Sweetpea's pathetic excuses for not fixing the MR2

Coming to a thread near you soon...





So the big tanks have a submersible pump that feeds a hose pipe that Mrs Sweetpea waters the garden with. It's not quick but it works perfectly well.

Last night Mrs Sweetpea was finishing the garden, don't know why 'cos it chucked it down in the night, when the pump shut off and the water stopped.
It's tripped out the RCD that feeds it. And it won't now run without tripping the RCD. So it has an earth fault. I expect it's got water in it.

Looks like I'll be pulling the pump out and seeing if it's possible to fix it or if it's toast.

Hmmm. More work for Mrs Sweetpea. 

Wires under the floor.

Mrs Sweetpea wants outdoor speakers. She’s wanted outdoor speakers for years but obviously it’s completely impossible. Well it was until I ran out of birthday present ideas (again) and it suddenly became possible. Just an unpleasant job.

There is an amp in the living room that can run speakers in two zones. With different sound on each if you want it. So the second zone is to be “outside” and I just needed to get some wires out of the house.
Luckily there is a a way to do this. It just means running speaker wires through a pipe I’d installed years ago but it was still an unpleasant job being in the crawl space under the floor.

The wires eventually wind up under the decking.





From where they (will, eventually) branch off to a few places in the garden.
I had some of these totally disastrous lighting loop in boxes hanging around. I hate the useless things but under the decking, protected from rain, they’ll be ok for speaker wires. And, at least the’ll get used. I totally refuse to put mains through them.
(Because they are useless. Did I mention that?)


Remember the black things I mentioned dangling from the ladder in a previous post?





They mount some Neutrik Speakon connectors into a standard waterproof 13 amp box.

There’ll be 3 of these around the garden. One on the decking, one on the other side of the garden, and one by the swing bench at the back.
There are 2 pairs of weather proof speakers.





One pair will be permanently mounted in the roof over the swing bench. The other pair can be on the decking or in the garden. Wherever you want to party.
Simply plug into a convenient outlet and enjoy the sounds.





Clearly turning them up and down or choosing different music is going to be inconvenient. You’d have to put down your Babycham, wonder into the living room and make the appropriate adjustment.
I suppose if one had one’s mobile phone, one could call the butler…

Well, as it happens the amp has an app that runs on a tablet to remote control it.





So you just take that down the garden and Bob’s a close relation.
Nice!


Oh and I’ve also started cutting the decking boards. The fiddly ones round the edges. But wood work is boring compared to music so no photos.

James

James - You have gone up the list in my estimation since we last met / spoke in person (probably 30 years or so ago) - reasoning being - excellent choice of music (or was that just the first thing that came up on a unselected not of your choice random playlist - if so I'll have to downrate you)

Still I have to give you credit where its due - just imagine sat on the swing bench without a care in the world - speakers plugged in and 'Blue Oyster Cult' blearing out 'Don't fear the Reaper'

Bloody auto correct keyboards - now edited

Well I've not been on a canal site for at least 20 years. I'm pretty certain we met at Little Venice one year but I can't remember when that would have been.


Anyway, music.
I have a USB stick that plays in the MR2 and that was in the amp at the time (it still is 'cos I'm not using the car). It has some of my favourite records of the late 70s to early 90s on it. Appropriate for the car you see.

Now for every record that you like there'll be a load you hate. I have a fairly odd and varied taste in music and I keep surprising myself. For example I loath and detest jazz. And then a 'dinner jazz' record by somebody called 'The Holly Cole Trio' turned up and I fell in love with it. Then I listened again to Swing Out Sister which I loved back in the day and realised it has a heavy jazz influence. So you can't trust me and music. I like all sorts - even stuff I admit to not liking.


The stick...
Someone, Somewhere in Summertime. Possibly the best Simple Minds record ever.
Abacab Genesis.
Actually I just rediscovered Paperlate by Genesis. It's fabulous and is never played.
Another one I rediscovered... Tears for Fears - Pale Shelter. Possibly the best Tears for Fears record and a brilliant tutorial on what an 80s pop record should sound like.
Some Talk Talk.
How does Bon Jovi - Dead or Alive grab you?
Frankie gots to Cricklewood? Or somewhere like that. Two Tribes. Hated it at the time. But now... Hell, could Trevor Horn make a record, or what!?
A few bits of Fleetwood Mac.

But then there is Birmingham by Amanda Marshall (which most of you will never have heard of) because it has lyrics that that are full of hope and the future.
Level 42 - Leaving me now - because it has lyrics that are just so sad.
Simply Red. That man can sing like nobody else.
Live To Tell by Madonna. Because it's fabulous even though I'm no Madonna fan.

And to leave you with a couple that are out of period...

I hate the Stones. But Gimmie Shelter. Oh wow. Stunning. Has a rough feeling of early Motown stuff. The fact that the backing singer was singing so hard that her voice cracked up at one point and they left it in the mix. Utterly fabulous.

And something current...
If you haven't listened properly to 'The Radio 1 Live Lounge' doing 'Times Like These' then find some headphones and let it wash over you. Totally different to the Foo Fighters version which I don't even remember. In this current time where people have been dying by the thousand this version just reduces me to tears.
It restores my faith that music is actually in safe hands. The kids done good.

James

My long lost big brother! I knew we'd find each other again.

Triplets - Hurray! And here was me thinking I was an orphan.

Interestingly, since I wrote that list I've heard a couple of those records on Radio 2 despite not hearing them for ages. I think Radio 2's music scheduling computer might read this forum.

at 48 seconds, now i cant get that image out of my head

I know I’ve had a rant about environmentally friendly products that don’t actually work before. But I can’t remember how many rants I’ve had.

The last time was when all the picture rail fell off the wall in Mrs Sweetpea’s office because I’d used ‘Save The Planet’ adhesive that turned out to be not sticky. But I can’t remember if I’ve had a rant about ‘green’ cars.
Well if I haven’t, stand by, ‘cos it’s damn well comin’…

You see part of my problem is that my other car is a very environmentally friendly hybrid. It sips petrol as if it was poison to its little mechanical bits. Well that’s the idea. In reality it’s more thirsty than my previous non hybrid and is a good deal less fun to drive. I mean it’s a bl00dy great SUV thing that apparently weighs most of two tons but I’d sort of expected that the hybridness would offset the weight a bit. I was wrong. What’s the point of all the hybrid stuff when it’d be better off with a decent AdBlue diesel in it? (So nothing by those lying b’stards at Volkswagen then.)


Anyway, that’s not the topic for tonight.
Hydrogen is the topic for tonight. It’s been touted as the clean fuel of the future. Lets face it, the only emission is water. Doesn’t get much better than that! And so London has a few hydrogen fuel cell buses and I’ve seen a few Toyota taxis using hydrogen as fuel. What’s not to like?

Well my brain won’t let it rest there. Where does the hydrogen come from? The only way I know is electrolysis of water. Pass a current through water and you get hydrogen from one terminal and oxygen from the other. But my gut feeling is that, as an industrial process, it’s hopelessly inefficient and wouldn’t scale up well. Maybe this is why hydrogen hasn’t taken off as a fuel.

Last night I was watching some stuff about rocket engines (what else) and I accidentally found out where 95% of industrially produced hydrogen actually comes from. The process is called ‘steam reforming of natural gas’. You’ll like this…

What you do is this.
You take natural gas (CH4 - carbon and hydrogen) and steam (H2O - hydrogen and oxygen) and pass it over a catalyst. I’m going to gloss over the details because I failed chemistry when I was a kiddie but what comes out is hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Sh1t loads of carbon dioxide. Ten times more CO2 than you get hydrogen.

So that clean fuel that only emits water from the exhaust secretly emits shed loads of CO2 that they forgot to mention and… AND… And this is the bit that really REALLY winds me up me. Natural gas is a bl00dy FOSSIL FUEL for Gods sake.




I bl00dy hate it when people don’t tell me the truth.


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production