The silent call of the siren

Decided to travel in the sybaritic luxury of the German car instead of the spartan simplicity of the British car. So put my bags in the boot. And then the battery was flat. British car it is, then. Except that the boot open electrically. So couldn't get the bags out.

Or the jump leads.

Luckily, as a former Cub, "Be Prepared" is my watchword. Are my watchwords. So I got the other set of jump leads out of the Morgan. And moved the mini (so many cars) nose to nose with the Audi. But where was the Mini's battery? Nowhere in sight! Must be one of those cars where the battery is under the seat and they give you remote terminals for jump starting. Nope. Had to resort to the manual to find that the battery is hidden under an unmarked lid beneath the windscreen.
On the Audi, you need to unbolt the plastic cover to find the battery. Then lift up the plastic lid to see the battery lurking in the dark. The battery with no visible marking of the terminals. And no handy clues like obvious earth straps. I had to google to find out which terminal was which! FFS!
I have rebuilt a car and built another from scratch. And I still had to google.

Oh well. Google came into play again suggesting that the culprit might be a defunct alarm siren. Apparently, the dead batteries leak all over the circuits and cause a short circuit. Sure enough, the current drain is higher with the siren connected. But not massively so. Ah well. Everything seems to work with the siren in the kitchen - even the alarm still manages to quietly flash. So I'll see how it goes.

The internet does tell you how to cut the siren open and mend it. I might give that a go.

In other news, after a 12 day rest, I played football yesterday and today and the hamstring seems a bit better - fine whilst playing but still a bit sore to sit on whilst driving. I'll see how that goes as well. Maybe the internet will tell me how to cut my arse open and mend it.

In other, other news, I was possibly the first person in twenty years to borrow some LPs from the university's CD library. Apparently, they might be open to my buying the records which would save having to take them back!