Mending that which is broken..... V1.0.

Well, you may have been wondering what has caused such a lengthy pause in the otherwise fairly regular outpouring of drivel that constitutes this blog.......

Truth to tell, it's been off-line while the Auntie Mary Filter (TM) went back to its manufacturers for a complete overhaul.

Yes, Messrs Bowdler and Whitehouse (Est 1825), of Tunbridge Wells, kindly sent a steam traction engine and trailer to tow it away (it does weigh in at nearly 18 tons - most of which is the lead shielding.....)

Anyway, I awaited their communique with trepidation, pacing the waiting room at The Waterbeach Telegraph Office with all the nervous energy of an expectant father.

What would the news be?

Would I ever blog again?.......

The news, when it came at last, was not good.

The Auntie Mary Filter (TM) arrived at their premises still steaming gently and emitting the odd spark, (as, one by one, the remaining Profanity By-Pass Valves over-heated and went west).....

And this is despite the journey having taken over two weeks!

(Causing considerable tailbacks on the M25: sorry, everyone, for the delays..... and the rather singular smell.....)

You'd have thought it would have cooled down!

But no...........

The Duty Engineer at B & W threw a 60 foot exclusion zone around it immediately, just as a precaution, though I thought the General Manager's decision to go to Def-Con 1, (meaning the evacuation of the local Primary School, The Home for Retired Gentlefolk and the closure of the local branch of Budgens) was a bit thick....

And as for the mandatory ingestion of KIO3 Potassium Iodate anti-radiation tablets by everyone living in a five-mile down-wind zone.......

Well, really!

It's not as if the pile-caps were that compromised.....

It was hardly radioactive at all.....

I was soon in talks with B&W....

What was to be done?

Fortunately, I'd had the foresight to purchase the optional 'Five-Star No-Quibble Guarantee/Parts and Labour Warranty' when I'd ordered it, so when they started talking about a 'concrete sarcophagus' and 'dropping it in the Mariana Trench', I could at least thank my lucky stars that I wouldn't have to foot the bill..........

It was then that The Duty Engineer, one Neville Sproat, had a brainwave.

He confessed he hadn't seen an Auntie Mary Filter (TM) in such a state since the Christmas of 1968 when a couple of drunken apprentices had decided to run 'The Kamasutra', 'Fanny Hill' by John Cleland and the 1959 script of 'Carry on Nurse' sequentially through an unmodified Mk7b 'to see what would happen'......

The explosion was seen and felt as far away as Uttoxeter......

One of the apprentices lost his eyebrows and all hearing in his left ear. The other was less lucky, being reduced to a gibbering wreck, (still, sadly, resident in 'The Chelford Hall Home for the Bewildered') whose only speech is a spasmodic repetition of the refrain "OOOOH MATRON!!!

Meanwhile, in Finland, reindeer died.....

But the resultant crater is still being used for land-fill, so it's an ill wind......

Anyway...

The brainwave......

My Auntie Mary Filter (TM) was deeply compromised: The Naughty Words Inhibitor Circuits were burned to a mere frazzle. The Profanity By-Pass Loops were leaking eff-words left, right and centre.... The Filth Filters were so full of the most disgusting emulsion imaginable that soaking them for a week in a boiling vat of Trichloroethane simply wasn't going to touch it.....

The key to cooling down the over-heated Filter-Core and the aversion of disasterous meltdown lay, according to Neville, in nothing more complex than the singing of 'Clean Songs'........

When I thesped, I used to sing a bit....

So the job fell to me.....

'Madamoiselle from Armentieres, what a nice girl!

Madamoiselle from Armentieres, what a nice girl!

Madamoiselle from Armentieres, Please come home and meet Mama!

Inky-Pinky la-la-la'......

'The sun shone down on the village green, and there sat little Nell, was she picking daisies?

Was she?.....

Actually, yes...'.

And so it went on.

Long, long into the night.

Dawn broke to a chorus of ' Sh-i-ne your buttons with Brasso, it's only five ha'pence a tin' and Neville announced we were out of danger.....

The Auntie Mary Filter (TM) reactor core was back in 'The Green'.

Any remaining problems with The Profanity By-Pass Loops were dealt with by a judicious squirt of liquid nitrogen and CO2...

The Naughty Words Inhibitor Circuits were given a new lease of life by immersing them in sweet sherry for 48 hours........

The Filth Filters were restored to a usable level of Cleanth by the expedient application of 16 gallons of supermarket cola in which they were soaked for two weeks.....

And, as the last chorus of George Formby's 'When I'm Cleaning Windows' died away, and the last ghostly shadow of double-entendre had been politely shown the door, all was pronounced well.

Thank goodness for Neville Sproat.

On Sunday, The Boat-man, The Engineer and The Buoy Wonder are having another go at the gentleman's engine.........

All leave is cancelled, Nev.

Sorry................