M. Chauvel's finest hour

Another story about our techno-hero plumber.

Because the house in France had no damp-proof course crystals formed on the inside walls up to a metre from the floor. I was told they were saltpetre, one of the constituents of gunpowder. Painting over them only delayed their reappearance. So what was the cure? Put furniture in front of the visible areas, advised one French pragmatist.

I decided to make a freestanding book-shelf unit for that very purpose. I also decided to secure shelves and uprights with mortice-and-tenon joints (see drawing). Monsieur Chauvel, plombier extraordinaire, found me fashioning one of the slots with a power drill and a chisel. “A sauteuse would be better,” he said.

I didn’t know exactly what a sauteuse was although I had an inkling. I shrugged my shoulders (the sort of thing I found myself doing in M. Chauvel’s company). He disappeared briefly, returning with a jigsaw – the power tool, not the time-waster. “Drop it in when you’ve finished,” he said. I completed the unit three times quicker than I’d expected.

Let’s just reflect on the enormity of that gesture: a busy artisan lending one of the tools of his trade to, arguably, the most eccentric of his customers. Twelve years on I still can’t get over it.

Soldering can make you happier

If a little learning is dangerous, so’s a lot. Especially with electricity. Electrical hyper-sensitivity leads me to worry about the three-pin plug that’s warm when it shouldn’t be and about a woman I know with a physics degree who yanks on the flex of her electric kettle to pull out the plug.

And about my dear late father-in-law who I found poking into the central heating timer with a screwdriver. “It’s all right,” he said, “it works on gas.”

Electricity’s ability to destroy is awesome. Unions between cables and terminals are potential weak points and in some cases the risk can be reduced by soldering rather than just wrapping.

Soldering is fun. Roughen the terminal and the cable end with emery paper, coat each separately with molten solder, wind the cable round the terminal, and apply heat. Two becomes one almost immediately and conductivity is perfect. No worries about the union slackening through vibration. The RAF taught me to solder for free. I am at least grateful to them (it?) for that.

Two: not enough; three: too many

A mountie pursues a criminal through frozen wastes. Always the criminal is one jump ahead. The mountie has an idea. He sits in a clearing, takes out a bottle of gin, a bottle of vermouth and a jar of olives. As he opens the gin, the criminal rushes out from the trees. “No, no, no! The vermouth goes in first, stupid!”

I am able to invoke the mystique of the dry martini in Works Well because it is the product of liquid technology, better known as chemistry. When the tastes of gin and vermouth are mixed they create a third taste. There’s a technical chemistry name for this but I forget. Too old, too many martinis.

The Americans invented this pillar of civilised society but they continue to be in danger of corrupting it. All these jokes about wafting the cork of the vermouth bottle over the gin. Why not just drink straight gin? Also, a martini on the rocks (as opposed to the rockless martini straight up), much favoured in the Land of the Free, continuously dilutes the drink as the cubes melt.

Given that there are metaphorical criminals out there, hiding in the trees of blogland, I wouldn’t be fool enough to say which are my preferred martini proportions. However, the gin should be Tanqueray and the vermouth Noilly Prat. Also I must confess to my personal Albigensian heresy – I have been drawn to the Gibson, where two silverskins replace the olive.

Latest ping-pong score

Just back from a 48-hr tête à tête with my author (see July 23). Normally we exchange emails since he may be on a Greek island, down in London or even in Nepal. This time he was in his Welsh fastness not too far away.

The process is like an ancient game of ping-pong. I edit Chapter 22 for the eighth time, he looks at what I’ve done, reacts and bats it back. After eighteen months we’re into the law of diminishing returns but there’s still work to do. What makes a difference is being able to pick verbally at the bones of language instead of having to write out all the steps. Completion is tentatively set for next month.

Such encounters are sheer luxury for technological reasons. Each of us has the MS on a laptop. We chat, we ponder, we change things – independently yet linked. No peering over each other’ shoulder, no swapping bits of paper. As I’ve said, I admire those who write stuff with their grandfather’s Parker fountain pen but I sure as hell don’t want to join them. Long live the CPU or whatever succeeds it.

The skill is in the packaging

Bought this in Mauritius. Remembering my RAF experiences in Singapore I made a discounted offer but it seems haggling is no longer traditional when buying things in the Orient. The young lad looked worried and had to telephone his boss before my offer was accepted.

Where he did show confidence was in wrapping up the thing (surely a degree-level task) enabling me to bring the package home without damage.

The model is HMS Superb, a British 74-gun third rate, which played a significant role during the Napoleonic wars. At Trafalgar Superb was so damaged by storms cables were passed round the hull to keep the vessel together. Nelson paid tribute to the commander: "My dear Keats, be assured I know and feel that the Superb does all which is possible for a ship to accomplish".

Another example of degree-level wrapping and an excellent example of the Navy’s ability to improvise.

Time-wasting - but in a good cause

The technology of language is, I suppose, language itself. The method by which you drive a paragraph through the same hoops as a manufactured product: Concept, Design, Model, Test, Assess, Correct, Re-model, etc.

It’s more apparent if, like me, you’ve foolishly embarked on a poem. Concept: That’s the subject, I’ve got one of those. Design: Sixteen lines, four verses, iambic whatnot. Model: The first draft. Test: Read it through. Correct: Self-explanatory. Re-model: Second draft. But it’s at this point that a repetitive loop begins; a game of spillikins. Take one from the pile and the pile goes pear-shaped.

Maths would be better but I never learned the language, only bought the phrase-book. Here’s a good phrase:

Δi/Δt (A small change in current divided by a small change in time).

Concise, elegant (Greek letters will do that for you). No spillikins on the horizon. Now all I’ve got to do is match it to my subject. Hmmm. At least I’ve been able to spend ten minutes away from the burden of my poem.

The big sigma? It confers gravitas.

Suddenly, a new rich row to hoe

NOTE: North Americans please glance at my profile and check: I am the ancient of ancients. My US experiences date way back. Nixon was in the White House and the Pirates were winning the World Series.

So, the US and white goods. When we moved to Philadelphia my wife complained about the summer humidity. But I didn’t fancy paying a big electricity bill all the year round. Ha ha. During my holiday at home we bought an air conditioner. Pushed up the casement window, shoved the metal box half in, half out, and plugged it in.

Then we moved back to Pittburgh (journalism’s like that). I pointed out to my new landlord I had an air conditioner but his metal framed windows precluded its use. “Do what you need to do,” he said, “I want you to enjoy the house.” (These days I tell foreigners that English landlords, especially in London, are just as nice.) So I sawed away part of the frame and installed the box. I must add that when we moved out I re-glazed the gaping hole. A different world?

In those days Americans used to change their fridges to match the new kitchen décor. Avocado green was popular. The old fridge went down into the cellar where it was plugged in. Visitors to cook-outs traditionally brought a case of beer (that’s 24 cans) which they put in a downstairs fridge. Which filled up. I was born in the West Riding (“Lucky enough to have a pebble”) and occasionally I goggled.

It wasn't anything like the movies

If you see a good idea, plagiarise it! This is my version of Julia’s expatriate reflections game. To legitimise it I have added a techno-slant (well sort of).

As a Brit in the USA (me, 1965 - 1972) you know you’re in foreign parts when:

(1) An American says “Take my car”. (At a time when a male Brit would have preferred to say “Take my wife”.)
(2) You warm yourself at an open fire – in a centrally heated apartment.
(3) Services at the outdoor barbecue aren’t concluded until there are seven unordered burgers on the grill gently charring.
(4) You find you can phone anywhere for almost nothing.
(5) You are asked to contribute to the Democrats. You reply that as an alien you are unfranchised. The voice asks, “Is that like being a Republican?”
(6) You admit you are an alien to a neighbour who worriedly says, “Oh, you can’t be as bad as that”.
(7) You report a defect in your central heating to your landlord. He turns up within the hour, repairs it and gives you your Christmas present – a bottle of Scotch.
(8) You pull up for gas. The attendant sticks the hose in your filler then checks your oil while your tank fills.
(9) You attend your first baseball game and it’s 37 deg F in the bleachers. Your friend explains the rules to you and to the approval of those on adjacent seats. In the eighth innings there’s an intentional walk. Your friend groans: “I hoped they weren’t going to do that”. Laughter all round.
(10) Bad weather grounds the airlines. Car-less you take a Greyhound from Pittburgh to Buffalo for an exhibition. Your arrival is a surprise but the surprise grows tenfold when you explain how you travelled.

The USA. It changed my life. Thanks Julia.