For Gosport-based writer and planetary modeller David Angus, it’s been a rubbish start to the New Year. Literally.
Some company creep found a rule forbidding workmen walking more than 30 metres to collect the rubbish bins on my block which is some distance from a road, then enforced this as health and safety; wilfully oblivious of the far worse health and safety situation building up with no rubbish collected since before Christmas. I’d just assumed those doing this for the subcontracted company were on holiday but when I realised what wasn’t going on in early January I found myself joining a debating society on whether the rubbish should be collected. That seems to be what the Council and others have formed to deal with this. Never mind about people paying council tax.
Add to this the lousy weather and dark days of January, a big toe that still looks like a hell-scape of disease and the computer fun and games I don’t need, not only with changing to Windows 11 but an obligation to take on a new company crap video system. Not a good start to the New Year in contrast to the great start last year of a pension pot and the honour of becoming a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
It’s as though my enemy Fate has reacted in a vindictive way to my successes of last year by accumulating humdrum, mundane and sick issues for one to deal with.
And its masterstroke of aggravating irritation is the bathroom light failing during the darkest time of the year just before Christmas.
Initially I thought it was just replacing a bulb but when I got the light-cover off I saw bare wires free of the bulb. Uh oh. That’s when I knew I was out of my depth what with the possibility of at least one of them being live! A chance of being assassinated by my mortal enemy Fate then. No choice but to call in an electrician. But it was Christmas and I decided to put it off until January. Now I look back on it I suppose I’m lucky a live wire didn’t start a fire while I was away and burn the block down.
I never ‘trust a trader’, don’t like DIY or the alternative of calling in a professional wide boy to financially humiliate me in my home. I’m not practical by nature and hate a situation where I’m obliged to display my weaknesses instead of my strengths. But there was no choice but to ‘Check a Trade.’ There were only 2 electricians listed which might be a clue as to the reliability of the profession. The first query backed that up when the printed offer of a free viewing was contradicted by a woman who brought up company charges suggesting otherwise. I really despise this kind of commercial doublethink and the woman’s tone was verging on arrogant. So was mine. We parted with a veneer of civilised behaviour on the point of disappearing. The next service seemed to consist of a single guy who was more friendly and cheaper.
He was young with dreadlocks and cheerful despite my occasional comments of ‘I can’t tell you how much I hate this shit!’ Luckily he was well prepared and I got him to test the wire with his equipment though I thought I’d turned the light off. I hadn’t and that wasn’t all I’d missed. The immediate fitting for the bulb had broken and that meant a whole new light fitting. This kind of experience was running true to form: me being dangerously wrong, missing the obvious and sucked into more complexity and expense.
I thought I’d better get the light fitting to avoid being ripped off and wrote down the technical gobbledygook accompanying this kind of thing to support my memory. I tried 3 places. The first didn’t. I thought Wickes did but all they had was one fitting twice the size of the old which had to be ordered. The third I’ll rename ‘Screwyou’ for fun. They actually had 91 variations but they were all twice the size too! I decided that wasn’t a problem for I had ample wall space and chose one of the deals.
Maybe Screwyou’s wide choice had something to do with types of light bulbs. The fitting I bought took bulbs with a screw fitting. I had a store of nothing but bayonet bulbs. Talk about missing the obvious. To my frustration and confusion. I could have got a refund but my electrician friend said he might as well fit the light fitting and I allowed him. He worked half an hour in all but charged by the hour. I hate arguments over money and just wanted an end to it.
Not that his departure was the end for I still had to find the right screw (you) light bulb. I bought 2 of different types to be on the safe side.
Then I couldn’t try them out for the light fitting wouldn’t unscrew it’s cover!
Enraged I marched up to a bus stop intending to descend on Screwyou and get a refund but changed my mind, deciding to get the cover off as proof.
With this and murder in my mind I approached the loathed light fitting armed with a hammer and maximum sized screwdriver, gave the fitting a whack as hard as I could intending to destroy it! But the cover bounced off still in one piece.
It was in fact the eventual surrender. The first bulb I tried was okay and working and I managed to carefully get the cover back.
So there you have it: this particular pestilential problem from Mundania finally ending at the cost of an exhaustive survey of the upper reaches of Shit Creek, not to mention a lighter bank balance by over £100. At least I didn’t electrocute myself or anyone else or start a fire.
To all those out there beset by humdrum problems some of my last article about recovering from disaster might be of use here too and I hope this account might inspire a sense of humour rather than suicidal tendencies. Either way though I’d like to say ‘I feel your pain.’
And to help a sense of hope I feel the corner has been turned this week. Last year I ran a time travel show that didn’t go well but there’s been a breakthrough on that this week; with a laptop session with a young guy who’s shown me how useful AI can be: creating time travel effects, a coal age swamp and working with Dinosaurs.
Apart from that a lot of people are involved with the rubbish now and a solution to it, I’ve mastered the new video system and Windows 11 to the point of writing this on it, and my big toe’s slowly but surely healing. So roll with the rubbish but keep soldiering on and seize opportunities.
Image reproduced courtesy of a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 licence.
