Stupid ideas

Earlier this week it was reported in The Guardian that modern dual flush toilet mechanisms - designed and implemented several years ago as a water saving idea - leak so commonly that they actually lead to the loss of several hundred million gallons every year from the UK water supply. 

Some ideas are so stupid that you wonder how they ever saw the light of day. Take this GU10 light bulb fitting. Nothing wrong with the light or the shape (particularly if you opt for modern LEDs) but the twin pin fitting, when combined with the ceramic socket, is a bugger to change. I had to do three today and used more calories than in an average gym session. They don’t want to come out and they don’t want to go in. Little bastards.

Finished reading The Story of China by Michael Wood. Superb book. So much richness in terms of culture, learning and governance over four thousand years. Plenty of war, invasion and a shocking tendency towards cannibalism too. And inevitably, come the nineteenth century, incursions by the Brits who adopted their usual tactics of sending in the gunboats, setting up shop, nicking as much as they could, and generally screwing Johnny Foreigner over and painting him as an uncouth savage (in fact the Chinese had established universities when we were still living in mud huts). 

I was on my own for the better part of the day as TSM and the Dizzle went to north London with Mystic Em to bring some of his stuff home and to drop in on the Yoga Mama. Needless to say I stayed busy but also had a bit of downtime. 

Eye appointment tomorrow. Hope they find something. Fed up with being a pirate ...