The Other News From England.

14 May 2001.

Index of earlier issues - click here.

A very limited edition owing to illness (anyone else get flu at this time of year?), but -

(Those who like digging about will find that there are hundreds of articles on many subjects to be found on this site.)

Old issues.

There are some much earlier Other News on this site. Click below.

early Othernews - 1992, 93, 94.

Bonnington Cafe and Bonnington Square.

Apologies, because there was a change at the last minute, and thus last Saturday's listing was wrong. This Saturday should be Gabriele Gad piano and Hugh Harris saxophone - quiet old-fashioned jazz (but it might include some members of LETSwing along for a blow). No charge, but the hat goes round. During the warm weather this place takes on a special atmosphere you can't find elsewhere - especially as often there are a few holidaymakers mixed in with the general crowd. I wonder if they are Other News readers?

Bonnington cafe is a communally owned cafe in Vauxhall, Central London. The atmosphere is somewhat Bohemian, international, friendly, educated, and much wine (bought from the corner shop across the road) gets drunk. Good quality vegetarian. Cheap. The only lighting is usually candles stuck in wine bottles, and the furniture is a collection of odds and sods that people have thrown out. The overall result is relaxed and pleasing. People tend to spend the whole evening over their meal, and engage in discussion with those on other tables, the caterer, the band, passers through......

Bonnington Cafe, Vauxhall Grove, London SW8 UK. Near Vauxhall underground and mainline station, buses 185, 36, 2, 88, 322 and others. Booking is difficult.

Joe Punter's Shakespeare.

King Henry the 6th. part 3.

ACT 4 .

Scene 3.

Edward's camp, near Warwick.

Enter three watchmen to guard the king's tent.

FIRST WATCHMAN:

Come on you two, each must take his turn. The king has sat down to sleep.

SECOND WATCHMAN:

What, will he not go to bed?

FIRST WATCHMAN:

No. He has made a solemn vow never to lie and take his natural rest until either he or Warwick is completely suppressed.

SECOND WATCHMAN:

Tomorrow, then, I think will be the day for that, if Warwick is as near as I have heard say.

THIRD WATCHMAN:

But, pray, what nobleman is that resting in the king's tent with him?

FIRST WATCHMAN:

'Tis the Lord Hastings, the king's best friend.

THIRD WATCHMAN:

Oh, is it? But why is it that the king commands that his chief followers lodge in towns about him, whilst he himself keeps here in the cold field?

SECOND WATCHMAN:

'Tis the more honour, because more dangerous.

THIRD WATCHMAN:

Aye, but give me worship and quietness. I like it better than dangerous honour. If Warwick knew his condition, it is doubted he would waken him.

FIRST WATCHMAN:

Unless our halberds did block the way.

SECOND WATCHMAN:

Ay, why else do we guard his royal tent than to defend him from night foes?

(Enter Warwick, Clarence, Oxford, Somerset, and French soldiers, all silent.)

WARWICK:

(one must presume whispering)

This is his tent, and see where his guard stand. Courage my masters! Honour now or never! Just follow me, and Edward shall be ours.

FIRST WATCHMAN:

Who goes there?

SECOND WATCHMAN:

Stop or you die.

Warwick and the rest cry 'Warwick! Warwick!' and set upon the guard, who run, crying, 'Arm! Arm!', Warwick and the rest following them.

The drum playing and trumpet sounding, enter Warwick, Somerset, and the rest, bringing the king in a gown, sitting in his chair. Richard and Hastings fly over the stage.

SOMERSET:

What are they that fly there?

WARWICK:

Richard and Hastings. Let them go. Here is the duke.

KING EDWARD:

The Duke! Why, Warwick, when we last parted you called me king.

WARWICK:

Aye, but the case is altered. When you disgraced me as an ambassador then I downgraded you from being king, and come now to create you duke of York. How can one govern a kingdom who does not know how to use ambassadors, nor how to be content with one wife, nor how to use his brothers in a brotherly manner, nor how to look after other people's welfare, nor to protect himself from enemies?

EDWARD:

Yea, brother of Clarence, are you here too? Then I see that I must step down. Yet, Warwick, in spite of all mischance, and of you and all your accomplices, I will always bear myself as king. Though the malice of fortune may overthrow my state, my mind is above all that.

WARWICK:

Then, for his mind, let Edward be England's king -

(takes off his crown)

but Henry shall wear the English crown, and be a true king indeed, with you but a shadow. My lord of Somerset, at my request, see that forthwith Duke Edward is conveyed to my brother, the Archbishop of York. When I have fought with Pembroke and his fellows I will follow you and tell the duke what answer Louis and the lady Bona send to him. - Now, farewell for a while good Duke of York.

EDWARD:

What fate imposes men must abide with. It's no good resisting both wind and tide.

(they lead him out forcibly).

OXFORD:

What now remains for us to do, my lords, but to march to London with our soldiers?

WARWICK:

Aye, that's the first thing to do, and free king Henry from imprisonment, and see him seated on the royal throne.

(all exit).

More next week.

MECHANICS.

My car - which has only done 167,000 miles since new! - began to smoke recently. The engine is diesel, and this particular type of engine (VW LT 2.4 litre) has a bit of a repuation for going smokey.

Not being a person of means, and having extensive engineering and mechanical knowledge, I decided to do whatever was needed myself. Given the design of the VW fuel pump, the problem was almost inevitably sticky injectors - but I could find no technical information about this particular type of injector. The injectors about which I had technical info where CAV ones of about 30 years ago, which need special equipment to overhaul them (they have to be 'calibrated'). What I did not know at this stage is that the VW ones have no adjustments and therefore no calibration - you just clean them out and make sure the moving parts move freely. You also need to check them visually for wear.

To find the one that was giving trouble (one was clicking), I made a 'stethoscope' out of a piece of stick with a flat piece of timber glued to the end (to put against my ear) and then pressed it on the top of each injector, noting which ones sounded different to the others. This worked really well, but as I had no prior experience of this trick I did not know how subtle my listening would need to be. I concluded that only one was clicking and that therefore only one would need fixing.

I took all fuel delivery pipes off (which also involved removing the vacuum pump, and took about two hours owing to various bits of the system that mechanics had bodged in the past, but which would anyway have taken an hour and a half). This job was greatly facilitated by having a 17mm. ring spanner in which I had cut a slot with a grinder, allowing me to slip the ring over the pipes. I unscrewed the offending injector (very difficult to unscrew, but don't screw them back up more than necessary when refitting - the stiffness is mainly due to the steel injector being screwed into the aluminium head), and took it into the workshop.

It is necessary to have an engineer's vice to dismantle these injectors because they are screwed together very tight. When you have released the thread it is worth unscrewing the rest of the way over a large flat area or a piece of cotton sheeting to catch the parts. It is also very adviseable to make a sketch of the order in which the internal parts are assembled - I would say including which way up the flat washer goes at the top. The parts will not go back together the wrong way, but you could waste a large amount of time trying to work out which way round they do go, and there is also a minor danger of damage if you get it wrong and try to force them together. Assembled right, they will go in with no force.

Having got the thing in pieces, I put all the parts in a jar of paraffin/kerosene (though I am told there are better fluids for this job), and allowed them to soak for a while. I took out the needle (which bit is the needle will be obvious) and gave it a good rub down with a small piece of wood (about 2 inches long and thin - the sort of thing you'll find in any skip), because although they are extremely hard steel the surfaces must be kept immaculate. I had no tool to remove the needle guide, but again a small pice of wood cut to a tight-fitting triangular section twiddled round in the guide seemed sufficient. There are three small holes round the edge of the guide, to allow fuel to pass through. I made sure these were clear.

At the tip of the injector is a tiny hole - the nozzle - out of which the fuel comes in a controlled spurt of mist when the pressure in the body reaches a certain point (this is how the injection is timed by the pump - it gives a pulse of pressure at the right moment). This hole I also cleaned with a piece of wood cut to a point.

I then put the needle in the guide and tried pushing it gently down and then turning the injector upside down to see if it was free enough to fall out again. It wasn't, but to be fair it only has to move a short distance in use, and this it did, so I concluded that if it could move that distance freely and easily and was clean, that should be enough. Several lots of cleaning had brought it to that point - but only after I had lubricated it a little. In use it would be lubricated by the fuel going through.

Having done all this cleaning, and being satisfied that there was not the slightest speck of dirt within the injector I re-assembled it (looking at my sketch to speed the job up) and fitted it back in the head. GREAT CARE IS NEEDED HERE, as often people cross the threads when refitting injectors and the head then has to be removed to do an expensive repair. Even the gasket set, stretch bolts and sundries can come to £100, so do be careful. I am told it is recommended that you do not grease the threads, but I do not know why this should be.

Re-assembly took about one and a half hours, and when the engine was started it ran beautifully, much better than before - but it still smoked, though of course not as badly.

Whilst I was spending that three and a half hours I might just as well have spent five and done all the injectors instead of one. Now I will be forced to either spend the five hours again or try one of those patent remedies - some of which work very well, and some of which (in my experience) do not work at all.

The problem is which one.

...........................................................................................................................

The stuff that doesn`t often get changed now follows:

Alternet News.

Alternet News might appeal to some readers as a regular list of goings-on in the human rights/green areas of life. You can receive it by email. I have put one copy on this site so that you get an idea of what it is about and how to subscribe.

For sample Alternet email click here.

Biotechnology

Click here for an email that arrived in January 2000 concerning a proposed reasoned approach to this tricky subject

Goforth's social justice e-zine.

This interesting email magazine comes at fairly regular intervals and is of interest to almost anybody who is interested in human rights and green issues. In November 2000 it was going out to about 10,000 addresses. Try it. It won't cost you anything, and you can reproduce the contents without paying. You can subscribe by writing to them at: sjzine@netscape.net, or visit: Goforth's site

This website is about accounting investigations and fiddles. If you like to look at financial scandals (both hidden and public) this might be worth a look. I have not been there myself, but the books produced by these people, although difficult to follow, cover a lot of mysterious ground.

This website is about the destruction of countryside and agriculture. Worth a visit if you want to find out about how it is thought the British countryside will fair under the ongoing creep of the multinationals.

This website is one to do with monetary reform.The British Association for Monetary Reform. If you are interested in economics it is worth a look. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~bamr1

This is a website about alternative currencies.Might be worth a look to those who have realised that you don't necessarily have to have money as such to be prosperous.

This is a website for something called The Green Guide. I know nothing about it, but am hoping it is something worthy. Please let me know if it is questionable.

This is a site concerned with one of the most unpopular planning decisions ever made in Greater London, the Crystal Palace Complex. It is so stunningly awful that only a handful of people who do not live near it appear to approve, whilst the rest are not entirely uninclined to mention such things as payola, freemasons....you name it! The site belongs to the London Borough of Bromley, but the aggro generated by it and the destruction of amenity caused by it will be almost entirely suffered by residents of adjoining boroughs and not the people of Bromley themselves.

This is a recycling site based in London, and offering materials to anybody. The organisation is a charity seeking to link suppliers of surplus materials with users. Especially good for the more ingenious designers amongst us.

The email of the people who run the above site is cs@london-recycling.demon.co.uk. They are called Creative Supplies. Look them up for more info.

Here's an interesting education site - particularly for those who have young children and are not quite sure what to do to avoid the worst of what`s on offer in the mainstream of education.They are called www.edrev.org.

early Othernews - 1992, 93, 94.

Early Other News essays.

There were a few essays that went out with the early Other News as a freestanding item. You can read these by clicking below.

Essays.

The Soup Designer`s Handbook.

The Soup Designer`s Handbook.

London Journey - a trip from Docklands through Beckenham and back to Docklands.

Friday Woodworkers.

(Friday Woodworkers are suffering a temporary break due to some of the episodes not having been fully edited at the time of writing. It may take some timne to fix this problem.

Episode 17.

(These articles were written in 1988, and were my first attempt at writing. Some people when shown these fell about laughing, some smiled faintly - and some yawned. I thought I was going to write a technical book, but it soon became apparent that I was much more interested in the people than the technology - and that is the main reason there are no drawings - although it might be rather good to do a couple of caricatures sometime.)

Index of Friday Woodorker articles (and a means of access).

Index of earlier issues.

Gabriele Gad on alternative therapy.

A READER COMPLAINED that it was not possible to go back more than 6 articles in Gabriele`s area. Regrettably this is because there is no index, and I have not the time to organise one yet. However, for those determined enough to find the early ones, they should be accessible by going to an early Other News and clicking through from it. This will not be fast, but I think will do the job. They started about November 1997 I think.

editor@othernews.co.uk

Cartoons and graphics.

drawings click here.

sheet music click here.

Consumers.

LEXMARK 3200 PRINTER.

In an earlier issue I told you about my feelings regarding Tempo retailers and the Lexmark 3200 printer I bought from them.

The Lexmark 3200 printer I got from Tempo must surely be the most uneconomical printer I could possibly have bought. The black cartridge only does about 250 pages of ordinary type - for £28! That makes each sheet cost 11.2 pence plus the cost of the paper and probably another 11.2 pence more if any colour is used! - ABOUT 22.4 PENCE A SHEET! Nearly a pound for every four sheets!

I wouldn`t recommend you to buy it - but also look at my earlier article for an idea of Tempo`s service.

Wanted

A person to help make up a subject index for the growing numbers of articles on The Other News From England. Email editor@othernews.co.uk (this may now have been provided, but please email if you might like to join in in some way - ed.)

All material on this site is copyright. Contact me if you want to use it. I am quite flexible. Educational non-profit use is free - but ask for permission and print an acknowledgement. If you can`t think what to print, put:

From The Other News From England. http://www.othernews.co.uk

Even better if you print the date of the article.

editor@othernews.co.uk

That`s all this week folks