'DIY Duke'

Most homes in London are fairly old. In the suburbs, you are looking at builds approaching 80 years old. The place which I call home is in its sixties. At this age, repairs become an inevitability. Not only are the houses old, but the ad-hoc way in which extensions, garages and conservatories have been added to many dwellings in London means that when things break, they do not do so in a logical order.

Well, here is the latest example of my handywork around the house, my attempt to save cash and repair bits and pieces:



Let me explain. We have two toilets. One inside the house (upstairs) and one in the extension (ground floor). This is from the downstair loo, installed a few years ago when we refurbished the extension. What was only a utility room, housing the fridge, washing machine and dishwasher became a bit more funky and got a new shower and toilet installed. The poor tumble dryer (rarely used) got dumped in the garage. It is still rarely used, hence its now unglamorous location.

But back to the toilet. A couple of weeks ago a leak sprang up from the mains pipe. So I duly isolated the supply and we have been struggling on one toilet since then, while I figured out a way to fix the leak.

So, I isolated the pipe and took it apart. There was no urgency as I said, because we have two toilets, plus this loo could be disconnected from the water without shutting off the whole house.

The next bit is complex. Bear with me. Connecting the mains supply to the cistern was a simple 90 degree pipe coupling. The name may be wrong, but it looked something like this

Unfortunately, it was a really tight fit. And the washers in the coupling had worn away. This was the second time this had happened. We had called in the plumber a couple of years ago to fix this, but these parts should not wear away in two years. So I investigated, and begun to put two and two together. I may have come up with five, but I figured this out...

We have had really cold weather. Being in the extension, this bathroom is not as well insulated as the rest of the house. And being a very tight fit, the coupling had expanded and contracted more dramatically than the other pipes in the house. Hence the worn washers and the leak.

So, I decided to re-do the pipe. I opted for plastic piping, as it is a lot easier to manipulate (push and pull joints) plus the connecting mains supply is a bunch of plastic piping. And I sent the pipes on a maze through the toilet, as you can see in the pic above. This was to give the piping room to expand and contract in extreme weather. Finally I connected the extended mains pipe and the cistern via a flexible hose. This was to make the awkward angle easier to reach. I probably spent more on materials than I needed to (around £50, including a pipe cutter) and spent far too much time at DIY stores than was necessary, but I fixed the bugger, by myself!

This morning, I connected it to the mains supply and voila! It worked, no leaks between the joints and we are back to being a two toilet household.

And I saved a fortune (probably £200) compared to what a plumber would have cost. Life is good! Victory is mine!

The demise of the item number...

I love watching a good Indian flick and there is nothing like a Bollywood number to get your spirits lifted. But, ah yes, the but, there is something amiss with many of these songs coming out. They are short. All right, the demise of the six minute blast to the 3 minute blip is probably evidence of creeping western (American) influence, but one thing I miss is the video.

You see, a Bollywood song is meant to have colour, dancer and extravagance. Of course a six minute song allowed this, but even with a three minute repetitive jingle/tune, there is still time for a decent piece of choreography. Well, no longer. Instead, now when you flick onto B4U or some other Indian music channel, you get lame videos. And not really videos, but more like a 90 second trailer that features the chorus and maybe one verse with the words 'coming soon' burned as subtitles into the video.

You know what, I could actually put up with that. But the videos themselves are crap. No more colours or extravagance. No more beautifully choreographed moves reflecting centuries of tradition. No more convoluted plots of boy meets girl. Hey, why bother with the plot. Now a typical, 'modern', 'hip' Bollywood video is something like this:

Gimpy Boy and Facelifted anorexic pasty looking chick (with distorted breasts) go to club. Girl is savvy and wild, boy acts like an even bigger gimp. Lots of flashing lights, drinks sprayed onto girl's body (phallic) and people having 'fun'.

If I wanted to see that, I could go to the Ministry on a Friday night. Oh well, it isn't all over yet. One of the better Item Numbers in recent years (the Tamil version of the song is so much nicer...)

Mi Gustas (6)

I like...Breakfast!



I like a good breakfast. It is important to my own sanity and well being as well as getting me out of the bed. And during tis most bitter of winters, there is nothing better than tea and porridge. A hearty warmer that keep you happy. Mmm, tea, porridge. I live my porridge. With milk, chopped bananas and a little honey. Honey...HONEY!

Bumpf...

Spring is here. Well, maybe, but the daylight is slowly retuning to our shores. The worst of winter's nightfall is over and I could be a happier, less SAD person. Definitely, my Vitamin D intake will rise as our pitiful latitude should give way to some sunshine. here is a hope, in hell...

So, the worst month of the year, January is over, and what do I think of it? Two things. Lucrative and busy. Normally I like to take time out in January and jet off somewhere, but that is going to have to wait. In the meantime, I will get up to something far more cunning than a visit to LHR. Oh, and I need to catch a movie soon. Yes, and build a steadycam. More coming on that via the CWP blog.

London Diary (15)

She looked out, between the blinds at the night outside. She warmed herself against the radiator, but she still shivered as she heard the wind howling around her building. The rain had stopped, thankfully, but it was another bitterly cold February eve. But it was not the weather that was on her mind. Hoping to catch a glimpse of him, she hoped it would be sooner rather than later. But that's the trouble with a man's work...

How many women, just like her she thought, have stayed awake, long into the night, looking out for their man? Millions, billions along the course of humanity. And it is always the woman that will stay up, anxious and worried. It isn't that he is doing bad things, well, they are not things that are hurting her. He is working, working at whatever needs to be done so that there is food on the table and a roof over their heads. The job of a man...

In these enlightened times, both men and women are working, but it is still the man that does the dangerous work, the one who still takes the risks, goes that little bit further to secure something for the family. And it is the women who stay up at night, looking out of the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of that man, who works that little bit extra so that she can live a better life...

Plumbing

DIY. I don't mind it, but in this weather I hate it. But, I have to bite the bullet. Ugh...

Great, Britain

(The pic has nothing to do with the blog post, but I think it is a pretty picture from London, so there)

I am not often patriotic. Patriotism makes me sickly. Uncomfortable. After all, being the child of two immigrants, patriotism is one step away from racism. That's a fact. And I do not often mention so on my blog, the fact that I really do love the UK. But like anything (or anyone) you love, you can also be critical. Sometimes I think that I am very critical of the UK. The weather, mostly, gets to me. I must admit, my patriotic fervour does not extend to our current climate.

I am also a deeply opinionated person, especially when it comes to politics, and I can hold what may seem contradictionary (is that a real word?) positions. For example, I believe in republicanism, but I would not want the current system of constitutional monarchy in the UK replaced. That's because while the system of monarchy is inherently unfair (the top position of the country is automatically reserved), the actual system of monarchy in the UK is remarkably good in fitting into the political system as a whole. It works.

But I am not here to talk about the politics. Except in one angle. Human rights. We have a lot of them in the UK. We often take the concept for granted, but really, we have fundamental freedoms. The ability to think and communicate freely with other people. It is a precious right, that many people around the world do not have. And we have been relatively lucky that this right has been maintained, despite the best will of governments past and present.

We are also a liberal society. One thing I am really love about the UK is that despite the rise of the far right, society as a whole is far more at ease with itself. Yes, we hear in the press this and that, but to be honest, the country is a lot less racist than when I was younger. Sexuality is open and the position of society on mixed race marriages, chronic diseases and disability is revolutionary compared to the 1980's. One thing that has been worrying in recent years is the rise in religious intolerance, from people espousing religion and from those who do not share their beliefs. We in the UK are generally quite private about worship, but the rise in overt displays of religion (or anti-religion) is something that has seen a worrying rise in recent years.

We are a country more at peace within. Northern Ireland, despite the difficulties, is no way near as volatile as at the beginning of the 1990's. And we are happy in Europe and NATO, despite what is often popularly spoken. Unfortunately, we have brought more terror to the world, thanks to Uncle Tony Blair. To the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, please forgive us. Not all of us want to destroy your country, but when it is our tax funding those bombs, it feels hard to be sincere.

I do not want to end on a sad note, so I will be more positive. More patriotic. Look around you. Look at the person next to you. He or she, you don't know their history. You don't know their background, their hopes and fears, their dreams and their goals. But here in the UK, we are free. To do whatever we want. And we know that what we do with our lives, is ultimately down to us, not down to caste, creed or governance. But our own selves. It is an incredible amount of responsibility to bear. But it can also be exciting...

6 more weeks of winter...

6 more weeks of winter for the Yanks but for us living in the UK, it is still bloody cold! Where the hell did all the spring love go?

Well, my own personal body clock - hayfever - normally activates itself at this time of the year. It has not. Which means that spring is definitely a long way off. Good news for my sinuses, but awful news for my body. I am absolutely frozen here, plus winter is no fun compared with the joys of spring and the floodgates of summer! Still, one must not complain too much.

What the hell? Of course I must complain. Half of all conversations in the UK revolve around the weather (the official stats from HM Public Bean Counters puts it at 51.6%) and we would be far more anti-social without it. After all, where would the famed twittersphere be without '@uknow', or something like that. Oh boy, twitter, that is almost as gimpy as facebook, how I despise web 2.0, despite the fact it provided for a lucrative article last year. Go away, I'm cold! Grrr!

It's an Election Year! (1)

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Get your own

And so we're off. On one side we have the incumbent Labour Party who are desperate to cling onto power despite the fact that they are truly awful. And on the other hand we have the Conservatives who are desperate to assume their natural position as Lord and Masters of the Universe. Great. Oh, and then there are the Lib Dems who have not got a hope in hell. This is choice, this is the mother of all democracies! This is Great Britain!

Tooth Decay

Oh, how I wish for a Hung Parliament. Then something productive might actually happen...

Mi Gustas (5)

I like...Chungking Mansions!



Down and Out in Hong Kong? Then look no further than Chungking Mansions. First 'recommended' to me when I started my travels as a wee sprog, I have used and abused this building every time I have visited Hong Kong. Where the world comes to do business, most of the locals are terrified of this place, believing it to be a hotbed of dirty devious foreigners. Don't you just love the Hong Kong people?

So being a place where the outcasts hang out, I always make a beeline to it. If you want the best curry east of India, this is the place to come! If you want accommodation for £10 in the heart of Hong Kong, on the Nathan Road, this is it! If you want to buy something, you can get it here!

Yes, the building is filthy, and the whole place is a firetrap. One day, it is going to come crashing down and it will be redeveloped with the usual slick sanitary conditions that characterises the rest of the city. So while you can, enjoy this place. What is so special about Chungking Mansions? It is the world in a microcosm. Hong Kong is not a cosmopolitan city, despite the hype. But in Chungking Mansions you can find a genuine piece of humanity in this city...