Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

silvercar

Sorry, think you need to press the little "play" button and then close the pop-up window to see the actual video I posted.

zagubov

vivatifosi wrote: »

I'm watching Who'd be a Billionaire on Sky Living +1. It is about "iceberg housing" - those mega-wealthy people in London who build layer upon layer underneath their house.

There's a poor woman in North London whose neighbour did it to them and in the middle of the night they'd taken so much house out that it all collapsed into a hole, causing structural damage to their own home. All told it is going to take six years to put right. Meanwhile her house has huge cracks and is immensely cold and damp. She cannot sell or rent.

Another house also fell down, damaging neighbouring houses, but because the house was owned by a company, it just liquidated.

However my favourite thing in the whole show was someone who asked their architect, in all seriousness, to build their own private entrance to the District Line.

To get to my previous job I had to drive through some upmarket parts of London where people were getting cellars put under their houses - crikey it looked like a complicated process.

Outside their capabilities judging by some of the horror-stories I've read.

When OH lived abroad, they had houses built on slightly raised land so there was generous cellar space. Seemed far more sensible.

vivatifosi

silvercar wrote: »

More money than taste.

http://sendvid.com/cjmqrtaq

My guess is that he bought the hotel because he was outbid on the spaceship from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

It was surprisingly mild, sunny and not stormy here today - much better than forecast. Looks like the wee breeze you lot had changed it's mind about visiting Scotland.

So I went out for what ended up being quite a 'spirited' ride on the bike and managed to not scare myself silly or drop it when putting it away.

Might be getting the hang of this riding thing again.

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

All told it is going to take six years to put right. Meanwhile her house has huge cracks and is immensely cold and damp. She cannot sell or rent.

Another house also fell down, damaging neighbouring houses, but because the house was owned by a company, it just liquidated.

They should force these people to take out an insurance policy before they start work - with the neighbours having a copy of it - and to keep it up to date, with a copy to neighbours.... "just in case".

vivatifosi wrote: »

However my favourite thing in the whole show was someone who asked their architect, in all seriousness, to build their own private entrance to the District Line.

I think that's entirely a good question to at least ask

vivatifosi

PasturesNew wrote: »

They should force these people to take out an insurance policy before they start work - with the neighbours having a copy of it - and to keep it up to date, with a copy to neighbours.... "just in case".

I think that's entirely a good question to at least ask

Then you would be getting ideas above your station... (I'll get my coat).

GDB2222

michaels wrote: »

As PN says, you want the new tap where the good tap is and will then use the good tap to replace the broken one.

It is possible to just replace the washer or cartridge on most taps.

That's it, more or less.

The broken tap is inaccessible. I can't track down the cartridges, as it's 25 years old. So, I replaced the good tap, as that's more accessible. And now all I need to do is take the good tap to pieces, and scavenge the parts.

GDB2222

Job done. Broken tap no longer dripping.

Generali

I idly read a bit of that thread a bit ago. I'm easily bored so I gave it up.

It's all a bit Ant 'n' Dec for me (or whoever it is that does those TV shows where drunks in tracksuits shout at each other for sleeping with their sisters or some such).

Weather is meh. 20 odd and wet and cloudy in turns. It's going to be 27C and stormy tomorrow, just a regular storm not one with a name. Still it beats being at work.

vivatifosi

Re the internet being wonderful... I think I've mentioned before that my Mum was dug out of a cellar in a house that collapsed on top of her during the war.

She always thought that the woman who was in the street outside walking her baby in a pram died as a result of the explosion. That was in the 1940s and since then she's carried that thought. A year or so ago I found out that the outcome was altogether more positive, just by looking up where she lived and following the BBC history pages.