Tag Archives: Turdi de Hatred

Sunday 16th February 2014 – SUNDAY AGAIN …

… and so in accordance with principles laid down for a long time, I had a nice lie-in (until 09:45) and since then I haven’t done a tap of work.

That is, I finished the radio programmes that I started yesterday, and then carried on rearranging my file storage system, and you’ll be amazed at how much room I’ve freed off on the external drives and there’s still plenty to go at yet.

Apart from that, I left the house just three times – twice to fetch water and once to fetch some wood. And that was that.

It wasn’t like that during the night though.

I was on the western seaboard of the USA and I got to hear about a safe that was being installed in a house so that the owner could put all of his valuables in there. I waited just until the safe was inaugurated and then went round there armed with a 3-metre length of 27mmx27mm lath (I’ve a few of those here as it happens). I attacked the safe installer with the piece of wood and I shot the householder, then made my escape with the loot.

Outside the house was a car with three people – 2 women and one man – who were waiting for me. I hopped into the car and said “where to?”, to which one of the women replied “Green Bay, Wisconsin” (home of the Packers as it happens).

Howeverwe were being picked off one by one by the Police and eventually there was just me, on foot, at the border between the USA and Mexico. I crossed into Mexico, and as I walked through the little fenced alley in no-man’s land (or “no-person’s land” as the legendary Turdi de Hatred once called it) I was admiring a llama grazing in a field. At the Mexican border I was admitted but the young Border Immigration officer wouldn’t stamp my passport. He said that just for a day visit it wasn’t necesary. However I insisted, saying that it would be a useful indication of my presence as well as being a nice souvenir of my visit and eventually he agreed to stamp it.

But why does all of the excitement happen through the night?

-3

Monday 30th August 2010 – No photo tonight people.

That’s because I forgot to take one, and probably there wasn’t anything worth photographing anyway. But what a day it was!

This morning started with the website. I’m trying to bring August 2010 right up to date and then that will be all the arrears sorted out and I can move on to doing some new stuff. I’ve not had the opportunity to do anything to it properly for over a year.

So when the battery went flat I went outside to try to sort myself out a wheelbarrow. The Caliburn-coloured one won’t be going anywhere for a bit. It was okay until a huge pile of slates from the house roof landed in it from a great height last year and that blew the tubeless tyre off the beading and try as I might I can’t get it to go back. So into the barn to look for the B&Q wheelbarrow that is in pieces and I eventually tracked all of the pieces down, despite doing a good deal of tidying up … “Aren’t you feeling well?” – ed … and discovering more things I never even knew that I had.

That inner tube is perished and the two tubes that Claude gave me – so are they and so that was that. I’ll have to bite the bullet and get some wheels or tubes the next time the lorry comes round, or see what there is on ebay.

This afternoon I played a round of the French national sport of “here we go round the mulberry bush” trying to get a Social Security number. Seven different numbers I was given, and seven different people I spoke to until I finally found someone who could help me with this. Apparently I need to produce a birth certificate giving not only the details about myself but also the details about my parents.

Now many people reading this blog, especially Turdi de Hatred and everyone else from OUSA, will be wondering how I will be able to find out the details of my father, and they would be surprised at how close they might be to the truth.

But having said all of this I can understand why it is that so many people in France work on the Black Economy. It’s not that they have any lack of goodwill, it’s just that they get totally fed up of this absurd and relentless paper chase and I can’t say I blame them as I was pretty fed up by this time too and ready to renounce my registration and do it all stumeling, as they say in Flanders.

And the best is yet to come. I need to change my driving licence over to a French one so I rang the sous-prefecture. They told me that I can’t do it there but at the prefecture in Clermont Ferrand. They gave me the number but told me not to ring as apparently the guy doesn’t answer his phone in the afternoon. And do you know what? They were dead right too.

It’s not surprising that no-one ever does any business around here.

I mentioned Turdi de Hatred just now, and that reminded me. When I was at the brocante yesterday I came across a video entitled Return Of The Living Dead. You know, I had no idea that anyone had filmed her reading out the Open University Students Association election results.

So after my marathon session on the phone I went into the garden and sorted out the veg for tea – a veggie burger with onions and garlic, and with spuds, carrots, beans, spinach, sage, rosemary and mint from my garden. Beautiful it was too.

But the meal is in the future. While the veg was soaking itself I mixed a bucket of mortar and started on the pointing of the house wall in the lean-to. High time I did that so I can put the lean-to roof on again. But it’s going to take me forever I reckon. It doesn’t go as quick as you like it and you might remember what happens if you take the cheating way out and just crepi it to hide the gaps. There’s a pic of the results of that on this blog from a few weeks ago.

When the bucket was empty and it was 17:40 – not worth mixing another – I went to chop some wood. An after a little while I rediscovered the branch cutter that had seized up and stopped working. Now that I have a workbench and a place to work I stripped it down to look at it and sure enough there was a bolt that was badly worn that was distorting the cutting angle. So I swapped it round with a less-important bolt from another part of the machine, cleaned and greased it, and now that’s that fixed.

My day isn’t finished yet either! Bernard from the footy club rang up. Apparently my name is now on the referees’ list for the forthcoming season and so he gave me the telephone number of the sports outfitters who supply the club, and told me to order what I need in the way of referee’s clobber.

No wonder I’m knackered after all of this!

-3

Sunday 14th February 2010 – We’ve still got tons of snow …

… even if nothing much has fallen within the last 24 hours. I only had to breathe on the solar panels and the light scattering of snow blew away. Hot stuff am I, what?

So after a … errr … leisurely breakfast I came back up here and swotted up on French building permits and so on. I can tell you everything that there is to know about it – including the fact that I can erect a statue of 11.99 metres height and 39.99 cubic metres volume in my garden without planning permission! Dunno about you but my imagination is working overtime. Just think of it – Turdi de Hatred, Caligula and Her Horse, Pol Pot’s Sibling, Andy Pandy and Aunt Ada Doom (and whatsisname that she saw in the woodshed) 11.99 metres high and right next to the beichstuhl! I could have hours of endless fun with all of that.

Works of art are also covered by that exemption and that gives me enormous scope. When you think of Tracey Eminem’s unmade bed being exhibited at the Hate Gallery I’m sure that my verandah and its contents would be covered by this. And when you think that the disorder that I can create even in an empty room, well just imagine it – “no, this object 11.99 metres high and 39.99 cubic metres volume is not a new house – it’s next year’s hot favourite for the Turnip Prize!” In any case, anything that I ever build is certainly a work of art and people come from miles around to gaze in bewilderment at my efforts.

This afternoon I went down to Liz and Terry’s to discuss this programme. Julie should have come with me (she’s our first guest) but she’s snowed (or rather iced) in. This is one of the perils that you have to risk when you buy a house by a bridge alongside a river – the only way out is upwards and with the gorges around here being so steep, if they don’t grit the roads then you are stuck.

So I went on my own instead – but not that I minded, it just meant more vegan fruit cake for me! Down to Pionsat was … errr … interesting but the D227 between Pionsat and St Gervais was clear even over the Font Nanaud. From St Gervais to Liz and Terry’s was also exciting.

So having done what we could I came back. And that was even more exciting as it was trying to snow down there. But I encountered two snowplough-gritters so they are taking it seriously for Monday morning’s commuter traffic. It’s also forecast bright sunny weather too for tomorrow but as you know I have my suspicions about that kind of thing.

And Claude’s removal is postponed again. His son never came up and so nothing has been packed. They’ll be running out of time at this rate.

-4

Wednesday 10th February 2010 – I’m cracking on …

upright stud wall stair cupboard plasterboard insulation les guis virlet puy de dome france… with my cupboard at the back of the stairs. If you look closely you can see that as well as plasterboard all round, it has a ceiling and a light. The ceiling is of course tongue-and-grooving for several reasons namely
1) it hides the polystyrene insulation stuffed between the joists
2) it’s easy to fix when you are on your own and there’s no-one to hold up the plasterboard while you screw or nail it
3) I have plenty of it lying around and I’m rather short on plasterboard.

The light is a recessed fitting (it needs a 40mm hole) with an MR16 fitting – in other words a 12-volt capless halogen fitting. But as keen readers of these pages will know, LIDL sells 12-volt LED lights with MR16 fittings. And at 1.2 watts per bulb and they don’t half chuck out the light I shall be using them. It’s not wired in to my circuit as yet and it won’t be for a while but at least it will be in position once Ive varnished the t&g.

So that’s tomorrow’s job and it will be followed by me tidying up a little (yes, Terry) and then starting on plasterboarding the false wall that I’ve built. But I shan’t be starting that right at the wall. If you look at the horizontal, you’ll see that it has a let cut into it. That’s where I’ll be putting the framework for the fitted wardrobe. That part of the wall will be done in hardboard. I’m going to have a fitted wardrobe right across the back wall in the bedroom.

In other news, I’ve received something of a communication that has caused my eyes to pop out and I’ve had to re-read it half a dozen times. There’s definitely something weird going on. It seems that one member of the Executive Committee (probably the only one as it appears that over this last few weeks all of the others have resigned due to not being “given” the posts that they wanted in the forthcoming reshuffle or something like that) has offered to host the OUSA website.

Now won’t that be exciting?

I’ve had personal experience of this web hosting, as followers of my blog will recall in graphic detail. It’s probably useful to recall them –
1) regular and relentless changing of server hosting causing all of my stored e-mails and my address books to disappear into cyberspace every year.
2) arbitrary deletion of files by the “I have never been in favour of censorship” manager of the hosting company because she doesn’t like the content
3) The webhosting manager proudly announcing “you have any information that the others won’t publish? Send it to us and we’ll publish it – we’re not afraid” and then caving in at the first attack.
4) arbitrary suspension of the website simply “to attract my attention”.
5) sending out bills for renewal and then deleting the mail during a server change before it’s had time to be opened and read – and then deleting the website without notice because the bill hasnt been paid.

The of course there was the incident back in the Spring of 2006 when the “I do object to unfounded allegations of stalking” above webhosting manager posted the personal details of a website holder (thankfully not mine) into a public forum to which 200,000 people had access.

I could go on. And on. And on “not with a bayonet through your neck you couldn’t” – ed.

But that’s not the best bit. Back in November this particular webhost suddenly announced that it was closing its doors. And in a subsequent phone call I was told “I no longer have the technical expertise to deal with the problems that arise so I’m closing down and passing all of my work on to someone who is more technically-capable“

So how come this particular technically-challenged ex-webhost is offering to host the OUSA website? It sounds like a recipe for total disaster if you ask me.

OUSA should feel right at home.

Unless of course I am reading this report totally wrongly.

Or unless someone is telling me a huge pack of porky-pies.

But then nothing surprises me any more. I recall the particular incident when X’s details were posted in a public forum and he was simultaneously accused of all kinds of things (simultaneously of course, his “rival” for an elected position was being wined and dined and “offered accomodation” by the Returning Officer in the election but that is of course by the way). I asked the person concerned in leaking this information why she was doing it.
“It’s called ‘negative campaigning‘” she replied. “We’ll do anything to stop him being elected“. (Yes, I have all of my hard drives from 1999 here now).

And so he duly wasn’t elected and OUSA chose in his place a convicted pedophile to lead the organisation. That was one campaign that backfired a little, didnt it? Or maybe that might have been the aim. Anything is possible in OUSA.

But then again we fast-forward to 2009. Due to one thing and another, X is sumoned before a disciplinary hearing. And guess who volunteers to chair it? Absolutely! Never mind “prior knowledge” – never mind “parti pris” the world’s favourite webhost gets the job.

And I wonder if you can guess what the disciplinary committee decides?

Dead right. Candidate X “shall not be eligible to stand for any elected post within OUSA…” . I bet you never would have guessed it, would you?

And in other other news it’s snowing like hell outside. I’m prepared for another seige.

-6

Monday 9th November 2009 – Today has set an all-time new record …

… of electricity generated around here with my solar panels.

I started keeping statistics back in August 2007 and I can safely say that today is the first-ever day since then that a total of ZERO amp-hours has been generated. I’ve had days where I’ve had 0.2 and 0.3 amp-hours, that kind of thing, but never a day with zero.

But a look at the temperature senders in the heat exchanger, the greenhouse and the cloche will tell you why. Maximum temperature was 5.0 – minimum was 3.5. Yes, we had absolutely no sun at all so the temperature never rose by anything worth recording, and there was so much cloud cover that there was no radiation back into the atmosphere once it went dark.

You’ve seen photos in the past of the Gorges of the Sioule with the low cloud hanging around in the gorge. Today was one of those days where the low cloud was all over the Combrailles and just hanging around, stationary, with not even a breath of air to move it on. It’s just like a heavy, clogging mist or fog. We get plenty of those in late autumn and winter but today’s was a special one.

Another record was set at the Anglo-French group this evening where just three of us turned up. Bill, Mark and Yours Truly. Hardly surprising as I could hardly see my hand in front of my face for much of the drive to St Gervais.

I stayed in today – doing a little bit of desultory moving, writing up my footy notes and talking to Rhys on the computer. Rhys is having “issues” with someone on a photography forum who is posting comments that can only be described as “unpleasant” – and that’s an understatement. The aforementioned poster is stalking Rhys in cyberspace, which is a pretty unpleasant thing to do.

The internet is a magnificent tool that has opened up whole new horizons for many people, and given many people a platform to air their views – a platform that simply wasn’t available in their former lives. It’s a sad fact that many people simply didn’t have a life back in the technological stone age but the internet has given them a whole new outlook. On the internet you can be whoever you want to be – superhero, cybervillain – and “no-one knows that you’re a dog”. Most people can handle themselves quite correctly in the new form of media but it’s sad to relate that there are always a few people whose existence to date has been so depressing that the internet has brought out the worst side of their characters. People who are so oppressed and depressed in real life that they cloak their inadequacies and the like by becoming over-aggressive on the ‘net – purely and simply because they know that they won’t get their teeth kicked in and that they have a large and wide-ranging audience.

It’s a maxim that if you wouldn’t say something to anyone to their face, then you shouldn’t say it on the internet. Not abiding by those rules is simply the worst form of cowardice. You might be wondering why it is then that I say so much about other people on here. The fact is, of course, that I’ll quite happily say it to their faces and be proud of it. I do recall the time that I was summoned to appear before Turdi de Hatred and Lisa arson back in January 2008 – which regular readers of my outpourings in its previous existence might remember. I took along Liz Ayers to hold my coat and we will both remember how the interview opened.
“Although there is no statutory obligation to do so, we are allowing you to bring a friend as we don’t want you to feel intimidated” said Turdi.
I turned to Liz and noticed that she was absolutely p155ing herself with laughter.
“Don’t laugh, Liz” I urged. “This is deadly serious. We both know a girl (called Seanalee as it happens) who is frightened to death of clowns“.
To this day, and probably to my dying day, I still do not know how they failed to notice the dictaphone that I put on the desk.

-5

Wednesday 28th October 2009 – One thing that you need to understand …

… when you read my adventures is that I never ever make any mistakes. What I do is that I learn a lot, and sometimes learning can be expensive. In the olden days in the Wild West (yesterday in South Carolina, Rhys) greenhorns were continually being cheated at cards by people called “Doc”, and whenever anyone ever said anything, the response always was “you have to pay to learn“.

And so it is with house renovations.

And having got the preamble out of the way, let us now discuss the woodstove.

I lined the base with damp sand as required, and assembled a fire inside. “You need a 6x6x6″ fire, and be careful that it does not touch the sides“. How you do this when you have a fire that is 5.5×5.5×5.5” no-one actually said. But anyway I did my best and it toook ages to get going, but I slowly warmed it up. And when I was happy that it was burning I started on the grouting of the bricks I laid the other day (much more useful that laying eggs, I can tell you)

Halfway through the grouting the phone rang, so I opened the door to climb down the ladder to the phone, and “Blimmin’ ‘eck!” You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face with the smoke, and the fumes were overpowering. All through the house, even in my little room, was a pall of black smoke. I was appalled. as was the smoke.

Normally I would expect that the hot air would rise up the stovepipe and carry the soot and ash with it. When they burst out into the chimney the hot air would rise creating a current of air from the chimneys below, which would pull up the soot and ash. But not a bit of it. The soot and ash had descended in the chimney and come out at the bottom. So much for free circulation. And so much for the woodstove too.

I was toying with the idea of lining the chimney and putting the stovepipe all the way up to the outside, and I wish I had done it now. I can’t get the pipe in now that I’ve done the walls and so basically the woodstove will have to be put on hold while I think about this.

It’s not the end of the world though as I have the bottled gas heater, but I was hoping to get away from fossil fuels and go for a more natural source. What is going to be a major problem is that if the soot and ash can get from the attic to the living room it can also do the return journey when I light the fire down here. And that will be “an issue”.

what i saw downstairs when I lit the wood stove
Today’s image is entitled “What I saw when I opened the door”.

On the phone, as it happened, was a member of OUSA’s Executive Committee who wanted a chat. Of course I shan’t name names as talking to me is punishable by a “visit” from Pol Pot’s sibling, a whine from Caligula and her horse, and a thorough dressing-down from Turdi de Hatred (not to mention a thorough dressing up, in fairy boots if I remember correctly, by Lee “I’m a prostitute” Potty-mouth. But I digress – something that you ought to be used to by now)

I’ve now done all the grouting and the filling, and I started poncing (But not in fairy boots) this evening. Tomorrow will be finishing off the poncing, cleaning up the room and making a start on the wallpapering. D-Day is getting closer.

-5

Friday 16th October 2009 – And while I have something vaguely resembling an internet connection …

electricity 12 volt domestic circuit wiring atticI’ll post Friday’s pic.

There I was, fiddling around with this perishing beading that never seems to want to go on where I want to put it, and suddenly I had a horrible thought.

Next weekend is, I reckon, the last weekend in October. And the clocks go back and although I gain an extra hour in bed, I lose an hour’s light. And it’s already getting dark far too early for my liking. Time to cut my losses and go with what I’ve got and get myself in there.

So b*****ks to the beading and I’ve started on the definitive wiring. On the back wall is, from left to right, a British 13-amp double socket (for mains voltage – I prefer them as the plugs are fused), an American 110-volt double socket (which I use for my 12-volt circuits as they are designed for hefty cable) and a British 5-amp single socket – which I’ll be using for a small 6-volt circuit seeing as I have a pile of 6-volt stuff.

Round the corner are the light switches – one bank of 2 for the 12-volt lights and a single one for the 230-volt lights, then another bank of American and British sockets, and a telephone socket. I now have 12-volt power into the room and if you look carefully you can see the mp3 player that is my hi-fi (connected to a pair of powered computer speakers) and a table lamp that’s actually working.

So downstairs and put my feet up, and no perishing internet. And no telephone either. The whole circuit is down. So use the mobile phone to dial up the repair service and “sorry, you cannot access this number from a mobile phone. Please use your landline to report the fault, or consult our website”. Someone should tell them that this is France, not Ireland!

So I dashed down to the local hotel-cum-bar-cum-restaurant-cum-meeting place …“that’s a lot of cum” – ed … to find out that it doesn’t open on Friday nights, Saturdays or Sundays. It’s also closed for holidays during August – what kind of way is that to run a business? But that’s another story.

In the end Liz very kindly reported the fault (it’s a general collapse of the Virlet exchange and everyone is cut off) and she posted a note on the blog to calm my eager readers. And consequently my mailbox is swamped with mails of goodwill, which is extremely nice.

There’s even a mail from a member of the OUSA Executive Committee – who shall remain nameless as reading my blog is punishable by death. “Hurry up and get back on line. We look forward to your pithy comments. All we have to read at the moment is this circular from Turdi de Hatred. Your postings are like shafts of wit. Hers are .. errr …. well, quite!”

-4

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.
fcpsh fc pionsat st hilare football club de foot pontaumurThere 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.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire pontaumurBut 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

Tuesday 15th September 2009 – IF YOU COMPARE THIS PIC …

attic wall plasterboard les guis virlet puy de dome france… to the pic of yesterday you will notice a change. In fact I’ve started to add the plasterboard to the walls.

First thing in the morning I finished off the battens and then set up a workstation outside with everything I need to measure and cut the plasterboard. I’ve been cutting it into manageable sizes and so although it looks like a patchwork quilt I can’t see any other way of getting it into the attic by way of the ladder that I’m using.

plasterboard attic wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceTerry recommended glueing the plasterboard to the battens but it was a hell of a job getting the polystyrene to stick. It wasn’t possible to put the pressure on at the right places and it kept on springing off. I held it on with some speed clamps but that didn’t work and so I tacked them on with nails – and then I thought “badger this for a game of soldiers. If I’m using nails I may as well nail the boards to the battens and forget about the glue”.

It’s not very pretty but I’m going to have to use filler anyway in the joints so mixing more filler to fill the nail heads is neither here nor there. It’s still going to be quicker than waiting for the glue to dry on each individual panel.

Claude poked his head in and had a look – and he’s quite impressed. The last time he was here we hadn’t finished the roof tiling. That was a month ago and doesn’t that seem like a long time ago? We had sun in those days – not like today. I had to put a jumper on as the temperature has now plummeted. In a valiant attempt not to light the heating, I now have a fleece jacket on as well. The first frost of the autumn can’t be far away.

In other news, at the Anglo-French group yesterday I was working with Antoine Ged. He’s the former postmaster (now retired) and his English is surprisingly good. He lent me a book to read – entitled Managing in Turbulent Times. This is another one of the Alvin Tofler – The Third Wave kind of books that were written 30 years ago forecasting how the world would look at the turn of the 21st Century. And while many predictions were totally wide of the mark, many others were surprisingly, if not astonishingly accurate.

In one chapter on the subversion of democracies, Drucker (the author of “Turbulent Times”) writes
“such a process (of subverting democracy) is doubly important …in which small, single-minded, often paranoid groups have attained a power out of all proportion to their actual size”
Now I bet you any money that many people are waiting for me to make a nasty and cheap crack about an organisation that many of us know and love. But not a bit of it. May I draw your attention to the key word in the quote from Drucker – a word that has as its middle two letters “NG” and not “MP” and so it can’t possibly apply.

But of course the Open University Students’ Association Executive Committee does in fact speak with a single mind (except when the OUSA President crawls out of her sick bed at the Annual Conference to oppose a motion in respect of which the rest of the Executive Committee is speaking in favour – but more of this anon) but that single (“do you mean “simple?” – ed) mind does not belong to any of the elected members of the committee.

No more graphic example of this that the one that was reported to me by one of my moles on various committees – taking a well-earned break from all kinds of activities at the last Annual Conference – who happened to be present when the much-maligned Turdi de Hatred very generously invited the members of the retiring Executive Committee to dinner at the University canteen.
The waitress approached the table at which Turdi and the members of the committee were sitting and asked
“is madam ready to order?”
“I’ll have the steak!” announced Turdi
“And the vegetables?”
“They’ll have the steak too!”

-2

Wednesday 9th September 2009 – IF ANYONE MENTIONS "PADDED CELLS" THEY WILL BE DISQUALIFIED;

counter battens wall space blanket insulation attic les guis virlet puy de dome franceI’ve fitted the insulation and the counter-battens on the far wall, and insulation to half of the two side walls as you can see.

If you look closely you will see that I’ve started to lay the flooring and install the wiring for the power sockets that I’ll be fitting.

But it’s blasted slow going and I’ve no idea why. I was up there working until 19:30 today yet you would never tell. I reckon it’s going to take at least a week longer than planned to get this room finished.

attic space blanket wall insulation counter battens les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Remember that there is no door or wall to the stairwell and that there is no floor to the room either. Yet the temperature in the attic reached 27.5 degrees – a full degree higher than in my room and a record temperature, whilst even as I speak, at 00:18, the temperature up there is 23.2 degrees.

Tomorrow I’m having another day off – helping Terry with his woodpile. He had a lorry-load (and I mean 35 tonnes or thereabouts) delivered and although he and Liz have moved a good deal of it there’s still plenty of heavy stuff that needs to go. There was some mention of vegan chocolate cake, and as you know, that would entice me away from just about anything else, even Kate Bush.

In other news, I see that Caligula and her horse are actually calling for volunteers to sit on a couple of panels – one to help students with visual impairments and one to look at the role of students under OUSA Sutures. You may well be wondering what on earth Caligula and her horse are doing calling for volunteers – it’s not the norm for anyone on the Executive Committee to be interested in the opinions of the students.

It’s probably due to the right sandbagging that one of the previous committees received over the idea that they wouldn’t be interested in nominating a student voice for a committee to consider … er … student support (you really couldn’t make this up, you know – even the OU’s hierarchy couldn’t believe it – never mind the students).

But don’t be misled into thinking that any opinion voiced by any student is going to be of any interest to Caligula and her horse. There was this very ephemeral discussion group called “OUSA Consultations” where students were encouraged to publish their views on OUSA and the Executive Committee. One student wrote “load of crap” (well, he or she didn’t, but that was the gist of his or her message) and Caligula and her horse were so impressed by this remarkable display of honesty that she banned the poster from the airwaves for a month. Such is the manner in which dissent is dealt with in OUSA. Even Pol Pot would be impressed with that.

But the interesting point about this committee to look at OUSA Sutures is that it is charged to “consider the role that OUSA will play in the future“. You don’t need a committee to sit and consider this. I can tell you the answer right now without leaving my seat – and that is “bugger all”.

As long as OUSA has Caligula and her horse in charge, aided and abetted by your friend and mine Turdi de Hatred, OUSA will do as the OU tells it and likes it. Not a single member of the committee has the b@ll$ to stand up to the University and tell it to p155 off. Someone needs to be reminded that it is the students who are the customers and they are the people in the chair – they are the ones with the dosh.

The University exists to support the students, not the other way round, and it should therefore be the students – not the hide-bound chairborne wonders – who should be calling the shots. When are the students going to elect delegates with courage instead of this rabble?

But even more interesting is that OUSA Sutures has been on the cards now for well over two years, and OUSA has now reached the stage where we are going to have a committee to look at the implications.

And only after two and a bit years. Rip van Winkle, eat your heart out!

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Thursday 27th August 2009 – WORK ON THE ATTIC …

fitting of chimney tube into wall les guis virlet puy de dome france… has started in earnest this morning. And in fact if I had been able to find my heavy bolster chisel when I started to look for it instead of having to search for two (yes, two) hours to find it, I would have started this morning.

I’ve whacked a huge hole in the wall that took me through into the chimney, and I’ve passed in a piece of enamel piping 125mm in diameter. This is the outlet for the woodstove that I will be putting up here for the winter to keep me warm memo – buy a woodstove.

I then mixed a huge bucket full of cement and cemented up the hole around the pipe and filled in the cracks that were in the wall. when I finished that, it was 18:00 to the second, so I knocked off. Not like last night where I was so carried away by enthusiasm that I was still working at 19:15 when I noticed the time.

You can always tell when I’m absorbed in an interesting job by how late it is when I knock off.

12 volt LED lightbulbs les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis morning I went chaud-pied to St Eloy to get the LED lights. And, major disappointment, they only had 7 GU10s, 7 MR16s and 6 E14s.

Needless to say, after I had left they didn’t have any at all.

They also had a few cans of the wood treatment that I like (albeit increased in price to 8.99 instead of 7.99) and they are two tins lighter of that stuff now too. It’s very good stuff, this LIDL wood treatment.

I went to Pionsat afterwards to pick up my new bank card and to empty the chemical toilet when I get the time, get the new improved beichstuhl up and running.

While I was emptying the toilet, a woman came in to use the facilities. She made about half a pace in, grabbed her nose, said “God, it stinks in here” and piddled off, giving me a huge grimace. And that took me completely by surprise – I had thought my chemical toilet was known the whole world over by now.

And back home, while looking for the bolster chisel I measured up everything that I’m going to need to do my room. It’s going to stretch my budget considerably but then again, comfort has its price but it is its own reward.

And talking of cracks, an ugly crack appeared on the wall of the OUSA office the other day. But Als Ryan had it papered over before Turdi de Hatred could read it.

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