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A bit of stressful drama: the upstairs neighbours had a leak, and a mushroom-shaped damp patch appeared in the kitchen. Then the fire alarm started weeping, and then making its terrible sound – it’s funny that water, famously the opposite of fire, can make it do that. But it was all resolved impressively quickly once I told the responsible people, and now I know how to disconnect a smoke alarm.
(Most annoyingly, in the process of flipping switches on the fusebox to try to silence the alarm, I somehow damaged the Wi-Fi router. So I took the opportunity to upgrade to a higher-specification one, then wasted an afternoon dealing with two configuration bugs which I should probably write/tell someone about instead of being coy and unhelpful.)
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Not prompted by anything in particular, I remembered the rule against drying “washing/laundry” on balconies here, got all indignant again, and plaintively googled why oh why such a rule would exist. I found a 2019 Mumsnet thread, where it was suggested that some snooty nobs think the sight of laundry is “unsightly”, redolent of a “council estate” – I suppose they just buy new clothes (or have their butlers do it) instead of washing them like a ruddy pleb. I was comforted that the posters of Mumsnet generally shared my indignation, and then of course I was quite alarmed.
In a way, the rule has my best interests at heart – drying outside covers the clothes with pollution and allergens – but I can’t shake the feeling that, if I can’t dry my pants al fresco, then Al-Qaeda has won.
(There’s nothing uglier than someone accusing something of being an “eyesore” … but if aesthetics really are the concern, why is it OK to park a Nissan Juke outside?)
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Speaking of al fresco unfairness: in the news, a local bus driver got the sack and a police caution for being photographed er getting sucked off at a terminus during a break. That seems unnecessarily harsh, and, more gallingly, the creepy snitch who took the photo goes unpunished.
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Average White Band (h). Best of all, the show finished earlier than advertised (and without the advertised interval) so I had time to go for a jacket potato after (hotter than the sun, wonderful, I should have these more often).
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Frank Skinner (+ Pierre Novellie) (a) (Colchester).
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John Kearns (+ Pat Cahill) (a) (Brighton/Hove).
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It was my birthday. My “cardio fitness” level, which the Apple Health app claims is “low”, is now closer to just “below average” for my age. And I’ve still got more than a year left to enjoy ⅓ off rail travel – more than I’d misthought!