50+ and proud of it.

With a heavy heart I trolled off to town to have a word with the local "fireplaces-r-us" people about what sort of electric fires they did. Having removed the old flue (which probably wasn't up to spec anyway) I had now burnt my bridges as far as gas stoves were concerned. "...so there you have it", I said to the now-eyes-glazed-over woman in the shop, "I can't have a log burner". "Umm, what about a flueless gas burner? They're made from the same cast iron case as a log burner and from the same manufacturer, but they're fitted with a cat and only chuck out clean, hot air. You don't need a flue or a hearth!" "That's a bit cruel", I remarked. There was a sound of a bad joke hitting the floor; and the eyes rolled to the ceiling. "Have a brochure, there's the door." The Esse 500 fire and black granite hearth turn up tomorrow. The cats are now vacuumed. Nothing like fitting a clean one is there?

We came back from Scotland to find a nicely repaired wall and ceiling - thanks Gary. I set about lego'ing up a mock hearth using some of the bricks from the old fireplace and some left-over tiles from the kitchen. The necessary dimensions required (850mm x the same) meant that the hearth would overlap the radiator feed by about 200mm. We had a long discussion about moving (even removing) the radiator. "We won't need a radiator when we've got a log burner", I said. "I'm not going to always light a fire when I'm cold!" came the terse reply. Our neighbours came round for a drink and suddenly the whole thing dawned on me when the very concise statement was made: "What is the point of spending several thousands of pounds when you're not actually going to use the blessed thing? Anymore wine in that bottle?" And that was that. The last straw has finally been loaded onto the camel... The bricks are going down the tip, the TV's being mov...

Some good friends of ours haven't been married for 30 years and decided to rent Gargunnock House near Stirling to celebrate. They very kindly invited us to stay. This was last week - the one where the UK had the worst snowfall for 30 years. Everywhere ground to a halt except, of course, Scotland where life continued normally. We did the usual walking/visiting/drinking things and had a good time. We visited Doune Castle on the advice of others in our party who went the day before. This castle is where they filmed "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"... "Hello, two tickets for the Castle, and a pair of coconuts please." The lady sighed a little, reached under the counter a produced a pair of half-coconut shells. She looked me straight in the eye - "Were your friends here yesterday? They took it very seriously." We declined the offer of the shells and walked around to the sounds of American Tourists clip-clopping in the distance.

Just to let you know that smart Roadsters are *completely* crap in the snow. Wide rears, Auto-clutch & ESP (even when turned off - odd) do not make for a brilliant combination when a delicate touch is required for driving on slush. The low floor pan means you simply toboggan down the road (generally sideways) on top of any light dusting. I once read a story about someone who was critical of certain driving techniques. They remarked "Anyone who going sideways can't possibly be in control!". "So", remarked a learned person listening, " Roger Clark must be out of control for 90% of his professional career then?" In Roger Clark's case, incorrect. In mine, correct. Can't wait 'till tomorrow...

...after a certain amount of thought, skimming the whole ceiling and losing the Artexing lost its appeal somewhat. I gently broached the subject with the other half who "always has hated Artex". "Umm, how about if we get someone in to patch up the hole and blend in the pattern? That way we won't have to remove the entire contents of the lounge into the garage". I moved out of arms reach a little. "Yup, that's fine." That took me by surprise somewhat. "Ok, I'll 'yell.com' for Artexers near here. 'The next morning', as they say in Mills & Boon, Gary-the-I've-done-this-for-30-years-Artexer turns up armed with nothing but a keen eye and a pencil. "Yup, it's a professionally done pattern, I can match that no probs - you'll hardly notice it. What are you doing about the wall? I'm a plasterer too." "How much?", "2 days work", "You've got the job". "When can you s...

Oh 'eck. Having been left with a hole-in-the-fireplace after the back boiler was taken out we thought it a good idea to get a log-burner (see previous posts...). Now, log burners are large(ish). They won't fit in the hole and look ok. So you make it 4" wider by removing the half-bricks at the side don't you? Sadly, after that the bits of wall now left look too small and the whole thing looks ridiculous. Hmm, have a think. "Do you think it would look better if we took the whole fireplace out", asks the wife. "Err, maybe..." Several hours later and several trips to the tip I removed the entire thing (about 400 bricks I estimate). I also had to vacuum the dust off both cats who refused to move from their normal morning sleeping positions on the sofa. This now leaves a bare concrete block wall and a hole in the ceiling. Call in the plasterer who needs to skim the entire wall and ceiling to get a decent finish... After three... 1, 2, 3 ...and so We had...

At 14:13 on 15th Jan 09, PM6 made reel number 156000147 - its first roll of saleable paper. I, of course, nicked a small piece. After that things went downhill again, not through me tearing off a small piece, but further back up the line with "bad level" and etc. As of now (8 o'clock'ish) we've made 7 rolls of non-repulp (good) paper which you can of course buy at £1.42M each.

So there we have it. After 6 weeks and £40M the "we're definitely going to start selling paper on Monday" now seems like an embarrassing non-event. Paper Machine 6 (PM6) is warmed up, but not a sign of a scrap of WBF paper has come off the end. On the plus side, I did manage to get a scrap of paper from the very last ever white jumbo roll to come off the reeler...

"Let's visit Grandma!" Yeah, great plan. Grab some fuel, turn south onto the A249 at 10:01am and off we jolly well stop. Like, really stop. Turn off engine, stare at the Nissan in front and wait. Time passes and so do four Police patrol cars, three fire engines and eventually the Kent Air Ambulance. After 1½ hours I go for a walk and drag the life story out of anyone stupid enough to have their window down. More time passes and I notice that the Old Bill are turning people around in an orderly fashion and sending them back up (and off) onto the A2 on-slip. A lot more people notice too. I remarked to the Nissan driver who'd just missed his hospital appointment in Maidstone - "I think I'll wait until I'm told...", "seems like a plan", he said. At 11:57am a bloke *way* in front decided he couldn't wait and spun it round into the gap left for Fire Engines - and Police Cars - and proceeded to drive northwards towards on-coming, although stat...

(ring)(ring) "Hello Dad, I was driving home from town and my car started to make a funny noise" "Well, stop then and call out the breakdown people" "No, I think I can drive home" (click) (one cup of tea later) "Hello Dad, my phone battery is dying and my clutch has just gone, I'm..." (click) I did some maths and worked out where she was. Now to be fair, when I got there, she had borrowed a nice policeman's mobile to ring up the breakdown people, and, he had helped her push it from the junction to the side of the road. I diverted to "Mr Clutch" and booked it in. Whilst waiting for the lorry she made the famous statement: "It's only a fortnight until I get a years no claims!" Girl, let me explain...

We called in chap from a different company to give us another quote for the log-burner. After the measuring and mandatory teeth-sucking he came up with a figure which was dear but seemed to tick all the right boxes. "Thanks very much", I said, "at least you didn't have to call in the fitter!" "Who was that then?" he asked "Oh, just some bloke so shoved up his own a*** that he thought we were beneath him" He thought for a moment and smiled. "Oh, that'll be Simon then."

Today (01 Dec 08) marked the end of about 60 years of fine white paper making in Sittingbourne. PM6 (Paper Machine 6) ceased production at the New Thames mill at 06:00 this morning. It will be rebuilt to make CCM (Corrugated Case Material) - a brown paper used in packaging. It is hoped full production of saleable paper will commence on Monday, 12th Jan 09. The title is a pun. Only those of us in the know will understand it...

I read with great sadness yesterday that MFI had gone T/U. Our kitchen is MFI (no, not that cheap, it was a 2-3 star one, which meant the drawers came with handles). The guarantee has run out anyway, unlike my neighbour whose MFI kitchen tap required replacement. "I keep ringing them up, but I don't get a reply", he complained to me. "So, no change there then..." We'll never actually know the time between when they left the office and them simply letting it ring. Woolworths too, have gone under it seems. I already have a search set-up on eBay for the Dog & The Sheep.

Following on from the removal of the old heating system we (OK, I) decided that we should fill the hole where the gas fire was with a nice log-burner. Now, these aren't cheap. The fire is reasonable but the flue is about £100 per metre . I called in the experts. A very nice man called Simon 1 turned up yesterday. He had a nice pair of black trousers, a nice black roll-neck top and a nice black suitcase. Very similar in fact to the Milk Tray advert man. He decided that fitting a log burner here was very expensive and very difficult . And the flue is sooo expensive at £150 per metre, "and that's plus VAT you know". "Um, is that a different flue then?, never mind, carry on" "Oh, I'll just have to call in the fitter to see if it's possible." ...and he flounced off, pissed off that he never got to show me his marvellous glossy bro-shures . Previously I had called in a man from Gillingham. He is a chimney sweep and sold & fitted fires t...

No, not "'er indoors", but the Galaxy Gloworm installed when the house was new 26 years ago. Although it's working just fine, none of the others on the estate are, so we decided a preemptive strike and to sneak up on it unawares whilst we had the chance. We had British Gas in. "No problem sir, we'll just stuff it in the airing cupboard where the tank is and you can have five pipes running up the hall which you can box in later." "What about the flue?", I enquired, "we have a loft extension and you can't run it through there." "Yes we can, you'll have to move your bed and wardrobe and you can box in the flue afterwards. By the way, it's £5,300". We had an independent plumber in. "Nope, can't do a good enough job. Bye." We called in another. "Err, how about if we move it to the small loft space you have left where the (now) redundant tanks are? I'll have to pull up the floorboards to run the ...

I notice that the British Government are proposing to monitor (amongst other things) all emails sent and received by our goodselves. I, for one, will simply get a free Thawte signing certificate and encrypt everyone I send. However, does this mean they can catch the bastards who send me 2,000 spam emails every month? Probably not.

"Pitwall to Timo, Pitwall to Timo, come in please" "Timo, what d'you want?" "Pitwall, err, Ron says it's 2 million" "Timo, say again, you want to Ronseal what?" "Pitwall, RON, SAYS, PLEASE" "Timo, one peas? You talk about lunch?" "Pitwall, Lewis is behind you, let him past!" "Timo, how much?" "Pitwall, a lot, just shut up and slow up a bit" "Timo, Oh, you want me to let Lewis overtake me and let him win the world championship?" "Shut the f*** up on air!" "I think my tyres have just given up" "Good boy..."

Last week door lock bust on the smart roadie. And it went back in under warranty. Now, not that I'm going to libel Drake & Fletcher of Sutton Road, Maidstone, no no, far from it. They've always been most courteous and helpful all the many times I've had to ring them up since April when I picked up the Brabus. However, the following things were noticed when I got the car back from the "lock-fix":- The outer door handle wasn't as flush to the door skin as the passenger side. Only 1mm as opposed to 0.5mm, different none-the-less. The two black stickers that hide the screws weren't replaced, meaning that the screw heads are now visible every time you open the door. OK, they're only 6d for a thousand, but... The door seems to be slightly harder to pull open. Two of the clips that hold the screws that hold the front wing on were broken. To be fair, they may have already been bust, but they should have replaced them shouldn't they? This morning was th...

1. Attempt to repair a Windows XP laptop. Let me explain: Daughter comes back from university for the weekend. I manage to grab her laptop to install her new printer and notice that the Windows Updates are failing - like, all of them. Time & wine pass. Seems like a good idea to repair Windows using my genuine 1 XP Pro CD. The install fails for some reason with a CRC error on D:\I386\NT5.CAT. I scan the internet and get advised to rename CATROOT & CATROOT2 directories and try again. I reinstall and it works but I now get asked to put in the product key. And here where it all goes wrong due to Mr Merlot. I enter *my* product key from the disc. Bill says no and I'm stuffed. Whenever I try to log on, I get "please activate your copy of XP" and I can go no further. (lots of stuff deleted here about trying illegal keygens etc etc...) I panic (she needs the PC for uni) and buy a copy from eBay from the same bloke that I bought my copy from. My internet goes T/U 2 when ...

The smart roadster last week decided that it liked me an awful lot and showed its affection by not letting me out of the drivers door. A quick phone call confirmed it was under warranty. "Just drop it in and we'll take a look", they said. Great, but they then followed that with "if we can't fix it we'll have a word with the Mercedes dealer next door". Four days later I got it back, fixed and with a new door lock. However, they charged me for a new door handle which wasn't under warranty - go figure - but at least it was the upgraded version with the plastic bit that stops the pin falling out. Did you know, that to get to the lock (and everything else including the speakers) you have to remove the door skin ? Yes, the outer piece. There is no door card. To get that off you need to remove the door. To get that off you need to remove the front wing. To get that off you have to remove the Brabus side skirt. To get that off you break the clips... see prev...