I won't say it's a favourite, but I do watch it occasionally. The Repair Shop. I check the EPG guide on my TV, to see if there's anything interesting coming on. If it's a moth-eaten teddy belonging to an octogenarian, they had when they were four, which they want restoring, my impulse is to say. "Put it in the bin love." But the BBC like to big up the emotive parts of these restorations. I've a lot of time for the restorers, particularly the guy who does clocks. This week he did a grandfather clock and made an excellent job on it. Anyway, the one that caught my eye this week said, "Radio expert Mark Stuckey has a job on his hands repairing a 1930's transistor radio." I'll say he had, as transistors didn't become in common use until the late fifties. Who writes these things? It was a portable valve radio. Someone's father who was a private in the army had been ordered by an officer to carry it with him when he was evacuated at Dunkirk. My dad, like many of the 300 thousand others with him at Dunkirk, didn't even attempt to bring back his rifle, not something to be carrying when your standing for hours up to your chest in water let alone a radio. The guy with the radio when he got back and met up with the officer, was told he could keep it. I'd have said, "If you didn't want it that much why make me bring the naffin' thing back? I could have just dumped it in the sea!" Give Mark his due, he wasn't put off with the task, we saw him take off the knobs and removed the chasis. Now this is where dumbing down in this programme starts, the BBC think the audience is OK using their eyes, but engaging their brains is a bit beyond them. Mark explained that he had to replace the wiring and obtain a new set of valves. That was it. Now valves of that era are like hens' teeth and if you could find them, they cost silly money. What he didn't explain was that he would have had to check the values of every naffin' capacitor and resistor in the set. Hard to do if you've not got a circuit diagram and the value codes have disappeared off many of them or the part actually missing. Any of them which were faulty would have to be replaced. An essential job if you don't want it to go up in smoke when you turn it on. His next problem was power. These old portable valve sets used high power batteries. This one's was 90volt. Ever-Ready, Mark said, stopped making them in the early 1970s. Not to be defeated, Mark got 10 pp3 9volt alkaline batteries, lashed them together and soldered all the terminals in series, to give him the required 90v. He connected them up, turned on the radio and it worked! Well, we wouldn't have been seeing it if it hadn't, would we? "The "reveal" was as usual like them all, very emotionally charged. What we didn't see, was Jay Blades taking the owner on one side and saying to him. "Yes it's working at the moment, but will only do so for a few hours. Those batteries can't be re-charged, so you'll need to buy another ten batteries, some wire, a soldering iron, some solder, some flux and solder together the 20 terminals, don't even think about bringing it back here!"
@Odif chuckle. I'm not surprised! @Doghouse Riley I'm not surprised that you watch The Repair Shop! We watch Top Chef.
Hi Loggie. We watch Monty every friday night and my Bride and I speak about him as if we know him personally sometimes in the lottie. Haha. Well, all joking aside it is entertaining to watch the show and to be reminded of old techniques. We like seeing the vid clips that regular folks send in to the show. In fact we enjoy watching various British shows available in our package.
Hi Sjoerd that's great, you know then about his golden retrievers. It's nearly a year since Nigel passed away, i still think that he's going to appear. Yes I enjoy seeing the clips of what other people do.
Yes, we know about Nige. That was sad, but now Nellie seems so mature and laid-back...almost old. That little creature is something else, isn’t it. I am always so amazed how those dogs just lay about and are so well-behaved. How do they do it?
Yes Nellie seems to have calmed down a lot in the last year. Yes patty is something different, I wouldn't have thought that he would'nt have gone for such a small dog, doesn't seem to fit in somehow. I think that it's because it's such a big garden and that they can do what they want.
I am watching this years’ Springwatch series on the BBC. It will go for three weeks this year. BTW Loggie, that last channel 4 vid you posted will not show in my area.
yes that's great. Oh dear sorry about that, i don't think the others will as well. I'll put another one on. Here's a clip and not a full episode
Just watched this on iPlayer because season 2 starts on BBC 1 next week in the afternoon but I always record it to watch in the evening. It's called 5 bedrooms 5 people buy a house together to get on the property ladder. But not to be involved with each other but got to sort some things out to make it work.
