TVs don't bounce

A TV can make a God-awful noise when you drop it, even if the tube doesn’t shatter; the plastic case makes the most horrendous noise as it cracks open. I know; I was there. I dropped it.

Saturday we received the long awaited CD/DVD shelves from Argos. Poor Furtle got up to take delivery at the –usually mythical¹- 7am on the Saturday morning. They eventually arrived around 8.30, so she was able to crawl back to bed for a lie-in, but it’s not the same.

We built the shelves in the afternoon, but couldn’t install them until Sunday as the wood glue apparently needs a minimum 6 hours to go off properly.

Sunday, of course was an entirely different matter. Sunday was to be the day we took delivery of a shiny 36” widescreen telly. Sadly the task was beyond us. I have no idea how wallabok got the brute from their living room into their car, but getting it from the car to the Athenaeum Club was beyond us. More precisely it was beyond me. Manoeuvring the damned thing in the confines of the passageway leading to the bin area (it didn’t get as far as the passageway to the door) left us with virtually no operating room. Later we discovered that the set weighs 90kg (198 lb and 6.65657 oz, or just over 14 stones, according to the web converter I just checked). All I know is that it was my end that hit the ground with a sickening crunch; I could feel it slipping through my fingers, but couldn’t lower it fast enough.

We managed to get it into the flat eventually, but it doesn’t work, as you might expect. I took the back off and took an untutored look at the workings. Nothing looks to be broken inside, but several connections have been jolted free and it will require someone with more knowledge of where they should go to put them all together again. We are hopeful that electronics guru, bytepilot can do something with it tonight. Technically there are 2 years warranty left on the beast (the telly, not bytepilot), but I have a strong feeling that phoning them up and saying “I just dropped the telly on concrete and it is broken” will simply elicit the response “what did you expect”, followed by a reference to the small print, if pressed.

Oh well.

We didn’t drop the DVD recorder or the exercise bike, so we can at least record TV programmes to disc and hang our coats up now. I had hoped to have a go on the exercise bike last night², but both Furtle and I seem to have done something to our left knees in separate incidents, although hopefully both will be OK for a trial of the bike this evening.

The redesigned bedroom with the CD shelves and newly liberated bookshelf looks much better and we can get at both the CDs and the unread books much easier now.

Shame about the TV set, though. Fingers crossed.


¹I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before: anytime before 9am at weekends is mythical. Intellectually you know it must exist, but there is no practical evidence for it.

²Stop laughing at the back.

TVs don't bounce

A TV can make a God-awful noise when you drop it, even if the tube doesn’t shatter; the plastic case makes the most horrendous noise as it cracks open. I know; I was there. I dropped it.

Saturday we received the long awaited CD/DVD shelves from Argos. Poor Furtle got up to take delivery at the –usually mythical¹- 7am on the Saturday morning. They eventually arrived around 8.30, so she was able to crawl back to bed for a lie-in, but it’s not the same.

We built the shelves in the afternoon, but couldn’t install them until Sunday as the wood glue apparently needs a minimum 6 hours to go off properly.

Sunday, of course was an entirely different matter. Sunday was to be the day we took delivery of a shiny 36” widescreen telly. Sadly the task was beyond us. I have no idea how wallabok got the brute from their living room into their car, but getting it from the car to the Athenaeum Club was beyond us. More precisely it was beyond me. Manoeuvring the damned thing in the confines of the passageway leading to the bin area (it didn’t get as far as the passageway to the door) left us with virtually no operating room. Later we discovered that the set weighs 90kg (198 lb and 6.65657 oz, or just over 14 stones, according to the web converter I just checked). All I know is that it was my end that hit the ground with a sickening crunch; I could feel it slipping through my fingers, but couldn’t lower it fast enough.

We managed to get it into the flat eventually, but it doesn’t work, as you might expect. I took the back off and took an untutored look at the workings. Nothing looks to be broken inside, but several connections have been jolted free and it will require someone with more knowledge of where they should go to put them all together again. We are hopeful that electronics guru, bytepilot can do something with it tonight. Technically there are 2 years warranty left on the beast (the telly, not bytepilot), but I have a strong feeling that phoning them up and saying “I just dropped the telly on concrete and it is broken” will simply elicit the response “what did you expect”, followed by a reference to the small print, if pressed.

Oh well.

We didn’t drop the DVD recorder or the exercise bike, so we can at least record TV programmes to disc and hang our coats up now. I had hoped to have a go on the exercise bike last night², but both Furtle and I seem to have done something to our left knees in separate incidents, although hopefully both will be OK for a trial of the bike this evening.

The redesigned bedroom with the CD shelves and newly liberated bookshelf looks much better and we can get at both the CDs and the unread books much easier now.

Shame about the TV set, though. Fingers crossed.


¹I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before: anytime before 9am at weekends is mythical. Intellectually you know it must exist, but there is no practical evidence for it.

²Stop laughing at the back.