Category Archives: Les Guis

Tuesday 13th October 2009 – There’s some disappointing news for Krys tonight.

I don’t have a photo of today’s work in the attic. That’s because you can’t really see what I’ve been doing.

In fact I’ve been doing some of the finicky work up there. I put on the plasterboard cladding around the door pillar (I forgot that last night) and then cladded all the exposed ends of plasterboard with plywood. I know that you are really supposed to put plasterboard across all the ends and then join them together with this “L” profile strip, but Terry and I talked about this last night and he mentioned that four-letter word “skim”.

Now my plastering technique is awful so skimming anything is out of the question, but wood is quite nice and I can do that.

After that I built the window inset for the hole in the wall that I made yesterday and then cut the perspex to fit. And it looks quite nice too.

Once I’d finished that I boxed in the window at the end of the room near where the woodstove is going to be installed. And talking of the woodstove, Liz and I unpacked it this afternoon (Liz came round to visit and to borrow a spare telephone as hers has stopped working for some reason). The stove is ever so dinky and even though I chopped up the wood into small 30cm (12 inch) lengths, I can see me having to cut it up smaller.

And the stove needs to be run in, too. You have to light a small paper fire and gradually increase the heat – gradually as in something like 20 days. It’s quite a task.

But I’ll be needing the heat very soon. The temperature outside dropped to 4.4 degrees last night and in the heat exchanger it dropped to 1 degree. Winter is here. In fact I nearly had the heater on in here tonight but I put a fleece on instead. I’m going to have to sort my nightie out if the temperature drops any lower.

-2

Monday 12th October 2009 – Cheat Cheat Cheat Cheat

Read all about it here. Fiddling your expenses is one thing, as many British Members of Parliament have found just recently. But having to pay back over £12,000 – that must be something of a record. And Gordon Clown, having made members of his own party stand down over 4 or 5 grand – what do you think might happen to him? Watch out for a “Hypocrite Of The Year” award nomination in a couple of months time.

In other news, my attic is advancing, and I now have the plasterboarding on over the timber framework that is the head of the stairs.

You can see what I’m going to do with the plastic that I bought. That corner is where my desk is going to be, and there is a good view out of the window in the side wall over to the range of hills on the skyline 4 or 5 kms away. If I put a solid wall there I won’t get the view and it seems a shame to waste it, so a little window is called for so I can look outside when I’m working.

You can also see the little cupboard that I’ve made. All the odds and ends will be put in the boxes I bought at IKEA and will be stacked in there.

But it’s all going so perishingly slowly and I just don’t understand it. I’m working constantly and don’t notice the time. And when I do glance at the clock thinking that it’s about 12:30 and there’s still 90 minutes to lunch, it’s in actual fact 14:30. I just don’t understand it. So I’ve no idea when I’m going to be finished and I’ve given up planning.

And just in case you are wondering, but I’m sure you are not, the number of “extra” members of the Anglo-French Conversation Group, those who crawled out of the woodwork on Friday to appear on the televised version, who appeared at the “regular” untelevised version tonight, was … errrrrr … ZERO.

But there again, you guessed that already, didn’t you? Or is it just me who is the only cynic around here?

-4

Sunday 11th October 2009 – It was another beautiful afternoon…

… and I had a nice drive down to Cebazat, between Riom and Clermont Ferrand, for the footy. Finding the town was one thing – finding the ground was something else entirely. I ended up at what can only be described as a stadium watching a wimmin’s footy match while the locals asked around as to where the men might be playing. In the end I was directed to a public park on the edge of the town where there wasn’t even a pie hut Shock! Horror!

It was a good game and Pionsat drew 2-2, which was a good result seeing as how injuries have decimated the side and they lost 2 more players during the game.

The match kicked off at 15:00 so I could even have gone to see the 2nd XI, who kicked off at 13:00 just down the road at Sayat. But with no alarm clock and waking up at …errr… 11:22, there wasn’t much hope of that.

The drive out was really nice. I didn’t switch the sat-nav on until I got to Pionsat so it took me via Manzat, St Hypocrite and that way, which is a beautiful run. I meant to stop and take some piccies on the way back but it brought me back up the N144 which is nothing like as exciting.

In other news, Rhys and I are well-known for our differences of opinion on the American political scene and we have long since agreed to differ. But in more shock! horror! news, we are in fact inaccord over one thing. And that is “what the hell has Obama done to merit the Nobel Peace Prize?”

Rhys thinks that a well-filled plain brown envelope changed hands, whereas I think that it was because he wasn’t the Bushbaby and someone wanted to rub the Bushbaby’s nose in the political dirt. But the Peace Prize is usually awarred to someone who makes a major breakthrough in some kind of inherent national or international conflict.

But giving it to someone who is just about to up the ante in Afghanistan and is considering sending in more troops to fight the indigenous inhabitants – it’s just insulting and offensive. The Nobel Committee should be ashamed of itself.

-5

Saturday 10th October 2009 – You would be amazed ….

… at the things you find lurking up side streets. Another one of my passions is old vehicles and so when I saw this beastie lurking up a side street in Montlucon today I just had to go for a nosey.

At first, from a distance, I thought it was a Russian GAZ lorry, a copy of the Studebakers and Chevrolets that the Americans supplied to the Russians under lend-lease during World War II but from close-up I don’t think it is. There’s no maker’s name on it anywhere that I could see so I could only be guessing as to what it might be. Although it looks vaguely 1940s-ish that’s deceptive too as Magirus Deutz were turning out lorries of this style as late as the early 1970s.

All the visible accessories (headlights – that kind of thing) were “made in France” so I’ve no idea. It’s a 4×4 anyway and solidly built.

So in Montlucon I picked up my furniture and almost everything I needed for the attic. I forgot the air vents though – little plastic grilles about 2″ in diameter to cover up the airholes that I need to make. But I also made an excellent purchase – an “end of series” composter that was going for €10:00. Why I need a new composter is because of a change to the beichstuhl arrangements. I shan’t go into the gory details but in a bid to do away with the chemical contraption I am putting into effect an arrangement that involves a plant pot and some biodegradable bin liners. I’m sure you can work it out for yourself.

Talking of biodegradable bin liners, I discovered a new bio shop in Montlucon – just down the road from Brico Depot. Not as big as Amaranth but I drive past it every week so it’s worth a visit. Their biodegradable bin liners cost €5.51 for 25 – a major improvement on Auchan’s €6:00 for 15.

At the footy tonight Pionsat lost 3-2 in a hotly-contested match. But I dunno what Damian put in his tea tonight but he played a blinder in goal tonight and made a series of brilliant saves. We were all well-impressed with his performance. With a bit of luck he would have kept out the goals too – he managed to get a hand to all of them.

And Liz has a problem with her telephone and she asked me to ring France Telecom to report the fault.
“You have to say the magic words, Liz“
“I’m baking tomorrow!”

-6

Friday 9th October 2009 – Well I never!

Well, alright, maybe I did just a few times.

But we had this impromptu Anglo-French conversation group meeting for the benefit of Dutch television and despite the fact that it was all done at such short notice, we managed to have 20 attendees.

Now I can’t think of any meeting apart from the inaugural one back in June last year when we had 20 people. And some people there tonight we hadn’t seen in ages and others we hadn’t seen at all. Such is the lure of the silver screen and the opportunity of being behind it instead of in front of it. The acid test though will come on Monday evening at one of our habitul reunions. If we manage to get half of the “extra” people to come there then I promise you that I will eat more humble pie.

And talking of being stage-struck, I was gob-struck. I know that it’s very rare that I miss out on a publiclty opportunity but a couple of people who appeared at this meeting brought with them a pile of publicity leaflets for the businesses that they are running. One woman owns a hot-air balloon and there was certainly enough hot air at this meeting to have got her balloon off the ground with no trouble at all.

Back in the attic I’ve finished the tongue and grooving as much as I can and I’ve framed the windows in the roof. I can’t do any more until I’ve fixed the next lot of plasterboard, which is Monday’s job.

Tomorrow is shopping day which involves picking up my furniture and just a few bits and pieces from Brico Depot. And that will be that because I won’t be doing any more for a while. When the attic is done I’ll be vegetating for a couple of weeks.

-5

Thursday 8th October 2009 – It rained today.

“So what?” I hear you say.
Well, the fact that apart from some trace amounts of rain that fell on 4 days recently, the last tine that there was any measurable rain was on … errr …. 20th September. And how long ago was that?

But never mind, because we more than made up for it today with 20mm of rainfall, most of which fell in late morning. And going from having run out of rainwater over the last two weeks, I now have more than I know what to do with. I might even have a wash!

Meanwhile, back in the attic, I’m still tongue-and-grooving. I didn’t do as much as I wanted to because even though I worked relentlessly until gone 19:00 (when the light went) I had some rewiring to do and I also had to track down some nails as I’m running quite short of them.

Tomorrow should see me finished as far as I can, and then I need to cut the bare plasterboard for the partition walls and do this electrical wire. Once that’s done I can finish it off completely.

And in other news, my furniture has arrived at Conforama. I can pick that up on Saturday.

-3

Wednesday 7th October 2009 – I’ve made a start …

… on the last row of tongue and groove as you can see. I finished off the row under the eaves this morning – I did it all at once as my back managed to hold out pretty much. And this afternoon I started on the scaffolding, which is much easier for working.

I’ve got to the first window now and I’ve built a framework around it. It needs to be tongued and grooved in the plane that you can see, but it also needs to be tongued and grooved “upwards” to enclose the different layers of the roof. It’s out of there that the roof breathes so when I’ve done it I have to drill some holes and put air grilles over then.

I was once again kept pretty busy on the phone too. Working it out, this last 24 hours I have –
i) translated an e-mail from English to French late last night (how anyone thinks that they can get any kind of coherence out of me after 19:00 is a mystery to me)
ii) helped out this morning a little with the arrangements for Friday night
iii) liaised between a garage and a client over some repairs to a car
iv) liaised between a client and the local mairie.

Last night I was talking to my friend Alexi on a messenger program that I use.We were both bemoaning the lack of night school opportunities over here on the mainland. Back in the UK I used to go to as many as I could and so did she. And that got me thinking about all of the people who have moved over here from the UK either full-time or for holiday purposes and who haven’t learned any French at all. I just dunno why, especially with all of the night school classes that the UK has.

But that’s not the point of this blog entry – people do as they please and how they feel comfortable.

But nevertheless, many people who read this blog have connections to the Open University and have engaged in the heavyweight debating conferences that exist there. I spent many a pleasant evening scrabbling through reference books and the like to back up points that I was making, and so did many others. That was probably the most rewarding part of our entire study.

But there was one competitor … er …. contributor who most people will recall and I shan’t mention any names. And while we were quoting data and statistics gathered from all of the far-flung corners of the world-wide web and the like, this contributor would come out with the most utter … er …. well, nonsense. And when we were asked to name our sources and quoted things like “The CIA International Yearbook” and “The Auschwitz On-Line Museum” and the like, this contributor would say that “well, I overheard someone talking about this in the Post Office this morning”.

And one of that person’s favourite hobby-horses was to go on and on and on ad infinitum about the flood of foreigners in the UK who can’t be bothered to learn English and have to take interpreters with them to the local council and the like (like I have to do quite often for the English living here but of course you wouldn’t expect people like her to understand that). And the bunch of mindless morons that loitered in the wings would come out in total agreement and sympathy. And now have a look at what I’ve been doing all day, apart from tongue-and-grooving. Yes, sometimes you really can’t understand how it is that the total irony of the situation goes way over the heads of most British people.

But when you break it down to the barest facts, the difference is that “we” are white and “they” are brown. And that somehow makes it all right.

Another favourite hobby-horse of this person is how certain sexually-transmitted diseases come from the (brown-skinned) peoples of North Africa because of their (alleged) social habits involving camels (Open University debates could be quite exciting places to be) but in this case the contributor definitely got it wrong. And how! In fact, the story originates from the days of the French Foreign Legion when a new Legionnaire signed up at the fort in the middle of the Sahara.
“What do you do for female company around here?” he asked
“Ohh, the men take it in turns to borrow the camel. In fact it’s your turn in three weeks time“
So three weeks later, when it’s his turn to borrow the camel he goes into the stable, removes certain items of his clothing and sets about the camel. And halfway through doing what it is that he’s doing he notices all of the other legionnaires standing around watching him.
“What do you think about this then?” he asks proudly.
“Well actually, all of the other men, when they borrow the camel they ride it into town to look for a woman“

-4

Tuesday 6th October 2009 – Just by way of a change …

… here’s a photo of the other side of the roof in the attic. You can see that I’m now advancing with the tongue-and-groove down that side too.

But it’s killing me, working in that confined space under the eaves. And working in that direction I’m having to work left-handed and upside-down so my back has gone and so have my knees.

I’m going to have another hour or so under there first thing tomorrow and then get on the scaffolding to do the upper half to give my knees and back a rest, and keep on alternating. About 2 or so more days of t&g-ing, and then I can make a start on the poncing.

Louise, whom some of you might remember from this blog in its previous incarnation, has now caught up with us (so hello again to you) and so has Dave – but he won’t be on line for a week or so as he’s now over here again. We had a good lengthy chat tonight on the phone and he’s going to be giving me a hand with the plumbing in the spring. And talking of the phone I had a lengthy chat this morning with Bill from the Anglo-French group.

In other news, Amazon is having a sale of classic rock CDs. Exciting news, you might think, but it’s all kinds of Pelvis Risley stuff and that sort of thing. Not so exciting. But one album I noticed on sale was “The Eagles Greatest Hits2 – surely a candidate for the title of the world’s smallest CD.

-7

Monday 5th October – I bet that you are all fed up …

… of seeing pictures of my blasted attic and this flaming roof. But not half as fed up as I am with doing the perishing thing. It’s never going to be finished at this rate.

About another two hours on this side of the roof tomorrow and then I can crack on with the other side. And for that, as well as having to cut around the central beams, I have to make the framework for round the windows.

Mind you, although it took me ages to get going this morning by late afternoon I was well into a rhythm and it was a shame to stop, but I had to go to the Anglo-French group.

I was working with Marianne the journalist tonight and it turns out that she is a reader at the Departmental Archives at Clermont Ferrand. She goes there every Wednesday and she’s promised to take me there one of these days and show me round. She’ll even help me get a readers’ ticket.

But talking of the Anglo-French group, yours truly might be making a dramatic return to the silver screen. My last TV appearance was in late December 1999 when I was interviewed (in Flemish, by Flemish TV) at Brussels (Zaventam) Airport for a TV programme about people travelling to celebrate the millennium. I was in fact off to New York.

rior to that I hosted (again on Flemish TV a programme about my favourite places in my local commune, which at the time was Schaerbeek. It’s one of the poorer communes in Brussels but it does have some magnificent and undiscovered corners. When I first went to live there I spent every weekend walking around getting to know the place.

My first TV appearance was just as memorable. August Bank Holiday 1974 – the Windsor Free Rock Festival and a TV news crew scanning the field looking for “typical rock fans” and Andrew Jenkins and I staggering into shot, each with a Watneys Party 7 can under each arm. Of course, my parents would happen to be looking at the news just then, wouldn’t they?

But back to the plot. A Dutch television producer wants to film the Combrailles and the efforts that are being made to welcome foreigners to the area. It seems that our little group has attracted their attention and they want to film us. These days we are about 12 or so regulars who come week after week after week more or less. Liz is sending out a mail to all of the subscribers to tell them of the filming. I’ll be interested to see how many of them turn out for the camera. Nantwich Parish Church usually has a congegration of about 15 for the evening service but when “Songs of Praise” was filmed there in the late 1960s you couldn’t get into the church for all of the dramatically-born-again-Christians who crawled out of the woodwork and into the church.

-5

Sunday 4th October 2009 – Chomp chomp chomp

The noise you can hear is me eating humble pie (not Steve Marriott and Peter Frampton) . Pionsat weren’t playing last night – I was looking at the wrong week in the agenda.
There was a Cup match this afternoon instead and it involved a drive down to Pontaumur, where Pionsat were humbled a couple of weeks ago, 8-1. And they put in a much-improved performance this week, only losing 5-0.

And what a match it was too! Famous not for the performance of the teams but the performance of probably the most eccentric referee I have ever seen. “I warned you about that in the first half” he yelled at a player who had only been on the pitch for half an hour. And when he awarded Pontaumur a (hotly disputed but in my opinion quite rightly so) penalty, he booked the … errr…Pontaumur goalkeeper.

But highlight of the game was the phrase that he uttered to one of the Pionsat players – a phrase that you will only ever hear once in a lifetime and only then if you are lucky so it pays to be in the right place at the right time –
“Turn round number 14, so I can see the number on your back!”
At this point, and for the rest of the match, the bewilderment was total.

After that, I went round to Simon’s to pick up my wood-burning stove. And it’s such a dinky little thing too but if it does its job I won’t be needing any more than that.

In other news, I’m now a student of Oxford University. I didn’t think I could keep out of education for long and I’ve enrolled in this course. Never mind the status of the University offering the course, have you seen the price? A 10-point course with the Open University costs £155 if you are a British resident, but a whopping great obscene and offensive £420 if you live in mainland Europe. £180 for 10 points at Oxford is a bargain.

There are many former OU students living in Mainland Europe. Many of them have given up their studies simply because of the spiralling fees that the OU has imposed upon them. A paper from the OU that I saw in February 2007 planning to use European students as cash cows certainly came home to roost as students deserted by the bus load.

And that has given me an idea for the practical part of this course. Raping looting and pillaging was always going to be on the agenda but what I’m now going to do is to round up a bunch of disenchanted European OU students, dress them up as Vikings, grab hold of an old longship and sail to Milton Keynes and ransack the Open University campus. I shall set Mike D. a special task – he’s the one who will be sent to carry off Turdi de Hatred and sell her in the slave market down at the Gare du Midi in Brussels on Sunday morning. He might get a couple of centimes for her if he’s lucky.

And in other other news, that well-known and legendary artist-cum-rapper Tracey Eminem has announced that she is to quit the UK in a protest against high taxation. Her admirable stand has been backed by the entire nation who has rushed round to her house to help her pack her bags. It reminds me of the time back in the 1970s when it was announced that Dolly Parton had a skin rash on her breasts and was looking for a volunteer to rub the cream in. Of course, being the altruist that I am, I immedately volunteered for the post and went round to see her doctor.
“Very good, Mr Hall” he announced. “Take this jar of cream and go to the United Nations Building in New York”
“I thought she lived in Nashville, Tennessee” I said
“So she does” he replied. “But the United Nations Building in New York is where the queue ends“

-4

Saturday 3rd October 2009 – GRRRRRR at Pionsat

I went down to the footy ground tonight as there was a match at 20:00 – FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 3rd XI v Chatelguyon. But the place was all locked up and in darkness. No idea what was (or was not) going on there. Maybe the match has been rearranged for tomorrow but I’ll be having a run out to Sayat as the 2nd XI is playing there and I haven’t been to Sayat’s ground yet.

But it was a nice drive down to the ground at Pionsat tonight and as I came round the corner to the eastern side of the mountain I was met with this most stunning sunset. Isn’t this impressive?

We had an old saying when we were kids –
“Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight”
“Red sky in the morning – Stoke on Trent’s on fire”
You can argue something like this here, can’t you? That direction is roughly Montlucon.

And talking of Montlucon I reckon I now have everything I need for my room. Even the glass, as Brico Depot had some sheets of perspex on offer at €17 for 80cms square by 4mm thick. I can make some nice windows out of that.

But highlight of today’s trip around the town was in NOZ – the end-of-range bucket shop where they were selling fast battery chargers for €3.90. They are just AA and AAA and take 800 milliamps and such is the rate of charge that they are rated as unsuitable for NiCads – just NiMH. I’ve seen (or felt) how hot NiCads can get in a normal fast charger.

The charger works off a DC adapter which – surprise surprise – is 12-volt.

And talking of 12-volt DC adapters, this next point is all Terry’s fault. We were talking a few days ago about televisions and how low-powered some of the flat-screen TVs are. In the Auchan I had a look at some of them and found a big cheap €275 flat-screen TV that is rated at 40 watts (that means it probably draws half that) and runs off 12-volt DC.

Now how much current does a DVD player draw?

At the Bio shop in Montlucon I bumped into Kate. Haven’t seen her for ages. She tells me that at the end of the month she is going back to the UK. Had enough of the quiet life, she says. It’s 10 years since she was last in the UK and so she will notice quite a difference. It won’t be long before she’ll be back.

But there are a lot of Brits returning to the UK just now. Financial issues play a big part in it. When I first came to the mainland the Pound was getting about 11 French Francs (I can even remember it being as high as 13) but with no raw materials for prime industry and no manufacturing industry to make use of the raw materials the Pound is at the mercy of world markets and it’s been taking a right hammering as the Arabs fight back against the west.

Whenever the West or the Zionists do something nasty to the Arabs the Arabs smile inscrutably and triple the price of oil. All the money then flows to the Middle East where they spend some of it on these new cities like Doha and so on, and the rest is then flooded into the banks of a country of their choice. The banks, awash with cash and needing to generate the interest to pay the Arab depositors, lend it out on increasingly high-risk ventures that return the most interest.

When all the money is actively engaged, the Arabs then ask for it back. The banks need to attract more money from elsewhere to replace the money the Arabs want back so they have to offer higher interest rates, the loan repayments thus go up, people can’t afford to repay, the banks foreclose and find themselves with a load of valueless assets and the economy goes tits-up.

This is 21st Century warfare and you can all see just how effective it has been. The West and the Zionists are still fighting a 19th Century war (and hopelessly losing, but that’s another matter entirely. What odds would you have had on Hamas smashing the Zionist farces a couple of years ago?) and they do it every time and they don’t learn from the previous encounters.

Anyone remember the turmoil of 1992? And the collapse of the western economies and the 3-day week in 1973 just after the Yom Kippur War?

And here the West is, threatening Iran. The economy hasn’t recovered from the most recent crisis yet. What will happen when oil triples in price next time?

So all of these expats are retreating to the UK because their money isn’t going as far as it used to in Europe. But what they haven’t realised is that it’s Europe where things are much more stable and it’s the UK where the economy has collapsed, and they are confronted with what for them has been rampant inflation in the UK over the last few years.

When I left the UK I always fuelled up at Dover as fuel was 2/3rd the price than on the mainland. Now it’s the other way round – everyone fuels up at Calais. And it’s the same for most other products too.

House prices are now starting to return to their previously extortionate levels in the UK and as most of the ex-pats sold their houses to fuel their new lives abroad, where are they going to live if they go back?

-8

Friday 2nd October 2009 – This is another photo…

… that was taken at some silly time of the evening – like 19:16 if the timestamp is to be believed.

The tongue and grooving is coming along famously but it’s just so slow. I’ve done less than a third and my 2-day timespan for this is now expired. Still, if national governments can be overdue and over-budget then so can I.

All of the lengths are different so each piece needs to be cut individually. I’m glad I bought the Ryobi circular saw as that it what is doing the bulk of the work. But some of this t&g is total carp – knots missing and all that kind of thing.

When it’s done it’s going to be varnished in clear lacquer. I like untreated wood but it’s not realistic in this kind of environment to keep it untreated.

Tomorrow is shopping day. 3 sheets of plasterboard, a sheet of 10mm plywood, some skirting board and some architraving and that will be about it. The glass I need will have to wait until next weekend when I pick up the furniture. I’m picking up the woodstove on Sunday too.That will be exciting.

And another early night for me.

-1

Thursday 1st October 2009 – You can’t really tell from this image …

… how late it was when I finished work, because I’ve lightened it considerably. But the timestamp says 19:26 and the only reason I stopped then was because the light had given out and I could no longer see what I was doing.

The tongue and grooving is coming on fine but I reckon I was somewhat over-optimistic about allocating 2 days for it. A week is probably a better bet. I’ve been fitting battens on the ceiling 60omm apart and fitting 40mm insulation inbetween the battens and then nailing the t&g on top of the battens.

It helps having a “standard” – a piece of wood cut to size so that you can instantly size up the gaps. I’ve been using 2 standards in the attic, a 600mm (the width of a sheet of polystyrene insulation) and a 1195mm (width of a sheet of plasterboard). But because of the undulating walls and beams, each strip of t&g has to be cut individually. You can’t set up a pattern and chop a dozen off with the chopsaw.

There’s probably a lot more I wanted to say but I’m exhausted again and going to bed. I dunno what’s the matter with me recently. Gone are the days when I used to be still up and working at 03:00.

-3

Wednesday 30th September 2009 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… here’s a photo of the room taken in the other direction. You can see that the plasterboards have been strapped together and I’ve filled over the joins. I’m not going to go a-poncing just yet, though. I’m going to leave it awhile to set thoroughly and for tomorrow and Friday I’ll be putting the tongue and grooving up on the ceiling.

That’ll take me quite nicely through to the weekend when I will be buying the plain plasterboard and a sheet of 10mm hardboard, and that will be everything for the room, I reckon.

I was under the impression that this strapping that you use for binding the plasterboards together was adhesive – that’s what it says on the label. But it certainly wasn’t as far as I am concerned. It would have been much easier had it so been.

And in other news, just look at this. I’ve been out of education for a year now and I’m feeling rather bored. I could do with some mental stimulation. Many of you know that I have something of an interest in the Dark Ages (although that era wasn’t as dark as you have been led to believe) and although I’m a proto-Briton, I could well be interested in this course. I have already put enquiries into motion. I’m really looking forward to the fieldwork too. It’s a long time since I’ve been involved in any raping, looting and pillaging …“you graduated from the Open University in 2008”- ed

But never mind the fact that it’s studying with Oxford University, have you seen the price? An equivalent course with the OU would cost the best part of £500 these days and so £180 has to be good value in anybody’s money.

And I’ll tell you another thing too – have you noticed the pricing structure? It makes a total mockery of the OU’s system and shows up the OU for what it stands for – simply treating EU students as cash cows and milking them of however much money they can get.

European students have been deserting the OU by the thousand since the new pricing structure came into force. I certainly can’t afford to continue my studies there. But at this price, if it sustains I’ll be here at Oxford with a vengeance.

-3

Tuesday 29th September 2009 – I’VE FINISHED PLASTERBOARDING …

… the outside walls to my room now. Even the two patches around the far window have been done.

Well, not quite. There’s a sliver of an offcut needed for one corner but I have that ready, and then there’s the corner that you can see, where I need to think about the cabling.

One thing I didn’t think about though was the wiring at this end of the room. I forgot to make allowances for where it has to go. But never mind, there’s another option or two about that and I’ll just have to use one of those.

That cassette player I bought on Saturday – it’s been filed under “B”. The reason is that it’s playing slow. Not by much, but by sufficient to annoy me. What I’ve done for now is to bring into the house the hi-fi from the barn. This consists of a cheap mp3 player and a pair of computer speakers and it’s quite adequate for my needs. I can’t work without music – it makes the time go quicker and helps me to relax.

The only drawback is that the speakers are 9-volt. I’m trying my best to standardise everything and if I can’t run things on 12 volt I want to run them on 6-volt. I have a set of 6-volt speakers but only one channel is working. I’ll have to see if I can fix it, or else look for another pair of 6-volt speakers at a brocante.

But I think that I’m going to have to come to terms with the fact that audio cassettes is a dying technology, and I shall have to move with the times.

This is the pic that you should have seen yesterday. You can see the stud wall that I’ve finished off now, and all of the plasterboard done down in that corner (except for the tiny sliver that is missing).

Tomorrow I’ll be starting to filling and taping the gaps between all of the boards. I want to do this as quickly as possible as I’m dying to get poncing. When that’s done I can set about fitting the tongue-and-grooving.

In other news, the Open University Students Association Executive Committee has been stung into action by my justified criticism the other day. Members of that august body, in an effort to engage with a much wider audience, have been taking part in some of these reality TV programmes. Andy Pandy, having been well-coached by his friend Teddy, has entered “Come Dancing” as he is one of the few people who can actually do that, but it all went horribly wrong when Pol Pot’s Sibling (who doesn’t feature in these pages half as often as he or she deserves) was eaten by the other contestants during the “Bush Tucker Challenge”.

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EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality