Grimy

 Along with about 13,000 other households I've been cut off from running water for a couple of days. I've had a few advantages in this situation. I have a friend with running water who let me cook and server a roast meal at his house. I'm quite prepared to lower my standards of personal hygiene. I had enough mineral water in stock that thirst wasn't a problem. The difficult bit was washing dishes and flushing the toilet. South West Water gave me several 2l bottles of water. I would heat one of these in the kettle, mix it with another in the washing up bowl and then do a very meagre batch of washing up. The washing up water was saved in a bucket and used to tip down the toilet.

The water came back on this morning and I was glad to have a shave and a shower.

Richard "camping" B

Track Day Photo Safari

 This is what it looks like when I go to a track day:

Car with luggage rack and luggage - waiting to go

got to the hotel

luggage off, hood on, parked up for the night

luggage off, luggage rack off, windscreen off, waiting to go on track. Makeshift tonneau.

driver ready

on circuit

the rest of the paddock

what we're doing to our tyres

back home again

Richard "reconfigure" B

First Lathe Project

 I ended up making my own catch tank for my car using my new (old, 2nd hand) lathe.

turning and facing the barrel

drill, tap and face the ports

facing end caps

hosetails fitted

ready for assembly

end cap bonded and finished

leak test

fitted and working

Richard "fabrication" B

Hard Pressed Potatoes Recipe

 Everybody hates it when you go to a recipe site and you have to wade through a load of tedious waffle about how the recipe came to be, and how important it is to the author and so forth. However, that's exactly what I'm going to do. 

One of my brothers (the pirate, not the oil baron) is an absolutely outstanding cook. When he visited my recently I fried for him a chicken breast. I had been marinating it for half a day, I used seasoned flour, fried it in a mixture of corn oil and butter, I did it carefully and got a crispy golden crust. It was served with a little bit of sriracha. I call this recipe Kensington Fried Chicken after my sister mistakenly referred to (chicken magnate) Colonel Sanders as "Mr Saunders".

My brother wasn't in the least bit interested in the chicken, but asked many questions about the potatoes it was served with. What breed of potato? How hot, exactly, was the water? What oil? He thought they were fantastic and had never eaten anything like them before. I call them "Hard Pressed Potatoes" because they're a lot like "Smashed potatoes”, but not as smashed

Every kitchen is different, but this is how I cook them:

• look at the clock, they'll be ready exactly 1 hour from now.
• turn on the oven at 200 C and put in a heavy metal tray.
• start boiling a pan of water.
• give some potatoes a half-arsed wash and cut them into halves or quarters
• the water should now be hot but not boiling, put the potatoes into the water.
• cook the potatoes for 15 minutes, turning the heat down when the water starts boiling
• drain the potatoes
• pull the scorching hot pan out of the oven and paint a thin layer of cooking oil onto it with a pastry brush. Work quickly so as not to burn the brush
• throw the potatoes into the hot oily pan and press each one somewhat flat with a saucepan lid or potato masher
• paint a thin layer of oil onto the top of the pressed potatoes with a pastry brush
• throw some coarse salt over the potatoes
• put them back in the hot oven and wait for the rest of the hour.

Richard "Fresh, Vibrant, Delicious" B

Excess Postage

 If I ever have a nemesis, I'll need their postal address. Then I'll send them letters and parcels but without paying the right postage.

My sister is generally not paying attention. She once received a wonderful letter from her bank that said something like "Thank you for your change of address notification. Unfortunately we have been unable to action this as you didn't include your name or your account details".

When she visited me recently she somehow accidentally took a radiator bleed key with her when she left. She texted me a photo of it and asked if I wanted it back. Yes Please. A couple of weeks later I got a snotty letter from Royal Mail about an item addressed to me that didn't have the correct postage paid. About a week after I paid the excess (and a handsome handling charge) I received my own radiator bleed key through the letterbox. Poor value - would not buy again.

Richard "Amazon Composite" B

Better than the R.A.C.

 In the late 90's I didn’t own my own car or a mobile phone. One weekend I borrowed my mum's car and drove to Guildford to meet my friend. I broke down a few miles short of his house and had to walk to someone's house, ask to use their phone and call him. He dutifully came and towed me back.

Last weekend I drove in a car that I inherited from my mum to visit the same friend in a village near Guildford. Again I broke down a few miles short of his house, again he dutifully came and rescued me. I believe that as soon as he got off the phone with me he said "this is the second time he's done this now".

The first time it was an alternator fault. We misdiagnosed it and bought a new battery, and while it did get me home it had to be fixed properly once I'd got home. This time it was the clutch and while we tried to put a new clutch in ourselves we ran out of time (we had dogs to walk, birthday parties to attend, stag nights to go on) and I had to come home in a recovery truck.

Richard "we couldn't get the drive shaft out" B