Incompetence rules

I do a DIY job and it's a mess. If I re-did the job it would be better but second chances are rare. Anyway I'll have forgotten the lessons I learned first time round.

Mostly I get someone in and pay the earth. But the job may be too small. We're not great showerers but VR now uses the unit in the ensuite. It has remained more or less ignored during our twenty years' occupancy of the house and the tray (If that's the bit you stand in) needs re-sealing.

I watch a video by a shouty young man with short-cut hair. He's British but his style is reassuringly hortatory. However his bathroom acoustic doesn't do him any favours.

I have dim recollections of the different tasks but Short Hair includes all of them in his Don't Do list. No masking tape. No fingers. The first bollix is I've forgotten how to trigger the sealant gun and must re-watch the video. This won't end well.

I remove the old sealant and I'm proud of that. But then things start to go downhill. The damn silicone is so damn sticky: layers of extra skin creep from my fingers to my wrists and up to my elbow. The temptation to fiddle gets the better of me and the smooth surface of the initial sweep now looks like clotted cream.

Finally I’m aware of a toxic smell. Very chemical. Time to leave the ensuite. The good news is I have an untouched bottle of single malt which should help. The bad news is it's Diet Day and booze is off limits.

DIY stands for do-it-yourself. Or, perhaps, don’t-involve-yourself.

A viceless friend

My DIY days are over and no regrets. I was never an expert and poverty was the main driving force. These days I call in experts, observe them, pay them and reflect.

And change my mind. For half a century I believed that the single most important tool in my armoury was the power drill. Especially since I was able to remember starvation days in London when I made do with a hand drill. Given I tended to bodge, it was a revelation when I discovered I could also use the power drill sideways and open up holes that were too small.

Of course "most important" is arbitrary. One wouldn't get too far without a saw or a screw-driver but the thing about power drills, as well as speed and adaptability, is their power. Try putting a hole in a brick with a hand drill.

But then I bethought myself. My most productive DIY days were in Kingston-upon-Thames where I had a large garage (Described as "a 1½ garage" by the estate agent). Room enough for a substantial bench and... a vice. As I say I was a lousy craftsman but I'd have been lousier still without that vice. And a vice complements other tools (drills, saws, planes, etc) by adding stability and thus precision. My garage here in Hereford is much smaller and I have improvised with a Workmate foldable bench which incorporates a joky vice-like feature. But it's not the same.

To take the above photo I retrieved my retired vice from spider's webs and marvelled at its battle-scars, reminding me that a vice can also act as an anvil. Poor thing. I can't ever remember it letting me down which gainsays the other, more piquant meaning of its name.

Darkness lightened

Sod’s Law reversed! Bedroom curtains in our previous house in Kingston-upon-Thames fitted the present house in Hereford and have hung here for the intervening nineteen years. For me a further nineteen years would have been fine but VR has fussier standards. Replacements were acquired on-line at shocking expense.

Sod’s Law re-applied! We needed a new curtain rail. Foolishly I chose one operated by cord. Attaching it to the wall was a mini-nightmare since the thing is long enough for shark fishing. Apprehension immediately arose when the job was done. This is one of those systems where a single pull opens (or closes) both curtains simultaneously. Thus the cord is over twice the length of the rail and the friction is IMMENSE. It was clear the rail’s tiny mounting brackets, each held by a single inadequate screw and Rawlplug, would not stay put after a few tugs. A self-fulfilling apprehension.

Needless to say rail and brackets are custom-made and the room for improvisation was restricted. A lifetime of bodging came to my rescue and I eventually re-attached the rail more robustly. But the effort required to operate the system continued to be ominous. I mentioned this to VR.

“Why not take the cord out and open the curtains by hand?” she said.

Why not, indeed?

I reflected on the Stone Age. Life was harder then, but simpler. Few caves had curtains. “Why not draw curtains on the cave wall?” suggests Mrs Rubble.

Yes, pragmatism is ageless as is VR.

Disasters averted

On giving up DIY (Fr. bricolage)

● No more haggled screw-heads.
● No more re-assemblies with two washers and a spline left over.
● No more deviating saw-cuts.
● No more pop-ups starting "Microsoft warns the user..."
● No more U-shaped nails.
● No more suddenly splitting wooden battens.
● No more waiting for repaired plumbing to leak.
● No more gradually widening holes in plasterboard stud walls.
● No more losing the chuck key.
● No more paint blobs on the carpet.
● No more partially erased paint blobs on the carpet.
● No more visits to carpet shops.
● No more visits to the dump with discarded carpet.
● No more lengthy post-mortems about how paint got on to the carpet in the first place.
● No more failures of no-longer-available light bulbs.
● No more holes dug slightly smaller than the sapling's root ball.
● No more accidentally severed hedge-trimmer cables.
● No more futile tours of the wallpaper department.
● No more head down the WC.
● No more danger from the angle grinder.
● No more drilling in the wrong place.
● No more unwonted pride in the unused case of drill bits.
● No more self-disconnecting pairs of wires to the ring-main socket

Progress report: Opening Bars. A late-life adventure. Roderick Robinson. 25,070 words.
Sample extract: It’s a truism but a musical score looks daunting at first sight and becomes more daunting when its purpose is explained. Namely that items of instruction have been gathered into vertical strips representing set periods of time, that each strip must be read as if it contained just one instruction not several, and then – get this! – turned into action with all the items of instruction simultaneously and miraculously combined. Didn’t one US president say another had difficulty chewing gum and walking? How about chewing gum, walking, blowing one’s nose and directing someone to Trafalgar Square in a foreign language?

The little things in life

The new car demands a new mount for the satnav. But the curvaceous dash offers no purchase points and the previous wooden frame, crudely fashioned from wood and painted black to hide the crudity, must be now be ditched. Enter a replacement mat which self-adheres to the dash and offers up a smooth plastic (glass?) disk which accepts the satnav's sucker.

This is not a story which leaves me looking clever.

Disk and sucker mate, staying together for a week. Then the suction dies and the satnav tumbles into the car's foot-well. Brother Sir Hugh suggests attaching Velcro pads to the disk and the sucker and letting their tenacious hold do the job. "You may find it difficult to tear them apart," says Lord Hugh, Duke of DIY.

I install the Velcro; disk and sucker disengage in one second flat. "Am I missing something?" I ask.

"You do know that Velcro comes in two parts: a smooth pad and a hairy pad?" says Bro. I didn't, perhaps because the instructions came in picture form. I do as I'm told and it works. But a little part of me inside dies.

DEATH THROES I'm using Waly, Waly (arr. Britten) as a way of smoothing the rough tone of my singing voice. It's a simple tune with a narrow range. I decided I'd post it for all to hear. Recorded it ten times and deleted it ten times. Went downstairs to examine knives, nooses, and various poisons. Came back up: recorded/deleted it a further ten times. Went downstairs having decided to drink myself to death.

Ten more times and THIS will have to do. Alas, still some wobbles,

Domino Theory revisited

John Foster Dulles, US secretary of state under Eisenhower, coined The Domino Theory, a more elegant way of saying "one damn thing leads to another." Thus if, say, Andorra goes Commie today, Germany may go tomorrow. A way of keeping us terrified about the Red Bogeyman.

But the theory can also apply domestically.

Months ago one wall of our living room was dominated by custom shelving for about 700 CDs. (Pic above shows 25% of total.) As explained I transferred the CDs to an SD card and now play them through a mini-laptop.

The CDs went up to the attic.

Leaving empty shallow shelves which VR filled temporarily with her collection of little milk jugs.

Then the 18-year-old living room carpet started to wear. But should the replacement carpet be fitted under the CD shelf units (as now) or merely abut them? The carpet, yet to be chosen, will go under the units, which meant an electrician would have to re-position a power socket to make the units mobile.

Meanwhile VR was fed up looking at her jugs  as if through letter-boxes. Could we have more depth variety? But the shelves were irreversibly installed as the units were built; removing them by any known method would damage their neatness. Even DIY expert Sir Hugh baulked.

The electrician had an answer. Using a conventional saw UPSIDE DOWN cut a slot up through the middle of a shelf. Then hit the shelf with a hammer. The shelf breaks at the slot and the two halves tear away from the pegs holding them at the ends. Minor damage within the shelves can be disguised with wood-stain.

Did I mention the new audio system plays the TV through the hi-fi loudspeakers? A great improvement.

DIY deferred and a sad note

A much-used electrical socket in the lounge succumbs to maltreatment and needs replacing. These days I regard DIY as a pestilence and my reactions tend to proceed at the speed of the Rhone Glacier. But hey! No need! Grandson Ian has electrical training. And I am well equipped with the necessaries.

Immediately The Law Of Inadequate Preparation sets in. For what looks like a ten-minute job, I hand over half a dozen tools and sit down to watch. By the time ninety minutes have elapsed the lounge carpet is strewn with afterthoughts, not least a vice, a power drill, a small suitcase full of drill bits, two sizes of file, a Stanley knife, a truly tiny screwdriver, a roll of masking tape and scissors!

Even so I'm still in a good mood. Ian had previously accompanied me to B&Q to buy the replacement socket and his sharp eyes noted socket technology has marched on.  The front plate now costs £10 but it's worth every penny. Note those two small dark slots: they're USB sockets.

No longer will youthful visitors at Christmas face an ever-expanding trawl of Chez Robinson to find unused power points where their Iphones and Ipads may safely graze. I'm almost tempted to replace the front plates on several more sockets. Almost.

KEN HYAM. Sad news arrives via Lucy that Joe’s younger brother, Ken, has died suddenly of a heart attack. Almost exactly two years after Joe died. Over the decades I met Ken on a mere handful of occasions but latterly his emails have been a powerful presence. Ken was an excellent poet and as a voluntary kindness he watched over the fledgling verse I’ve posted on Tone Deaf and provided endless informed encouragement. I shall miss him for the most selfish of reasons.

Keeping my hand in

I'm associated with projects other than writing fiction. Here's part of my busy world.

"GO OUT and prune the alder and the fancy willow," said VR. "Winter's the best time."

I took advice from Hermann Goering’s monumental Scorched Earth Gardening and you see the result.

VR inspected my work (top of page) and said, "You can never over-prune a tree. But in any case what does a new sapling cost?” 

LOOKS like a remote control, doesn't it?  What makes it different is it handles Region 1 DVDs  (ie, America only). I haven't tried it yet, I'm still waiting for my first Region 1 disc.

This Christmas we thought we'd investigate Stephen Sondheim musicals, typically Follies, A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park With George, Into the Woods. They're said to have to have egghead appeal. Trouble is most aren't sold in Europe (Region 2) and our expensive DVD player won't play Region 1 discs. I'm dubious but the remote only cost a tenner. Let you know.


CRAFT has a special meaning applied to decorative items made in wood: imperfect. To elaborate: inappropriate raw materials, crude design, inexpert execution, garish finish.

VR bought our house number in ceramic tiles a year or two ago while in Leiden, Holland. The tiles languished since we had brass numbers on the front door. But the door disappeared when the double-glazing was upgraded. We needed identity.

The tiles are mounted on a wooden plaque which should be rectangular but isn't. It is badly finished, the tiles aren't centred (in fact can't be), paint was applied via the car-crash method. Typical RR DIY. How Sir Hugh will moan.

The compulsive brush

French today. Our novel is No et Moi by Delphine de Vigan. Lou, a lonely young girl from a comfortable middle-class home takes up with No, a slightly older girl who lives rough in Paris.

Crisis time. Having decided to join No in her privations, Lou must pack before her parents get back. First item: a toothbrush. Lou is not alone. In dozens of books people planning quick departures do exactly that.

Me, I'd first pack my wallet. I'd understand if the departers were always American. Good orthodontics divides the free from the enslaved world, says the Declaration of Independence. Bad teeth are worse than incest. But some brush fetishists are from countries that are merely under-developed: France, say, or Great Britain.

Couldn't one's teeth wait? But the question's rhetorical. Last year, departing our rented French villa I left the over-night bag behind. When I arrived at our hotel guess my first purchase from the pharmacy. That's right! I too was transfixed by a universal urge. At the time I was less than 24 hours from home.

TOOLS NEGLECTED Our 20-year-old tumble dryer has tumbled into eternity. It's kept in the shed where space is tight. Needing to record its dimensions I opened up my toolbox to get my measuring tape. How remote the box's contents seemed.

Blogging as the genial Barrett Bonden I was always on about DIY. Angle grinders, Phillips-headed screwdrivers, Carborundum stones – all that manly stuff. Exchanging heart-wrenching stories with Crow and others. Now the closest I get to DIY is changing my desktop background pic. Mind you, I'm happier. For me DIY lacks the letter C: Don’t Imagine You Can.

Stitches in time - and space

Others besides Lucy are into knitting. At Christmas these three mice won't be carolling round the astrolabe. There's a brazier and a hand lantern yet to be fashioned. I simply drove VR to the craft emporium to buy the wool. Once VR might have knitted such items from leftover scraps. This time there was a concept and random colours weren’t acceptable
      
From following Lucy's blog and watching VR I am encouraged to put in my two pennorth.
      
TECHNOID Once knitting begins, the knitter ceases to have access to either end of the wool. One end is tied into the baseline, the other is buried in the ball. This means conventional knotting (with its inherent security) is impossible. Instead loops are pulled through loops and the resultant material exists in a state of impermanence until it is finally tied off. This impermanence - the possibility of ending up with nought but a length of disentangled wool - always left me nervous, reducing my output to a single baby's sock.
      
WRONG WAY? US knitters, and possibly those on the Continong, use their needles back to front or upside-down. VR who knits like a detached humanoid machine may have opined, I’m not entirely sure, that this approach ultimately limits speed. I have no view on this.
      
GIANT KNOBBLY Preggers with our first daughter in 1962 VR took her knitting with her to the obstetrics ward, aiming to create a giant knobbly pullover for me. And I mean giant – requiring 40 oz of wool. It filled a whole suitcase when I took it home. Later I wore it in the USA.
      
SOCK TUBES Does anyone knit adult socks these days? My mother and grandmother did. Three (was it four?) needles, without terminal knobs, allowed continuous circular action. Oh, and endless chat.

No picture for this one

You are going to misunderstand me. My subject is antipathy - ie, lack of enthusiasm for.

Not because I wish to rain on everyone's parade (I go for novels by John Lodwick, songs by The Carpenters, paintings by Robert Motherwell - all disliked in their own way.). But because antipathy deserves greater consideration.

And because a well-argued antipathy (distinct from an unsupported knee-jerk opinion like "Messiaen is rubbish.") can say more than a preference.

Antipathy often requires courage since it draws fire. Enthusiasm is easier to ignore and tends to conform. There's a good reason for this. Having established a dislike, few people care to go further and answer the question - why? It's thought to be a waste of time. But to answer why to anything  is evidence of reasoning.

Enthusiasm is frequently ill-reasoned. The espouser thinks it's enough to be "for" something - that it's proof of his or her good-heartedness. But contrast these two reactions: For Mozart (Oh, wow! And life rather than death, I suppose?). Against Mozart (What!! This guy's lost his marbles.)

Please note: I am not against Mozart.

BBC Radio 3 is a well-regarded channel devoted predominantly to posh music. By inference it only broadcasts masterpieces. So are masterpieces that prevalent? Did Beethoven's iron grip on genius never falter? Listen to his Scottish songs and make up your own mind. And about Rossini.

Many people fear being publicly antipathetic. They include those who direct BBC Radio 3.

(1) I reduced the argument to music because I needed focus. It works for books, painting, politics, sport, etc.

(2) Antipathy is misunderstood. Possibly because of its associated adjective (anti-pathetic) and its near-homonym (apathy).

Bluntness is bad for you

 

Vic, my father-in-law (above), was a chef. He was also a pagan with inventive ideas about the Pope, but that's for another day.
      
I used to visit him in his subterranean kitchen at the Esplanade Hotel, Folkestone, long since demolished. If he was carving meat he'd chat, all the while using a steel to keep the blade sharp. The motion was clearly instinctive, just a couple of strokes then back to the cutting. I became mesmerised and puzzled; surely the passes against the steel were too gentle to affect the blade. But no. Hiss-hiss, and  the knife was again ready to free off impossibly thin slices of meat, one after the other, according to the financial dictates of the fixed-price lunch.
      
Those kissing strokes were all it took; the knife blade never dulled. I sought to bring about this efficiency in Hereford. I bought a Carborundum stone and secured it in a wooden frame. Then I bought a steel EMBEDDED WITH DIAMOND DUST. Quickly all the knives were sharpened.
      
I wanted VR to adopt this practice but realised the difficulties. The ultimate culinary skill is to bring all the elements of a meal together at the same time, at which she is adept. Better she concentrated on that and I wielded the steel.

Sharpening wears away the knife, a friend said. True, but then the knife is a consumable and it’s worth replacing it every decade. Cutting with a sharp knife can be as sensuous as… well, why don't you fill in the comparison.

Properly sharpened the blade eventually adopts the shape shown in the drawing.

The thrill of DIY music - part one

Faced with a seat someone else has paid for to see Berg’s Wozzeck at the Paris Opera (as I once was) or the suddenly-arrived ability to complete a rackety, but two-handed, account of There is a Green Hill Far Away on the piano, which would you choose? The latter every time.

Sure, a great professional performance can blow you away. But putting the notes in the right order of any tune, however simple, however banal, has a strange effect on those with no instrumental training. For one thing there’s this giddy sensation of I shouldn’t really be here. Not me. Somehow I got in via the back door..

Even more exciting is the knowledge that you’ve just played one note and the next one is over there, three notes to the east. And… yes… you… were right!

Such experiences are, alas, quite rare. If you come upon an unused piano chances are the owner is close by. You tentatively try the first three notes: There – is – a -, and the owner is suddenly by your side. If he/she is a kindly person you’ll be gently discouraged by a rattled-off performance of Green Hill followed by a much faster variation in Z-flat. A more protective owner may simply close and lock the keyboard.

Far too late in life I bought an electronic keyboard which can sound like a piano – sort of. Sometimes I pick out Love Divine All Loves Excelling all on the white notes (scale of C-major). Sometimes I start off on a different note to make things more difficult. And I frown like Emil Gilels.

ONE FROM MY SHELVES Heard by Mrs LdB on Ian Burneside’s much lamented Voices programme; acquired and recorded by me. Vigorous account of a sex maniac’s childhood