Systeme D

10 January 2007

Nnnnnnnnnngh

Woke up this morning (da-da-da-da-da)
Rain... drummin' on my head [1] (da-da-da-da-da)
Too much goddamn whisky [2] (da-da-da-da-da)
Felt like I was dead [3]

[1] well, on the roof of the boat
[2] one glass of Westons Organic Vintage cider
[3] not really; just a bit peeved at being woken up two hours early

I woke up early this morning to the sound of torrential rain on the boat roof. Not a problem - quite soothing, in fact - other than for the leaks around the vents.

Then I heard an insistent "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" noise from somewhere.

At first I paid little attention to it, because Burton is full of strange sounds and smells, largely connected with the breweries. (Living downwind of Marstons is a whole load better than living opposite the Kerry Foods factory, and the attendant 5am deliveries, as I did last year.) "Eeeee"s and "rrrrrr"s and "sssssss"s are quite common.

After about five minutes I realised this was a bit louder than the average "eeeee".

Fall out of bed. Walk up to the bow. Noise gets quieter. (I'm starting to have suspicions.) Walk back to the stern. Noise quite loud. Fumble around with the back door locks, which were designed by a cretin and require poking things with a stick, finally get them open, noise now very loud. Open the engine compartment.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Ok, so the survey wasn't quite accurate when it said the bilge pump wasn't connected to anything.

So much rain had fallen that the float switch on the bilge pump had kicked in, which is good. This is what float switches are meant to do. Sadly the bilge pump doesn't (pump, that is). Nor does the panel switch work. If the boat was going to sink it'd have done so when we loaded the organ in, so I'm not too worried about that, but a bilge pump burning out is not a whole load of fun. Especially as it'll stop me getting back to sleep.

The bilge pump system was also designed by a cretin, or possibly an underappreciated genius. (I think the survey described it as "ingenious", or maybe it was "stupid".) It involves a tray floating in a sump for no apparent reason, a bunch of hoses, and the hitherto undiscovered ability of water to flow uphill. And, of course, a lot of nasty bilge water.

A lot of shlepping about with saucepans didn't make the pump start pumping, or just shut up, but it did change the noise to a rather more impressive sounding "Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnngh". Eventually I ended up using the hand-pump to manually empty the bilge, at which point the bilge pump decided its USP was clearly under threat and that maybe returning to hibernation wasn't such a bad idea.

Unfortunately I was now sufficiently wet, and awake, that returning to hibernation wasn't an option for me.

Some other stuff:

  • Mmmm, iPhone. That will be Google Maps on your mobile, then. Actually, the interesting stuff (for me, at least) is that the intention seems to be that third-party applications are delivered through a browser, whether Safari or Widgets. All of the OS X-specific extensions to Widget HTML make a bit more sense now. Doubtless it'll play Flash, too - yay.
  • I did finally get a new phone over Christmas, to replace the Motorola V2288e I've had since 2001. I wasn't planning to, but well, for £30 (clearance shelf, Jessops, Manchester) - somewhat cheaper than an iPhone - a little Siemens cameraphone seemed too good to resist. All I need to do now is work out how to get Dupre's Prelude in B major as the ringtone.
  • Potlatch is not only finished, but the PHP bits are now in Ruby (and much more compact, Ruby's a very efficient language even if the typing boggles my head) and I've started on some of the v0.5 features. Wheee.
  • This year's London Boat Show is crap. Don't go. February's WW has turned out ever so gloomy - a bit of "BW are bastards" followed by "the Government are bastards", "the European Commission are bastards", and "the London Boat Show is crap". Ah well.
  • I kind of keep a watching brief on all this paparazzi-legality stuff, not least because we run hundreds of pictures an issue, none of which have any form of "model release" or any other such consent malarkey. MediaGuardian and Press Gazette online have both been full of Kate Middleton coverage over the past couple of days: is it right to camp outside her house? Is it legal? And so on. But I did have a sharp intake of breath at this Daily Mail story (I know, blogging about a Mail story, I'll shoot myself later). The caption says "Before: Frumpy in a jumper. After: Stunning in a BCBG gown". I'd personally place the "frumpy" before as "quite dashing, really" and the "stunning" after as "dim Sloane". One of these days I'm going to put something up on Pledgebank to say "I'll buy £1,000 of Daily Mail and General Trust shares, with the intention of buying the company and closing down the Mail, but only if one million other people will join me." Anyway, WTF is BCBG? Is it something like MDMA?
  • And on the subject of DMGT rubbish, Metro front-page headline from last week (an extended quote): "The man beside me might have been dead because he had a glazed look". Quick, move your facial muscles, not doing so can be fatal!
  • Last weekend Sandy (Mum's dog), with 16 years of sprinting to Uppingham and jumping on and off tables/sofas/visitors behind her, could no longer get up off the floor. Mum called the vet, and on Monday it turned out that she had broken her leg almost irretrievably. So Sandy is now a three-legged dog. Apparently it hasn't stopped her running (hopping) in from the back garden and up the steps because it's far too wet out there for any self-respecting mutt.

Comments

"... a tray floating in a sump for no apparent reason, a bunch of hoses, and the hitherto undiscovered ability of water to flow uphill..."

This isn't a variant of the "biscuit-tin under stern gland" thing that some people advocate? (As I understand it the point being to ensure that water leaking from the stern gland is pumped out before it mixes with whatever's in the bilge, minimising the amount of engine oil that's pumped out with it, but I may have this backwards.)

Posted by Chris Lightfoot on 28.1.07 13:03

the girl came in her. I have jessica alba porn gotten to do i.

Posted by albajessica on 8.5.07 03:34

Keep up the great work!

Posted by Leigh on 10.5.07 12:36

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