Britians worst DIY'er

[The Medway Handyman]

Any one see this tonight? What a load of rubbish.

Three inept DIY'ers were given a series of tasks to complete, one of which was removing a sink.

One hapless victim sawed into a copper pipe to find the stopcock wasn't turned off, water gushed everywhere. The heroic & manly presenter removed his jacket & stepped in to save the day.

He finished cutting the pipe remarkably quickly and said to the victim "in my jacket pocket you will find two white plastic caps".

These turned out to be push fit stop ends, one of which he rammed onto the heavily painted copper pipe - and whacked down with a hammer! The leak miraculously stopped.

I wonder how many takes they did?

[geoff]

In message , The Medway Handyman writes

You knew it was going to be a Drivel TV when you watched it, didn't you

- what were you expecting ?

[John]

At least with Barry Bucknell people stood to learn some skills.

[Bob Mannix]

Mmmm, like how to cover a nice panelled door with hardboard AFAICR. He had a lot to answer for!

[George]

My mates old fella always watched him and even done what he done ie covered the bannister rails with hardboard,covered the 1950's tiled fire surround with boxed wood and as you said...hardboard over the panelled doors. :-(

[The Medway Handyman]

Right. I turned over after that & watched the Time Team thing about the WW1 Vampire dugout - good TV.

[Dan Smithers]

I remember my parents undoing a lot of these changes in houses that they bought when I was young. At least it can be undone (by removing the hardboard). If it's removed and thrown away then it's gone.

dan

[Rod]

But not very easily if the ballusters, newels, etc. had turned knobs and protuberances - which were all sawn off to allow the hardboard to be fitted. :-(

(No - I have never done it. But I am well aware of several instances.)

[dennis]

Good, those things are horible, along with Aga, living flame gas fires, picture rails, coving and most of the other cr@p stuff people used to have in houses in the dark ages.

[Bob Eager]

Yup, my dad did all of those too!

[unopened]

Err - what's wrong with picture rails? They allow you to move the pictures around as frequently (or even more frequently) than the significant other member of the household wants the furniture rearranged. We also have a 'summer' and 'winter' set of pictures. (Love allows one to put up with many things, even me)

To my mind it beats putting holes in the wall, which need making good whenever we have a rearrangement.

As for 'living-flame', I think it slightly beats sitting round the storage heater. I can't abide 'coal-effect' electric fires myself, but 'de gustibus non es disputandum' as they say.

Other pet hates are colourless transparent plastic tap tops, 'room scenters' (especially the plug-in variety that give a squirt of 'perfume' every so often), any soft furnishing or upholstery with ruffles, Crown Derby (how anyone can give it houseroom, I have no idea). Swarovski crystal collections...

Sorry, I'll go and lie down.

Good workmanship using high quality materials with practical design gets my vote. Gimcrack gew-gaws don't.

All the best,

Sid

[Rod]

The best thing about picture rails is the ease of hanging a picture using two chains/strands/something-or-others. So they are much more resilient to getting knocked off straight. (If you get them right in the first place. :-) )

(No - we don't have picture rails. :-( )

[unopened]

Well, I may, possibly, be biased in their favour. ;-)

When I was considerably younger than I am now, and had more hair to boot, I shared a house. I had the smallest bedroom, which was just large enough to have a single bed, leaving enough space to walk alongside the bed and round the foot of the bed, between the bed and the window. No room for a wardrobe. I hung all my clothes from the picture rail, keeping anything that couldn't be hung up in the under- bed drawers. I lived like that for several years, until one of the other sharers moved out, so I took over the freed up bedroom, which had (what seemed like) acres of fitted cupboards.

When I last moved, between two of us, we had 30 cubic metres of 'stuff'. It's amazing how it piles up!

Regards,

Sid

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "The Medway Handyman" saying something like:

The steels and timbers were in amazing condition, considering.

[Andy Champ]

No oxygen down there. Full of water, and no flow; what there was would soon run out.

Andy

[Dave]

It would be nice if they could get back and do some more digging at that site.

Dave

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Dave saying something like:

I think it's rather a pity they didn't open up one that had actually been in use for a while. Oh, remember the mines at Messines Ridge? Apparently one never went off in 1916 but it wasn't noticed at the time - it blew up in 1954, startling a farmer a bit. Who knows if there's any more...