Monthly Archives: May 2010

7-foot high hole in the wall

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Our room, no windows, west facing view.

It’s only been almost three years since we had to move out for our windows upgrade, but the weather was nice so we thought we would rush impetuously into it. The point of the upgrade was not just to restore our original sash windows and make them open-and-shuttable, but also to put in place a system that lets you easily remove the sashes from inside the building without recourse to ladders, scaffolding etc for purposes of cleaning or painting.

We didn’t paint – will probably have to do so in another couple of years – but we did clean. Well, Best Beloved cleaned, I just held the windows upright for her. The system works! The outer beading unscrews and eventually comes away, needing a bit of encouragement if your painter three years ago wasn’t quite as good at letting the paint dry before screwing it back in as you had hoped. The beading between the sashes just unplugs. The trick is to unfasten the windows from their cords whilst remembering that they are counterbalanced by heavy weights at the other end, so don’t just let go or the cords will disappear into the walls and never be seen again. Window 1: an hour and a half from first screw out to last screw back in again. Window 2: 45 minutes. Windows 3 and 4 next Saturday, weather permitting.

Meanwhile here is y.t. striking a heroic pose in front of the south facing hole in the wall, gazing down on the puny mortals below who don’t have removable windows and are thus to be pitied.

Dismal science

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I am easily swayed by most kinds of economic arguments, which makes it easy to convince me of many things. The ones towards the extremes of the spectrum are easier to deal with (i.e. harder to convince me of); for instance I can generally pick holes in statements like:

  • if it moves, nationalise it
  • if it moves, privatise it
  • make all black people the private property of white people and don’t pay them anything
  • start a war to create jobs and boost the economy
  • make the rich even richer so that their wealth will trickle down to the rest of us.

The further towards the middle ground, though, the harder it gets. Am I a Keynesian? Am I a monetarist? Goodness knows. (I do believe in feeding a cold, if that helps, but only because I see no point in multiplying personal misery when an easily obtained placebo is to hand.) Maybe I have some strange idea that human beings are way too complex for this kind of thing and the kind of theory that is appropriate on Monday afternoon may be completely out of touch come the circumstances of Tuesday morning.

But this guy seems to make sense, and I don’t just say that as a public sector employee: “The only way to cut government debt is to increase government spending“. Discuss; or, failing that, tell me where he’s wrong.