Archive for January 29th, 2008

Here I go again

Grandad January 29th, 2008

I had to go to the village, and of course ended up at the coffee shop.

I may have mentioned this but the Anti Smoking Nazis have declared some of the tables outside to be non smoking, as some of the smoke may get inside.  How fucking moronic can you get!

I did some simple arithmetic.

Approximate volume of shop interior = 64,000 litres.

Capacity of lungs used in normal breathing = .5 litres.

So…  if I took a full lungfull of tobacco smoke and breathed it out in the shop, I would have displaced 1/128,000 of pure air with foul carcinogenic lethal fumes.

BUT

I smoke a pipe, so I only ‘exhale’ a mouthful which can’t be more than about 10ccs, or 1/100 of a litre.

so my displacement has become 1/640,000.

Even that is assuming that my exhale is pure smoke with no air involved.

So, we’ll say a 50/50 mix.  Displacement is now 1/1,280,000.  And that is assuming that 100% of tobacco smoke is carcinogenic, which it isn’t.

Now all that is assuming that I have exhaled indoors, but I’m talking outdoors.  So what percentage of my smoke is accidentally going to blow in the door?  We’ll be generous and say 10%.

So I have to sit in the windy part of the terrace, in case I pollute the air by a factor of less than one in ten million????

It’s no wonder I hate those PC Nazis.

Tuesday blues

Grandad January 29th, 2008

I was going to say that it’s going to be one of those days.  But I’m too late - it already is.

It started last night when I couldn’t sleep.  I was too hot.  So I wandered around the house in my pelt [no photos - you'll have to use your imagination].  I eventually got to sleep around five.

This morning, the alarm failed to wake me, of course.  That’s because I have it buried under my pillow so Herself doesn’t get annoyed.  Its bleeping just became part of a dream.

Eventually, I got up and was making a mug of tea when my phone rang.  It was a client wanting a job done immediately.  I was fuzzy headed from sleep, so I agreed.  If I had been awake, I would have thought of a nice excuse.  Such is life. 

I was in the middle of that when Herself came in and complained about the builders next door.  She said their radio was too loud.  I said she was imagining it, but went to the front part of the house.  Jayzus, she wasn’t kidding.  You could have held a disco [or a rave, or whatever it's called these days], so I had to call in next door.  I was still half asleep, so I forgot to bring any weaponry, but they were very nice about it and switched it off anyway.  Then they told me they were getting their electricity supply changed today, and I pointed out that their supply, is also my supply, so it looks like I’m going to be without power!

I got back to find more emails from clients wanting work immediately, but I was awake enough to give them the proper answer.

Then Herself reminded me that we have to go to the village for an hour or so, so that’s the clients’ work out the window.

The only bright part to the day so far is that Sinéad Gleeson has posed an interesting question on her blog today, so I’ll think about that when I’m down in the village.

Things can only get better.