Halloween Boiler

I say “boiler” but actually the Sureway Heating operative I spoke to on the telephone rather tartly informed me that what I actually have is a water heater not a boiler.

Whatever it is the damn things is haunted or possessed or has had a section of its metallic intestines pulled through into an inter-dimensional wormhole because it is just not functioning as it should.

In fact it isn’t even functioning as the laws of physics say it should and, you have to admit, it’s got to have a hefty demon on its shoulders to mess with Professor Brian Cox.

Now, I’m no heating / plumbing engineer, but I know that basically what I have in the bathroom is a big heater thing that heats up the hot water passing through it and then transports it to various outlets around the house via a couple of pipes. We don’t have many outlets. Just two sets in the bathroom and one set downstairs. I live in a 3 bedroomed semi not Longleat House after all.

So. In simple terms:

Heater >> short expanse of pipework >> taps.

An elegant little flowchart. Not much room for error.

And yet things are not right.

We have hot water upstairs. The pilot light is on. The water heater blazes inside like a miniature furnace whenever the hot taps are turned to the full-on position.

But we have no hot water downstairs. None at all. The hot tap is turned on, the heater blazes, water gushes through the pipes but it ain’t (even half) hot (mum). It’s stone cold.

How can this be? How can we have hot water upstairs but not downstairs when all the pipes are fed from the same heater? It’s not like the pipes downstairs are several kilometres longer than the ones upstairs to give the water time to cool down. They don’t divert our water through Siberia or Antarctica on its way to the kitchen tap. Where is our hot water going?

The only change of circumstance that has occurred recently has been the arrival of a new bunch of students next door but they look rather sweet and not the type to siphon of hot water illegally from their neighbours. Borrow a couple of herbal tea bags, yes. Nick hot water, no. And besides. As we all know, students and baths / washing up / clothes washing do not mix. The only thing they know to do with hot water is to shove it into a Pot Noodle. And there isn’t a Pot Noodle hunger big enough to warrant the amount of hot water that has gone missing from my house.

So I’ve rung the experts. The guy I spoke to sounded a little perturbed by the problem and is going to send his best man out this week to take a look at it. OK. OK. He’s going to send a man out to look at it. And then we shall see what we shall see.

In the meantime, I’m breaking out the garlic and the holy water and calling a priest.

Our hot water heater has plainly got bad juju.

Trick Or Treat?

Am I the only person in this country who finds Trick Or Treating abhorrent? Please tell me I’m not.

Look I realize I’m fast gaining the reputation of someone whose sole pleasure in life is humbugging the innocent pastimes of other people but personally I feel that the concept and practise of Trick Or Treating is inherently criminal.

It’s begging. With menaces.

Extortion in other words.

Fair play to Warwickshire Police for bringing in an £80 fine for nuisance Trick Or Treaters, I say.

Bah humbug!

Ok. Ok. I admit that Trick Or Treating is mostly just meant to be harmless fun and to be honest the majority of the kids out on the street last night were accompanied by a responsible adult (invariably dressed in a witch’s costume made from old bin liners) but the simple fact is we got hassled 7 times yesterday evening by gangs of kids demanding sweets. 7 times! Karen and I were both shattered yesterday evening and all we wanted to do was kick back, eat and watch TV in the comfort of our own home without having to get up and answer the door every ten minutes. Instead we had the doorbell rang, the door knocked, the letterbox rapped and – most invasive of all – the living room window banged loudly upon by a load of wretched little ghouls with a collective sweet tooth.

Needless to say the front door remained shut and any chocolate that was in the house remained firmly in my possession. I don’t spend a fortune at Sainsbury’s every week to feed other people’s kids a load of gack! I mean what do people expect? Yeah – sure – come in and take the food of my table / the money out of my wallet, etc, I don’t mind.

Why the hell should I feel obliged to slip a Mars bar to some speccy-eyed Playstation-dazed geek from up the street who in ten years time will be coming home from the pub bladdered and taking a slash in my front garden?

The whole concept is thoroughly distasteful and infuriates me.

Mostly though my biggest concern last night was my granddad. 86 and partially sighted he goes into panic mode when anybody knocks at his door during daylight hours - let alone when it’s gangs of kids out on the cadge at night – because he can never see who it is. The thought of him – and every other OAP – being scared to death by sugared-up rowdy gangs of kids in skeleton masks demanding sweets turns my stomach.

Harmless "innocent" fun?

I don't think so.