Category Archives: Les Guis

Wednesday 13th January 2010 – It’s back up again.

Well, erichall.eu is, anyway. Lesguis.com is going to have to wait a while longer. So anyone who sent me a mail that bounced – you can resend it now and I’m sorry for the inconvenience.

Mind you, once more, my address book, research subfolder and the like have disappeared into the ether. That’s a real pain in the aspidistra and what’s worse, it’s not the first time that this has happened either. You’d think that I would learn.

In other news, that weatherman we have is still up to his tricks, having wild and unpredictable guesses that fall hopelessly short of the mark. He promised us overcast and cloudy conditions with rainfall, but yon golden object was in the sky for the whole day more-or-less and I’ve had another reasonable solar day. Still not earth-shatteringly marvellous but it’ll do for now. I’ve also been cracking on with the insulation but I’ve come to a stop, on the grounds that I’ve now run out of insulation. But at least I can move. I dug Caliburn out of a snowdrift and went for a run up the lane so I reckon that this weekend I’ll go and do a mega-shop in Montlucon and have a shower at Neris.

Talking of showers, I hear that the OUSA Executive committee are to go “on the road” and “visit the regions”. The East Midlands is the first port of call and the Derby/Nottingham area has been suggested for the location. Of course, someone has suggested that they stay in the town of Clowne – after all, it’s midway between the two and somehow quite appropriate.

This afternoon I cut my hair, had a wash and shave, and changed my clothes. Well, it was 8 degrees in the verandah. In fact it was quite a major operation and I hed to tell the water board that it was on its way. But I must admit – I am looking forward to a good swim and a good shower, and I’m not talki …. “you’ve done that” … ed.

I’ve also been in great demand today. Firstly, the girl who came round here with Francois the other day – she phoned me up to talk about this and that. There’s an eco-fair in Clermont Ferrand next weekend and she’s going with Francois. There’s a spare seat in the car and she asked me if I wanted to go. Most people who read this blog are of the opinion that I ought to get out more often and so I’ve decided to go. It’ll do me good.

Next it was the turn of Terry who wanted a chat about one of our long-term projects. It’s nice to hear from him and Liz and have a good natter.

Thirdly, the guy from SMADC (the Society for the Mutual Aid and Development of the Combrailles) called. We are supposed to be having a meeting with a producer from a French radio station, and it’s now been arranged for Monday afternoon. This is looking uncomfortably like it might happen, this idea of an English-language radio programme on French radio.

Finally (at least up to now) Antoine called. He has an idea for a business opportunity for himself now that he’s taken early retirement and wanted a chat about it.

Meanwhile, in other other news, the McCann Media Circus is back on the road, suing anyone and everyone who says naughty things about them. It’s becoming a right money-spinner for someone – this disappearing daughter – and it’s spawned countless imitations right across the globe with kids hidden in settees, kids being dragged away by weather balloons and the like. But the McCanns are really starting to take the mickey now. Over a million quid they want now for their hurt feelings. The money will of course be paid to the “Find Madeleine” campaign, which might well fund further trips to exotic corners of the globe to visit more law courts to sue more people to get more money to pay to the “Find Madeleine” campaign that might well fund further …. “that’s enough of that” – ed.

What the McCanns don’t realise is just how lucky they are. If Mrs McCann had been a single mother and black-skinned, leaving a baby home alone to face a tragedy would have got her 7 and a half years in prison without any trips to any exotic corners of the globe – let alone any charitable funds and any sympathy from a gullible public.

It’s high time someone put a stop to all of this.

-8

Tuesday 12th January 2010 – Well, the weather man got it right today.

It was bound to happen sooner or later – the law of averages is bound to match a wild guess with an actuality sooner or later.

In fact I couldn’t believe it – at first I thought that he had mixed up today with yesterday as the morning was magnificent – a proper Alpine winter day and the solar controllers were ticking over the charge like nobody’s business. I carried on insulating the floor this morning. And it seems to be working too. The early morning average difference between in here and in the lean-to is usually about 7 degrees. Today it was almost 10 degrees. That can’t be coincidence.

I didn’t get much of a chance to do much work though – I had a phone call that involved me doing quite a few other things instead. And seeing as it was a nice morning I had the computer on and started to catch up with a whole pile of messages that have been outstanding. I must have sent out about 30 e-mails to people and they are all going to get a surprise when they try to reply to me, as my web site is down again.

It appears that my web host has closed its doors rather … errr …. suddenly. Not that I’m surprised about this as a phrase involving booze-ups and breweries springs to mind whenever I think of this organisation. What with crashed servers that they couldn’t fix, lost data in e-mail accounts, disappearing files due to fits of pique, a whole host of other things as well that regular readers of these pages will be well aware, I’m surprised that they managed to stagger on to this extent before finally rolling over. There’s a lot more to running a professional and ethical organisation involving hi-tec equipment than you will ever learn by studying an Open University course. But then again most normal people would realise that.

And there you are, trying to be loyal and supportive of people that you like and people who are making an effort to carve out a living for themselves against all the odds and all the rubbish that life has heaped upon them, and it all falls to pieces anyway. “There’s no sentiment in business” I keep on being told, and it’s high time I learnt the lesson. Trying to be nice to people and giving them a helping hand just causes me more problems than it’s worth. I should have been much more ruthless and kicked this shambles into touch the first time they let me down.

I’ve been approached by a “successor” who wants to have my business and we are trying to salvage what we can from the wreckage of dazzling incompetence.
“I’ll match the terms and conditions that my predecessors offered” he announced. So I told him what the terms and conditions were – and his jaw hit the floor.
“They told me you paid …(almost twice as much)” he stuttered
“Well I have the invoice, the bank statement and the cancelled cheque here if you would like to see them“
Someone is speaking with forked tongue, and I know that it isn’t me. And as for the motives – well, just lets say that “it’s fun to speculate”.

Meanwhile, if you want to mail me and the e-mail bounces, wait for a couple of days and resend it.

So after all of these shenanigans, the weather dramatically warmed up and we had a torrential downpour. And about 10 tonnes of snow slid of the roof just three or four feet above my head, and crashed to the ground with the roar of an express train. It put the wind up me for a minute. Rather like the man who gave his pitbull terrier a bicycle pump. “That’ll put the wind up the postman!”.

I was talking to Alexi on a chat program earlier. We were discussing cars and driving tests and she was telling me about hers – which she took in Zambia, where she was living at the time. She had to reverse between two bollards and then drive the examiner to the post office – and that was that. I told her about the Libyan driving test where you have to reverse between two palm trees -which are about 5 miles apart.

And I did hear about a driving test in the Spanish Sahara or the Central African Republic or somewhere like that. The pupil was involved in quite a serious collision in which the examiner was killed. As they pulled him from the wreckage the pupil shouted “did I pass? Did I pass?”
“Wait a minute” shouted one of the policemen at the scene. “We haven’t found the examiner’s clipboard yet!”

-7

Monday 11th January 2010 – I’m glad I didn’t hold my breath.

This weather forecaster around here is a bigger liar than Tony Blair. Totally clear sky, he said. He even posted an icon of a brilliant yellow sun with no clouds in the picture at all. But it goes without saying that we just had this blank wall of grey cloud all day, relentlessly, without anything to relieve the monotony.

Liz said that she saw for a brief moment a kind of pale yellowy haze behind the clouds – but that was the sum total of anyone’s view of our totally clear sky.

Having said that, by 10:30 this morning I’d had more solar energy than the last three days combined. But seeing as those figures amounted to a grand total of 2.1 amp-hours, it wasn’t difficult. In fact today, at 26 amp-hours, I’m positively spoilt. Last time I had this much was 6 days ago, and the sum total of the 5 intervening days doesn’t amount to 26 amp-hours. But we’re promised sunny days tomorrow Friday and Saturday – and once again, I’m not holding my breath.

Today I carried on with the insulating, and managed until the tools became too cold to hold. It’s no fun trying to work in conditions of mnus 2 – inside the house. Outside, it was a very pleasant minus 5. I lit another fire full of rubbish and threw a log or too on top, and then lit the fire in the room. it warmed up quite pleasantly too – but I’m going to have to abandon the project with the woodstove because after the fire went out downstairs, all of the smoke in the little woodstove decanted itself back into the attic and smoked me out.

I had a really nice tea today. I started off by throwing half a cup full of lentils into a pan of cold water with all kinds of different spices and bringing it to the boil. When it reached boiling point I heaved in half a cup of rice. That was followed by some frozen vegetables (they were really tinned vegetables but everything here is frozen right now) and left to simmer until most of the water had been absorbed (about 20 minutes). Then I stirred in a couple of teaspoons of Vegan gravy powder, and that was that! Delicious!

So tomorrow I’ll try to finish off the insulation. It’s supposed to warm up over the next few days but you know what the weatherman is like round here.

-9

Sunday 10th January 2010 – And if you thought that yesterday was depressing …

… with 0.9 amp-hours of solar energy, well it was 0.9 amp-hours more than was generated today. Yes, for only the second time since I began to keep records I have had a day with nothing at all.

heavy snow les guis virlet auvergne puy de dome franceThis morning I shinned up on the roof again and instead of brushing the snow off the panels I had to shovel it off, there was so much of it. But like I said, I needn’t have bothered because we had a freezing hanging cloud all day over the mountain.

After doing a few housekeeping jobs around here I carried on with insulating underneath the floor but once again I was defeated by the freezing cold and had to knock off for a couple of hours. MInd you I found a few gaps that were letting in the cold and I’ve now sealed them up and it seems that my attic is holding the heat a little better than before.

I found a mouse scavenging in the rubbish today. There’s no possibility of taking it to the recycling in this weather so I decided I had better burn it. And that gave me an idea. I set a fire in the woodstove in the attic then lit a big fire in the fireplace downstairs – and then lit the fire in the attic. And the updraught from the main fire drew the fire from the stove and for a couple of hours it burnt nicely. But then it went out again and won’t relight – it’s definitely a flue issue. I took advantage of the fire downstairs though and baked some spuds. I had baked potatoes and beans for tea. And talking of lighting fires I’ve found that the butane lighters that I use for lighting the gas stoves and so on – they are frozen up. It’s a good job I have some matches lying around.

caliburn heavy snow les guis virlet auvergne puy de dome franceAnd talking of not getting out, seeing as the snow plough driver stopped about 20 yards short of Caliburn last time we were snowed in and I had to dig a trail to where the driver had stopped short, last Wednesday I parked Caliburn up right at the junction where the driver passes so I would have just inches to dig out. But badger me if he hasn’t stopped 20 yards short again. The idle so-and-so. Regular readers of my outpourings will recall from last year that he’s not exactly the most dedicated nor the most enthusiastic nor the most motivated of snowplough drivers.

So why am I blogging so early tonight? The truth is that I have an absolutely splitting headache and I’m going to bed. And we are promised a clear day tomorrow – nothing but glorious sunshine. I’m not going to hold my breath.

-9

Saturday 9th January 2010 – And if you thought yesterday was depressing …

heavy snow les guis virlet auvergne puy de dome france… today was even worse. I woke up in pitch darkness – whose idea was to to put windows in the roof? – and so first job was to clean off the solar panels. About 10cms of snow had fallen through the night but of course I didn’t realise this at first and went outside in my clogs. Fatal mistake – so I came in, changed my socks and put on my apres-ski boots, and went back outside.

Mind you I needn’t have bothered with the panels – despite being on the roof on several occasions there was not a glimpse of sun at all and I managed the grand total of 0.9 amp-hours all day.

caliburn heavy snow les guis virlet auvergne puy de dome franceEverything and everywhere is frozen up – the temperature didn’t rise above -3.2 in the verandah and the maximum outside was a balmy -4.9. The baker never made it – I would have been surprised if she had – and I spent the morning insulating the floor under here. I couldn’t do much though – the cold defeated me again and so I gave up and came in to watch the three remaining westerns from that batch I bought in Brussels.

The Lawless Frontier, starring John Wayne, is easily and without a doubt the worst film I have ever seen. Of course, genre, script and all that kind of thing are subjective and I would never judge a film on my particular taste, but in this film the script was appalling, the over-acting was terrible, it was packed with non-sequitors and for some reason that only the editors will know, 2 minutes of action appear to have been cut gratuitously from the film so that you have a girl being chased by two bandits cut immediately to the two bandits lying on the floor and telling their boss “the man who intercepted us took her that way“.

Dreadful.

Mind you, scientists today make such a fuss of their new techniques, including the monstrous scenario of human-animal embryoes. I don’t know what the fuss is all about. These experiments have been going on for years and the make-up of the OUSA Executive Committee will show you what happens when it all goes wrong. But there were indeed some early success stories, as this film will bear witness. What other reason is there for the appearance of a character played by an actor called “Buffalo Bill”?

The second film in this trilogy is Riders of the Whistling Pines, starring Gene Autry, the … errr … “Singing Chronologically-challenged Cattleperson”. Now I’m not sure why he’s cast as “the Singing Cowboy” as there isn’t one cow in the entire film, and why these men are described as “Riders …” when they spend more time in aeroplanes than on horseback I just do not know.

But this is a fascinating film because of the plot. It’s from the late 1940s and there’s a plague affecting a forest of pines in the Rockies and which needs to be eradicated. Now the goodies (including Autry) in this film want to spray everywhere and everything with DDT whereas the baddies go around spreading scandalous and spurious rumours about the damage that this will do to the rivers and the wildlife. Of course, Autry and the pro-DDT-ers win the day.

But can you imagine it? Can you really credit a storyline such as this given what we know today about DDT?

The third film is the legendary Howard Hughes film The Outlaw. As well as his aviation and technological interests Hughes also “dabbled” in Hollywood and The Outlaw was a film that he directed and produced. You could be forgiven for thinking that bearing in mind his immense wealth Hughes on Hollywood might be expected to have been just some kind of vanity gimmick or publicity stunt but believe me, there are many many worse directors and producers around than Hughes, who is much better than he might have been expected to be.

The film is in effect the story of the outlaw Billy the Chronologically-challenged Goat and was the breakthrough film for Jane Russell. Hollywood is of course well-known for its aspiring young actresses and the relationship that they might or might not have with directors and producers in order to capture a leading role is the subject of much speculation. If these rumours are true, then it might explain Hughes’ interest in Hollywood and his interest in Russell. She is quite attractive and is also a much better actress than she might otherwise have been. She is possessed of a couple of points well-worth attention, for which Hughes turned his technical abilities into inventing a cantilever brassiere in order to give them much more prominence.

In fact, it was Russell’s … err … physical attributes that led to the cult status of this film. In one scene she leans over the dying Billy the Chronologically-challenged Goat and the camera has a zoom shot all the way down her top to her navel. In 1941 this was far too much for the American censor who demanded that the scene be cut. Hughes refused and a stand-off took place that lasted for several years. After World War II attitudes were much more relaxed and the film was finally granted a release but black-and-white was obsolete and the film was generally out of date (the soundtrack is depressingly old-fashioned even for 1941) so it never received the prominence that its hype had promised. It is also spoiled, irreparably so, by the dreadful acting of Thomas Mitchell, who plays Pat Garrett. Mind you, there us a story that when the film was shown to an audience of airmen, the scene where Russell leans over the dying Billy the Chronologically-challenged Goat was met with a cry of “Bombs Away” from one of the airmen.

That scene is of course in the film but the other famous scene where Billy and Doc Holliday confront each other over Billy’s theft of Doc’s girl and Doc’s theft of Billy’s horse, to which Billy replies “well, Tit for Tat” – that doesn’t seem to have made it onto the DVD.

I had a quick tea again tonight as I wasn’t interested in staying downstairs long. It’s minus 4 in the verandah, minus 5.8 outside and on my ad-hoc snow table there’s a depth of 18mm. And it’s still snowing. The sunny days that we were promised in the long-range weather forecast – they’ve gone too.

-11

Friday 8th January 2010 – today was the day …

heavy snow les guis virlet puy de dome france…when my morale, which has been slowly ebbing away for this last couple of weeks, finally disappeared.

I didn’t wake up until the alarm went off (just for a change) and there was no way I was going to get out of bed early. And, as usual, despite the clear starry skies last night, today was clouded over – a heavy hanging cloud was clinging to the side of the mountain.

We’d had snow too, so that involved a shin up onto the roof and a clearing of the solar panels – not that I needed to bother because I’ve had the impressive total of 1.1 amp-hours today!

But none of that is what has done in my morale though. And I can cope with frozen tea towels and frozen ordinary towels and frozen washing-up water and frozen water butts and even frozen lettuce – what did it for me firstly was going into the fridge (that has been switched off for over a month) and finding that my lunchtine tomato was frozen solid. That was bad enough but then while making the coffee there must have been some ice under the seal in the coffee percolator because halfway through the coffee routine the steam pressure blew the coffee all over the verandah. With the ice melted I could tighten up the seal but of course with it being warm it went up too tight and as I tried to undo it later I broke the handle on the machine. One of the reasons that Napoleon’s onslaught on Russia failed was that the severe winter caused all of the items made of tin to become brittle – and I can see what they mean now.

But I also spilt some coffee while I was doing all of this and when I turned my attention back to the spill, it had frozen solid. Today is the first day since I have been keeping records that the temperature in the verandah has not risen above zero all day.

This morning I carried on doing a few odd jobs and then started to measure up another vertical for the first floor and cut the let in the floor beam. I dunno where the morning went but that was all I did. This afternoon with my heart no longer in anything I started to put some insulation under the floor of the attic to help keep in the warmth. But it was flaming freezing and everywhere had gone dark and there was stuff all over the floor and I didn’t feel like tidying up so at 16:30 I packed up and came in – and crashed out again for an hour.

heavy snowfall les guis virlet auvergne puy de dome franceI rang the baker too – she comes to deliver to me on Tuesdays and Wednesdays but she also has a round on Saturday so I wanted to order some bread as I’ve no intention of going anywhere anytime soon. “It depends if I can make it with this weather” she said – which totally puzzled me as the postie had been this morning. But when I went downstairs to make tea later (some tinned stuff – I wasn’t going to hang around down there in THAT weather) I saw what she meant. In the few hours that I had been upstairs it had snowed like hell and was still chucking it down. There’s about a foot of snow now, so I suppose I won’t get my bread tomorrow either.

-7

Thursday 7th January 2010 – I have been taken to task …

… about my use of the term “cattleyouths” the other day. I have been reminded that there is no such thing and I ought to be referring to “chronologically-challenged cattlepersons”. Ahhh well!

For the second day running I was awake at 06:30 and I’ve no idea why. It must be my guilty conscience. Mind you, it was absolutely taters and it took me all of my effort to heave myself out of my stinking pit when the alarm went off.

This morning I occupied myself with some tasks that I had been meaning to do for a while. As you might remember, a few years ago I experimented with 12-volt MR16 LEDs but with not much success. A few months ago LIDL had a range on sale and I bought a dozen or so to try them out. This has been much more successful and I’ve lit up the house at 1.2 watts a throw. So today I took out the 7-watt flourescents that were in the verandah where I cook and in the lean-to and I’ve installed 2xLEDs in the verandah and just one in the lean-to. I reckon that this little lot will save me about 2 amp-hours per day, which is not to be sneezed at.

The lighting effect is staggering! The verandah is lit up like broad daylight and the lean-to is just as bright as before. So I resurrected my 12-volt daylight sensor from a few years ago and I’ve fitted a LED outside that automatically comes on at dusk – to stop my visitors tripping over trailers and the like, Terry. I’ve fitted a master-switch that overrides it so it’s only on when I want it on.

After that I repaired the chest of drawers that I bought from the Virlet brocante. It wasn’t broken until I tried to fit far too many clothes into it – but now I’ve reinforced the drawers with some wooden struts.

stud wall bedroom shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis afternoon I’ve fitted another vertical in the first-floor partition between the bedroom and the bit where the bathroom will be. Just three more to do now and that will be finished. It seems that I’ve forgotten about the kitchen for a while and I’m doing the 1st floor instead. Still, why not?

But it’s perishing cold and showing no signs of warming up. Next week the weather promises more of the same. There are vague hints of sunny weather too but I’ll believe it when I see it.

-8

Wednesday 6th January 2010 – I’ve been out and about today.

centre ornithologique st gervais d'auvergne puy de dome franceTerry needed some hand with moving some timber and with fitting to his van the reversing sensors that I gave him a few weeks ago.

So delicately picking my way through the minus 3.5 degrees and the few inches of snow I set off. And I was thoroughly glad that I spent all of that money last week on new tyres for Caliburn. I now have two new road-going tyres on the back and two top-quality snow tyres on the front and you’ve absolutely no idea just how much better driving is in the snow and ice with this set-up. Money well spent!
centre ornithologique st gervais d'auvergne puy de dome franceI stopped off at my usual spot by the birdwatching point to see what I could see, and there was this absolutely magnificent view of this tree on the skyline with the Puy-de-Dome in the background. I’m well-impressed with that.

At Terry’s we did the reversing sensors but it was far too cold and icy to go down to the stream bed and haul up this tree trunk. So Liz did us proud with food and we discussed financial matters – with several cunning plans worked out. And then back here on the snow tyres in the minus 8 degrees. What was weird is that Terry and Liz live about 30km from here and between their house and Pionsat I just saw one other vehicle moving, and that was some distance away. And that’s a fairly major road too. But in the lane between Pionsat and here – just 5 km – I encountered 3 cars.

pionsat auvergne puy de dome franceBack here we had had a good morning with clear skies but the afternoon clouded over. I managed about 80 amp-hours of electricity which is a reasonable amount I suppose. But I wish I could have a consistently sunny day for once.

In other news, I have seen in the mainstream news something for the FIRST TIME EVER – despite over 40 years of waiting. Yes, a mainstream news item has been published concerning Palestinian CHRISTIANS.

Despite what the Zionists try to tell you, not all of the Arabs that they are brutalising, starving and slaughtering are evil Muslems. A great many of them are Christians – victims of Zionist atrocities – but it serves no-one’s purpose and no-one’s agenda to admit it. Think of the outcry if it were ever to become common knowledge. And so it was with total astonishment this evening that I saw on the BBC news a reference to Palestinian Christians.

The Bible Belt of the USA – that “beaten, ignorant Bible-ridden white South” of Arthur Schlesingers’s The Politics of Upheaval – whose “Christianity” of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” bears more of a resemblance to Old Testament Judaism that it ever did to the “Love Thy Neighbour” of Jesus, has been long supporters of the Zionist atrocities in Occupied Palestine, and on the grounds that the Palestinians are nothing more that “ignorant brown-skinned sand n*gg*rs”. But how will these Southerners react now that even the BBC is slowly becoming totally fed up of Zionist apologia and slowly beginning to let slip one or two little home-truths on the subject? Have apoplexy, I suppose, assuming that they can find someone able to read the article to them.

Given the amount of Bible-bashing that goes on in the Southern USA and to which I refer elsewhere, someone did once ask why it was that Jesus was not born amongst them. Of course the reason for this is quite easy to explain. In the whole of the Southern USA they couldn’t find a virgin and three wise men.

-9

Tuesday 5th January 2010 – All this fuss and hype …

… about minus 11 – when I went downstairs at 21:30 to cook tea it was only minus 5. Mind you it was minus 3 in the verandah and freezing point in the lean-to where I eat, so I didn’t hang about long. A handful or two of pasta and a tin of beans and that was tea. And then back up here in the relative warmth.

Mind you, I say relative warmth because when I came up here after work it was a balmy 3.4 degrees in here. Having a foot of snow on the windows hasn’t helped. That of course meant that I’ve been up on the roof a few times today clearing snow off the panels – but still it keeps me fit.

I started off the morning working on my plans for the kitchen and how I’m going to fit the stairs in properly overhead – and I have a few ideas on this. But I couldn’t get into the swing of it what with the cold and so I ended up cutting pillars for upstairs and trying to finish off the studding for the bedroom wall. I’ve one more vertical fitted and another one almost cut and ready but the battery went flat in the drill that I use for marking the lets in the beams, there wasn’t another battery charged, it was getting dark and I was cold and so at 17:10 I called it a day.

One thing about all of this snow is that I get to wash in warm water after work. I just love the fresh snow and so I collect a saucepan full and warm it up so that it melts and I wash in that. It’s the freshest water you can have. So after a warm wash I came up here and … er… crashed out.

In other news, one of the things that I go on about on a regular basis is “Dig For Victory”. During World War II when the UK was threatened with starvation during the U-boat menace all kinds of open areas were turned over to vegetable plots in the “Dig For Victory” campaign so that more food should be grown to ease the risk of starvation. My contention has been that seeing as the west is now fighting an oil war, then everyone should be “Digging For Victory” by growing oil crops to ease the dependency on fossil-fuel oils. Anyway the UK Government hasn’t quite caught up with me yet but it has launched its own “Dig For Victory” campaign. It’s even proposing cookery lessons, so all we need now is for Vera Lynn to sing “Whale Meat Again” and it’ll be just like old times.

-4

Monday 4th January 2010 – BRRRRRRRR!

The weather has broken here today. I woke up this morning to discover about 3 inches of snow and a temperature of minus 0.5. So first job before breakfast wa to climb up on the roof and clear the solar panels. We were promised a day of scattered cloud (which also means intermittent sunshine) but apart from a patch of blue that I noticed out of the corner of my eye while I was cleaning off the panels, it was just miserable, grey and depressing.

And cold too. The temperature continued to drop throughout the day and it’s currently (or it was an hour ago) minus 4.2 degrees. It’ll warm up slightly tomorrow and then collapse down to minus double figures.

I’ve been working on the area under the stairs today and I reckon I’m going to go with this idea about having the kitchen in the living room. As you know I’m planning to capture my rainwater in a subterranean tank but in order to do this if I put the kitchen in the lean-to as originally planned, I’m dependent upon the local council selling me a piece of ground. If I put the kitchen the other side of the house – i.e. under the stairs, the tank can go next to the lean-to on that side – on my own land. Furthermore, I can put the big freezer that I have in Brussels (I have a centrally-heated apartment standing empty in Brussels you know, and here I am struggling along in sub-zero temperatures! It says a lot for Brussels that I’d rather freeze to death here) in the lean-to on that side of the house and it will be right next to the kitchen.

So what will I do with the lean-to in which I lived for 2 years and in which I planned to install the kitchen? well, I reckon that will make an ideal place for the office. It’ll be on the ground floor with access via the verandah which means that people don’t have to trail all the way around the house and up the stairs to get to it, and also it’ll be close to the living accommodation and coffee-making appliances.

And so what will I do with the attic that I was planning to use as the office? I could turn that into a guest bedroom or something – not that I have guests but then you never know.

The good idea about having plans is so that you can divert from them and go off and do things that are totally different. And the way my house is starting to take shape, I have no idea at all how it will end up. And that’s what I find so exciting.

And in other news, remember me talking about Yemen the other day? Well, the west is starting to up the ante. Remember – you heard it hear first. And in other other news, the body-scanners are on their way. I told you that too, didn’t I? The entire news output of the western world is becoming more and more predictable. I’m getting sick of it, I tell you. It’s not the world that I ever voted for. The problem is though that the UK and the USA have so alienated the rest of the world that things have gone too far for the clock to be turned back. And with a population of about 450 million, it’s not a lot to take on an entire culture consisting of a couple of billion souls – especially when “the others” are much more committed to the cause than anyone in the UK or the USA – imagine trying to drag one of them from in front of the TV to confront an invading army. Of course, forget all about Kamikaze bombers and the like as being something from an alien culture. Churchill was planning to exhort the British population to launch suicide attacks against German soldiers if the invasion had taken place and had already prepared the slogan “you can always take one with you”. That kind of leadership wouldn’t work today – most Brits wouldn’t care who was in charge as long as they still had 500 channels on the TV and 24-hour drinking.

You know, I’m not sure how all of this is going to end as the Bushbaby’s crusade simply isn’t sustainable in the long-term. Even when the mighty USA was confronting Asian peasants armed with World-War II-era surplus weapons in South-East Asia they couldn’t keep it up. And the Russians were defeated by logistics in Afghanistan. What will happen when the steam runs out of the western offensive, which it surely will?

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Sunday 3rd January 2010 – I’ve had a western day today.

Seeing as it was below freezing for most of the day I didn’t feel like going out. I have 6 more westerns to see out of that batch that I bought and so today it was the turn of Stagecoach, Man Of The Frontier and One Eyed Jacks.

Of course, Stagecoach is by far and away the most famous of them all. It was the film that catapulted John Wayne into the limelight back in 1939. Mind you, any self-respecting band of native Americans could have done us all a big favour. 60 Indians on horseback – fleet-footed Indian ponies at that – racing after a Studebaker (and in reality it should have been a Concord) stagecoach and 9 passengers with an all-up weight of three or four tons being pulled by 6 horses and not only could they not catch it, not a single one of the Indians had the intelligence to pump a pile of lead into the horses pulling the coach. But then, what would you have done with the remaining 1 hour 29 minutes and 30 seconds?

Mind you it was an exciting chase through the Utah and New Mexico desert across the foot of the Mokee Dugway across to Medicine Hat – a route that regular followers of my outpourings will have seen before.

One Eyed Jacks wasn’t anything like as bad as I expected it to be – in fact it was quite watchable. It starred and was the first film to be directed by Marlon Brando. After the film was released he complained bitterly that his film had been ruthlessly cut by the editing crew and it had destroyed the whole synthesis of what he was trying to achieve. He had a point but then again so did the editing crew – Brando’s version of the film was over 5 hours long! Imagine the “Director’s Cut” of that!

Gene Autry was another contender for the role of “The Singing Cowboy” (or “Cattleyouth as you have to say these days) and my mother, being the kind of woman that she was, made us sit through all of his films until we knew the lyrics off by heart. Funnily enough, I’d forgotten all about Man Of The Frontier (that’s not even a cattleyouth film seeing as it was set in the 1930s and is about the construction of a dam – a kind of Campbell’s Kingdom in reverse) until he burst into a rendition of “Red River Valley”.

And then it all came flooding back (well, we are talking about dams here). My mother proposed me to enter this talent contest when I was knee-high and told me to sing “Red River Valley”. But I was rebellious even in those days and was hurled off the stage and told never to come back, after merely singing –
I can sing all the songs by Gene Autry
But my singing is certainly vile
When I sing of the Red River Valley
Well the cowboys they all run a mile!

But we were talking the other day about coincidences in Hollywood. And one of the films that cropped up was of course the legendary Blazing Saddles. In that film the baddy was played by Harvey Korman and his sidekick was Slim Pickens. In One Eyed Jacks the baddy was Karl Malden who just happens to be the spitting image of Harvey Korman – you had to look twice to see any difference – and his sidekick was … errr … Slim Pickens. Yes – I reckon Mel Brooks owns the same Western collection that I have!

And that’s not all! In Stagecoach the coach driver was Andy Devine. And I’ve seen Andy Devine before – he was Roy Rogers’ sidekick in The Bells of San Angelo that we saw the other day. And in the 1966 remake of Stagecoach the stage driver was none other than Slim Pickens.

I did manage to get outside though and having found by coincidence a piece of gas pips that was of 32mm diameter I’ve assembled and erected my weather station. The anenometer goes round nicely and the rain gauge will have its work cut out as it’s snowing like hell outside.

In other news, you have all heard about the fraudulent election in Afghanistan – obviously Karzi has been taking lessons from the bushbaby and Florida. Despite the acknowledged widespread fraud, the parliament has shown some teeth by rejecting Karzi’s proposed cabinet more-or-less en masse citing ethicity bribery or money as the reasons for Karzi’s choice of most of them. However, the United Nations finds “the rejection of Karzai(sic)’s cabinet worrying“. So despite having tried to force the Karzi to work hard to outlaw corruption in Afghanistan, the United Nations – and hence the west – are dismayed that a corrupt and illegitimate puppet government would go so far reject nominees for posts where the nominee is either a fellow-tribesman or a significant sum of money has changed hands re the post. So a corrupt election “electing” a corrupt government led by a corrupt President with a cabinet stacked with corrupt ministers is acceptable to the west because it’s pro-western, yet a democratically-elected government next door in Iran is deemed to be unacceptable and a suitable candidate to be undermined, because the democratically-elected government there is anti-western.

The hypocrisy is staggering. You couldn’t make up a story like this!

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Saturday 2nd January 2010 – Well…

…I’ve finally had the day that I have been waiting for – a long cold Arctic sunny day. There were still plenty of clouds around but I managed 135 amp-hours of electricity in the house and 37.4 in the barn. That figure for the house – it’s the highest since 20th November and it’s cheered me up a little.

So this morning I had a really good clean and tidy up. I threw out tons of stuff and there’s another huge pile for burning. I may well do that tomorrow and cook some potatoes while I’m at it, to eat tomorrow night with the pizza. I’ve found some more pine shelving and I took that upstairs and now that’s all full of folders documents and magazines. The place looks pretty impressive and that’s just as well for Terry and Liz came round this evening. And that reminds me – I must fix up a proper doorbell now that I’m more likely to have visitors. I can’t have my guests banging on the door for ages while I have the music going full-tilt.

This afternoon I went into Pionsat to swap a bottle of gas at the garage. I like to support local commerces if it’s just for this kind of thing. It’s cheaper than going to St Eloy even if the gas is cheaper there – 10kms instead of 35 and much less chance of being sidetracked by LIDL. But despite the garage having a notice saying “Ferme les dimanche ainsi que les jours feries” it was closed, despite it being neither a Sunday nor a Public Holiday. I don’t know what’s the matter with these places in Pionsat – they don’t want to earn any money and I had to go to St Eloy instead. Yes, the long-range weather forecast warns us of MINUS 13 on Tuesday night, MINUS 14 on Thursday night and MINUS 6 during Friday DAYTIME. I don’t want to be stuck without heating in these conditions.

And I’m having serious second thoughts about my kitchen. I have to bring the water pipe all the way across the house to the far corner of the attic and then drop the water down below to the bathroom but run a hot water pipe right the way back across the house to the lean-to where I’ll be putting the kitchen. Meanwhile directly under the stairs on the ground floor and right underneath the bathroom will be a load of dead space. And today I’ve been thinking about putting an open kitchen there. It’ll narrow the room quite a bit (from 5.2 metres to about 3.6) and the kitchen will be quite small but then again I’m not using half of this attic and there is only me to think about. It’ll make the plumbing so much easier too.

What do you think? All comments hints and suggestions are welcome.

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Friday 1st January 2010 – I’m blogging early this evening.

Yes, I won’t be up much longer as I’m going to have an early night – I’m shattered. Last night’s major revelling kept me awake until all of 00:45 before I crashed out, and I had a leisurely morning in bed until about 10:00. So I’ve no idea why it is that it’s just after 22:00 and I’m ready for bed.

It’s not as if I’ve done very much either. I’ve managed a stroll across to the barn to check on things over there but that involved dodging a deluge of snowy rain that’s been falling all day. Apart from that I’ve been up here doing not very much at all.

Christmas is of course not complete without watching “The Great Escape” on television. And for me, New Year always involves watching old westerns on DVD. You may recall that I bought a copy of John Wayne’s Fort Apache the other day but it wasn’t that I was watching. In Brussels at the Media Market in April I bought a boxed set of vintage westerns from the 1940s and 50s – 9 old hand-coloured “forgotten classics” and so I’ve been watching Vengeance Valley, Abilene Town and The Bells of San Angelo this afternoon.

The Bells of San Angelo is a “Roy Rogers and Trigger” western featuring a whole pile of singing cowboys. It’s as cheesy as anything you can imagine and I’m not sure whether, looking at it from today’s perspective, you could distinguish it from anything that Mel Brooks might put out. I’m not sure who might have ever considered it as being anything like a “serious” western but we are talking of the days before the idea of a parody had ever been set into anyone’s minds and when people were still scratching their heads trying to figure out what Hellzapoppin’ was all about.

On the other hand, Vengeance Valley is a much more interesting film. The plot revolves around an unmarried mother giving birth to a child out of wedlock and how much of a risque topic was this for that period? Especially as the film treats her with sympathy and reviles the doctor who refuses to treat her until he “has a request from the father”. But it’s quite interesting from my point of view as the film opens with a narrative about the loneliness of being high up in the mountains with nothing but the eerie wind whistling through the pines. Now have a read of this page that I wrote in 2002.

The prize for the most significant film however nust be given to Abilene Town. It’s an early Randolph Scott film and features a conflict between homesteaders and the cattle-barons. it introduces the concept of the “good” and “bad” sides of the main street – an idea that was developed in Kirk Douglas’ Gunfight At The Ok Corral. What is even more interesting is that there is a scene inside a music hall with a dancer and chorus line and as soon as you see it you will immediately say Blazing Saddles. Not only that, the film ends with a confrontation between the pacific citizens and rowdy cattle hands, just as in the aforementioned. And when towards the end of Blazing Saddles Cleavon Little invokes the name of Randolph Scott, it all becomes clear and you know precisely on which film Brooks based much of Blazing Saddles.

Not only that, in another one of those moments that can only be described as coincidence, I mentioned the music hall scene, that was absolutely horrendous, and a perusal of the full cast list reveals that the choreography (if that is what it was) was by Sammy Lee. No wonder he only lasted a handful of games as manager of Bolton Wanderers if that was the best that he could do.

And there are three items of news that have caught my eye today. Firstly, relating to the mysterious affair of the underwear bomber, we have an announcement from the UK Government. Now who reading this blog is surprised? Of course you will be saying that the British Government had no connection at all with the supposed detonation or not of this weapon (although if course anything is possible in this modern age) but you can see that they cannot pass up an opportunity to remove some more civil liberties from their citizens. What do you do if you need a gipsy’s towards the end of your flight? Of course the Brits will take it lying down as always – no-one in the UK has any backbone any more. It reminds me of the OUSA Executive Committee meeting when they learnt that I had been elected to a position within their august body, and a shiver ran round the whole meeting looking for a spine to run up.

But you’ll note that the UK Government targets Yemen in its prognostications. Those ideas are developed further elsewhere. So having targeted Iraq and having a good go at Iran they are now having a go at a third state in the area. No wonder the whole of Islam feels under threat from the west. All they really need to do is to have a good go at Syria, which will no doubt be forthcoming in early course, and they will have ringed and surrounded the chief culprit in the whole of the Al-Qaida network – namely Saudi Arabia. Of the 19 hijackers of September 11th, 15 were Saudis. They were trained by a Saudi, led by a Saudi and financed by a Saudi (who just happens to be a big pal of the Bushbaby’s daddy) and so the western world invaded …. errr …. Afghanistan. Of course with the west getting half of its oil from Saudi Arabia it was never likely to tackle Al Qaida and Bin Laden on their home territory in case Bin Laden’s dad, the fourth-richest man in Saudi Arabia, cuts off the western supply of oil. And as more and more of Iraqi oil is sold to the likes of China and Angola, then the west’s dependency on the spiritual home of Al Qaida for its oil is not likely to end any time soon.

Thirdly, it appears that the UK National Health Service is about to collapse underneath the weight of the drunks and binge drinkers in the country. So sozzled has British society become that the Brits are totally shameless about it. Someone on a certain Social Networking site not so long ago posted with pride that she didn’t remember anything after 11 o clock on one particular and woke up next day at 1:30 in the afternoon still in her clothes and shoes, so she must have had a good time, and she can’t wait to go out and get wrecked again. In fact so sozzled is the UK right at this moment that the answer is staring them in the face and they are too p155ed to see it. All you do, to solve the crisis is to put an extra 50p tax on the price of an individual drink, or £4:00 on the price of a bottle, and give all the extra tax raised to the NHS.

Problem solved.

Mnd you, knowing the NHS as I do, what they will do with the money is to engage thousands of extra consultants to advise on how to spend the money, and when they send in their bills the total will be about exactly the amount received, so nothing at all will reach the front line and the NHS will be back where it started.

No surprise there.

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Thursday 31st December 2009 – Fiat even more Lux!

12 volt LED light electrical circuit les guis virlet puy de dome franceYes, the lighting is slowly progressing around the house now. Even with having light up and down the stairwell, it still meant that I needed a torch to move around the house as the living room was in darkness. But I remedied that this morning by using the other half of the light switch at the foot of the stairs and an old redundant light switch by the door into the kitchen, and I now have a light by the front door over the control panel and I can now happily move around torchless.

You might think that this light isn’t all that bright. But firstly, it’s plenty bright enough to move around with and secondly, it’s only 1.2 watts, believe it or not. Yes, these 12-volt LED lights from LIDL, at €4.49 a shot, they are definitely the way to go.

Don’t look too closely at the wiring by the way. Terry takes the mickey out of it even when I do what I consider to be a good job. But here, I ran out of wire and had to cobble together whatever I could find .

I also ran out of time. I did in fact allow myself plenty of time but Claude came round. He’s got a puncture on his old Clio and was wondering if I had a spare 155×13 tyre. I have a couple but they are for the diesel Escort and I’m not going to part with them so I offered to run him into town or to a scrapyard to pick something up. But no, did I have anything? In the end I found 2 165×13 tyres on Volkswagen wheels that belonged to the Passat before I had a lucky find with those 175/70×14 Golf wheels and tyres. So they are the wrong size and on different wheels and they have been hanging around outside for 7 years in all kinds of weather. But they are free so he’s taken them and will change them himself onto the Renault wheels with a crowbar.

Now I did some crazy things with cars and the like in my youth but I drew the line with tyres long before this particular point was ever reached. Second-hand tyres of good quality from a scrapyard is fair game but perishing (in both senses of the word) Uniroyal and Courier remould tyres – well, it’s a problem in the making, this is. And I’m not quite sure how a crowbar will affect the rims of the wheels, especially when you need to rely on the integrity of the rims to keep an airtight seal with tubeless tyres.

This afternoon I fitted one of the offcuts from the verandah roof over where the plant-pot beichstuhl is. There’s no roof over where I’ve fitted it although the scaffolding planks on the scaffolding overhead so protect it somewhat. But with a driving wind causing everything to swirl about, I had a good soaking while I was riding the porcelain (or in this case, aluminium) horse this afternoon. Time for action!

In between all of this, I did a load of washing. After last night’s brilliant and clear skies the sky forgot to cloud over this morning and for a couple of hours we had a brilliantly clear sky. I seized the opportunity to do a load of washing but the clouds caught up before I had finished and now everything is receiving a final rinse from Mother Nature out on the washing line. And more rain is forecast.

I nipped round to Claude’s this evening to give him and Francoise a bottle of champagne for New Year, seeing as I forgot to give it to them on Christmas Eve. Beethoven is ill and they are going to have to take him to the vet’s. He’s 16 and in reasonable health and has bags of character. I’m not into dogs but in his case I could make an exception. I hope he’s going to be ok.

And that was that. I had a nice tea with some roast potatoes, and now I’m going to do nothing except listen to the torrential rain beating down on the roof.

Happy New Year to you all. And I wish for you for 2010 everything that you wished on everyone else for 2009.

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Wednesday 30th December 2009 – You may remember …

neris les bains allier france illuminations… a few weeks ago that I was in Neris-les-Bains looking for a shower (of course they were all in Milton Keynes but the less said about the OUSA Executive Committee the better) – anyway, here’s a pic taken there in the dark earlier this evening.

In the dark???

Yes, I had just come out of the swimming baths where I had a really good soak (and I’m not taling about anyone from the OUSA …. “you’ve done that already” – ed) but even so, I was only in there for an hour.

So what was going on?

This morning I braved the torrential rainstorm that we were having (we had 21mm of rain today and it’s still going) and went to Montlucon for Caliburn’s new tyres. And of course, now that we have two new ordinary ones on the back and two expensive snow tyres on the front it isn’t ever going to snow again, is it? That took me to midday and so I went for a wander around NOZ, the grot shop, where I bought a pile of cook-in sauces, and then to the Auchan where in between all of the shopping I bought 2 DVDs in the sale, at €2.99 each. One is the John Wayne classic Fort Apache and the second is the legendary Return Of The Pink Panther. Easily the best of the Pink Panther films and that by a long chalk too. So imagine my consternation, if not horror, at Christmas 2006 when I discovered to my chagrin that the film was for some unaccountable reason not included in The Pink Panther Film Collection (6 Disc Box Set). And here it is, at €2.99!

That took me to about 13:50 and I was planning to go home then but I was irresistibly lured to Brico Depot, and wasn’t that a big mistake? I was rummaging around looking for cable connectors as I’m not very happy using chocolate blocks. I saw some things that looked suitable and asked to speak to a vendor. And waited. And waited. And waited. eventually someone appeared, served a few other people, and then came over to me.
“Is it you who is looking for assistance?” she asked
“Yes, for about 15 minutes” I replied petulantly.
“Well, I’m all on my own” she said
“So am I” I stated “so why don’t we get married so that we can be together?” No wonder they all hate me in these French shops.

But that wasn’t even half of it. Every so often they have what are called “arrivages” – products that they buy in specially and are priced to sell. And on offer today were kitchen worktops – 1800×600 for all of €15:99 instead of the usual €49:99 or so. Most of the colours were pretty awful but there was one that caught my eye – a kind-of false marble effect of light grey, white and pink speckle. I need just under three for my kitchen but this is also the colour that will go nicely in the bathroom, which, you may recall, for reasons of other products having been bought in Brico Depot’s clearance sale and also a pile of second-hand tiles I have lying around, is going to be … errr … pink. Anyway, I need about four of these lengths all told – and they just happened to have four left.

I also need some 500mm pine shelving to make the bases of the units in the kitchen. Three of these in fact, and they just happened to have three left. So even though I am a long way away from making my units I now have a lot of the stuff that I need. I also have a wallet that is considerably lighter.

At the cash desk there was this ever-so-sweet young girl cashing up. She had a really difficult job looking for the barcode labels.
“They’ve been put on in the wrong place” she lamented.
“I bet it’s all Pierre (one of the guys who works there who plays football for Pionsat)’s fault” I replied
“Do you know him?” she asked.
“Ohhh yes, he plays football for our local team“.
“He was in my class at school” she chirped.
The world is getting too flaming small for my liking.

neris les bains allier france christms illuminationsAnd so, having left Brico Depot at 16:15 that was how come I ended up leaving the swimming baths at Neris at 18:20. And I encountered a cat – a huge black moggy – in Neris. it came for a stroke and a cuddle and even let me pick it up. It’s a long time since I’ve stroked a nice pussy like that and it was ever so contented and looked set to stay there for ever. I really must get a cat when I settle down. But then a car pulled up across the road, a woman got out and went through the gate and up the path towards the front door of this house, and Minou leapt out of my arms and legged it up the path after her. Cupboard love!

I was musing earlier, like I do every so often. In the comments section of this blog, yours truly (who lives in France and is white-skinned) was discussing with Rhys (who lives in the USA and is white-skinned) have been having a discussion about where is the best place to leave a bomb in a Boeing 747. Now just imagine if we lived in the UK and were brown-skinned? we would be hit with a “possessing information likely to be of use to terrorists” and “conspiracy” and hurled into Belmarsh before you could say “Al Qaida”. Such is the situation in the UK at the moment and it’s a reflection of the racist nature of the society that the UK has become due to the level of fear and of hate that Gordon Clown and the B Liar have stirred up. And they call it a “free country”. Doesn’t it make you laugh?

And in other news, hello and welcome to Kate who has found her way here. Kate was part of a group of miscreants which which I was associated back in days of yore in the Open University and we all had many exciting adventures in the OUSA Conferencing system. It’s nice to “see” you after all this time.

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