Posted: Sat Sep 19, 2009 4:03 pm Post subject: Bodge it!
Car springs make a racket
By NEIL SYSON
A DIY mechanic has been fined for using TENNIS BALLS to repair his car's suspension. Cops collared Rumen Petrov, 34, when they spotted his Opel Vectra moving "oddly". The horrified officers discovered that he had jammed six balls into the springs. He was intending to drive to London when he was nabbed at Dover docks, Kent.
Petrov, of Croydon, South London,was fined £350 by Folkestone magistrates in his absence for using a vehicle with equipment likely to cause danger or injury. A source said: "The car was a wreck, and although this was a novel way to fix the suspension, it was incredibly dangerous both to the driver and all other road users."
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Now that's a proper bodge - I wonder how far he'd come before being nabbed though!
Shear lunacy: No beating about the bush for gardener who trimmed his privet hedge... with a ride-on lawnmower and a crane
24th November 2009
We pride ourselves on taking our gardening seriously here in Britain - but one New Zealand gardener has raised matters to a new level. There was no struggling with the shears and a ladder for the mysterious horticulturalist as he worked to trim his two-metre high privet hedge. Instead, he went straight for the kill with a ride-on lawnmower hoisted into the air by a crane.
The man was spotted during his mid-air feat by a bemused passer-by in Cambridge, New Zealand earlier this month. Bart Dinger managed to snap the pictures of the perilous pruning manoeuvre. 'I couldn't work out why cars were slowing down until I caught sight of the crane,' he explained.
British Gas engineer stuns customer by using potato to stop a water leak
A British Gas engineer stunned a customer by putting a potato on a boiler pipe to stop a water leak.
Richard Pickles was amazed when the engineer, who had been at his property for two hours attempting to mend the leak, resorted to a potato to temporarily fix the problem.
Mr Pickles, who lives Lancaster with his wife Amanda and children, including a 10-week-old baby, said: 'The engineer said "I'm only supposed to be here for an hour" and rammed a potato on to stop the leak.
The potato placed over a water leak on a boiler by a British Gas engineer
'The potato was all burnt with the hot water. I rang up the next day to tell British Gas what had happened and another gas fitter came. He sorted the problem in five minutes by turning a screw.
'We had to laugh but I don't want the first fitter coming back.'
'He even had my son and I doing half the job, bleeding radiators and so on. He lost his bonus because he didn't get the job done within the hour.'
However, a spokesperson for British Gas insisted the quick fix is not 'usual practice' for the company but was done with the 'best intention'.
Emma McDonald of British Gas said: 'I'm really sorry for any alarm felt by Mr Pickles with the temporary repair made by our engineer.
'Whilst this is not usual practice, the engineer chose this course of action to allow Mr Pickles to be left with heating and hot water on an extremely cold night and return the following day to fix it properly.
'We would like to highlight that the engineer did this with the best intention and Mr Pickles was never in any danger.
'However we will be addressing this issue and the engineer will be advised to switch off the boiler in future.'
Pensioner builds brick wall and traps himself in basement
25 Nov 2010
thelocal.de
A German DIY enthusiast accidentally walled himself into his own basement and only managed to escape by drilling his way through to his neighbours, police said on Thursday.
The 64-year-old pensioner in the eastern town of Gumperda had – inexplicably – aimed to seal off the entrance to his cellar and went downstairs armed with bricks, mortar as well as food and drink. "Whoops, you could say," the police station in nearby Kahla said in a statement. "He was on the wrong side of the wall when his work was finished."
The pensioner, whose name was not released, spent the weekend trapped in the basement but on Monday decided to take action. Using a drill hammer, he went to work not on his own wall but on the firewall separating his home from his neighbours'.
The neighbours, with whom the pensioner had already been quarrelling for months, called the police when they heard the loud drilling. Officers were waiting for the hobby handyman when he broke through to the other side.
Pensioner successfully crosses Atlantic Ocean on raft made of pipes
Mr Smith, 85, completed the 4,500km (2,800-mile) voyage from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean yesterday after 66 days at sea. The former BBC Tomorrow’s World presenter was joined on the adventure by a three-man crew of ‘mature and intrepid gentlemen’, who he recruited through an advert in a newspaper.
They set off from the Canaries at the end of January on the An-Tiki – a sail-powered vessel built from 12m (39ft) lengths of water and gas pipes. It travelled at an average speed of four knots, with the crew taking turns to keep watch. ‘The word mutiny was only spoken about two or three times a day,’ said Mr Smith. After successfully navigating his way to the Caribbean island of St Maarten, Mr Smith added: ‘Some people say it was mad but what else do you do when you get on in years?’
The crew aim to raise £50,000 for the international charity WaterAid, which provides clean water to poor communities.
How did that get there? Car wedged in van to avoid trailer costs
metro.co.uk
14th June 2011
Police who stopped a white van veering from side to side on a busy road were somewhat surprised when they opened the back doors of the vehicle to find a car wedged in on its side.
The white van men from Kazakhstan decided to save on a trailer cost after snapping up a silver Mazda 626 that they wanted to ship back home. When the car didn't fit in the white van the proper way up - the two men called a few pals and loaded it in on its side - putting a mattress underneath to stop the doors getting scratched.
But the trip back home for Konstanty Krol, 38, and Cezar Chmielewski, 28, came to an end when police stopped the heavily laden vehicle after seeing it lurching all over the place in Bargthheide, Germany. A police spokesman said the van and the car were confiscated and the men ordered to return with a proper transporter for the car before they would be allowed to continue the journey.
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