THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Big Kev]

Do you have a back up for hot water if the electricity supply fails? For example, an electric shower?

No, gas hob and a tin bath

[Stanley]

If the electricity supply fails the electric shower won't be much cop!
Don't laugh at savings by taking the handle off the tap until you have tried it. You will be surprised.

[PanBiker]

Do you wash up in hot or cold water Stanley? I know you say that you wash your pot with bleach and then scald it and the sink which must come from the kettle. I have always been puzzled by your choice, it must be cheaper to produce hot water by gas rather than the electric kettle and a lot more convenient.

[Stanley]

You're right, it is cheaper but the concomitant waste warming the pipes up each time you turn the hot tap on is what kills it. Believe you me, getting used to cold water in the kitchen drops the bill and you don't die! Washing your hands and face in cold water is very good for the complexion! I refer you to Florence Nightingale.... "Given a quart of water and privacy personal hygiene is easily maintained".

[PanBiker]

I don't know how long your pipes are Stanley but I get hot water at the tap after about 4 or 5 seconds. Compared with boiling the kettle, which will take about 2 minutes this is a no brainer to me. I know you will not die from using cold water but if you are still heating water by electricity for the washing up, it doesn't make sense. You could still use the cold for keeping your complexion if that's what you want and save even more money by having the gas driven hot for the washing up.
I honestly haven't even noticed the gas consumption on my smart meter monitor when you fill the bowl for washing up, maybe I should take a cold shower.

[Tizer]

But how much does 2 minutes of heating water in a kettle cost?

[PanBiker]

A lot more than 2 minutes of gas.

[chinatyke]

We all have these little foibles, they're what make us all individuals, it's lovely really.

[Tizer]

A lot more than 2 minutes of gas.

Yes, but I don't mean relative cost. How much does it cost Stanley for a year's worth of boiling his kettle? Is it worth bothering about it?

[Stanley]

I am touched by your collective concern about my water supply in the kitchen. I may be eccentric but I can read energy bills and in the end they are the only arbiter. The cost that matters is the relative cost of having hot water and not having it. This is more than the cost of boiling a kettle! I repeat, try it, you might get a surprise!

[Stanley]

A standard feature of the household in the days of open fires and back boilers was the 'airing cupboard' in the bathroom where the non-insulated hot water cylinder which was the heat sink for the boiler heated slatted racks above where bedding and clothes were dried after being laundered. It was also the place where my mother kept her adequate stock pile of toilet rolls!

[Tizer]

We've been 21 years without an airing cupboard but we'll have one in the new house - Mrs Tiz is elated about it!

[Stanley]

When do you actually move Tiz?

[Tizer]

Funny you should ask that - right now we're waiting to hear if we've exchanged contracts for completion on 9th August. It's dragged on for ages until this week when suddenly it began to come together. The first-time buyers at the start of the chain had their offer accepted in March and - would you believe it - they are holding things up over some issue to do with a washing machine! Conveyancing needs a big overhaul and the introduction of some kind of project planning software online that could be accessed securely by all parties concerned. That way everybody involved would know what was going on minuet by minute. But, hey, that might take some of the mystery out of it and then it could be a bit tricky justifying the high fees involved. I'll keep you posted...

[Stanley]

I think you've hit the nail on the head there Tiz. What should be a straightforward transaction is converted into a mystery and guess who benefits! (Probate is very similar!)

[PanBiker]

I will never forget when we were buying our first house, I was only a callow youth really (22) and had trotted up to the solicitors from the bank with my £300 deposit. I was sent upstairs to see Peter Walker by the receptionist. I knocked on the door, "Come in and take a seat", I sat on the chair immediately in front of his desk but could not see him for the huge pile of file folders on his desk, there were 3 stacks each about 2ft high. "I won't be a minute" he said as he cleared a path through the middle of the barrier, bloody conveyances" he said as he offered me his hand. It was at this point that I realised I was in the wrong job!
We exchange pleasantries and I handed over my cash, he made a receipt out and said, "That's it, we'll send you a letter when there is something to sign, good morning and have a nice day" or words to that effect. He was already re-establishing his money wall as I exited the office, lesson learned

[Tizer]

You won't be surprised to know that we didn't manage to exchange contracts yesterday. Mind you, the solicitor's firm was closed on Thursday for an all-day management course and the lady handling our transaction at the estate agent was having a day off yesterday.

[Stanley]

Bit like the government Tiz....
When I bought Hey Farm it was with an overdraft of £2000 on my current account from Lloyd's at Burnley. Mr Batkin gave me the loan because he trusted me. All I did was sign a charge on the property, the bank held the deeds and I paid them half my monthly wage, £15. No search, no survey and no charges. Too bloody simple for today's property market. I have a friend who has just bought a very expensive property. When the solicitor told him he would have to be investigated to see whether he could pay he said no, I have a better idea and wrote him a cheque for the full amount. Funny how all the red tape melted away.....

[Stanley]

I think everyone had a container on the mantelpiece that contained the money for regular payments during the week. In those days collectors came to your door, the rent, insurance and HP man. It was a good system and worked well. It was the original Bank of Mum and Dad. My wife also had a secret stash which I never knew anything about. It was what she saved from the housekeeping and her little part time jobs. There were times when it was a life saver!

[Stanley]

It struck me after writing that that I still have one today..... Old habits die hard.

[Stanley]

It's an old beef with me I know but I can remember a time when your bank and the solicitor were friends in need. Now we'd all run a country mile to avoid any contact with them! Is this progress?

[Stanley]

I bang on a lot about how things were better in many ways 60 years ago. This is obviously a consequence of old age. However, I struggle to find anything in the way society is going that is an improvement. Technology and science have given us many improvements but are people really any happier? What is the more important? We are even buggering the planet up!

[Stanley]

We'd started then. Stockport Corporation power station before the war.... Electricity and gas were municipal enterprises then.

[Stanley]

When I was a lad in Stockport very few people had cars. We walked, cycled and used public transport a large part of which was the electric tram system which was cheap and very well used. The ideal situation for reductions in pollution but of course it didn't work like that. See the pic above for the dirty generation of the electricity and then add the hundreds of industrial boilers burning coal plus pollution from domestic fires. Stockport sits in a valley which is ideal for producing temperature inversions which hold the pollution captive. The consequence was terrible air quality. It was so bad that during the war the Luftwaffe never got a clear sight of the massive viaduct that carried the West Coast line over the valley and never managed to hit it! Everyone in the town centre suffered from permanent black snot! Chest infections were endemic.

[Tizer]

In the 70s and 80s I went into London for meetings of professional societies and to attend business exhibitions and the like. At the end of every day in London my shirt collar would be dirty, presumably with carbon particulates from motor vehicle exhausts. If my shirt was like that imagine what my lungs had to contend with, and it was much worse for people who were there every day!