Fusion Power

The drippety-drip sound from the kitchen plumbing has now stopped. I finally got the pennies together for a roll of self-fusing silicone tape from my local Maplin and did some more scrambling about the counter-tops.

The tape is weird stuff. It doesn't have any glue and is only very slightly sticky in a sort of static cling way- at least to materials that aren't the tape itself, because once tape touches tape it is stuck together fast and there ain't no way you're peeling it apart again, especially if the tape was being stretched when it touched.

You have to wrap it around the pipe under repair quite tightly, stretching the tape out to about twice its relaxed length, and overlapping the tape on top of itself about half-way. If you keep it nice and taut at all times, it stays in place beautifully and so far there's been no sign of leakage.  The only problem was the aforementioned habit the tape has of sticking to itself when you don't want it to, which is an absolute pain when you're trying to wrap the tape around a pipe in a restricted area whilst maintaining proper tension.

Anyway, it's done now and with a bit of luck, the horrible fused mass of silicone (have I done a Pamela Anderson joke yet?) will keep water from leaking until such a time as I find myself back on my feet and can pay to have some proper plumbing done, or until I am thrown out onto the cold streets by an uncaring society, boo-hoo, a boo-hoo-hoo, boo-hoo.

Plumb Crazy

Great. The dripping has started up again and I couldn't afford amalgamating tape thanks to late payment of benefits. Time to go clambering about the kitchen cabinetry armed with a poxy roll of sticky tape.

Good news is that I've had a couple of interviews this week and have a couple more in my diary. Bad news is that one of them is an actual programming position that pays minimum wage, but any port in a storm. Or even a Sauterne.

The old jokes are the best.

At least minimum-wage programming will look better on my CV than sitting around on my backside doing nowt. Plus I'd be able to offer exceptional value for money!

For once...

Plumbing the depths

Last night was fun. I've posted before about the shonky quality of the pipework in my house, but that was all winter freeze-associated, I don't know what triggered last night's water torture.

And water torture it was; it started out as the drip-drip-drip of the classic Chinese method but thanks to some help by yours truly, it rapidly graduated to out and out water-boarding.

Note to any "But water-boarding isn't torture" apologists reading this. Yes it is. It was certainly torture enough for the Americans to charge Japanese soldiers with war crimes for performing it on US servicemen during world war two, so what's changed since then? Don't give me that "post-9/11 world" nonsense either; it's all an excuse to do things in direct contradiction to our society's moral values whilst hiding the hypocrisy behind a fig-leaf of spin and weasel words. If you are going to torture people, at least have the moral courage to admit that's what you're doing, instead of sounding like a six-year old making excuses for why their baby sister has a black eye.

Aaanyway, plumbing.