From the sea container to the bin 5/5/2010
With the abundance of Pound Shops and other outlets on the High Street we are bombarded with cheap crude Chinese imports that do not stand the test of time. A while ago I saw a six month old Chinese motorbike covered in rust and falling apart and recently with the help of Southwark Trading Standards the 99p shop in Camberwell was fined close on 6K for selling to me a highly dangerous night light (it made the papers). All in all I think that I can safely say China make and sell crap which is worrying as they getting a foot hold in the car market in Europe by buying long and established brands. I would hate to think how safe their nuclear reactors are.
What got me thinking about this was that the other day I was sorting out some of my clutter and found a transistor radio that was made in Hong Kong. The quality amazed me because it was well built and it still worked a treat. When I grew up we used to ridicule stuff made in Hong Kong and call it crap but I can see now that some of it was very good compared with the stuff that China turn out. I suppose even though Hong Kong belonged to China the independance from it resulted in better management and quality control.
Dodgy Night Light, pull out light from socket and live pin remains protruding from wall socket.
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Motoring Tips 5/5/2010
Cover the car......Tow a trailer
In this day and age where you have to be really careful where you park as cash driven councils and state Government want to squeeze from you at every opportunity as much money as they can by ticketing you for straying outside a parking zone by a millimetre or having a wheel on the kerb.
What would happen if everybody covered their car when they park it would be nightmare for greedy councils and their bonus driven contractors. No registration visible "no ticket", this works I have tried it. Tow a small trailer with a lockable coupling by doing this they cannot pick the car up with their grab lorries.
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Friday, 30 October 2009 Taken from tales of OZ the blog that was never verified.
The Speed Bump Rant
Is there anything worse than trying to get to A to B while speed bumps are wrecking your car and your body. I hate this blanket coverage of speed bumps across London that have took our roads backwards and now some roads resemble how it must have been before the Romans invaded Britain. Has anybody driven around Dulwich in South East London? WHAT A NIGHTMARE!
I was driving past Dulwich College and negotiating a speed bump that was so high it had snow on top of it, I heard a scrapping noise and carried on. I reached a junction further up the road and braked, no brakes I missed a car that was crossing the junction by inches and come to rest on the footpath. After investigation I found the brake pipe that runs to the back of the car had been crushed by the top of the speed hump and split and brake fluid poured on to the road. I had four young children on board as well as my wife and they could have all been killed. Speed bumps save lives they tell me, in this case a speed bump could have killed six.
Conway Council Contractors, dangerous road obstacle specialists
This outfit is always taking the Councils Shilling to build road obstructions all over Southwark.
These works is in Grove lane/ Windsor Walk near Denmark Hill Railway Station. They have been here for weeks, they have shut two roads while they build a raised plateau across the junction.
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More Hold Ups
I am beginning to feel like Clarkson.....but I hate button pushers, we have become a nation of button pushers.
I'll tell you what I mean. A button pusher will approach a green man pedestrian crossing in this manner, without being distracted from pressing buttons on their ipod or mobile phone they will press the button at the crossing then look up and notice that the road is clear and walk across. The traffic now has to stop on a red light and curse the fact that the dipstick that pressed it has been and gone. This makes drivers like me extremely p*ss*d off.
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Organised Crime....The big sign and the crafty tiny one, the perfect scam.
A hospital worker got stung with this one. He had he's car towed away and I do believe he had to fork out £120. The last I heard, the council said the enforcement still stands.
Lowth Road Camberwell, South London
He parked to do his shift on a Saturday, which looks like he would have been OK, until you look at the smaller sign underneath.
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Same Old High Streets
I am sure it's noticed that nearly every high street has the same old shops and it's all very boring. No matter where you go there is no variation and you could be anywhere in the country and it would look the same.
I was surprised to see a Pizza Hut near the entrance to Durham Cathedral. God knows who sanctioned that?
High Streets have the same old rubbish.
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Early November 2011
A bag of salt
I caught the tail end of the local news the other night and the article was about the town of Sutton and how the local council was improving relations with the residents. They were banging on about Community policing and every body working together. A councillor was interviewed about their winter salt campaign and with a straight face and a boast in his voice the Councillor stated that every thirtieth household has been giving a bag of salt. Well that's all right then, 1 in 30 will have some salt, the roads of Sutton will be clear this winter. What a plonker!
Update Late November 2011
It's the tale end of November and it's been freezing for days, -10c to -20c up north. My youngest daughter has caught the flu ( proper flu, she has seen a doctor ) and it's been snowing all day, it reached a depth of 6" a few miles away in Dulwich. Chaos on the roads, people taking four and half hours to make a journey. The good people of Sutton should be OK
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The Christmas gift
determined to learn to fly it but I have discovered it needs a pilot who can multi-task.
It has already bounced off of concrete walls, smashed into the ground and took twigs from
local trees. It has been imported from the far east and the instructions are of very little use
as exampled below:
Taken from the instruction leaflet
SPECIAL PROMPT
If helicopter flies, rotating in the air without pulling control stick, then you can stop the fly,
use screw driver to adjust the potentiometer on chopper circuit board lightly till it is steady.
Then adjust the hard adjustment till it stop revolving (if helicopter is revolving in the air yet
you do not make action to the rudder, you can use the fine-turn button on it to make helicopter
stop revolving and back to the balance.
If head of helicopter rotates clockwise, slowly touch fine-turn button left of the rudder to keep
it balance, and vice a versa. But when this adjust action is useless, make helicopter landing,
turn off the power on it. Then you turn on the power of helicopter and launch it, adjust the
fine-turn button again.)
Wise words indeed
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