Plumbing the Depths

Well it’s been a while since I got the time to add to this blog. Most of this time has been spent tiling bathrooms. Tiling! Urgh! Horrible stuff.

For anyone thinking of tiling their bathroom, start off by measuring the tiles and then measuring the bathroom itself. If the dimensions of the bathroom are not exact multiples of the tile size it is going to be a lot quicker to just knock the bathroom down and rebuild it so it’s dimensions are exact multiples of the tiles. Trust me, I’m a plumber!

We’ve had very few genuine odd-ball clients of late. Mind you I did get into the most bizarre conversation last week. I got trapped in a house with a mother and daughter, while my business partner, obviously sensing signs that I’d missed,  went off to buy some bits and bobs.

Said females were fascinated by the humble rabbit, bwhich is a bit odd in itself, but the oddest thing was that they just assumed that I, a plumber, would be equally fascinated and knowledgeable on the subject.

Client: “I bought a French Lop-eared last week”

Me:      “Did you? Wonderful stuff… Lovely… French eh?… Bit on the lop-eared side I imagine?”

Client: “Yes, but not as nice as the Netherlands dwarf of course.”

Me:     “How could it be, bit bigger though?”

And so the conversation flowed. It’s mad what these little “breeders” have done to the poor old rabbit though. Have a look at this site: http://www.arba.net/photo.htm

Look at the poor old “English Angora”. How can they deliberately do that to a rabbit and get away with it? It looks like it’s been plugged into the mains!

Go right to the bottom of the page and look at the Cavy. I’m sure that’s one of Tina Turner’s wigs heading out for a night on the town.

I have since discovered that the scientific name for the Rabbit is ’cuniculus’. It was just as well that the daughter hadn’t asked me if I was interested in cuniculus as, whilst this word does cause some assocations to spring almost imediately to mind, none of them have anything to do with rabbits J

Hypocrisy features largely  in this bloggy chapter. It’s a weird thing hypocrisy; it’s very easy to spot in others, yet almost impossible to spot in yourself.

Fortunately, I have a wife who is more than happy to point out when I am being hypocritical. Without her immense insight I could happily wander through the world cursing the hypocritical bastards that surround me, whilst being blissfully unaware that I may well have strayed down that path myself… damn her

An example of corporate hypocrisy arrives on my doorstep every month - Readers Digest. In the May 2002 edition they hit their audience with the banner headline “Exposed! Bogus Health Scares That Worry You Sick.” This was followed a few months later by an edition entitled “Hidden dangers in HEALTHY FOODS” and a few months after that by “10 Diseases your Doctors Miss!”. Before the year’s out I’m expecting an edition entitled ”You’re GONNA DIE of a mystery disease you don’t even know how to spell.”

However, I forgive them. After all, like most blokes, I like to make a leisure activity out of going to the ‘restroom’. As such, reading material, however bland and hypocritical, is essential. The Readers Digest also has the great benefit of making an acceptable toilet roll substitute if you find yourself firmly ensconced in that particular dilemma.

I was chatting to an old boy today about village pubs. His village temporarily lost its pub about 5 years ago. In typical middle class hypocrisy the village was up in arms. Banners were unfurled, protests registered and spleens vented. As a result the village pub was re-opened. How many locals used to go to it? Next to none. How many of them go there now? Yup, still next to none! They are all too busy having wine evenings with Giles and Yara.

From what I can gather, it was the “idea” of a local pub that they were interested in. Maybe the knowledge that the hoy-polloy were gathered just down the road gave their wine evenings that extra frisson? They could sip their Brunello d’Montelccino in the full and certain knowledge that just round the corner the common folk were knocking back pints of  ’gasp’… Kronenburg!

My own hypocrisy is a little more evident. If you listened to my wife she’d tell you it’s so evident that it’s positively glowing in the dark and blaring out hard rock music at 2am in the morning.

We are what is known in banking parlance as “skint”, “broke”, “brassic”

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Let’s take an interlude here.

I was not sure how the vernacular word ‘brassic’ i.e. skint, should be spelt - a common problem with me, as Tim will verify. So I looked it up on “http://dictionary.reference.com/”. I was told there was no such word and asked if I really meant, amongst others, “Bras sic”.

‘Well maybe I do!’ I thought, so I selected it. “No entry found for ‘bras sic’” was the reply, “Do you mean ‘bras sic’?”.

This is why people get fed up with the Web! Totally incompetent w**kers, programming utter f***ing nonsense onto websites that purport to be useful! Imagine the bloody fights that would break out if you were using this site as your reference in ‘Scrabble’. There’d be blood on the tiles before midnight.

I’ve also noticed that this site is a tad dated. Apparently a “Zaquin” is a gold coin worth about 9s. 3d or $2.25. When was this site last updated?

Does anyone know a better free dictionary site?

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Anyway, back to hypocrisy and me.

My wife and I, are broke, utterly skint, bras sic (if you believe there is such as word) and also devoid of the money substance.

So I took it upon myself to point out to my lady wife the error of her ways: she leaves the lights on when no one is in the room, she leaves the TV on when she’s not even watching it, she turns on the TV in the kitchen and then goes into the living room for the next 2 hours, she doesn’t switch off the dish-washer once it’s finished etc etc.

We eventually worked out that this wild extravagance cost us in the region of 40p a month, at which point Leanne mentioned that I spend at least £10 every time I go to the pub.

“Ar, yes, but.. that’s..er… theraputic! I’m just consoling myself for all the electricity your wasting. It.. er.. pays for it’s self in the long term… sort of.. not sure how. Anyway, at least I turn the lights off when I get home!”

This litany of self deceit continued for at least 10 minutes before I admitted I was a hypocrite and apologised… then went down the pub to ease my feelings of guilt J

The odd thing was though, whilst I could see my wife’s wasteful idiosyncrasies, I was largely unaware of my own, or maybe I was too just p**sed to notice?

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I knew I shouldn’t have asked for comments on this Blog. Yesterday “mengnanhai” posted “I don’t kown my family”. Very enigmatic and a clear sign that the drugs really don’t work. Yet, I looked up ‘kown’ on http://dictionary.reference.com in the hope that all would be made clear. It asked if I really meant “kon”, and when I said ‘perhaps’ it hit me with this definition “Ye konnen thereon as much as any man. –Chaucer.”.

I can only assume from this that mengnanhai, Chaucer, and the dip-stick that runs  http://dictionary.reference.com all go to the same pub.