Servicing / Repairing The Car

I took the Fiat for a service recently. I used to go to a local dealership in Hounslow, which this time seemed reluctant to answer the phone, so I drove by and found it deserted (the Internet was quite sure it was still open). I found out later that Fiat pulled the franchise. So off to an enormous place on an industrial estate off the Great West Road I went. When it was over, they muttered something about oil leaks and a rusty exhaust bracket. There was a list of work that needed doing, one of which was the timing belt, and some of the others were "stuff happens" fixes. Then there was £350 under "oil leak". That was for the investigation, not the repair. The repair would probably cost a lot, said the counter staff, not worth doing, assuming that I appreciated as well as they did the age (10 y/o) and near-zero trade-in value of the car.

I went looking for a second opinion at the local garage that does my MoT. The local mechanic found the leak within two minutes of putting the car on the lift, and his indicative price had way less overhead in it.(*)

For the kind of supermini / hatchback I drive, a low-ish mileage four year-old costs around £10,000, and should have ten years in it. I'm not one for driving massive mileages. My decision amount using the one-quarter rule (**) is £2,500 for the remaining life of my current car. That's for exceptional repairs, not stuff on the service schedule or consumables like brake pads and tyres.

I went through the list of things on the service sheet, picked the important ones, and asked the local garage to do them. The bill is going to be around £1,000, which is way cheaper than a replacement, and leaves some over for the next few years.

I got this car cheap (and it turned out to be cheap for a reason) and have put about £1,000 into it for exceptional repairs so far. The total is still way less than a "good" one would have been, so if these repairs simply carry on the programme of bringing it back up to standard(!), I'm fine.



(*) Main dealers charge more partly because they have way more overheads than your local garage. Those overheads include the nice people at Service Reception, and reassuring paperwork. Not everyone feels confident talking to mechanics first-hand while standing in a workshop. So they pay for the comfort of dealing with Service Reception staff.

(**) See next post

Diary

I've just finished another batch of egregious backdating.

I've been distracted by my shoulder and right arm.

If I sit at a table and eat, let alone try to write, pins and needles shoot along my arm down to the thumb and forefinger.

If I put my head too far forward / backward / to the right, also pins and needles, and discomfort.

If I play the guitar, the elbow end of my right tricep feels really... odd.

Sitting down on a chair leads to discomfort. I fidgeted a lot during a couple of concerts recently. Trains and tubes can lead to more discomfort.

If I lie on my left side to sleep, pins and needles shoot along my arm, and for a while.

If I lie on my right side, that's uncomfortable, with tingles.

I've been sleeping on my back for the last six weeks.

Which means when I wake up, that's it. I'm stiff and ache-y. Pulling the duvet up and curling up for an extra hour is not possible.

I've been having walks at 06:00. In this weather.

I have been taking action.

I've had three sessions with my osteo, and a massage from someone who knows how. Each one has lead to an improvement.

There are two problems.

One is a probable trapped or inflamed nerve in my neck. That was from trying to flip a heavy mattress, something, I've done many times before without a problem.

The other is muscular tightness from adapting to the electric guitar.

Neither was helped by having a back that has been described as "like a turtle".

For a while I could not sort out which symptoms were coming from which cause.

I can now.

A wrist brace above my elbow helps with the guitar playing. I suspect I will adapt to that.

The most I can do is have massages to keep my back from tightening up. My osteo likes the idea of pulley-rows and face-pulls as well. I can do that.

I'm now waiting for the nerve in my neck to sort itself out.

Everyone says that it will remit, but it will take time.

Madison

Another one from the Qobuz suggestions, from a songwriter with the unlikely title of Drugdealer. I love its 70's vibe (through 2020's production), clean tones and all-round songiness.

Let's Sing, Let's Dance

I think I started subscribing to Qibuz in 2021. I would look at its featured new releases and try one or two. I'm not usually one for Korean girl rap DJ's, but Park Hye-jin's first album tickled my funny bone. This is the first track.



Stream it on your preferred service.

Views From Maryon Park

 Well, the same view, but cropped.

The top one is like one of those Victorian landscapes with a title such as "View from a hill in south London". The middle one is "my zoom lens wasn't long enough to get those darn trees out of the frame". The bottom one is "How much would it really cost the Council to trim a few trees once a year so everyone could enjoy a panoramic view of London"?

Land of The Grey and Pink: Nine Feet Underground

Of course I first heard this in music history class. I did not first hear it on a portable LP player at university. Good heavens no. It's a long insrumental piece, one of a kind in the band's work. I don't go much for the twee Canterbury Sound songs, but this is a knock-out.



The Canterbury Sound band you may have heard of is the Soft Machine. These guys all knew each other and played together on occasion. It shows.

The Sound of Heaven - Canto Gregoriano

Sometime in 1995 I read that some raves were sending the crowds home to the sound of Gregorian Chant. I wasn't a raver, so I had no idea if it was true, but I went to a small record shop in a nearby high street and asked if they had the album. On cassette. They did. I played it and immediately understood why this was good music to chill everyone out at the end of a long night of dancing to loud music.

Hymn singing assumes you can read. Not many people could read in 800AD, and Church services were conducted in Latin. That is not as daft as it sounds. Latin was the official language of the Roman Empire, and when that fell, the Catholic Church carried on, using Latin. Many ordinary people would have had some basic spoken business and religious Latin. They would have understood the words.

Gregorian chant is one tune sung by many voices. The choir sings a chord that moves up and down with the tune, but does not change within itself. The harmony does not change. Churches echo, so the notes change slowly, and the tune moves to nearby notes, not jumping around as tunes will much later. The tunes are also long and curving incorporating a number of phrases, far more than a modern song. The words often disappear into the echoes and the voices. All very different from the songs that the congregation would have sung at home or in pubs, and deliberately different: religion and its feelings are one thing, ordinary life is another. Gregorian chant was and is the sound of heaven.

(You can read about Gregorian chant in Wikipedia, and that article lists some fearsomely learned studies of the music.)

Why did this collection of songs take off - it went triple platinum - when so many others do not? It's the sound of the monks of the Monastère de Santo Domingo de Silos. A reviewer said: "the ensemble is not always perfect, but if these are not professional singers, they are, and they sound like, truly professional monks." It's the sincerity we respond to.

 

Settle in and enjoy.

So why do I play it? Because it is terrific background when I want to feel calm, maybe to focus on what I'm writing, or do something that is best done without a mind wanting to jump to something else. It removes distractions and is not itself distracting.

And sometimes because I want to chill out.