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Sunday 5th October 2008
Intrinsically no angular momentum at the quantum level So yesterday the tiling in the kitchen was mostly done, with varying degrees of success. I think all are in agreement that the power sockets proved, erm . . . troublesome. Tiling around didn't quite work out; we need to tile underneath, of course. Today I popped into B&Q to return the useless tile cutter (several tiles wasted) for a refund. That done, I bought a new shower curtain and some extra long socket screws. Back at home, I took out one of the screws for the wall socket for the power switch for the, erm . . . cooker? Maybe . . . something like that. Took the screw out, then tried inserting much longer screw. In the screw went . . . at a slightly jaunty angle but never mind. As I'm screwing it in, there's suddenly a flash and a loud bang and the washing machine turned itself off, as did the fridge, freezer and probably all other electrical things in the kitchen. Long story short: I had screwed through the live (brown) cable, thereby short-circuiting from the live cable to (what was effectively) earth. A trip switch tripped in the, er, mains circuit box thingy . . . and the 13A fuse blew in said switch but that was about it. Kind of good fortune that my screw-driver was sufficiently insulated and the electricity didn't see a quicker path through my body. Electricity's lazy like that, of course - it'll always take the easier path. Hmmmmm. Lesson learnt: turn off the electricity before fiddling around with live power switches and the like.
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