Boss Radio

So my blog from a few days ago wasn't actually that far off.

An almost identical item with exactly the same cover has just sold on Ebay but this time it only raised $7. The difference between this and the previous item wasn't in the item, it was in the description.

This one didn't mention the 'nude' cover.

If I ever sell my first release version of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band I shan't advertise it as Sgt. Pepper, I shall advertise it as "Beatles album - GANG BANG COVER!!!!! L@@K!!!!". It'll be worth more that way...

Yesterday I woke up laughing like a drain. 'What a perfect catchphrase that would make' I thought. In my head I had the fast fading picture of a black and white movie showing the back of a man wearing an officer's style WWI great-coat standing in front of a table. 'I must remember that' I thought.

I've forgotten. It's gorn. Departed like it was never there. One word.

The important word.

I can't even remember why it was so funny, only that it set my day off to the best possible start.

Which was just as well because when I got to the bathroom I heard something going drip-drip-drip. It was coming from the airing cupboard. Yup. Sure enough. Everything down the left hand side of the cupboard was drenched. Soaked to the cloth equivalent of bone.

First things first. I turned off the water, it only seems like days since the last time I turned it back on. Then I bagged up all the wet blankets, sheets, clothes, towels, odd socks, and various other sundries and quickly discovered just how much weight water adds to the proceedings, so I split the load between 4 bags and went downstairs where I began hanging them out on our little revolving drying frame. It quickly became obvious that not only had it only enough room for a tiny portion of the wet stuff, but that it would probably suffer lasting damage if I attempted it, so I made a quick call to my sister who told me to drive down to her place of work and she'd give me the keys to her place where I could go and use their high speed spin and their clothes drier.

The number of times she's told us to get a drier and I keep saying 'What? With all this global warming going on?'. I'm beginning to see her point.

Amazingly we managed to do nearly all the drying before she and her husband arrived home and by the time we left we only had half a bag of still wet stuff to dry out.

Today I was going to put everything back into the airing cupboard and set up a drying frame by the fire for the oddments left over, but there was a problem. It had been dripping again.

I clambered up and inspected where I figured the water was coming from, but it didn't even seem to be damp up there.

Mysteries. I hate mysteries. As I balanced there with one foot on the bathroom cabinet and one of the heater the thermostat clicked on again.

Within moments water was running out of the nut that connects the overflow pipe to the hot water tank. I gave it a twist, it was completely loose so I tightened it up as far as it would go, nearly burning my fingers off in the process, and all that happened was that the hot water now ran out of the back of the nut instead of the front of it.

So, off with the heater and off with the water again. Now I'm sitting here trying to think over all the probable causes for the leak, and all I can think of is "What the heck was that word in the punchline of my dream?"

Tea time. Time to make tea. Welsh Rarebit maybe? Or a salad perhaps? Well first things first, put the kettle on.

I go to the kettle, it needs water, kettles are like that, they're thirsty little barbarians. So I take a jug to the water supply because it's easier than unplugging the electric kettle and I fill it from the fresh water tap. The fresh water tap is the one where the water comes direct from the mains rather than from one of the tanks upstairs, both of which are filled from the mains, but it's the principal of the thing.

The water is the wrong colour. It looks sort of milky. With horror I realise that there must have been milk in the jug. Augh, what a waste - I throw it away and refill the jug.

It's still the wrong colour. Its whitewater. I've heard of this stuff, people go rafting in it and have all sorts of merry fun bouncing off rocks and risking their lives for pleasure. I've just never heard if its actually fit to drink.

As I stare at the water it gradually turns transparent. Right. So the sediment settles, that's probably a good thing, now all I have to do is empty the water away, wash the sediment out of the jug, and... wash it out with more white water? I stir it up a bit to see what the sediment actually looks like, but it refuses to be stirred. I empty the water away and try to scrape the sediment out of the jug, but I can't see it, it must be the same colour as the jug.

OK. let's be scientific. I refill the jug and sniff it. I can't smell anything, but that proves nothing, I take it in to mum and ask her to sniff it, she says it smells vaguely medicinal. Oh good grief. Surely the water from the swimming baths up the top of the hill can't have leached into the water supply? One thing's for sure, we're not drinking the stuff. I'm telephoning the water authority.

They're not easy to contact but I find a number and ring it. I'm given a choice of three keys to press. I press what sounds like the right one, and am given another choice, this time of 5 keys to press. This time it's easier, I press 'Other' - I have a choice of 5 more keys I can press. I'm getting impatient now, I'm paying for this call, whatever happened to pools of people answering the telephone and putting you through to whoever you needed to speak to? Another mechanical voice comes on, but fortunately it's interupted by a real person before I have a chance to have a fit.

The guy's already half guessed what I'm calling about, he's had a few calls on the subject all ready so he just takes my details and explains that what's happened is that air has got into the water somehow. It's completely harmless, but will I just do something for him?

I guess so. What?

He wants me to go and fill a glass with water and tell him if it clears from the bottom or the top. Very cunning. If it clears from the top it's sediment, but if it clears from the bottom then whatever it is must be exploding into the air. It clears from the bottom. He says what he needs me to do now is to leave it for a couple of hours while whatever it is works its way out of the water, then if I'd just go and run the water for a few minutes to clear the pipes and everything will be just fine. If I need drinking water before then I should fill a jug and put it in the refrigerator for half an hour and will be perfectly OK to drink.

Whatever happened to 'Completely harmless'?

Still, I'm not too bothered by it. Living in an old cottage we have to 'run the water' to clear the pipes every morning because they don't know what our pipes may be made of so it's best to clear them. As a further preventative measure I therefore bought a couple of filter jugs, which we keep permanently primed. I fill them up. That's nearly a gallon of drinking water once it's filtered. No worries.

Last thing last night I went to clear the pipes as asked, but they didn't clear. Oh well. Let's give it another 8 hours.

This morning the water is every bit as milky as it was yesterday. I left the tap running for over 10 minutes but the milkiness persists. In a moment of inspiration I filled a bottle and watched as the milkiness drifted up into the bottleneck, and sure enough, bubbles started appearing in the neck where they'd been trapped. I knew a lifetime of drinking fizzy stuff wasn't wasted. So there is something in the water, something lighter than water, something that smells vaguely medicinal. Better create some more drinking water then I thought, and filled up a couple of containers with the water from the filter jugs, then I refilled the jugs.

They're both on go-slow. One of them has almost come to a standstill with only half a jug filtered, the other is still filtering, but wa-a-ay slower than usual.

What is in our water???

Maybe it's connected with the explosions I heard the night before.

I must 'phone local radio and tell them that the aliens have landed.

Oh wait...

The aliens work for local radio.

Lo these many moons ago our local water company advised us that, because of the age of our house, or to be more precise, its plumbing, we should run the cold water for a few minutes each morning before allowing any of it to enter our bodies.

It's become a part of the routine. Stagger downstairs, turn on the light even if it's not dark, fall over the cat, turn the cold tap on, feed the cat, pull my trousers up, call myself an idiot and turn the light off again. In the winter there is another step which is call myself another idiot and turn the light back on.

This morning something interupted me and I didn't flush the pipes. It didn't matter that much in the grand scheme of things. There was still water in the kettle from last night and I must've made the tea with that, you don't notice at that hour of the morning, I mean - Good grief - It must've been before nine!!!

Hey, it's Saturday.

Just now I thought I'd better get the toxins out of the water before someone did actually drink from it, so I turned the tap on. It ran, then it gushed, then it ran again, it returned to gushing before a brief run followed by a long trickle and a return to running. I admit it, I wasted water. I left the tap running longer than was necessary so that I could study its behaviour. I can only draw one conclusion and that is that the extra housing that's gone up across the road is sucking the reservoir dry.

I guess I can live with that, what concerns me is the other end. Y'know. The waste managment issue. If the sheer volume of users is affecting the flow of water coming in, what's it doing to the flow of water going out?

And more particularly the stuff that's floating in it?

Aw look, you're all doing it again. Stop backing out of my blog, this is serious stuff!