IN A FIX

Energy – one of my pet peeves which like the NHS is guaranteed to have me ranting in 60 seconds’ flat.

What now? Groans the other half, rolling his eyes to the heavens and tactically taking refuge behind his motor racing magazine. He knows better than to try to get a word in when the energy touch paper’s been lit.

So, the Government’s latest wheeze is to reduce energy standing charges for thousands of businesses. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1ljnrrmd7jo

Oh, that’s a good one. I haven’t laughed as much in years. But wait, doesn’t that mean we’ll all have to pay higher standing charges in order to subsidise this business benefit?

Ha, ha, ha – yes it does she says with tears of laughter falling down her cheeks. Plus there’s likely to be an extra sneaky levy added to cover payments to EDF for the new Sizewell nuclear reactor, energy unit costs guaranteed by our Government for the next 35 years. Chortle, chortle - Oh you’re killing me! 

Or the claw back from energy suppliers from us muppets for the extended Warmer Homes Discount to all on benefits – LOL that’s just tooooo much! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!  Priceless!

Best joke in ages

It’s no wonder the UK has the highest energy bills than anywhere else on the planet because every time someone sneezes in the Energy sector, the cost is stealthily added to standing charges. Don’t even mention the words ‘Net Zero’ in my presence, you might suddenly find your brakes failing on the M27.

WE. WILL. NEVER. GET. REDUCED. BILLS. I am shouting this out loud at the screen because it not only makes me feel good but because if you believe all the empty promises about cheaper energy in the future then you need a lobotomy. Not going to happen. Ever.

This latest ploy coupled with the most recent global conflict has had me fleeing to the sanctuary of a fixed energy tariff something I haven’t had to do in years. Sorry but I can’t wait until Ofgem’s reduced price-cap kicks in next month or until Israel/Iran kiss and make up, I’m fixing my prices now so that I can forget all this shit for another 12 months.

I’ve discovered that Octopus, my new energy supplier, allows punters to change from their existing fixed tariff plan to a new deal mid contract with no exit penalties applied. Tariff hopping here I come!

I love pink octopuses!

If I wait until October when my current fix runs out, oil prices might have gone through the roof and so might standing charges; stuff guaranteed to pump up inflation, prices and interest rates. I’m jumping ship now whilst it’s still afloat as Octopus’s latest 12-month fix offers me lower consumption rates and daily standing charge fees than what I’m currently on.

I urge you to check your latest bill then get a quote from Octopus or any other supplier offering a yearly fix to see if rates are cheaper than what you’re on. Better to fix now before Labour come up with any more ridiculous policies guaranteed to bump up your bills.

It's great to see the Government supporting businesses but just de-couple the price of electricity from gas then we could ALL enjoy cheaper energy!!!

LEADING LIGHT

Killing time waiting for the sparky to come and fit the super-duper new ceiling light purchased for the downstairs loo.

After hours of fruitless searching, I’d struggled to find something practical yet different to light up our new loo so I bought a boring set of chrome spotlights but then weeks later I had a cyber moment that changed all that.

Randomly surfing the web of an evening as you do, I came across this delightful ceiling light. It’s called a Hinkley Somerset globe ceiling light with a flushed mount in a heritage brass colour and a milky glass shade. Perfect.

Hinkley Somerset ceiling light in heritage brass colour

This fabulous ceiling light should co-ordinate nicely with all the other gold-coloured accessories/pipework plus I think it will also compliment my Metropolis posters having a bit of a modern but vintage feel to it.

New home for my old Metropolis movie inspired posters

Even though our cloakroom ceiling is the size of a postage stamp, this lovely light doesn’t look out of place or dwarf the area. 

Neatly fits into small spaces

It's always a good idea to keep everything in proportion when coming up with interior designs to prevent any one fixture dominating the overall finished effect.

Looks great near the posters

Our next full length feature film - The Plumber Always Rings Twice.

AVENUES & ALLEYWAYS

Does your front garden smell like a tramp’s urinal? Do you wrinkle your nose as you pass the petunias on the way to the front door? Banish those nasty niffs of dog walker turd bags, half eaten takeaways or next door’s bonfire with a squirt of whole driveway deodorant. Comes with a Useless Product guarantee, refills at £200 per can (excluding postage) and high toxicity warning. Clears odours effectively, kills everything else in a 3-mile radius.

Just thought I’d have a go at inventing my own un-necessary product while waiting out the midday sun in this rather unexpected heatwave.

According to the Met Office, if you have 3 or more consecutive days of temperatures above a specific threshold then it’s technically classed as a heatwave. So, using that logic does that mean if you have 3 or more consecutive days of Government bullshit is that then classed as a Shitwave? Hmmm. Yes or No?

Anyhow, we’re not here to talk politics – it’s far too hot for that. I’m here to tell you about the transformation of my side alleyway from spartan wind tunnel into verdant paradise and share tips on how this was achieved on a very shoe string budget.

When we moved our side gate forward at the end of last year, it created a rather long and spartan looking wind tunnel along the length of the house. It looked dreadfully bare and devoid of greenery but with a bit of imagination and some super scrimping, this tunnel is now a small paradise.  Here’s how you can pimp up your alleyway.

Space is always going to be at a premium in an alleyway that’s only 1.4 metres wide so it’s a case of thinking upwards rather than outwards and that’s where the power of Poundland comes in.

Never underestimate the bargains that can be had in the gardening section of Poundland where you can often find wall pots or hanging baskets at a fraction of the price than a posher garden centre. I chanced upon these grey half-moon planters for £1 each.

Poundland planters perfect for growing strawberries

Deep enough to plant a couple of strawberry plants in each or some colourful trailing basket plants.

Dot them on your walls to add colour

Simply a case of drilling a hole in the wall, these planters have a handy groove in the back that neatly slots onto a fat screw head.

Reduces the impact of ugly pipes

I’ve used wall hung planters to minimise the ugliness of the peeling asbestos waste pipes as we cannot scrape the paint off (health hazard) and replacing them is way down the list of DIY projects.

Perfect fit between two pipes

Planters and a few strategically placed pots around the gas meter box have helped to frame it better making it look less utility and more Chelsea Flower show.

Less utility, more Chelsea flower show

Use surplus timber planks, pallets or wood that can be treated with outdoor paint, stain or varnish to make long narrow planters. The other half excels at knocking these up from DIY project leftovers. 

Planters made from surplus decking planks

There are always people looking to get rid of old pallets on community groups such as Nextdoor so if you’re lucky then you may be able to bag these free of charge. Free paint can now be found at many local recycling centres or do what I do and look in B&Qs bargain bucket. It may not be your colour but it does the trick at half the price!

Planters are great for growing alleyway mangetout peas

After waterproofing your planters with a couple of coats of exterior paint make sure you line the insides with a nice bit of plastic. Super scrimper gardeners like me use empty compost bags for this. Made out of thick plastic, compost bags can be ripped apart then stapled to the inside of a planter to protect the interior and help retain moisture that might otherwise be sucked away by bare timber.

Baby peas

have become monsters

I collect all my old compost bags ready to use not just as planter liners but also to line large pots too like this lovely plastic planter I bought from a local Charity shop. My bay tree has put on loads of growth since I potted it up into its new home.

Green pot - Cancer Research Shop

And on the subject of Charity shops, these are a good place to source cheap decorative bits and bobs to brighten up your walls or fences. I managed to source this lovely garden mirror for £2 from our local Stonepillow shop, reduced price because its backing board was broken. The other half carefully removed the ripped piece of thick card replacing it with a shaped piece of plywood. Hey presto, new mirror.

Charity shop ornaments

I like to jazz up my homemade wooden planters with hearts to showcase my love of gardening. You can often pick up ornamental hearts on your charity shop travels along with bird cages, paintings, ceramic plates, etc. Pretty much anything can be turned into a garden ornament with a coat of clear exterior yacht varnish to protect it from the elements.

Decorate your planters with love

I waterproof canvas prints in this manner to turn them into outdoor art for the patio. Two coats of varnish will keep them from getting soggy or sun-bleached.

Outdoor garden art gallery

When you’re browsing round car boot fairs or charity shops, keep an eye out for unwanted towel rails as these make perfect wall pot hangers. Here’s what we did with our old kitchen towel rail and a few hanging pots from Poundland. Once it held tea towels now it’s going to become a home for more strawberry plants. Being narrow, towel rails screw easily onto the tops of fence panels.

Old towel rails make great pot hangers

Recycling centres, neighbourhood websites such as Facebook, Nextdoor or Gumtree are a good place to find unwanted plant pots or garden stuff on the cheap. Prolific gardeners always have a surplus supply of plant pots and sometimes unwanted plants too especially if they’ve grown their flowers or veg from seed.

Top tip to source cheap plants – some garden centres such as Hilliers have end of season plant sales where many specimen plants such as roses or rhododendrons are sold off to clear the shelves for new stock. Find out whether your local garden centre does this then you can acquire bigger plants for a fraction of the price.

Most garden centres and even places such as B&Q also have a clearance section where you can source plants for as little as a £1 per pot. Last year I bought about 6 pots of reduced priced cannas at £2 each from B&Q and they’re now growing like weeds in my front garden’s raised flower bed. Just because it might look half dead doesn’t mean it is.

Other good sources of cheap plants: car boot or community summer fairs, your neighbours for free cuttings or seeds. Or if you have a bit of bare faced cheek, local parks where you can harvest free seeds from dried flower heads that the council haven’t cut. The Ancient Mariner propagated loads of agapanthus plants from free seeds acquired by my brother on his way to work from parks or gardens on route. I’m not advocating wholesale vandalism here but you can to a degree be a bit creative as to sourcing plants.

I hope this post has inspired you all to look at your back passage in a new light. Often forgotten, overlooked or unloved, an alleyway does have the potential to be turned into a small piece of paradise without breaking the bank.

WHOLE BODY DEODORANTS

Someone, somewhere has invented a new product we never knew we needed and now needs to flog it mercilessly to the masses. How can they ensure demand is created from nothing? Through fear.

Another gimmick

Heaven forbid I may be sat sipping cocktails in The Ivy with cheesy feet, sweaty pits or lady parts that reek of three-day old kippers! What I need is a whole-body deodorant. Do I? Better down that margarita then rush out to buy the latest, greatest odour eliminator money can buy.

At an even greater expense than conventional deodorants, we’ll be expected to buy this miraculous de-whiffer and douse it liberally over every inch of our pungent bodies. Spray, sniff. Spray, sniff. In next to no time, the whole can will have vapourised into thin air along with most of your bank balance. Expect to replenish it at a faster rate than a roll on.

Imagine the world suddenly becomes besotted with whole body deodorants. Millions of people simultaneously spraying these aerosols all over the place will diminish the ice-caps at a rate faster than a shoal of mackerel attacked by hungry sharks. A gigantic vapour cloud forms which then scoffs up the ozone layer. 

Munch, munch – yummy! Clearly, profit not planet was at the forefront of this latest fad.

Smells a bit fishy to me

And let’s think about all those other un-necessary items devised recently to part us from our pennies:

Air Fryers – Hands up all those people who have one skulking on a kitchen worktop like a miniature Darth Vadar? Touted as the best thing since sliced bread, the must have kitchen appliance designed to knock pounds off your waistline and energy bill. Really? Since buying our air fryer we’ve used it about half a dozen times because it is far more energy efficient to cook an entire roast dinner all at the same time in a conventional oven than faff around with small batches in an air fryer.

I am your father

In my conspiracy centric world, demand for air fryers or electric cars is only to justify the zillions of licences granted by the Government to foreign companies so they can build loads of wind farms the length of our coastline. No point in building wind, solar or any other form of power generator if there is no or low demand for electricity particularly as our Government usually agrees to pay power generators whether they’re used or not.

Scent Boosters – For decades people have happily gone about their laundry business using only a detergent and fabric softener but now, that’s simply not good enough for Retail Capitalists (the grabbing hands grab all they can). Another chemical element to be added to the already potent mix being flushed into our public sewers and waterways. Hmm – do I get a sense of any planetary responsibility there? Nope. Just another item to add to the shopping list. Not!

Do you really need any of these?

Technological Operating Systems – Okay so these are not unnecessary products because the whole world relies on some technological gadget or other in order to survive modern life but with the lifespan of a sucked Polo mint, Himalayan sized mountains of obsolete hardware are created by operating systems being continually replaced.

Taller than Everest - the E-Waste Mountain

For fear of not being able to spend hours checking mindless social media posts on blogs such as this one, we’re all suckered into continually replacing our phones, laptops, TVs or anything else that depends on an operating system to function effectively. Why? Because if we only had one universal operating system that got upgraded from time to time, we’d never sell any new phones, laptops, TVs etc etc. Did you really think Microsoft or Apple were providing operating systems for the greater good of mankind?

By all means, spray your bollocks or butt cracks with this new whole body deodorant if you must but I’m going to continue ministering to my hairy raspberry with a wet soapy flannel in the shower.

Be careful what you spray on your raspberry

Interesting that whole body deodorant adverts refer to lady parts as ‘ta tas’. I always thought ‘ta ta’ was a way of saying goodbye but perhaps what I’ve really been doing is accidentally shouting ‘love flaps’ at my colleagues as I leave the office each day without realising it.  Whoops!!

WAR!!

Stand by your beds with pitchforks at the ready – Britain Needs You! 

Or rather it needs your money

I've already sharpened the garden rake as there's nothing like a good scarifying to vanquish invaders.

This is no time to dither over whether or not to buy another cagoule in the Mountain Warehouse summer sale, the nation is on a war footing against the unseen foe I’ll have you know. Who is the enemy? Who indeed.

Since there are more fans at a Taylor Swift concert than soldiers in the UK army, it’s time to tax the population at large so the Government can throw oodles of £50 notes at the issue of national security. Britain needs you! Or rather it needs you (the taxpayer) to stump up financially once again but this time in the fight for freedom.

Sir Keir’s weekly defence shopping list looks something like this:

• Tea Bags
• Coffee
• Drones (lots)
• Nuclear Subs x 7
• Camo patterned jacket for future TV broadcasts
• Bombs, bangs, booms or anything else that explodes loudly
• X-boxes to entice UK youth to sign up for military service
• Loo rolls in case of national panic

How we’re going to repel an enemy invasion when we can’t stop a few migrant boats crossing the channel is anyone’s guess but that’s not the point. The point is to be perceived to be ready to ‘whoop ass.’

We may be crap at everything but Britain is very good at ‘readiness’. No-one can drum up the national spirit like the British. After all, we have Vera Lynn recordings. Nothing like those blue birds over the white cliffs of Dover to make patriotic hearts and voices rise to the occasion.

Guaranteed to rile up that fighting instinct

Cynically I can’t help feeling that all of this effort and spending to bolster national defences is no more than a flimsy excuse to manufacture even more armaments to sell to the likes of Ukraine or Israel. Gotta be running low on ammo after all this time, right? Because the other thing that Britain is really, really good at is Arms Dealing and that means making stuff to sell to the highest bidder which costs money.

Supposing I was this ‘enemy’ that’s allegedly lurking in the wings waiting for the opportunity to acquire a nice little island territory, I certainly wouldn’t use an army to bring this country to its knees. Firstly, I would turn off the internet by shutting down all global data server centres then I’d blow up a few space satellites and cut all those undersea electricity cables sending power to the UK. With no comms or energy networks to charge up the robotic Olivers AI Army of the future, we’d be well and truly buggered!

If you thought April was Awful then just wait for the Apocalyptic Autumn. October’s Budget is going to be a real corker. Can’t see how Labour are going to get round their electoral pledge not to increase direct taxes on working people because surely a 3% increase in defence spending can only be realised by increasing the rate of Income Tax.

Paving the way for tax rises

Better buy those Christmas presents now in the summer sales as there’s likely to be even less money in your pocket before December rolls round.

FLYING CRANES

Crouching tabby, hidden pipework. 

Motivation to continue with toilet project – zero!

I'm wearing an invisibility cloak

The saga of the downstairs cloakroom continues. If this was a TV programme we’d probably be on series 6 by now, producers having milked every ounce of sweat from this project. What should have been a week’s work for a professional bathroom company is now entering its 6th month and with every day that passes, the desire to pull on my DIY clothes wanes.

Yep, I do have a special outfit for these tasks. It’s as grubby as hell but when you’re scrabbling about on all fours in lofts, gardens or jumping up or down ladders like Challenge Annika then it’s perfect. Hasn’t been washed in months, possibly years. There’s no ‘whooosh of freshness’ in this T-shirt or once black leggings. They do Pong!!

Not that I care because as far as I’m concerned what you do in your own home is your business, a bit like wallpapering toilets. Some people do and some people wouldn’t in a million years. I’m doing it because I fell in love with this most gorgeous wallpaper and just had to have it somewhere in my home.

It’s called Flying Cranes Navy by Grandeco Life and in my view, it’s just fabulous.

Flying Cranes

Large blousy white peony type flowers ramble across a rich deep blue background colour. Gold geometric shapes peep out from behind jade green foliage. White long necked cranes with delicate feathery wings flap across this papery landscape adding a touch of oriental style. The photos don’t do this paper justice, it truly is beautiful.

I’ve teamed up Flying Cranes with a deep blue shade of paint called ‘Keep The Peace’ from Valspar. 

'Keep The Peace' perfect match to the wallpaper

Not wanting to complicate my life by attempting to wallpaper the back window wall, I’ve painted it dark blue and just wallpapered the side walls.

Before painting

Painted back wall

It’s such a small room it took just over 1 roll to paper both side walls plus the section above the doorway.

Hanging the paper

Pattern matching not too bad if you use the bird wings as a reference point. My wallpapering experience is pretty much zero and although I followed all instructions, some join lines were visible after drying.

Looks great on the wall

To minimise the visibility of these, I used a small brush and some of the navy paint to carefully touch up the worst offenders. Apply the paint minimally then lightly dab with a soft cloth taking care not to rip the paper. There. You can hardly see the lines!

If I hadn't been recycling the unused teal kitchen tiles, I probably would have used white metro tiles with navy blue grout under the wallpaper as I feel that would also have been a great decor combination with these flying cranes.

Now there’s just the issue of unsightly pipework to deal with.

What to do with all these unsightly pipes?

To reduce the amount of pipework that might need boxing in, I’ve decided to make the most of the exposed pipes by incorporating some of them into the overall decorative scheme. Since the wallpaper features gold geometric shapes, I’ve painted the pipework in gold metallic paint. 

Don't hide pipes - paint them!

Gold pipework looks nice against the teal tiles and will compliment the other gold fixtures/fittings such as taps and lighting.

CLOTH EARS

Hard of hearing. Eh? What’s that you say?

Since hitting 60, little changes once unnoticed have stealthily been making their way to the front of the decrepitude queue. Lustrous locks once an unruly mane are now thinning. Eagle eyes once able to spot a cat hair in a cookie needing Mr Magoo spectacles. An almost photographic memory fading like an old polaroid picture. Every day another component part stiffens, fails or falls off completely.

The arrival of that most unwelcome house guest, Mutton Jeff, is the latest manifestation of advancing old age. Yet has anyone else noticed that free hearing tests once foist upon you with gay abandon by opticians have now slipped into the murky shadows? I fear hearing health care is now going the same way as NHS dentistry.

Having noticed the TV volume gradually increasing over time, I asked my optician for a free hearing test and here’s where the story starts to get a bit complicated.

Private or NHS hearing test? asked the overly helpful bespectacled assistant at my local branch of Specsavers.

‘Errrr… which ever one is free’ I replied.

‘They both are but it gets tricky if you make the wrong choice then need hearing aids’ their response.

The explanation that followed went something like this:

If you want a free NHS hearing test, you first need a GP referral. Once you have a referral, a clinician then has to examine your ears to make sure that you a) have two of them and that b) they are not full of wax. If you are wax free then you can have a hearing test. Should it transpire that you need a hearing trumpet, the NHS will then provide it free of charge.

If you want a free private hearing test, you can book an appointment straight away but if you then need the trumpet, you’ll have to fund your audio orchestra out of your own pocket.

Better pray you don’t have wax in them lugholes because I can’t imagine the NHS is going to offer you any free syringing for that. The Ancient Mariner had ears waxier than Yankee candles a few years back and ended up having to pay for de-clogging. And why do you think that was? Because in the future, hearing healthcare will no doubt be privatised and NOT provided free by the NHS.

For a long time now, small services previously provided free and gratis by the NHS usually in local doctors’ surgeries have very slowly been disappearing from the menu. Ear syringing is one such service and unlikely to be the last.

For a free NHS hearing test expect to wait, an average timeframe that looks something like this:

• 5 weeks to see your GP to discuss matters/request the referral
• 1 week for the referral to reach your optician
• Another 2 – 3 weeks to see the clinician for the wax check
• Followed by an extra week or more for the hearing test appointment

My advice is that should Mutton Jeff pop up on your doorstep unexpectedly, make sure you begin this process before he’s fully unpacked his bags, kicked off his shoes and helped himself to your secret stash of chocolate or you’ll end up having to make your own ear trumpet out of an empty Pringles tube.

So whilst I wait for my clinician’s appointment (even though my GP checked my ears and declared them totally free of wax), I’ll munch through a tube of salt and vinegar Pringles just in case I have to go down the do-it-yourself cloth ears route.

Remember this - if it says FREE hearing test on the tin, the question to ask yourself is whether or not you want to wait ages for it or pay for any treatment you might need afterwards.

WALL TILING

Sssshh! Tiling. No questions asked. He was never here. Would you like a coffee? Nope. I guess invisible tilers don’t drink on the job unlike myself, chugging down enough tea to quell the summer drought that’s brewing after the driest spring on record.

Tea - an essential part of DIY

It’s a cash in hand job – a rarity these days but a blessing for those of us on very tight project budgets.

Having ordered more tiles than needed for our kitchen refurbishment, the spares are being used to half tile the walls of the downstairs loo. I hope we have enough because these tiles originally came from Homebase which is no longer trading so it might be a right bugger to have to source any extras if there aren’t enough.

The plan is to tile the lower walls to about 1.15 m high from the floor then wallpaper the upper half of the wall.

Before tiling

Fit skirting board

I’m topping the tiles with a black box tile trim to tone in with the darker elements of the wallpaper. I had thought of going for gold but then decided this might be too garish. Nice to have gold accents but too much ‘bling’ might not age well and that’s what you’ve got to think about. Am I still going to like this decorative scheme in 20 years’ time? ‘You might have kicked the bucket by then’ the other half chips in. True!

Square box tile trim in black colour

Tile trim purchased from CTD Tiles, Chichester

There’s a growing trend to use coloured grout that blends in with your tile colour rather than going for a contrast. As my tiles are speckled with dark blue bits then I thought a blue coloured grout might look quite nice, blending in with both tiles and the background navy blue colour of the wallpaper. However, dark blue grout is not generally available in High Street outlets so instead I’ve chosen a colour called ‘Tornado Sky’.

Tornado Sky grout - 1 bag does a small cloakroom

Tornado Sky is a dark grey grout with a blueish tinge to it. Think moody thunder clouds. It has given our tiles some contrast but the finished effect is not quite as stark as using a lighter coloured grout.

Tornado sky grouting

With the tiling complete, the next step is to wallpaper the upper half of the walls.

Wow that's a big tile cutter

Tiles on 

Getting ready to grout

Tiling finished - looks great!

FLOORED

Phew! That was close. The man from Tapi gave our cracked riddled sub floor the thumbs up then proceeded to stick down the new LVT flooring so my compound anxiety has dissipated like a fart in a thunder storm.

New LVT flooring

With so many flooring options to choose from I could have gone for lovely ceramic tiles (too cold) or a beautiful engineered wood floor (not waterproof). A cheap click fit laminate might have done the trick (not recommended by the fitter as prone to lifting) or traditional lino (too old hat) but instead we’ve gone with something called LVT.

Looks like oak - colour Morzine 

Compared to laminate flooring, LVT (Luxury Vinyl Tile) offers better water resistance and durability making it a more resilient and cost-effective choice for areas prone to moisture or heavy foot traffic such as a cloakroom. Once glued to the sub-floor, it is never going to move out of place.

LVT looks like wood flooring, feels warm under foot and is less ‘shiny’ than some of the cheaper laminates out there. How well will it cope with continual footfall? Only time will tell.

Now that the downstairs loo has a new floor, it’s time to prepare for the next step in the project – skirting boards then tiling.

Floor done, skirting and tiling is next