Mad Dogs and Englishmen

cocker_01
Originally uploaded by pixlink

A photo I found when cleaning out to decorate some rooms. Where I got it from I don't know. It's a publicity photo for the 1971 Joe Cocker film 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen'.

It brings back memories though. I remember this album playing endlessly at Jackie MacKay's house when I was about nine or ten. She was married to the musician, photographer and all-round creative genius Ruan O'Lochlainn and their eldest son was the same age as my younger sister. They lived near us in Chiswick. There was always something happening at their house, it was quite a scene.

To me it was a strange and magical place. I had no idea until I was much older who all the people that came and went were but there was always lots of musicians jamming in the sitting room which I thought was fantastic. It felt like a family living in the midst of a rock 'n roll tour. Then one day, they sold their house and began touring the country in a converted moving van and we'd only see them when they dropped in our place for a cup of tea and a bath.

Some years later, when settled back in London, it was Jackie who encouraged my interest in photography. When I got my first camera, she let me use her darkroom to develop the film and make prints. And later I went with her to several Billy Bragg concerts, (actually they were Riff-Raff gigs back then ) as Jackie sort of managed the band and shot videos for them, including one she made in my house, 'Every Girl an English Rose' if I recall the title. Shortly after this Billy went off to the army and then had a solo career and I don't think the video has seen the light of day?

I think a few of the photos here are mine and were taken at the Red Cow in Hammersmith. Jackie gave me a couple of rolls of film to shoot with and I gave them to her to develop but I never saw the prints. That night Billy came off stage and said to me "what do you think then?" And I said, "they're great songs, but your sound is a bit rough." Upon which he exploded and said "it's supposed to sound that way!" I had to buy him a pint by way of apology. I don't think he appreciated my honest opinion and I suppose I had missed the point. My upbringing had instilled different expectations of musicianship. From then on I kept my mouth shut and stuck to taking pictures.

Looking back at the photo, I find it quite symbolic. It's the end of the sixties, the beginning of the seventies. If you look at the fashions, the clues are all there.

Walk this way

Unbelievable but true. Your pedestrian crossing points the way to God. Prisma Teknik AB is a family-run business making signals equipment based in the southern Swedish county of Småland, an area with a reputation as Sweden's bible belt. Designer Kenneth Österlin has issued a written statement categorically denying that his design with a finger pointing to the signal button has any religious meaning after the company CEO Jan Lund told Swedish online newspaper The Local that the company's signals point the way to God in 17 countries including Ireland, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Finland, Belgium, Israel, and the US among others.

And I thought walking at the sign of the green man was a conspiracy by the Pagans!In the USA you walk at the sign of the white man, which is even more sinister.

Although it does seem that people have an unshakeable faith that pushing the button on crosswalks (pedestrian crossings) makes a difference.

Refinishing wooden floors on the cheap

Sanding wooden floors is a pain. If I had it, I'd gladly pay £40 per square metre that professionals charge for sanding, filling and lacquering wooden floors.

After years of procrastinating, I've finally tackled the three upstairs bedrooms of my Victorian semi. That's about 300 square feet. After three days, it's one down and two to go.

Three years ago I did the whole ground floor. A few years before that a studio flat with parquet floors. After much sweat and tears they came out fantastic, so I think I know a bit about floor sanding and, at your own risk, I can share with you some tips I've learned the hard way.

Unless the boards are pristine condition and all you want to do is brighten up some old grey boards that have lain under lino or carpet for a few decades, floor sanding will take a lot of time. More time than you probably have and if you think you can do three bedrooms in a weekend, dream on. If the boards have been stained or had tiles glued on them, double whatever number you first thought of.

Which is why my top tip is don't bother hiring a floor sander/edge sander package for about £80 for a weekend.

The big drum sanders or orbitals are great when the floorboards are level and and true and sit flush next to each which might be the case when refinishing a basketball court or dance floor but not my house!

The big drum buffs up the high points just lovely but they can't get it into the dips caused when old boards shrink and buckle according to the direction of the grain. I found that I used the edge sander for most of the floor because of that. I used a £30 machine to to do 90% of the job while a £50 machine sat unused.

With the rental clock ticking, the temptation is to rush the job and piss off your neighbours by sanding late into the evening. Plus, although the sanding belts are on sale or return, the prices you pay for the expendables from the hire shops are double what you'll pay at trade prices.

If you want to be cheap, you can do what I've done and buy a good angle grinder for about £30 with a sanding disc attachment and buy lots of boxes of paper discs for about £11 per box of 25. You get through a lot of discs but this costs less than the machine hire and with your own tools, you can work at your own pace.













When using a disc sander on the floor, you will be working close to the sharp end of the tool and so you must wear a mask and gloves and eye protection. Some kneepads are a really good idea too.


Warning: if you hit a nail with the sanding disc, the grinder will jump out of your hands.

ALWAYS run a dry sponge or cloth over the floor before you start to catch any protruding nails or tacks. If the floor was ever carpeted, there will be some tacks in it. A flying sanding disc at 1100 rpm cuts flesh like butter. Or even the flex and leaves really deep gouges.

One problem with wearing eye protection or glasses is that they fog up when you also wear a paper dust mask. Exhaled breath flows out the sides of the mask at the bridge of the nose and fogs the lenses.

At this, most people either chuck off the mask or the eye protection but either choice is hazardous to your health. My solution is to tape the mask across the bridge of my nose with surgical tape or sticking plaster. This prevents the exhaled air from condensing on the lenses.



postscript: I have realised the dust masks pictured are not up to the job. I had to wear two at a time. There are much better masks with valves and seals to prevent fogging that cost around £1.80 each. YOUR LUNGS ARE WORTH IT.

I start by stripping off any stain or glue with a 36 grit disc (on right). When the board is clean, I go over again with a 80 grit disc (on left) to finish.

For a 10' x 10' room with a painted floor, I have generally used about 30-40 rough discs for cleaning and 3-4 fine discs to finish.

Without stain or paint on the floor, one disc will last about 20 square feet. With stain or paint, I am lucky to get 2.5 ft sq cleaned up with a 36 grit.


The rough discs clog quickly on paint or stain. You have to stop every five minutes or so to change discs but hey, you're still saving money!

If you use a clogged disk for too long, it just burns the wood.














When you stop to change the discs, vacuum up the dust as you go. It's a really good idea to seal the doors to each room with plastic tarps or painter's cloths.

A Henry will be very useful. I used to swear by my Dyson but one day it caught fire after sucking up lots of brick dust but our Henry that replaced it never complains. Also, there's nothing on a Henry that can break that costs £40 to replace.












On the right are some boards with a black stain applied in the 1970's when black floors were fashionable.

Cleaning one quarter of the room took about 3 hours on my hands and knees.

It's a pain working on your knees but you are at least aware of how good a finish you are getting.

With practise, you can feel the disc working the wood and will be able to strip the paint off without scoring the wood too deep.

When the boards are cleaned, you can finish off any rough bits with a orbital sander, these cost about £15. The sandpaper on the roll is handier than the sheets.

You should also lightly sand the first coat of sealer with a fine grade as the first coat will raise the grain of the wood. A good finish is down to good preparation and not the material applied.

When you start out with very old, warped and painted boards you aren't going to get perfectly flat ones when you finish (unless you pull them all up and run them through a planer). Putting on the acrylic, you can see the cupping that a disc sander makes but when the acrylic is dry, you don't notice it and given the age and warps of the boards, it looks natural anyway.




























Acrylics are hard wearing and are easy to apply and clean up. I regret my Danish oil experiment.

I've used a variety of floor sealers and Rustin's is as good as any other and Coopers, my local hardware store, actually has it cheaper in-store than I can find it online. I'd also recommend Cuprinol's Bourne Seal

Acylics can be walked upon after 20 minutes (but leave it 24 hours before putting back the furniture). Three coats can be done in about two hours with a sanding in-between.

Ditch the training wheels

I have come to the conclusion that training wheels are a really dumb way to teach children to ride a bicycle.

If there isn't a debate in cycle education between the 'pedal first' or 'balance first' approaches, there should be.

Years ago when I was in Germany and Switzerland and lately in Britain, I notice that pre-schools use bikes without pedals, like the earliest 'dandy-horse', that children sit astride and propel with their feet. There are several makers of these 'balance-bikes'. In the US the Boot Scoot bike is gaining in popularity. The UK Ilsa Bike Rothan is highly praised too. If you want to go green, the Steady Eddy is made of wood. There are many others and in Europe every bike maker seems to have a model in this style.

In my experience, training wheels on pedal bikes cause accidents as they affect the handling, especially on turns.

In fact, I observe training wheels inhibit the brain's natural balance reactions as well as being useless on anything but perfectly level and hard ground. Any engineer will tell you that four points of support is less stable than three points (which a tricycle has) as it gives you two axes to pivot on a variable plane. Just put a four legged stool beside a three legged stool on a tiled floor to see what I mean.

It's a wrong headed approach. You should do everything to naturally develop the child's balance skills and not use ineffective props to try to keep them upright that slow them down.

On a 'balance bike', when kids show they're able to coast and balance and make turns, they can be moved onto a pedal bike. Most kids I've seen adapt to pedals in just a few minutes once the balance is mastered. The challenge for my own children was learning to balance and not managing pedals.

Ahh, then there's the argument that this requires parents to shell out for two bikes, one with and without pedals. You know, at the rate kids grow, you aren't going to get more than a year's life out of a child's bike for a three or four year old. My advice is there's no need to buy a four year old a brand new bike. Every yard sale I see has bikes for this age less than a year old. I bought a lovely second-hand Puky child's bike for £40, taught two children to ride on it and then sold it on for £40.

Instead of fitting training wheels, you could take off the cranks and the chainset on a child's pedal bike, so long as their feet can touch the ground. You could cap the bottom bracket holes easily with pipe-caps until the kid was ready for pedals. Perhaps a bike manufacturer will nick this idea and make the pedals and crank more easily removable on a child's bike. Please, go ahead.

It seems the mindset though that a child needs to start with a 'proper' bike with pedals is firmly established in special needs education. This programme for developmentally disabled children seems to go to extraordinary lengths to teach children to ride by the pedals-first approach. I'd welcome edification on why this approach is preferred over the feet down method. My experience with autistic children and those with dyspraxia, although very limited, shows me that the 'balance-bike' has some advantages there too.

Kate Stirling, president of Boot Scoot Bikes, LLC says: "I have actually had several people contact me, letting me know that they are purchasing for a child with developmental disabilities.

One physical/occupational child therapist contacted me to buy one for her own practice--she said she had been removing pedals for years in order to teach her patients, but they would still hit and scrape their legs where the pedals insert. She was delighted to find our bikes because she could personally afford them for her practice.

Other parents have let me know that they are purchasing for a child with Down's Syndrome. Several parents/grandparents of autistic children have given me rave reviews about how our bikes seemed to give their children a boost in confidence that spilled over into other activities.

I don't have statistics or studies to site so this is just me relaying what has come back to me, but it has been especially fun to hear from these parents who had thought it might just be too hard for their child to learn to ride a traditional bike."

Postscript: I found this website since this posting that pretty much says what I've said as well with a bit more authority.

Don't spoil the surprise

The Mirror has leaked details of the handover ceremony from Beijing to London for 2012 which a colleague of mine has spent the last year creating.

I can't claim that I am in on anything although we chewed over lots of my own mad and probably bad ideas and I was asked to keep schtum for a long time before it became official.

From what I know, the Mirror has done some clever guessing but I think the official press releases give enough hints as to what is involved. You wouldn't, for example, commission a street dance group to perform a ballet numbers would you? (but mixing the two might be visually interesting).

The London organising committee are not going to employ someone untested or expect something totally untried. 'God save the Teen' and the 'Manchester Passion' should give you some confidence in what to expect. I don't think it will, or should be, as extravagant as the rest of the closing ceremony and thankfully we've been promised there will be no dancing Beefeaters.

Given that everyone's in Beijing now and so many people are involved, keeping a lid on it must be impossible but I think it would be nice if the tabloids didn't spoil it for everyone and build up false expectations.

I just hope a jetlagged David Beckham doesn't miss that free kick through the Olympic rings from the top of the double-decker bus....(just kidding) but they'd better have a prepared tape to run just in case.