Important local news – Van parks on double yellow lines in Birchington

Vehicles are so much trouble: they cause road rage; global warming and arguments about car parking.

The good people of Birchington are enraged about White Van Man and his plumbing friends parking on double yellow lines, near a junction on one of Thanet’s narrowest streets.  I’m not surprised, I know the street.  To fuel their fury there is actually a large car park just 100 metres or so further along the street.

Lets face it – some of these drivers are probably lazy, selfish and full of their own self importance.  They don’t care where they park or what danger they cause to other road users (including pedestrians).  I like to think, however, that it is a minority of drivers who are causing trouble.

Just occasionally there may be a good reason for stopping on a double yellow.  I actually remember being one of those offending drivers – I have parked at that very location – I had good reason which I expained to the trafic warden - once in 2003 and once since then, I’ve also parked in the car park a number of times.  Mr Tara Plumbing parked in that car park this morning.

What is this all about? In case you don’t know:

This is the location of St Nicholas Heating – S.H.N.  They supply all things gas and plumbing related to the trade and the public.  It is a local, family run business – the corner-shop of the gas/water world.

Like most corner-shops they do not have a huge, free, convenient car park. There is only off road parking space for 2 vehicles at their premises.

All the usual car parking issues are relevant:

• S.N.H cannot be responsible for the irresponsible parking behaviour of their customers;
• The drivers may be collecting bulky or heavy items;
• Alternatively, people could drive for miles to use the supermarkets of the plumbing world (B&Q, Wickes, Plumbcentre, Plumbase, etc…) with their free car parks;
• Lack of car parking (or free/convenient car parking) in the towns makes them less attractive to shoppers compared with out of town shopping centres, places like Westwood Cross;
• Lack of car parking could be contributing to the decline of local town centres and family run small businesses.

S.N.H. is one of the main suppliers used by Tara Plumbing because they can offer the sort of high quality, personal service that you expect from a family run local business.

The partners who run the business really are qualified plumbers, so they know what they are selling.

And, of course, one of them trained as a plumber at the same time and same college as Mr Tara Plumbing (along with another local man, lets call him Mr Birchington Gas).  It’s a small world and everyone does know each other.

This blog includes a permanent link to SNH on the right or you can click here:

www.snhtradecentre.co.uk

If you visit them, please be considerate with your parking.

Food fight in the building trade!

I’m thoroughly enjoying the CH4 ‘Food Fight’ season:

www.channel4.com/food/on-tv/the-big-food-fight/the-big-food-fight.html

but I can’t help wondering who is watching? is it preaching to the converted…?

After all, in the T.P. household we eat loads of fruit, veggies, wholemeal bread and pulses – consequently we probably produce more poo than most east Africans (see – eat to change your life) and it is possible that we are causing global warming through our own excessive production of natural gas!

Ch4 say: “With the worst diet in Europe, two thirds of Britons are overweight, and treating obesity-related diseases costs the NHS more than £3 billion a year. Experts fear that today’s children could be the first generation to die younger than their parents if nothing is done.”It is a shocking fact that most people in the UK eat worse food than people who live in far more impoverished conditions in other parts of the world – that the obese folk around us are actually malnourished.

Especially as what we eat then affects not just our life span but our ability to function and enjoy our life.

Saint Jamie Oliver’s programme Eat to Save Your Life certainly made an impression on some of the labourers that we work with, they did watch it.   They laugh at our vegetarian diet, and like many people, they find it hard to believe that Mr Tara Plumbing usually eats vegan meals every day at home (doesn’t he miss his meat?).  The labourers’ diets are typical of those on the TV programme – refined, processed, convenience food, meat and potatoes, absolutely no fruit or vegetables.

The long term consequences of such a diet were graphically shown, it was hard hitting.  A shorter life and increased chance of getting all sorts of disabling diseases.

Most important – I thought – was the increased likelihood of male impotency.  I guess we all have different priorities!  

The message was clear – eat fruit and veggies; wholefoods; simple home cooked foods; the best quality you can afford and a little indulgence will probably not hurt.

If you get chance to watch repeats I recommend them, if you can watch only 1, see Eat to Save Your Life:

www.channel4.com/food/on-tv/the-big-food-fight/eat-to-save-your-life-07-12-18_p_1.html?intcmp=homepage_box2

Bite into this!

“The tooth fairy gave me 40 pounds.”

My son was very excited about loosing his first tooth at the weekend. £40 wow – no it was 40p.

My friend laughed and told me the tooth fairy in Ramsgate sounds a bit mean (it’s OK for her to say that – we’ve been friends for years).

I said there are a lot of teeth – I thought the rate should be 20p, Mr Tara Plumbing thought it should be 50p.

My friend has been giving £2, but I guess that includes an element for London weighting.

Safe water heating…

After a hard day at work, when little one is in bed, what do we do in the evening?

Well, last night Mr Tara Plumbing and I must have spend an hour or so discussing water heating systems in light of the news coverage of the tragic death of Rhianna Hardie, the little girl who was scolded by boiling water which cascaded through the ceiling.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3168458.ece

Firstly, the news coverage on radio and TV was very hard to follow. One report said a boiler had exploded in the roof, on the T.V. a reporter told us there was a fault in

“a boiler just like this one.”she was pointing to a copper hot water cylinder, most people who have gas central heating will be confused by this report, surely.Luckily Mr T.P. was on hand to explain it all to me in ordinary English.The water was being heated – by an electric immersion heater – in the cylinder.

There was no gas boiler in the house – even though some diagrams on the news had shown a system which included a gas boiler heating the water.

I think we all understand that there was a faulty thermostat, apparently modern thermostats include safety cut out devices. Which is why when considering safety in homes it is not a question of whether the thermostat is working but whether it is up to date with safety measures in the event that it fails in the future.

Mr T.P. told me that these copper cylinders have also been known to explode when the water has over heated. In a hard water area you may expect to replace such a cylinder every 10-12 years or so. He also told me fascinating things about the sacrificial anode – that’s another story – let me know if you are interested!

When so much boiling water was forced up to the tanks in the roof obviously these are COLD WATER STORAGE tanks, never designed to hold a large amount of boiling water. So perhaps it is not surprising that they melted and split, letting all the water pore through the ceiling.

I asked Mr T.P. whether people ever have their tanks replaced (as they have a 10 year warranty) – he told me it would be routine for them to be inspected and replaced periodically (perhaps at the same time as having a new boiler).

There are other things we discussed:

• gas combi’s are ideal as there is hot water when you need it, but no hot water being stored;
• the family were tenants - this could so easily have occurred in an owner occupied home;
• that home owners often take great risks – not having appliances checked or replaced.

Men and public toilets

This appeared in the Times the other day, Mr T.P. and I both felt this by Matt Rudd should receive a larger audience so I’ve copied it here:

Reference – www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/men/article3099492.ece

Locker room – by Matt Rudd – TOILET TRAINING

Someone engaged me in conversation at a urinal the other day, which I found most inappropriate. So, today, we are going to have a brief refresher course on toilet etiquette before all semblance of order goes down the plughole. Let’s start with the urinal.

First, the basics. Never go in packs. You are not a girl. Position is important. If you arrive at an empty urinal, stand at the far left or far right, but never in the middle. This enables the next man to take the opposite extreme. If a third man arrives, he can take the middle slot, but it would be preferable if he abandoned the urinal altogether and went into a cubicle. Regardless of good intent, you should never hang around waiting for an ideal position – it may be mistaken for perving.

Once installed, keep your eyes dead ahead at all times, even in the event of a fire alarm. If you have the misfortune to find yourself at the urinal at the same time as a friend or colleague, a rhetorical “All right?” will suffice. “How’s the new kitchen coming along?” is too much. If you have eaten asparagus or taken Berocca, and you find yourself urinating upriver of someone else, a simple “Sorry, asparagus/Berocca” is polite. Other than that, there should be absolutely no talking. As for drying off, three shakes is diligence. Four is Masturbation.

And so on to how to navigate the cubicle. Unless you are on final call at an airport, or two minutes away from sitting a three-hour exam, never take a cubicle next to one that is already occupied. Come back another time.

Never make a toilet-paper seat cover. If the fact that it is girlie isn’t enough to dissuade you, consider the following findings from the University of Arizona: the average toilet seat has a mere 49 microbes of bacteria per square inch, whereas your desk has 20,691 per square inch. Which means eating your sandwich off the toilet seat is 400 times more hygienic than eating it at your desk, and your bottom will survive.

Always leave the toilet bowl as you would like to find it, by which I mean wait to check it doesn’t need a double flush. As with the urinals, communication is a nono, even if the toilet paper has run out. Girls may warn each other, “Don’t go in there, I just used the last paper” – but with men, it is simply the next user’s misfortune.

Try to time your exit for when the rest of the washroom is empty. On no account emerge proudly, passing comment to all and sundry on how pleased you are with what just went on behind the closed door.

Oh, and lest you should be tempted to forget, always wash your hands

More New Year’s treats – Panto

We thoroughly enjoyed the Panto, Aladin, at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury (sorry – the local offerings were less appealing) – there are shows for 3 more weeks. The actor Lloyd Hollett was really good and apparently he is from Margate. I got quite close to him as he fell off the stage, into my lap – we were in the front row – was this a part of the show or and accident?

www.lloydhollett.com

The ticket price was a little scary – no wonder the theatre was half empty. When we saw the show, however, we thought it was actually excellent value for money.

Far better to spend the Christmas budget on trips to the Theatre rather than presents no one wants and too much food – I think.

The show was more than 2 hours long (excluding interval). As well as the usual jokes, songs and banter. There were:

acrobats;

amazing magic tricks throughout – I was in the front row, I watched carefully and I don’t know how they did them;

very good impressions.

There is a lot to be said on the subject of unwanted presents – such as how they are upfor auction on ebay – some not even opened! http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article3108159.ece

What about the morality and economics of such waste? To quote another Times writer: Kate Muir “the British nation, have given around £1.1 billion worth of unwanted presents to each other over yuletide. That’s the GDP of Malawi..” http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article3068426.ece

News Year’s Eve Treats – Mr T.P.’s chocolate balls

I have very rarely left my home for new year’s eve celebrations. I’m not keen on crowds, inflated prices, or wondering how I’m going to get home when I’m tired, it’s cold and there are no taxis for hours.I lived in London for more than a decade and never joined the mad crowds in Trafalgar Square. Of course, it was a lot colder on 31 Dec in the 20th century. I did venture into the centre of London only once on New Year’s Eve (1999) – this was only because I had an exclusive invite to an apartment by the Thames, we were able to stand on the roof to watch the River of Fire, away from the crowds and with the warmth of the sitting room near by and no queue for the toilet.

FIRST 

Mr T.P. put on the chef’s hat, assisted by our son – Big Cook Little Cook. They locked themselves in the kitchen where they made vegan Chocolate Truffles – yummy.   It is very simple.

• 200g of good dark chocolate (vegan brands used in our house)
• 60 ml of a drink (eg. rum, champagne, coffee…)
• + cocoa powder

Method

• Melt the chocolate in the usual manner. For readers who don’t regularly melt chocolate for covering rice crispies and cornflakes, let me remind you that you melt it slowly in a bowl, over boiling water, on the hob.
• Then stir in the coffee (or whatever) and leave the concoction to cool – this takes ages. Eventually it will start to solidify. This is when you scoop out little balls of mixture and roll it in to spheres of about 2cm diameter.
• Finally, roll it in cocoa powder and leave the powdered balls in the fridge to set for about an hour or two.
• Eat.

Secondly – Film

We watched the documentary about Life of Brian, followed by the film

What a brilliant, funny, well written and researched film. The documentary was a reminder that minorities among Christians are keen on censorship – some enjoy a joke though – I remember it was quite popular among Catholics at my school.