Ramblings of a Grouch

Last week our revered Prime Minister made the news by advising everyone how we could save money in these times of inflation and belt tightening.

His astounding tip? Throw less food away.

Then someone wrote to the Daily Mail with a different piece of advice. If crossing the road were illegal then we would save many lives. Perhaps those who remain on the same side of the street from birth to death would qualify for a government-funded bonus.

So I got to thinking of 10 things that make life unpalatable and which would improve our lives no end if they were addressed by the Prime Minister. I have listed them below, along with the benefits to the community and a suggested sentence for those who choose to ignore this advice.

- Cyclists who use the road when there is an adjacent cycle track. Cyclists complain (often with just cause) that other road users make cycling a dangerous activity. Why, then, do they insist on using the road, preventing me from passing and frequently riding so close to my passenger door that I fear the paint has been removed, when there is a perfectly adequate cycle path next to them which is only used by (surprise, surprise) cyclists? Sentence: Strapped to the road for 30 days as a speed bump. Cycle helmet optional (though probably not as hard as their skulls) Effect: A more stress-free journey for me, and less money spent on touch up paint.

- Motorists who drive at 25 mph in a 30 mph zone (nothing wrong with that if conditions dictate) then slow down as they pass a speed camera. Do they think they get a reward for going slower? Or do they just like pissing people off? And I must say they are usually elderly and wear a hat. Nuff said. Sentence: Follow a trailer of pig manure at a distance of 2 feet, from John 'O Groats to Lands End, at 3 mph. At random intervals the tractor stops dead. Effect: Reinforce the idea that too slow a speed can be just as annoying and dangerous as too high a speed.

- Texting on a mobile phone. People do it when they are on tea break, at work, in the supermarket, in the street, crossing the road - the list is endless. One 'deal' I noticed is an offer of 600 free texts a month. 600??! That's 20 texts a day! Or more than one every waking hour, whether that person is at work, eating, on the loo or even having a bit of nookie!! Some days I speak less frequently than that. What on earth is so important that you need 600 chances every month to tell someone about it? Sentence: Superglue thick sheepskin mittens to the perpetrators' hands, give them a full Mandarin Chinese keyboard and don't release them until they have used up one month's allocation of texts. Effect: Lower my blood pressure as I don't have to avoid these idiots on my travels by foot, car, bus, train ...

- Unnecessary calls on a mobile phone. I was walking by the local Asda a few days ago when I learned that a lady needed the loo so she had gone to Asda, getting some shopping whilst she was there. I often learn that people are 'out shopping', 'can't fiind the correct size of baked bean can', or that they are simply asking the recipient of the call what they are doing (answering the phone, dummy). Invariably these snippets of banal crap are discussed at full volume as if there is no phone to actually transmit the message. Sentence: Confiscate the mobile phone for 1 month and make the guilty party walk to whoever they 'need' to talk to. Effect: See above

- Inarticulate young people. 'Ug' seems to be a common phrase among teenagers, meaning anything from "OK" to "Excuse me but I think your trousers are on fire". Why they feel like communicating in a 50,000 year old language is not completely understood but I suspect it is related to brain development (or lack of). "Good morning, how are you?" "Ug." Pah! Sentence: Speak the words 'please' and thank you' 50,000 times in each of the major languages of the world. Effect: Having concluded the esercise the people concerned will have grown up and be able to communicate rationally.

- Cards from the Post Office informing me that I was out and that I have to collect my parcel personally. I know when I'm out. Many people know when they are out. It's called Going To Work. And the reward for Going To Work is to go to the local Post Office after work in the rush hour, queue for a hour while the staff laugh at you from behind a one-way mirror, then produce every document have ever owned just to prove I am me (or you are you). Every courier service I know (DHL, UPS, City Link, Interlink and so on) allow for re-direction to another address. The Post Office prefer to keep my property and lose it in their own time. Sentence: Make the Post Office keep all junk mail as 'non-deliverable' and ask the public to drop by and pick it up. Effect: Post Offices around the country would be blocked with useless rubbish and the service can then be put out to private tender, as it should have been years ago, giving more leisure time and reducing stress levels.

- Eating. Food can contain unwanted chemicals, flavouring, colouring and genetically modified products. It can also lead to obesity. Sentence: 3 month diet of burgers. Nothing else. This will reinforce the idea that eating is bad for you. Effect: General increase in health.

- Drinking. Alcoholic drinks can harm health. Soft drinks can contain sweeteners, preservatives and colouring. Water can contain chlorine, fluorides and aluminium. Sentence: Forced binge drinking every night for a week. This will reinforce the idea that drinking is bad for you. Effect: See above.

- Breathing. Breathing is a dangerous pastime, given all the pollutants and particulates present in the air. This practice should cease immediately. Sentence: Stand outside the local primary school at 'school run' time, inhaling the aroma of 4 x 4 gas guzzlers ferrying one small child around the corner. Effect: Healthier lungs. Cleaner blood supply. No complaints from those who adhere to this rule.

- List making. People who make lists of their top 10 favourite things, worst things, best thing and so on. Especially when they publish these lists in a blog. Sentence: More coffee and nicotine breaks. Effect: Less lists published.

Right, let's get the kettle on ...

Haha! I got going on the right hand side and the fun started!

First thing I learned is that a 8mm masonry drill is capable of drilling a 3" hole, 2" deep, in one go. It seems that there was a skim of plaster over, well, nothing at all. However, a quick go with rapid setting cement soon fixed that and I was away again. 3 wall units in a line (after a bit of judicious hacking with a jigsaw to clear the gas pipe in the corner) and they're all up, near enough level and firmly fixed to the wall and each other. I could do this for a living!

Final cupboard was going to be a thin unit mounted at right angles to the corner unit I just put up. Held last unit in place and discovered the door wouldn't open. Can't move unit sideways due to the main doorframe being in the way. Decide I don't want it anyway and clean up the mess I made earlier. Also decide I don't want to do this for a living.

So far I'm still pleased with it - the room seems a little smaller but cosier. And I now have more storage space than things to store - no doubt that will soon change.

One slight problem I noticed last night, though. The gap for the cooker seems a tiny bit smaller than I expected. The cooker still fits in but the grill at the top is awfully close to the wall units. Hey Ho, time to go shopping again ...

Next job will be to finish tiling the floor (must remember to remove the door and reduce the bottom edge to allow for the tile thickness). Then it's in with the base units, tile the walls and we're done!

Well, apart from tiling the walls it's done! No major catastrophes in the latter stages, though there were a few minor niggles.

Such as when I was finishing the floor tiles off and ran out of tile cement. So off to the store I went, picked up a 3-ton tub and went to the checkout. The guy in front is buying 14,000 pieces of guttering. One piece is broken so he has to fetch a replacement. 'You don't need another,' I thought, 'That one's near enough!' as my cement lay setting on my floor. Another piece had no bar code sticker, so he had to fetch another. 'You already have 7 of those, you don't need another' I willed, but to no avail. Eventually I got served. The cement was still wet when I returned ...

The other thing was finding out just how true (or not) the walls at that end of the kitchen are. With bottom of the cabinets snug against the wall I had a 1" gap at the top. And a chasm at the side that ranged from ½" at the bottom to over ¾" at the top. Hey, Ho. I did a deft bit of filling and it looks good now. I even filleted between the floor and the skirting behind the fridge to finish off.

Next thing will be to tile the walls and that side of the kitchen is finished. I can't do the other side until I get the window replaced. And I might as well have the two external doors replaced at the same time. Which only leaves three more windows to replace - perhaps I could get that done, too.

I think this is going to get expensive ...

Next stage in renovating the kitchen was the floor. Or half of it, anyway. I'm doing each half seperately to allow me to use the room during the ongoing work. It also means that the second half will be better than the first as the trial and error bits will already have been done.

So up with the vinyl flooring. Surprise - I laid that vinyl on top of the original lino (for you young 'uns out there, linoleum was the forerunner of vinyl flooring). I remember taking up the carpet somewhere around 1985 - I always think kitchen carpets are unhygenic. But I don't remember the lino. How I managed to forget is beyond me because it is hideous! Bright yellow and orange random patterns arranged almost, but not quite, like a crazy paving path. Yeeeuck!!

Beneath that is a decent floor. It seems to be made from some sort of black compond that sets hard but melts slightly when it is drilled. Very smooth and not too cold on my old knees as I work.

I decided on ceramic tiles, which I bought the other day on the way home from work. I grabbed 2 sample tiles in the store, took then to the other side where they had my cupboard doors displayed on the wall 15 feet up. Then started the process of holding both up to see which looked better against the door, swapping the worst one and repeating until I found what I wanted. I then found 9 boxes of tiles from the same batch and loaded my trolley up. Also grabbed a tub of tile cement. What size do they have? Stupendously large or, well, that was it. Hired a crane to load one onto the trolley and set off. Cut the corner by bathroom fittings again and nearly lost the lot ...

Loaded tiles into car boot. Car sagged alarmingly. Drove home slowly looking up at the sky. Got home and started unloading. First box out, up the passage and into the house. Easy. The fourth box was heavy. The eighth box was murder. The ninth made my legs wobble uncontrollably. Never mind, all done. Back to the car to lock up and - Shit!! Forgot to unload the cement. That's the trouble with working in an office - any form of physical work comes as a surprise.

Friday night was clearing out ready night. Cooker swung to one side (fortunately mine is connected by a rubber gas pipe that allows me to roll it out the way), washing machine disconnected and stuck in the dining room, vinyl up, lino up and nothing but a clean, bare floor. Good!

Saturday morning I picked up my worktops from Jacksons as they are the only people who wanted to chop it in half - I can't get 3 metre lengths in my car. Great people, great service, great price. Back home to start tiling.

Tiling went well. Spread the cement, lay the tiles, level them up (near enough). Now for the partial tiles at the edge. No problem - I have a posh tile cutter where you insert the tile, run the cutter along the length and then press the handle to snap the tile. Except mine was too small. So I got the scriber out, scribed the surface, laid the tile on two pencils and pressed. Nothing happened.

I now realised how tough floor tiles are. It took five minutes to scribe through the glaze prior to breaking the waste off. And then had to resort to stamping on the waste side to snap it off. Crushing my pencils in the process. After cutting 6 tiles my arm ached, my hand ached, I had a blister on my finger and I was thoroughly disillusioned. Hence why I cheated to save one cut when I got to the doorway. Next time I'm buying one of those circular saw thingies.

I then spent an hour cleaning up and scraping cement off my finger nails. And my trousers, arms, spirit level, floor, you name it. And the rest of the day I had to access the bathroom by going out the front door, up the passage and in the back door.

So, am I pleased with it so far? Maybe. Most of it looks OK but I don't like the bit where i cheated. If I get a better tile cutter I may redo that. But at least I can get on with fitting the base units now.

..............

Wahayyy!!!! The left side is finished apart from tiling the wall - that will be the last stage after I get the right side done. The base units were going in well until I hit the learning curve full on. This is roughly how it went:

• Place one base cupboard each end of the room to make sure both sides would be level.
• Adjust right cupboard legs as low as possible, legs on left cupboard as high as possible (my floor slopes). Spirit level shows perfectly aligned in all directions
• Move second cupboard to left hand side and align with first cupboard. Perfect!
• Carefully move both cupboards away from wall to allow access for fixing brackets. Adjusting feet fall off cupboards due to being over-extended. Should have used my spam email to get another 3" extension ...
• Use old floor tiles as packers and repeat levelling exercises
• Move cupboards out of the way. Feet stay on. Mark wall and drill for brackets. Screw brackets to wall
• Replace cupboards and fix to brackets. Snug fit against wall, perfectly level. Screw cupboards to brackets
• Try to fit cupboard door. Kitchen door frame in the way. Need to move both cupboards half an inch to the right. Go to bed very pissed off
• In the morning realise I can unbolt brackets, move units along and re-attach to wall. Door fits. Brilliant!

Then it was just a matter of cutting, edging and fixing the worktop, fitting the upstand and sealing the lot. All done by midday. I'm really pleased with the result, even more so as I did it all myself without a major f*** up.

And I now know what to look out for when I tackle the other side of the room.

..............

A postscript: Just before I started this project I was diagnosed with lateral epicondylitis, or tennis elbow, where the elbow joint gets inflamed and causes pain in the forearm muscles. I was advised to avoid repetitive movements with that arm (some so-called work colleagues pointed out that would have a major impact on my usual leisure activities but I ignore them) so I have developed the knack of using a screwdriver with left hand and right hand alternately. Well, I wasn't going to let that stop me, was I ?!!