International oven symbol

Old man rests in new case.

The older I get the more frustrated I get about the lack of an easily recognisably, internationally and religiously recognised symbol for the humble electric oven in the domestic kitchen environment. It’s what the world needs right now. Our bridies and in extreme cases pasties are crying out for a simple indicator to be established.

Today is the birthday of Elvis Presley but unfortunately he is far too dead to enjoy it.

Meanwhile I spent a few hours or was it nano-seconds restringing a guitar, fiddling with tiny allen keys and cross head screws, removing unfriendly buzzes and glitches and winding machine heads, stretching the strings and surprisingly improving the overall action. For a short while I felt like some wise old successful watchmaker bring the cold metal to life, adjusting and tuning and (I think) improving. The problem is that new strings and a degreased fret board don’t make your fingers any more agile or upgrade basic and rutted skills to those of a virtuoso, not so far anyway.

The snow has returned to fill the 3” vacuum that the previous dump left when it was salted away by the delayed but eventually enthusiastic clearance by the authorities. They, like those nebulous creatures “the general public” none of whom I have ever met except at the odd bus stop or funeral, hate the slippy white stuff. Anyway the powers that be abhor the snow, unless it is viewed through glass in the Alps or figures in the backgrounds of the Heroes of Telemark and so are hell bent on stamping it out provided the budget and the prime contractors allow. Meanwhile the be-wigged Transport Minister keeps one eye on the weather but remains preoccupied with providing the Forth Bridge painters with high protein breakfasts; rightly so in my view. Once winter is over, sometime in May, we’ll have a full and robust wash up, look at lessons learned and enjoy a feast of seasonal smoked salmon and free range scrambled eggs.

The turbulent weather, the jet stream and my chronic misunderstanding of the concept of time meant that I missed the window of opportunity to get to the dump. My car is now full of rubbish, still steaming in the boot and back seats 24 hours later. Tomorrow, regardless of weather or potential personal injury I will seek out an open dump and once I find it, dump.