Home Made Stereo

B has been making gadets out of discarded electronic parts, things found in bins and second hand sales and tucked away in the basement,  and turned them into something wonderful.  He has made a modern day state of the art battery operated ghetto blaster which doubles as a universal phone charger for when you can't get access to a socket.

In the pack of cards is the phone charger/ipod to stereo connection

Uses an old car sepaker,  can be connected to ipod, telly, computer...

Car stereo inserted into shoe box with volume control and led light, box open showing  insides

His schoolfriends are delighted, the boys like grooving on the move at lunchtime and the girls charge their mobile phones and call him a genius.  He is making another one for a friend.

They really don't listen

It seems R is right when he says that at school they don't listen.

R's friend S came to lunch today, she told me she fell down in sport last week and showed me a bruise on her leg the size of the Atlantic ocean.

Today, a week later, it is time for the sports lesson again, but instead of the sports teacher asking how she is, or even allowing her to come up to him and explain, I have to write her a note explaining that she needs to be careful in sport.  Only with this note to show does she have the right to go up to the teacher, flapping the exercise book,  and enjoya  short hearing (reading the note in front of her, lips moving presumably).  Communication is incredibly contorted in the French College,  no wonder the French all grow up difficult (in my culturally biased opinion).

I make watches go wrong

Jenny's comment about bad electrical karma made me remember my watch problem.  As long as I can remember I have made electronic watches go wrong;  they go fast, then slow, or they stop.  I take them back to the shop, they say the battery is fine.  They give them back to me, they go wrong the minute I've left the shop.

I now have two watches, both from Fossil because they have a leather strap that goes under the watch face, between it an my skin.  I wear one for a few weeks, and when it starts to go wrong, I give it a rest and wear the other, until that one goes wrong, at which point the other one is ok.  Even so,  one of them, still under guarantee, had to be sent off to the Swiss repairers to have its innards totally replaced.

I've taken to asking watch sellers, is this a common problem?

They all say yes, there are definitely some people who make watches go wrong.  The latest guy in Fossil said that we all have electrical activity in our bodies, in some it is nearer the surface, or the skin is thin.  The very coquette and overly made up woman at the shopping centre watch shop says it is to do with the phases of the moon.  Well, I don't know about all that.  I wonder if it is good, bad, or just a meaningless feature?   The guy in Fossil tried to sell me a 300 Euro Man's Watch (It eez Boyfriend Watch), the only one they stock which is wind-up.  I'm tempted, although it really isn't my style.  Or price.  Bit of a wind-up really.

Unreliable Modern Machines

We've done a lot of house renovating in the past few years and have had to buy a lot of new equipment.  As a family we waste far too much time on unreliable modern machines, it's financially untenable, a constant niggly feeling of no confidence, and above all,  it's an ecological disaster.  These machines just don't seem to be viable.

This morning we spent one hour on the mobile phone  to get our house phone and internet back after a short power cut yesterday evening.

Went to empty washing machine (Ariston Hotppoint, is is really 3 years old already, seems like yesterday that we replaced the last one which was broken)  water flooded out, will not re-start.

The Polti Steam Cleaner's alarm goes off all the time, even when it's not empty, and it worries me

The state of the art water boiler (Frisquet) burned out it's motor, and had trouble with his electronic remote thermostat.

The dishwasher (Whirlpool) has in it's short life already had 2 repairs and isn't washing that well, I'm pretty certain the part is coming loose again. (1.5 years old)

My oven is difficult to programme and keeps skipping on the timer, and is not as hot as the old tatty one.

My Dyson Vaccuum cleaner was totally ****ed after a few months, was dealt with over the phone, and sent inappriopriate and unecological replacement parts until I worked out what was wrong with it myself and ordered the correct part - and it only has a one year guarantee (I thought Dyson was proud of its quality) and so the next time it goes it will be for the bin.  I'm really cheesed off about this as I went for quality long-lasting and expensive.

The kitchen Hobb (Whirlpool) was faultily wired and had to be repaired within months.

Our car (Renault) falls to bits on a regular basis at 1000 Euros a time thanks to their encased multi-parts scam.

Don't even ask me about compter printers.

WHO  CAN  WE  TRUST?

So far, Magimix - I'm very pleased with the food processor which was a wedding present and is fifteen years old, and with the Magimix blender which is used every day for smoothies and soup, 1 year old so far but I feel confident in it - before that I bought a Moulinex, the internal plastics melted after 2 weeks and the whole thing returned, they never wrote back to apologize/explain/make good, and so I chose Magimix when I replaced my 25 year old toaster (Morphy Richardson) in the hope that it too will last 25 years. They also have a real customer service, the only one that replies and they have repair shops.