Slimline Salad Dressing?

Last weekend I finally got round to dusting down the hi-fi amp and speakers that I bought 24 years ago and connected them up to the brand new CD player that I bought last year, but had packed away until I could get covers to prevent small fingers from damaging the speakers.

I couldn't really get a satisfactory metal grille solution, so the reason that I connected everything up last weekend was that I'd decided that I could trust the kids.
They've never really touched the surround sound system in the front room.

One of the speakers has a cloth cover. The cloth cover had come off the other speaker.

To my dismay this morning I discovered that Frodo had poked in the centre dome of the woofer. I knew it was him, as he ran a mile when I discovered it. After a good telling off I established that he'd pushed it, thinking it was a button (he was trying to figure out how to turn the music on).
Luckily he hadn't touched the tweeter.

I got him to help me fix it tonight - he helped me turn a few screws whilst I took the speaker out to examine it from all sides.

Googling for a solution suggested the following options.

i) Suck the dome back into shape with a hoover.
ii) Pierce the dome with a pin and hook it back into shape.
iii) Use a piece of sticky tape to pull the dome back into shape - start with say masking tape and work your way through sellotape, parcel tape, gaffer tape etc until you find something just sticky enough.

I decided that option i) could work, but a Dyson might just rip the dome right off.
Option ii) would leave a small hole, that might degrade the sound.

Therefore I went for option iii).
Masking tape, and sellotape were no good, but a piece of parcel tape did the trick. Hooray!

The speaker is now working as well as before (warm bass sound with plenty of middle and crisp clear high's), and has a taught cloth cover protecting it from further mishaps.

For those that don't understand, the title of this post refers to the Not the Nine O'Clock News Gramophone Sketch :-

Food Poisoning?

Fish chips and mushy peas from the local chippy on Friday night. Mmmm!

Fishcake for Novelist Supermum and Sausages for Frodo and Samwise. Samwise had some mushy peas too.

Samwise had a tummy ache in the middle of the night - but was OK otherwise.
I woke up at 3am and threw up. I then threw up again in the morning.

Spent all day Saturday not being able to eat much, sleeping on the couch and rehydrating myself with blackcurrant juice. Felt like I had the aches, headache and shivers of flu, but without the sneezing. Of course I was accused of having "Man Flu" :)

Novelist Supermum and Frodo were OK.

After sleeping all day, I slept all night too. Got up about 10:30 this morning and felt fine again.
Samwise was a little sick on Saturday night, but was fine again today.

So it looks like the mushy peas were the culprit.
Never had a problem with that chippy before, but I think it will be a while before I visit it again.

Narnia at the Anglican Cathedral

I took these photo's at Narnia event for children, held at the Anglican Cathedral last month.

A question for cha0tic - is this any better than the "Pirate Bishops" in the previous post?

Son of Adam and a Beaver, or Cylon and a Werepig? :)

Family Fun on the Ferry

Ferry up and down the Mersey today. Who wants to cross it and go to the Wirral anyway? :) Free trip (we applied for a ticket after seeing a flier sent by Frodo and Samwise school) with activities for children organised by "Adult Education Services".

QE2 II

People are getting a little excited at work, because the QE2 is heading into the Mersey on it's final voyage, before going off to become a hotel in Dubai.

I managed to see it go past the Baycam Web Camera at 11:05 - it's just showing the sea now.

It's just passed the entrance to the Mersey. Should be docked outside work around 12:30

Didn't bring my camera with me this time, but then I did get a few snaps of it last year

There's a bit more commercialism going on this time. Last year it was a just a few programs being sold. This year, as the crowd is gathering, I can see coffee stalls, hot dog stands, carriage rides etc.