knobs and knockers

Gordon the painter did a great job whilst I was trekking in Scandinavia. I'd asked that the doorhandles and some switchplates were left off because they were to be replaced. No problem to find the new silver ones but the powerdrill and electric screwdriver had disappeared into the bowels of the garage. So do it manually with an old fashioned screwdriver? No! rashbre central demands electronics for such matters.

This allows a good demonstration of Newton's Fifth Law; "Anything requiring 'do it yourself skills' requires an equal and opposite amount of futile trips to the stores."

So the original door handles, switches and electrical sockets to be replaced all required some form of substitution because of depth or dimension problems. They say a bad worker blames the tools, but in this case there were strange shaped screw heads needing obscure allan keys and all manner of minor obstacle to turn a two hour task into a two day endurance test.

I won't blame the tools, but more the concept of trying to do this seemingly minor task in a small amount of time.

We are now all shiny and happy, however.