It turns out that the official LJ importer doesn't do comments (I suspect something's been changed since it was written) which is a bit annoying but does at least avoid the moral dilemma of what to do about comments to locked posts, especially as some of these are public on their new home.

So the plan is to post the public interest stuff on lovingboth.com, crossposted to DW (which should then crosspost to LJ), leaving the DW/LJ blogs for more personal things.

Let's see how long that lasts

Alas comments on that page are closed, otherwise I would be saying, yes, it was a surprise how good it is. We did get somewhere just off London Road (the old A1 – fortunately, the bypass dates back to the 1960s). It would be interesting to know why the schools were listed in the order they chose..

More coverage in Scrapheap Orchestra on BBC (on iPlayer until at least Sunday) with the violin-making school featured. The charity shop someone else got the cutlery from is here too.

Ah, the extractor fan isn't working now, so it must be something out of just the lighting circuit.

Is it the switch on the side nearby? Hmm, let's swap the fuse. Nope, it doesn't work with a known good fuse. (It turns out that that switch does the fridge some distance away on the other side of the hob. Yeah, that makes sense…)

Is it something on the main fuse box under the stairs? Nope, they're all good.

Some time later, I look up and go ah ha! There's one up by the hood.

It probably is it, and it's the one which the person who built the hood half covered with one of the sides of the hood… including covering the fuse bit to an extent that you can't open it.

My Dear friend,

This is confidential and I must not in any way go into full details about what brought us together in the past, but I want to use this opportunity to thank you for your Kind assistance when you participated and assisted me to move and claim funds through a business proposal I sent to you some time ago. I contacted you via the internet about some certain money which I wanted you to assist me claim.

I am so sorry also that after you have endured with me and spent a lot of money to make this deal successful, I misled you in the last minute and then I used someone else to divert the funds..

I am also sorry because I decided to change the account details and I used another account to claim this money without your knowledge. I am also sorry for the difficulties and frustrations you have been facing sending money to different people to assist you get your claims without success. I am sorry I did not give to you your 30% share as agreed even when I concluded the business successfully without your knowledge.

I am now based somewhere in the Pacific’s (sic) enjoying my new found status as a wealthy millionaire and then suddenly I remembered that I may have wrecked your life financially when I fell sick.

Recently I started having spiritual troubles and I wake up at night screaming after some people in my dream attempted to kill me, this has happened many times and now a Psychic told me that someone I cheated some time ago is facing financial difficulties as a result of what I did to him financial and until I compensate you, the end will be near for me.

I FEAR this bad faith befalling me for the miseries I have caused to your life. I have decided to compensate you with the sum of $500,000.00 so that I may have my peace. I have issued a bank draft of $500,000.00 and I have instructed my lawyer in Malaysia wait for your response and then he must pay you this money immediately and PLEASE FORGIVE ME.

Please contact my lawyer based in Malaysia because I have given him instructions to deliver this money to you as soon as possible. I thank you so much for all your help in the past.You can contact [..] on his email [..] and just tell him that you are contacting him under instruction from Code: RCPFCW Please send to him your (1) photo I.D (2) your full address and (2) phone number at once, so that he will arrange to remit the money to you by wire transfer to your account or by personal delivery to your address as quickly as possible.

On behalf of myself and my family I thank you so much for your great help in the past and I visualize a happy life for you too as soon as this compensation is released to you and then you forgive me all my mistakes towards you. I will be eternally grateful!
Regards
RCPFCW
Cayman Island (sic)

I'm also slightly surprised they commit to a percentage share I have been conned out of, or is 30% the going rate these days? (Or are repeat victims of these too innumerate to remember what it was last time?)

1. It's one of the things that stops me wanting to buy them more often.

2. OK, only the lowest level. But that's still better than the usual 'one tiny win in the past six months'.

There's more space here, so today it got taken out of its box for the first time. With this one, the mains power goes to the sub-woofer, and there's a fixed wire between that and the control box to give the latter some low DC voltage. Plug that in (there's only one place it will go) and attach the speakers. As it said at the start of an episode of the awful original V series, 'At first, (it) looked normal, but then…'

Immediately it was powered on, the control box started to catch fire. I was initially more concerned about why the speakers were emitting a horrible buzzing noise, but 'Where's that smoke coming from?!' soon crossed my mind (and nose!)

Fortunately, it doesn't look to have damaged anything (the DVD player still works, for example) and I am currently resisting the temptation to see what voltage is coming from the sub-woofer / open the control box to see which component leaked its magic smoke out. Partly this is because I'm waiting to see what Boffer say… It's way out of their advertised warranty, but electrical kit you sell that badly overheats the first time it's switched on is not exactly merchantable quality.

Oh, yes, of course there's a 'QC checked' sticker on the control box.