If you don't mind learning the Gaelic for things like compression joints and isolating valves, BBC Alba (available on Freesat 110) is showing DIY Le Donnie which shows proper DIY like putting up new ceilings and knocking down walls.
Subtitled in English.
Owain
Hard to believe this is the first follow up to a subject so dear to our hearts.
You could be forgiven for believing the BBC has a rule about DIY being nothing more serious than throwing a lose cover over an old settee lest someone hurts themselves.
Perhaps it doesn't apply in the Highlands & Islands.
You've got to hand it to this guy, whatever he lacks in skill (and I suspect it's a lot) he makes up for in enthusiasm.
Can't help thinking about Reg Prescott though.
I watched half of episode one (thank gawd it has subtitles, though it is fascinating how many times he drops english words in and not even for hugely modern words - has gaelic really not evolved?)
Anyway - I like the bloke - and I wish he was on BBC2.
He has a 1970's practicality about him. Like plugging in a lamp to test the socket is dead (OK I know he should prove the lamp first, but it's a lot better than wading in). Popping a strip on the bare wires to make them passably safe when removing the wall around them. And no patronising bollocks at all.
I like the way he biases everything to thriftyness without being too "cheap" - viewers can take the skills and apply in a less thrifty way if they wish.
I don't think he's that low on skill - he does bother to show the virtues of pilot holes and getting things square.
And the best thing is - he doesn't have a god awful mockney accent (because everyone in england knows you can't have a builder speaking with a well annunciated english accent[1]).
[1] Although I had a carpenter who sounded exactly like Fred Dibnah - odd how many points that gave him in my mind as soon as he spoke :) And he did live up to it...Anyway - must watch more.
On 16/04/2015 17:04, Tim Watts wrote: ....
It would appear that Gaelic has no word for bathroom.
...
I liked him carefully putting a piece of wood behind the pry bar, so as not to mark the wall he is about to demolish.
Nightjar I liked him carefully putting a piece of wood behind the pry bar, so as
And he used that new plaster-cored, paper-faced "wood" ...
Nor any differentiation between wire and cable it would seem.
Like saving the tiles from the fireplace he removed (which he said he put i n himself, I guess in the 70s from the style) because someone else might us e them. I think that's fairly typical of people with islands backgrounds wh ere rubbish doesn't disappear and anything brought in is expensive and has to wait for space on the boat.
Owain
Taigh beag.
According to my native-Gaelic-speaking family, taigh beag can also be used for bathroom, not just toilet.
Donnie used the English word when talking about what he was planning to do.
That may be because there is no word for bathroom tho.
On 4/16/2015 6:52 PM, Nightjar Donnie used the English word when talking about what he was planning to do.
Some Gaelic speakers litter their conversation with English words, even when suitable Gaelic ones exist.
That could become an interesting joke...
That too :)
Hardly new or unusual in any language! :-)
Except in France - I think it is a corporal offence there...
True.
In message , john james writes
Unlike the Americans, of course, who use 'bathroom' when they really mean toilet or lavatory.
I wonder if 'beag' is where we get the word 'bog' from?
Doesn't look like it.
And today's episode on plumbingichoch even showed how to fit 1970s style bonding strapsh to the peepoch below the kitchen sink.
Owain
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