's "Christmas specials" bless
him).

People regularly get a man in to hang pictures - I'm glad to say :-)



Whilst I wouldn't deny you your livelihood Dave, I still have to say:

"Oh please!"...

Unless you're 90+ or blind or otherwise disabled there really is no
excuse...

Even Maggie Thatcher could bang her own picture hooks in.

I still take money off people who nail/drill through cables whilst
hanging
a picture.

She "Hang me that picture up please love"
He "Where do you want it?"
She "Directly above that lightswitch would be nice"

Adam

She daft for not knowing
He dafter for actually doing it!

I'd love to set this up for a school class:

Cork board with painted light switches etc, foil on the back in all
the "zones" connected to electric fence generator.

Give children metal drawing pins...

I'd give a prize for the ones who avoid the 150mm corner bands :-)

My O level physics teacher turned the installation of a new blackboard
(chaulkboard if you are PC) into a very interesting lesson. The whole class
helped to fit it and remove the old one. He managed to turn the lesson into
fun. Not only were there drills and spirt levels etc but the class also
weighed the board and worked out how much tension there was on the screws
holding the board up (probably not accurate but it was only O level).

He would probably get fired for repeating that lesson if he did it today.

Adam

Andy Dingley coughed up some electrons that declared:

On 1 May, 11:39, Tim S wrote:
ARWadsworth coughed up some electrons that declared:

She "Hang me that picture up please love"
He "Where do you want it?"
She "Directly above that lightswitch would be nice"

She daft for not knowing
He dafter for actually doing it!


Present company excepted, just how many people (of our wonderful Hello-
reading, Jade-loving general population) would have the first clue
about this?

Exactly - and that's why Britain is pretty much down the pan

Although, even without having a copy of the OnSite Guide or green book,
common sense should indicate to even the more uninformed that "if switch
have wires, wires have to be somewhere in wall in the general direction of
switch".

"Tim S" wrote in message
...
Andy Dingley coughed up some electrons that declared:

On 1 May, 11:39, Tim S wrote:
ARWadsworth coughed up some electrons that declared:

She "Hang me that picture up please love"
He "Where do you want it?"
She "Directly above that lightswitch would be nice"

She daft for not knowing
He dafter for actually doing it!


Present company excepted, just how many people (of our wonderful Hello-
reading, Jade-loving general population) would have the first clue
about this?

Exactly - and that's why Britain is pretty much down the pan

Although, even without having a copy of the OnSite Guide or green book,
common sense should indicate to even the more uninformed that "if switch
have wires, wires have to be somewhere in wall in the general direction of
switch".

Ah but doe these wires come from above, below to the left or right,
or perhaps diagonally. You really shouldn't trust a switch to have been put
in
correctly.

"Tim S" wrote in message
...
Lobster coughed up some electrons that declared:


I think the trouble here is someone gets a shock from an appliance, and
thinks 'OK, that was unpleasant, probably best not to do that again' but
no more than that. They have no comprehension that the severity of
future shocks from the same source can vary massively depending on
whether they happen to have rubber-soled shoes, wet hands, have one hand
in the sink and one on the kettle, are standing barefoot in a puddle, or
whatever.

I think you may have it - but, fundamentally, that is quite
stupid/useless/lack-of-awareness by any definition.

90v batteries, girls +ve, boys -ve, then get them to hold hands, snog,
anything else they dared. That's what they need in 5th form (or whatever
it's called now). They'd soon learn the difference between different
contact scenarios.

I was going to say: next thing will be a house blown up because the
householder noticed a massively strong smell of gas, phoned the gas board,
then sat down to have a fag while waiting.

But it's probably already happened...

Probably wait for the gas board official to turn up with a fag in his mouth.
Surely I can;t be the only one to have seen gas board officials standing
around
holes in the road and smoking.

whisky-dave coughed up some electrons that declared:


Ah but doe these wires come from above, below to the left or right,
or perhaps diagonally. You really shouldn't trust a switch to have been
put in
correctly.

Apart from diagonally, all the others should be assumed to be likely.

I'm chasing my cables in at the moment and an using all of the permitted
zones bar the 150mm from ceiling one.

But you are right, a sensible man will have a cable detector handy.

A real man however will lick the wall and detect the leakage with his
tongue!

"Tim S" wrote in message
...
ARWadsworth coughed up some electrons that declared:


"Tim S" wrote in message
...
The Medway Handyman coughed up some electrons that declared:

Tim S wrote:

People don't have father who do things themselves so much, people are
busier so tend to get a man in for everything beyond nailing a
picture up and I doubt chemistry lessons involve making low to medium
grade explosives (unlike Johnny Gardner's "Christmas specials" bless
him).

People regularly get a man in to hang pictures - I'm glad to say :-)



Whilst I wouldn't deny you your livelihood Dave, I still have to say:

"Oh please!"...

Unless you're 90+ or blind or otherwise disabled there really is no
excuse...

Even Maggie Thatcher could bang her own picture hooks in.

I still take money off people who nail/drill through cables whilst
hanging
a picture.

She "Hang me that picture up please love"
He "Where do you want it?"
She "Directly above that lightswitch would be nice"

Adam

She daft for not knowing
He dafter for actually doing it!

I'd love to set this up for a school class:

Cork board with painted light switches etc, foil on the back in all
the "zones" connected to electric fence generator.

Give children metal drawing pins...

I'd give a prize for the ones who avoid the 150mm corner bands :-)

Detention Tim.

500 lines of

Do not electrocute the childen.

Adam

"Andy Dingley" wrote in message
...
On 1 May, 10:30, Tim S wrote:

Unless you're 90+ or blind or otherwise disabled there really is no
excuse...

Even Maggie Thatcher could bang her own picture hooks in.

It's one job I hate doing myself. I'd much rather be standing across
the room calling out "left a bit!" while someone else does the nail.
The nailer just can't see where they're putting it.

If the customer is blind you could just pretend to put the picture up.

Adam

On May 1, 1:01*pm, Tim S wrote:
Apart from diagonally, all the others should be assumed to be likely.

If the house predates 13th Amended (late 1987) then assume wires will
be diagonal, indeed assume diagonal to the shortest possible route.

js.b1 wrote:
On May 1, 1:01 pm, Tim S wrote:
Apart from diagonally, all the others should be assumed to be likely.

If the house predates 13th Amended (late 1987) then assume wires will
be diagonal, indeed assume diagonal to the shortest possible route.

In all cases, don't assume anything.

AFAIAC the regulations are not there to prevent you hitting cables, they
are there to make it a lot less likely, that's all.

Tim S wrote:

ARWadsworth coughed up some electrons that declared:

She "Hang me that picture up please love"
He "Where do you want it?"
She "Directly above that lightswitch would be nice"

She daft for not knowing
He dafter for actually doing it!

Its amazing the number of people that it never seems to occur to though.

Was speaking to a chap once about the trouble he had installing a phone
socket for a friend. She said where she wanted it, so he fixed it and
then set about the cable run. She interrupted and said "Oh no, I don't
want any of those wires". So he explained the wire was required for the
phone socket to work. She did not believe him, and countered by saying
"Well the mains socket does not have any wires!". He tried to explain
they were buried in the wall, and she refused to believe it!

I'd love to set this up for a school class:

Cork board with painted light switches etc, foil on the back in all
the "zones" connected to electric fence generator.

Give children metal drawing pins...

I'd give a prize for the ones who avoid the 150mm corner bands :-)

There are probably government rules against actually teaching kids
useful stuff these days!


--
Cheers,

John.

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

"Tim S" wrote in message
...
Steve Firth coughed up some electrons that declared:

Tim S wrote:

I think, to be fair, stupidity is partly a result of our society and
education.

I don't think that's at all accurate. There are a few scholarly studies
of stupidity, they go back to the 1930s. The common conclusion is that
stupidity is with is now and has always been with us.

http://www.gandalf.it/stupid/stupid.htm

Very interesting.

Well, whilst I cannot quantify it, people do seem to be less practical and
generally more helpless these days - which I consider a specialised form
of
stupidity. How do you explain that?

I think it's lack of real education and actually doing things rather than
writing
about them. I remember the days when appliances and plugs came separately.
If you didn't know how to wire a plug, you'd find out.
Now it seems that the majority of learning comes from writing essays
and doing multiply choice questions.
If you're not good enough to go to uni. tio get some written qualification
you're all but written off unless you want to become army fodder for the
next 'war'.

Lobster wrote:
depending on
whether they happen to have rubber-soled shoes, wet hands, have one hand
in the sink and one on the kettle, are standing barefoot in a puddle, or
whatever.

Isn't that the initiation ceremony for the Masons?

--
Scott

Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

"Andy Dingley" wrote in message
...
On 1 May, 11:39, Tim S wrote:
ARWadsworth coughed up some electrons that declared:

She "Hang me that picture up please love"
He "Where do you want it?"
She "Directly above that lightswitch would be nice"

She daft for not knowing
He dafter for actually doing it!


Present company excepted, just how many people (of our wonderful Hello-
reading, Jade-loving general population) would have the first clue
about this?

God Bless Them. If he does not then it is £30 an hour at their house when I
am there.

Adam

"Huge" wrote in message
...
On 2009-05-01, Tim S wrote:

I was going to say: next thing will be a house blown up because the
householder noticed a massively strong smell of gas, phoned the gas
board,
then sat down to have a fag while waiting.

Time was you didn't need a fag. The dialling mechanism in the 'phone could
provide a sufficient spark.

--
"It would be thought a hard government that should
tax its people one tenth part." ~ Benjamin Franklin
[email me at huge {at} huge (dot) org dot uk]

And a couple of cases in the 60's where the emergency gas fitter turned up
and pressed the doorbell button ...

"Lobster" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
John Stumbles wrote:
On Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:40:36 +0100, whisky-dave wrote:

"ARWadsworth" wrote in message
m...

I got a call from a customer to say that she was getting electric
shocks off her kettle and deep fat frier (both shiney chrome beasts)

About 15 years ago I had a similar call from a friend that said she'd
got a shock of the shower head.

Some years ago my parents found they were getting a tingle off the Aga
and
the deep freeze. Turned out my dad had taken the CH thermostat from the
wall when redecorating. Putting it back he'd trapped the neutral
conductor
under the edge of the (metal) case of the (ancient) thermostat and
created
a N-PE short. And the house was on a TT, the earthing conductor of which
had got snipped sometime earlier.

Just glad he didn't pinch the L conductor instead of the N!

Which goes to prove my point that whilst totally 240v live surfaces are
comparatively commonplace, death by them is far far rarer.

I'm sure that's right. How many of the folk here of a certain age (that's
most of us I would think?!) can honestly say they've never had a mains
shock?

I vividly remember my first time - as you do for many life events...

I was 5 or 6, playing with the mains-powered nightlight in my little
sister's nursery. It had a standard bayonet bulb under a plastic lift-off
wendy-house cover, and had a torpedo switch on the flex, which in those
days had no screws keeping it closed, but was just dismantled by twisting
and unscrewing the whole cover of the switch.

I came across this switch, and predictably enough just unscrewed the thing
'to see how it worked'. Equally predictably I received I right old belt
up my arm. Wow, so that's what an Electric Shock is...

So what's a 5 or 6 year old boy to do, when he has a little sister to play
with? Yup. "Hey sis, come and touch this it feels really nice".

"Waa-aaa-aaah! - M - uuuu - m - yyyyyyy! - look what he's done now!" and
sure enough I got my second belt of the day.

David

5 years old and stuck a knitting needle in the mains socket. My dad fell
about laughing (an electrician). Must have be some kind of rite-of-passage
thing, as I've now had a lifetime of being fed and watered by those dancing
electrons. (240V belts now down to about one a month .

whisky-dave wrote:

I think it's lack of real education and actually doing things rather than
writing
about them. I remember the days when appliances and plugs came separately.
If you didn't know how to wire a plug, you'd find out.

Not if you were my mother-in-law you didn't. Christ....

David

ARWadsworth wrote:
"Andy Dingley" wrote in message
...
On 1 May, 11:39, Tim S wrote:
ARWadsworth coughed up some electrons that declared:
She "Hang me that picture up please love"
He "Where do you want it?"
She "Directly above that lightswitch would be nice"
She daft for not knowing
He dafter for actually doing it!

Present company excepted, just how many people (of our wonderful Hello-
reading, Jade-loving general population) would have the first clue
about this?

God Bless Them. If he does not then it is £30 an hour at their house when I
am there.

Are you so cheap?

Dave

On Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:35:51 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Which goes to prove my point that whilst totally 240v live surfaces are
comparatively commonplace, death by them is far far rarer.

My point was that it wasn't 240V, it was neutral. There was no effective
earth anywhere (nor main eq bonding) but all it would have taken was
contact between something at the house's floating earth and some
extraneous-conductive item connected to a truer earthed and it could have
been lethal.


Anyone remember old radios and TV sets where the HT was simply a half
wave rectifier off the mains? and the chassis was neutral and there was
no earth? Two wire feed..

Indeed. The danger with TV servicing was that a belt from the EHT probably
wouldn't kill you (in the days before colour) but could jolt you into
contact with the live chassis, which might!

Made it a pain trying to get a direct connection to record off TV with.

--
John Stumbles

What do you mean, talking about it isn't oral sex?

whisky-dave coughed up some electrons that declared:


"Tim S" wrote in message

I was going to say: next thing will be a house blown up because the
householder noticed a massively strong smell of gas, phoned the gas
board, then sat down to have a fag while waiting.

But it's probably already happened...

Probably wait for the gas board official to turn up with a fag in his
mouth. Surely I can;t be the only one to have seen gas board officials
standing around
holes in the road and smoking.

He's the canary... If he blows up, they know they didn't do the last joint
right

;_

On Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:27:30 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

hell of a belt off the inductive flyback of the motor.

Working in a computer centre in the late 70s/early 80s I learned to beware
of teletypes connected on otherwise-innocuous twisted phone line circuits :-)



--
John Stumbles

If we'd known how much fun grandchildren are
we'd have had them first

John Rumm coughed up some electrons that declared:

Its amazing the number of people that it never seems to occur to though.

Was speaking to a chap once about the trouble he had installing a phone
socket for a friend. She said where she wanted it, so he fixed it and
then set about the cable run. She interrupted and said "Oh no, I don't
want any of those wires". So he explained the wire was required for the
phone socket to work. She did not believe him, and countered by saying
"Well the mains socket does not have any wires!". He tried to explain
they were buried in the wall, and she refused to believe it!

Wibble...



I'd love to set this up for a school class:

Cork board with painted light switches etc, foil on the back in all
the "zones" connected to electric fence generator.

Give children metal drawing pins...

I'd give a prize for the ones who avoid the 150mm corner bands :-)

There are probably government rules against actually teaching kids
useful stuff these days!



I bet they get me on the drawing pins first. Must give children pointy
things....

"Tim S" wrote in message
...
whisky-dave coughed up some electrons that declared:


"Tim S" wrote in message

I was going to say: next thing will be a house blown up because the
householder noticed a massively strong smell of gas, phoned the gas
board, then sat down to have a fag while waiting.

But it's probably already happened...

Probably wait for the gas board official to turn up with a fag in his
mouth. Surely I can;t be the only one to have seen gas board officials
standing around
holes in the road and smoking.

He's the canary... If he blows up, they know they didn't do the last joint
right

;_

Smoking what?

Adam

Tim S wrote:
The Medway Handyman coughed up some electrons that declared:

Tim S wrote:

People don't have father who do things themselves so much, people
are busier so tend to get a man in for everything beyond nailing a
picture up and I doubt chemistry lessons involve making low to
medium grade explosives (unlike Johnny Gardner's "Christmas
specials" bless him).

People regularly get a man in to hang pictures - I'm glad to say :-)



Whilst I wouldn't deny you your livelihood Dave, I still have to say:

"Oh please!"...

Unless you're 90+ or blind or otherwise disabled there really is no
excuse...

Even Maggie Thatcher could bang her own picture hooks in.

You would be surprised. Hang pictures, assemble simple flatpack like
bathroom cabinets/shoe racks (4 confirmat screws), change bulbs (now a H&S
issue, needing a risk assesment), install washing machines (no plumbing,
simply connect feed & waste & plug in), supply & fit new sink plug & chain.

Mus'nt grumble though.


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

Andy Dingley wrote:
On 1 May, 11:39, Tim S wrote:
ARWadsworth coughed up some electrons that declared:

She "Hang me that picture up please love"
He "Where do you want it?"
She "Directly above that lightswitch would be nice"

She daft for not knowing
He dafter for actually doing it!


Present company excepted, just how many people (of our wonderful
Hello- reading, Jade-loving general population) would have the first
clue about this?

Thankfully few :-)


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

In article , Tim S
writes

When I were a lad in the 70's, most of the men in our section of our road,
rightly or wrongly, would do their own DIY, electrics[1], plumbing

we didn't have the nanny state and the likes of Part Pee then.

and at
least basic car servicing.

cars were designed to be user-serviceable then. nowadays you're lucky if
you can change the oil yourself. Everything else is hidden away under
plastic covers.

--
(\__/)
(='.'=) Bunny says Windows 7 is Vi$ta reloaded.
(")_(") http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/windows_7.png

"Mike Tomlinson" wrote in message
...
In article , Tim S
writes

When I were a lad in the 70's, most of the men in our section of our road,
rightly or wrongly, would do their own DIY, electrics[1], plumbing

we didn't have the nanny state and the likes of Part Pee then.

and at
least basic car servicing.

cars were designed to be user-serviceable then. nowadays you're lucky if
you can change the oil yourself. Everything else is hidden away under
plastic covers.

--
(\__/)
(='.'=) Bunny says Windows 7 is Vi$ta reloaded.
(")_(") http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/windows_7.png



It seems that many can't change a failed brake light bulb - or don't care.

I told a driver recently that his had gone (why is it always the nearside
one??) and he replied that his MOT was due in a couple of months time. Doh!

On Sun, 3 May 2009 08:17:31 UTC, "John"
wrote:


"Mike Tomlinson" wrote in message
...
In article , Tim S
writes

When I were a lad in the 70's, most of the men in our section of our road,
rightly or wrongly, would do their own DIY, electrics[1], plumbing

we didn't have the nanny state and the likes of Part Pee then.

and at
least basic car servicing.

cars were designed to be user-serviceable then. nowadays you're lucky if
you can change the oil yourself. Everything else is hidden away under
plastic covers.


It seems that many can't change a failed brake light bulb - or don't care.

I told a driver recently that his had gone (why is it always the nearside
one??) and he replied that his MOT was due in a couple of months time. Doh!

To be fair, some are really a pain (lots of screws to undo, etc.). It
can be a pain.

--
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 in message
...
On Sun, 3 May 2009 08:17:31 UTC, "John"
wrote:


"Mike Tomlinson" wrote in message
...
In article , Tim S
writes

When I were a lad in the 70's, most of the men in our section of our
road,
rightly or wrongly, would do their own DIY, electrics[1], plumbing

we didn't have the nanny state and the likes of Part Pee then.

and at
least basic car servicing.

cars were designed to be user-serviceable then. nowadays you're lucky
if
you can change the oil yourself. Everything else is hidden away under
plastic covers.


It seems that many can't change a failed brake light bulb - or don't
care.

I told a driver recently that his had gone (why is it always the nearside
one??) and he replied that his MOT was due in a couple of months time.
Doh!

To be fair, some are really a pain (lots of screws to undo, etc.). It
can be a pain.


Yep. Over 40 minutes to change the OS headlight bulb on my Combo. The tail
lights only take about 30 seconds. There is still no excuse not to change a
bulb or pay someone to change it for you as soon as possible after you know
that the bulb has blown.

And use of basic tools is on the decline. Whilst fitting some outside lights
I discovered that my apprentice had never used a socket set in his life.
After showing him I then asked him if he could change a wheel on a car. The
answer was no and so I had to show him. An hour well spent IMHO.

Adam