Swimming seems to have kicked off again this last 'weekend'. I say weekend despite the fact that (according to my count marks on the condo) F should be working. My humans did 'weekend' for 5 days, and there are still the remnants of a rapidly disappearing chocolate ostrich egg on the kitchen table.
Yesterday even Mr B went out on a bike. They came back smelling like coffee so I don't know how much of the time away they spent cycling and how much sitting in some shady spot watching traffic. I wonder if there was milk froth on the coffee...
On their return it was Mr B's bike that became the centre of a workshop exercise on the balcony. F went swimming while he wrestled with wires.
Since cafes bars and restaurants opened on Monday, our street and beach have returned to 'normal'. What that means is it feels like Greeks (1) prefer cafes and bars to drinking takeaway coffee on the beach, so there is no longer large crowds clustered about the headland and stairs. We are back to the 'normal' dozen or so stalwarts and dog-walkers. And (2) the natural rhythm of Greek life is to stay out late and sleep late, so the streets have returned to very quiet on weekend mornings. The traffic drop off was instant and dramatic.
At the end of this long weekend our weather changed from temperate to fur-sheddingly hot. I've stopped eating. Hot is good for an hour or two, but if two past summers are anything to go by, it is going to be hot from now for the next 5 months.
The gizmo my humans boil water in died. It's blue light refuses to come on; the water remains stubbornly cold. Mr B dismantled the entire thing to see how it had once worked. He found the problem right at the bottom of all the dismantlings - one of the bi-metal strips that work to open and close circuits when the gizmo gets to a certain temperature had gone all black and 'non-conductive'. F was going to jettison it anyway so nothing was lost in the exercise and now they know how these things work. We are all of the view however that the little black box with the clever (and flimsy) heat switch in it should be a replaceable part, as the rest of the stainless steel and glass thing was only 2 years old and in perfect condition.
Support Right to Repair (That is one of F's 'inspiration' pages, so we have sneaked it in with my ramblings on Mr B disemboweling the kettle.)
Hari OM
ReplyDeleteOOOhhh, interesting movement and I shall be perusing and making a decision. I am all for repair.. detest the 'inbuilt obscelence' that pervades "white goods" now. Meanwhile, I guess the water is getting boiled in a pan on the hob - or now there's more reason to go 'biking' to the cafes?! Hugs and whiskeries, YAM-aunty xxx
The right to repair is double edged I think - intuitively it feels so right and yet the labour costs can be prohibitive. Maybe the best solution is better quality parts - and longer guarantees from the manufacturers
ReplyDeleteAs we understand it, the idea is to have repair capability built into the design. The parts mostly likely to fail (in this case a heat activated switching device contained in a small black box connected to the kettles gubbings by spade connectors), should be capable of being replaced. Call it inter-changeability. Some whiteware manufacturers are already incorporating design that will allow upgrades both mechanical and digital to simply be 'plugged' to where the outdated parts are currently connected. We had to throw away Euro40 (or so) of glass and stainless steel because a generic component probably worth about Euro5 (generous estimate - it was a piece of flimsy rubbish) could neither be fixed nor replaced.
DeleteOh, that's a good idea - building in that it has to be able to be repaired. I have a dualit toaster which is like that and I was pleased recently to buy parts online and fix it - rather like a Meccano set really (showing my age there).
DeleteMeanwhile - back at my blog I replied to you...
I think you're spot on in the distinction between visiting and knowing. In wales there is an expression Dyner filltir sgwa, which means 'man of his own square mile'. I wrote about this years ago on the blog - it's one of the top hits on google for the expression - ha ha. You can see it here.
https://www.viewsfromthebikeshed.com/2012/11/whats-your-square-mile.html#:~:text=Dyner%20filltir%20sgwa%20is%20a,skimming%20the%20surface%20of%20many.
i often rant about the things i buy that last a year or even 3 or 4 years, then they are not repairable and the few that are cost twice as much to repair as replace. my theory is they do it on purpose to make us buy more. if they make it easy to repair their sales will drop off. and that applies to coffee pots all the way to sofas and cars. now the cars can not be rebuilt, all the parts are replaced ... we are now even filling space with trash that is about to fall on someones head somewhere. My laptop is 6 years old. the battery no longer holds a charge for more than a couple of hours, in the past I just ordered a new battery, in fact had 2 batteries for my other laptop so i could switch out if needed. this one has to be sent off to the maker to be replaced and with part and labor cost almost as much as a new laptop.. you hit on one of my pet peeves/RANT. don't even get me started on watches... i can buy a new watch for less than the price of a battery. what is up with that?
ReplyDeleteAll absolutely right and it sounds like you and F could 'rant for England' (for Florida) together. The word doesn't need this kind of wastage and pointlessness and all in the name of economic growth. We saw a news article the other day entitled 'Is this the cup that will save the world?' It was a new takeaway coffee cup made of paper without plastic, and easily recycled. The item had F banging the desk yelling "NO - all it is going to do is create a different kind of waste; people who drink takeaway coffee need to bring their own reusable cup".... and so it goes on. (Spare me from crusaders. xxxx Mr T)
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