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technically progress
Apr. 3rd, 2020 11:25 pmSome time ago, we I spotted some appropriate black-out blinds in a charity shop: we were reluctant to buy new because the bedroom windows are really quite wide, and fitting blinds are therefore really quite expensive, but there were three in the local Mind, of which we needed two, and one of them was stripy!
... of course, by the time I'd dragged A in to look at them, the stripy one had evaporated and we were left with only the uninspiring beige, but such is life.
For some time now, then, the study has had a black-out blind to go with the Venetian blinds, meaning that the room is really quite a lot darker in the mornings in summer, which is all to the good.
However.
We got all the way through putting up the brackets in the main bedroom... and then realised that, somewhere along the way, we'd squished the tube a bit, and it was No Longer Straight. The most unavoidably awkward facet of this Situation was that the other blind, the blind we'd put up in the spare room, despite being of identical original form-factor... had been cut to a slightly shorter length, so it wasn't even like we could just swap it over.
John Lewis had discontinued the design and were not equipped to simply provide us with a replacement in exchange for cold hard cash.
I spent some time attempting to unbend the thing, via application of heat guns and mop handles and, eventually, broom handles. The broom handle -- my third attempt -- did it. The mop handle, unfortunately, despite having been fine every time I checked it along the way, became stuck.
Many kinds of lubricant were applied. None had any notable effect.
The tube has been sat, for some time, in the pantry, with a mop head sticking forlornly out the top, being roundly ignored.
Today the weather was nice enough and I was sufficiently procrastinatory that I pulled it out of the pantry, along with my grandfather's tiny sledgehammer and a length of thin aluminium tubing that might once have been part of the mechanism for a greenhouse roller blind (this guess being not entirely a stab in the dark; it came with the greenhouse), and is conveniently Even Thinner.
The mop, you will be pleased to hear, now protrudes substantially more from the end of the roller into which it was first inserted: so far so good, except inasmuch as the entire assemblage is now too tall to be stood back on its end in a disgraced corner of the pantry, and probably even too long to similarly be shoved to the back of a cupboard.
The greenhouse tubing... well. In an outcome I probably could have foreseen, it was easily and readily removed the first several times I tried. I got lax with checking, therefore, until the point at which I decided I probably wished to remove it again, with about a hand's width protruding still from the tube we first thought of, and discovered... that in fact I could not shift it. Any more. Oh, I could wiggle it from side to side -- it's much narrower diameter than the Original Tube -- but could I get it to move? Could I hell.
On the other hand, it's much narrower diameter and there wasn't exactly an obvious downside to just... accepting that it lived inside the O.T. now... so I gave it a few more taps with the sledgehammer, in the hopes that this would at least get enough more of the (greasy, remember, because I lubricated it at any earlier stage of proceedings) mop handle out t'other end, such that I could finally actually remove it.
Adam is, for some reason, underwhelmed by my assertion that, just as "technically correct" is the best kind of correct to be, "technically progressed" is the best kind of progress.
I am typing this sat on the sofa glancing, occasionally, at the Dismal Tube, but discretion is the better part of valour, and all that, so: here's a present, Future Alex, and you're welcome.
... of course, by the time I'd dragged A in to look at them, the stripy one had evaporated and we were left with only the uninspiring beige, but such is life.
For some time now, then, the study has had a black-out blind to go with the Venetian blinds, meaning that the room is really quite a lot darker in the mornings in summer, which is all to the good.
However.
We got all the way through putting up the brackets in the main bedroom... and then realised that, somewhere along the way, we'd squished the tube a bit, and it was No Longer Straight. The most unavoidably awkward facet of this Situation was that the other blind, the blind we'd put up in the spare room, despite being of identical original form-factor... had been cut to a slightly shorter length, so it wasn't even like we could just swap it over.
John Lewis had discontinued the design and were not equipped to simply provide us with a replacement in exchange for cold hard cash.
I spent some time attempting to unbend the thing, via application of heat guns and mop handles and, eventually, broom handles. The broom handle -- my third attempt -- did it. The mop handle, unfortunately, despite having been fine every time I checked it along the way, became stuck.
Many kinds of lubricant were applied. None had any notable effect.
The tube has been sat, for some time, in the pantry, with a mop head sticking forlornly out the top, being roundly ignored.
Today the weather was nice enough and I was sufficiently procrastinatory that I pulled it out of the pantry, along with my grandfather's tiny sledgehammer and a length of thin aluminium tubing that might once have been part of the mechanism for a greenhouse roller blind (this guess being not entirely a stab in the dark; it came with the greenhouse), and is conveniently Even Thinner.
The mop, you will be pleased to hear, now protrudes substantially more from the end of the roller into which it was first inserted: so far so good, except inasmuch as the entire assemblage is now too tall to be stood back on its end in a disgraced corner of the pantry, and probably even too long to similarly be shoved to the back of a cupboard.
The greenhouse tubing... well. In an outcome I probably could have foreseen, it was easily and readily removed the first several times I tried. I got lax with checking, therefore, until the point at which I decided I probably wished to remove it again, with about a hand's width protruding still from the tube we first thought of, and discovered... that in fact I could not shift it. Any more. Oh, I could wiggle it from side to side -- it's much narrower diameter than the Original Tube -- but could I get it to move? Could I hell.
On the other hand, it's much narrower diameter and there wasn't exactly an obvious downside to just... accepting that it lived inside the O.T. now... so I gave it a few more taps with the sledgehammer, in the hopes that this would at least get enough more of the (greasy, remember, because I lubricated it at any earlier stage of proceedings) mop handle out t'other end, such that I could finally actually remove it.
Adam is, for some reason, underwhelmed by my assertion that, just as "technically correct" is the best kind of correct to be, "technically progressed" is the best kind of progress.
I am typing this sat on the sofa glancing, occasionally, at the Dismal Tube, but discretion is the better part of valour, and all that, so: here's a present, Future Alex, and you're welcome.