(No) Hot Water

Yesterday, Casa K found itself without hot water and the frankly unqualified and fruitless attempts to solve this mystery got in the way of any attempt to draft today's post. I'm also rarely organised enough to have 'emergency' posts prepped and ready to go, just in case, much preferring to make things up as I go along. Unfortunately, this doesn't get you anywhere in the world of boiler repair.

My friend Jayne was a huge Level 42 fan back when we were at school. I wasn't, but you couldn't ignore Mark King's formidable thumb and so Hot Water immediately sprang to mind as I stared helplessly at the control panel, hoping, praying that this time maybe switching it on and off again would actually make a difference....

After Mrs. K made multiple calls to the company that services the boiler (they always promise to call you back, and never do), she was advised with a sigh of indifference that to would be approximately 4 weeks before someone could call out to repair.

A few more calls around and we - hopefully - will get someone else out by next Tuesday. We think it's probably the same problem with a diverter switch that we had last year: we live in a very hard water area and the thing just got stuck on heating. However, it's internal and beyond the reach of mere mortal hands, so even a temp fix isn't possible. The reality is that the cost of repairing this will be inversely proportionate to the size of the item.

 

This situation - and the end of a particularly challenging week at work - made it all the more poignant when the single version of Shot By Both Sides by Magazine was the first song to explode from my car stereo when I began the long drive home.

I've found a YouTube clip of a live performance for Belgian TV show Folllies on 2nd July 1979. It's both rather odd and really wonderful and better than the Top Of The Pops appearance which inevitably is far too short and cuts away part way into the guitar solo. Criminal!

Barry Adamson apparently learned to play bass overnight so that he could audition for Howard Devoto and John McGeogh in 1977, joining Bob Dickinson and Martin Jackson in the first lineup of Magazine. Shot By Both Sides was Magazine's opening salvo less than six months later and sounds as exciting now as it did when I first heard it in the 1980s.

 

And, for this music lover, Bazza on bass beats Mark King every time. 

 

Normal service will resume on Saturday, but may start to pong a bit by Sunday...