tenthofjune

Everyone who buys a mobile phone or drives a car should be made to watch this video.

I make no apologies about the graphic nature of the content – only when people see the consequences do we stand any chance of people changing their behaviour.

The lamp in the bathroom just went pop – No problem except once I opened the fitting, I find it’s an Edison Screw (ES) type for which I don’t have a spare. I’m guessing that the previous owner installed this light fitting themselves.

Why, when we already have a superior standard in the form of the Bayonet Cap (BC) fitting, do we allow Edison screw type fittings to be sold in this country?

• On a BC fitting Both Live and Neutral are connected at the base with the cap safely connected to earth, but ES uses the cap as part of the circuit. It is not uncommon for the pendant flex to be wired with live and neutral reversed. With ES, this makes the cap live while on BC, polarity is irrelevant and the hazard is avoided;
• If an ES lamp is not screwed in tightly enough, the live connection can work loose, leading to high resistance and localised heating. It can also cause the lamp to flicker shortening its life. This cannot happen with a BC fitting.
• ES is bulkier than BC, partly owing to the requirement to shroud the metal receptacle. The BC receptacle, being earthed, does not require shrouding.

The problem lies partly with retailers such as Ikea – Rather than selling fittings with a standard BC lampholder, they choose to impose ES fittings which are usually made abroad. This also means that the lampshades they sell will not fit standard BC lampholders as the ring is made for the larger ES lampholder and a separate adapter ring is required.

Although the same thing would not happen with socket outlets, inferior standards for sockets in other countries has already caused a hazard to materialise in the UK.
Unlike the majority of foreign socket outlets, the UK BS1363 standard for socket outlets is designed with shutters to prevent the insertion of objects into the socket. Other countries have had to resort to the use of plastic ‘safety socket covers’ to prevent children inserting foreign objects into unprotected live sockets. Unfortunately, several toy manufacturers have marketed a UK version of these socket-covers, which are not only unnecessary but whose use can actually negate the safety features of the BS1363 sockets creating a very real hazard.

Here’s a cracker. Don’t know how many derail.
Watch out for the extremely cool chickens.

As John Keats once wrote, it is the Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness.

Yes, autumn is upon us, and today we had the first real spell of fog.

On the one hand you have the beauty of looking down from higher ground at the sun shining across the fog blanketing the lower lying ground, but on the other you have the idiots who don’t know how to drive in the fog.

I cannot believe the number of people driving with no lights at all. Are these people stupid?

At the other end of the scale you have the people who, at the slightest sign of mist, switch their rear fog lights on and dazzle all who follow, blotting out any hope of seeing their brake lights. Strangely, these people also tend to keep driving at 70-80mph on the motorway, presumably believing that by flicking that little switch they are protected, but resulting in a motorway pileup.

No doubt, on the drive home this evening, the fog will be gone, but these same drivers will still have their fog lights on from this morning.