FUNDED BY YOU

Independence Day? Not again!!!

The Beeb’s Royal Charter is up for renewal next year and already the emotional blackmail has begun. ‘Funded by You’ - a much over-used slogan continually reminding us that when it comes to telly, you’ve no other choice but to get a licence in order to watch it. An undemocratic unpopular TV tax if ever there was one.

Funded by you?  Wish it wasn't

I don’t know about you but I’m more than happy to pay for something I want. Honestly though, the bilge that passes for TV these days has me scrabbling through my DVD collection more and more as time goes on.

Being a saddo with far too much time on my hands in the afternoons, I’ve perused this week’s tabloid TV guide to see how many films the BBC have on offer. The data is bleak.

BBC 1 has only 2 films scheduled after 5pm (Weds & Friday) both of which are on after midnight. Brilliant if you’re Count Dracula but pants for us mere mortals.

In contrast, BBC 2 is showing films almost nightly but all except one movie are scheduled to start after 11 pm. Again, brilliant for Count Dracula or all those retired/unemployed/night owls but pants for the working majority.

The rest of the Beeb’s schedule is peppered with the kind of shite you’d only see on a pig farm. It stinks!

Why am I being robbed of £180 per year for this muck? My Netflix subscription only costs me £72 per annum. I want recent films, thrilling dramas or interesting documentaries and I’d like to see them before I go to bed thank you very much, particularly during the working week which means prior to 10 pm.

I also want choice! Scrap the TV licence altogether then completely re-engineer the Beeb. In my ideal TV world, I would:

Set up a dedicated BBC sports channel so that anything which involves a bat/ball/cue/dart/racket or other form of physical exertion are removed from everyday viewing and broadcast to those peeps who are genuinely interested.

Same goes for all that reality tripe that gets served up daily. These types of programmes only fit for viewers with the IQ of a bag of compost would be consigned to a dedicated BBC Entertainment channel and taken off terrestrial TV altogether.

I would also set up a subscription service for BBC iPlayer so that those who do want to watch Beeb programmes pay for it.  It would be competitively priced to rival Prime or Netflix and be considerably cheaper than it is now.

Leave a basic free terrestrial service covering news, documentaries and kids TV and fund this by commercial advertising revenues like all the other channels do. This new Basic Beeb to include social education programmes covering topics such as finance, investing, fraud protection, DIY, gardening,travel and wellbeing.

Scrap this TV tax I say!! Its no longer serving the purpose in today’s modern streaming society where consumers want to pick what to watch and when to watch it. No-one really has time to sit down all evening to view stuff even more so when there’s nothing especially good to see. Most of us just want to ‘binge’ when it comes to watching telly, filling our heads with a never-ending glut of soaps or serials.

As there’s nothing worthwhile on the box, the other half and I have created the Independence Day Game which basically involves putting a pound in a pot every time this movie or its sequel is broadcast. To give you an idea of how often this film gets repeated, there’s already a fiver in the jam jar.

How often is this film shown on telly?

If Independence Day doesn't float your boat then try the Men In Black franchise but be warned, you may end up bankrupt as these movies get aired more than Lord Mandy's baggy white underpants.

Since Independence Day appears to be the go-to slot filler on pretty much every channel then looks like our replacement TV licence is going to be funded by repetition rather than by you.

YEAR OF THE HORSE

Joyous celebrations! 2026 is the Year of the Horse, a kind of Chinese Auld Nags Syne. 

Quick, speed dial the 'chinky'. Whoops! Forgot we can’t say that anymore. Scrub that last sentence, replace with – telephone the purveyor of Oriental world cuisine. I’ll have Singapore noodles, spare ribs with a side of sweet and sour chicken balls. Don’t spare the horses though, I’m starving!!

What sort of horsey year will 2026 turn out to be, I wonder? Let’s see what’s in my fortune cookie…

I can predict the future

Will it be a Red Rum sort of year? Yay or neigh? By some peculiar quirk of fate, this load of jockeys in charge of the country might actually smash the gangs, boost growth and lower our energy bills in an unprecedented grand national triple win much like our four-legged hero did back in the 70s. Don’t bet on any winnings from this ‘acca’ any time soon says the cookie.

Red Rum - three times Grand National winner

My second cookie predicts a Shergar scenario where our once mighty ‘island of strangers’ (he said it not me) mysteriously disappears, sunk by a tidal wave of protests, pollution and poverty. No-one ever did find out what happened to this infamous nag. By the same token, no-one is ever likely to pin-point exactly where it all went wrong for Britain.

Whatever happened to Shergar?

And a third cookie (munch, munch) reveals hot-to-trot fortunes may well turn out to be a Mr Ed. Muppet Miliband wakes in the shower one morning to find that all his crazy net zero schemes were just a bad dream. As he soaps his nether regions, he wonders if the pits have re-opened, Government coffers are flowing with revenue generated from North Sea fossil fuels or Britain’s motor industry is booming thanks to increased production of petrol cars. Hang on, was that all a dream?

Trust me - I'll bring down your energy bills

Bollocks! I’ve just dropped a sauce-smeared chicken ball onto the keyboard. This is what happens when you’re lunching and blogging on the hoof.

These fortune cookies are so scrummy though, I’m just going to have to continue chomping my way through the entire box until I’ve uncovered a fortuitous prediction featuring golden unicorns or a sure-fire winner in the 3.30 at Kempton Park.

Mmmm - bloody tasty!

Happy Year of the Horse to you all!

WOOD PANELS - KINKY BIT

If ever there was a need for something kinky to take our minds off this awful wet weather, our lack of medals in the winter Olympics or the continual scraping of the political barrel in a bid to oust Hanging-on-by-an-ear Keir then this is it.

Rally the DIY troops, unexpected sunshine forecast. There’s not a moment of timber cutting time to lose!

Wood panelling efforts are now directed to the corridor’s kinky bit which we’ve saved until last.

OMG - this looks difficult

Getting kinky

This kinky corner section is made up of 3 separate wall areas, none of them equal in size so any attempts to make things look symmetrical are well and truly out of the window. You can only do your best with what you’ve got to work with.

As before, beginning at the bottom then working up each section. Start by dry fitting the bottom horizontal rail, cutting out individual pieces to accommodate electric sockets or other sticking out items.

Begin at the bottom

To get everything to flow neatly round the kinks, the other half has created a mitred edge on one end of each long horizontal piece. I hope to disguise these unsightly joins with a ton of decorator’s caulk.

Sort of mitred joints to get round the corner

Add your vertical side pieces to each of the larger sections followed by mitred top pieces to create two big squares. In a photo both squares look almost the same size but there is about a 10 cm difference in the width of each one. I guess I could have fiddled with the width of the vertical pieces to try to get round this but as I want to keep everything looking the same then I’m just going to leave it as it is.

Create each side square section first

You might have noticed that I've not added vertical pieces to the smaller middle square. On the dry fit, I did put some in but it left a ridiculously tiny area in the middle which would have made the whole panel run look odd so executive decision taken to not use additional verticals on this bit.

Finish each square with pine mouldings

Finish the middle section with a horizontal rail then add pine frame mouldings to the inside edge of each square section. Looks better than I thought it would do and aside from the mitred MDF joins, not as complicated as I anticipated.

Top with pine bead

Top all three sections with thin pine bead and dado rail then caulk every gap to within an inch of its life.

Caulk every single gap

Add dado rail

Our kinky bit finished. It’s a miracle - not a tear shed or a voice raised this time. Must be this glorious sunshine or perhaps it’s the Valentines Day effect. Kiss, kiss. Hug, hug. Darling, pass me the glue gun. Yes, Honey Bun.

Kinky bit finished and ready for priming

WOOD PANELS - RAD WALL

Just how much more rain is going to fall? Having seen off not-so-dry January, it now looks like flood-alert February is going to continue to bring more of the same.

Quite frankly, I’m sick of getting soaked to the skin on the daily walk home from work and only wish that the British climate would hurry up and change for something a little more equatorial, less aquatic. At this rate, I’ll be swapping walking boots for an inflatable kayak as many roads round these parts have turned into urban reservoirs or been closed altogether.

Since gardening is temporarily off the agenda, attention has turned to the unfinished wood panelling project begun before Christmas. Yes, where was I on that one?

Ah, the long radiator wall. On the face of it, this looks fairly straight forward now the rad has been removed but now that I’ve had a closer look then perhaps not.

BEFORE - the rad wall

What I'm hoping for on this wall

For starters there’s the pipework, BT box and fibre optic broadband cable to factor in along the bottom rail. I’ve had to carefully plot the location of these on the lower pieces of MDF then cut out shaped sections to accommodate them. Do this first as you will not be able to dry fit anything until the lower sections can be neatly positioned.

Template and cut round any fixtures

Secondly, the wall is long. Over 3.5 metres long. Most timber or MDF sheets are sold in 2.4 metre lengths so to maintain the overall symmetry, the wall has been divided into two equal sections with all measurements being calculated from a central point for the longer horizontal pieces. Draw a line down the wall at this central point.

Once the shaped horizontal rails have been stuck in place at the bottom of the wall, position the first vertical panels at either end of the entire wall. I have used 5 verticals in total in the design of this section.

Using the middle line drawn down the wall, centre the third vertical panel across the line and stick in place.

Stick end and middle vertical pieces in place

Measure the available gap between the end panel and the central vertical panel. Divide in two to arrive at the mid-point then draw another line down the wall. Do the same on both sides. These pencil lines will mark the place at which the remaining two vertical panels are centred.

Voila – all vertical panels should be evenly spaced along the wall giving a nice symmetrical look to things.

Five evenly spaced vertical pieces

Finally, stick the two horizontal rails on top of the vertical panels taking care that these join together in the middle of the vertical piece.

Horizontal pieces joined across centre vertical

As before I have finished the panels with some pine moulding inserted into each square section, cut to form a neat frame with mitred corners.

Add pine mouldings to each square

Topping the entire section with a length of pine stripwood from B & Q:

Pine stripwood used to cap MDF

Then finished off with Cheshire Mouldings dado rail as it’s been almost impossible to find a rebated dado rail that would fit neatly on the top of the MDF horizontal pieces.

Dado moulding stuck on top of the stripwood

Lastly, lightly sand any bits sticking out of panel joins then use decorators caulk to fill any unsightly gaps.  Re-sand the caulked joints once dry.  Hurrah!  At last the rad wall is ready for priming.