The Middle of the Church

Three quarters of Church of England priests say Britain can no longer be described as a Christian country, according to a poll. I suppose it depends on what is meant by Christian. I dare say there are many who live what could be considered Christian lives who are not members of any church.

I have a sure-fire idea to swell church attendance numbers - the CoE should align itself with a tool manufacturer and introduce an aisle down the middle of churches where cut-price tools could be sold, but only upon attendance at a Sunday service. They could be branded as Churchside Tools.

Hammers and nails, along with baulks of wood could be a good seller and be compatible with the theme. However, to bring the Church into the modern era, perhaps a nail gun and MDF would be better.

A lot of so-called Christians are complaining that the CoE is too woke; however, isn't the whole point of Christianity, not to mention the teachings of Jesus, to be alert to prejudice and discrimination? It seems not, for a certain, small cohort.

I suppose, so long as they're happy in their prejudices, we should leave them alone to get on with a spot of witch burning.

Skool Uniform

Britain is almost unique in Europe in having school uniforms. Even then, in Europe they're restricted to the top private schools - certainly not state schools.

Why is this? The reasons commonly given are:

• Equality and Inclusivity: School uniforms are seen as a way to promote equality among students. When everyone wears the same uniform, it reduces the emphasis on clothing and fashion, helping to level the playing field, economically and socially. This can reduce the pressure on students to wear expensive or fashionable clothing and helps prevent bullying or discrimination based on attire. 
• Discipline and Focus: Uniforms are believed to promote a sense of discipline and focus on academic work. By wearing a uniform, students are encouraged to view school as a place for learning and not as a fashion show or social status competition. 
• School Identity and Pride: Uniforms often include school colors, logos, or emblems that foster a sense of belonging and pride in one's school. This can help build a strong sense of community and unity among students. 
• Reduced Peer Pressure: Uniforms can reduce the influence of peer pressure related to clothing choices. Students may feel less pressured to conform to certain fashion trends, which can be especially beneficial during adolescence when fitting in can be a significant concern. 
• Safety and Security: Uniforms can also enhance safety and security within schools. It is easier to identify intruders or students who don't belong on the campus if everyone is expected to wear a specific uniform. 
• Minimised Distractions: Uniforms are often chosen for their simplicity and lack of distracting elements. This can help students stay focused on their studies without being distracted by flashy or provocative clothing. 
• Sense of Tradition: In many British schools, the practice of wearing uniforms has a long history and is deeply rooted in tradition. These schools often see uniforms as an important part of their identity and heritage.

Many of the above reasons are trounced by the fact universities have no uniforms. Agreed, university students are older and can't afford high fashion. Many schools allow A level students to wear their own clothes, which doesn't seem to cause any of the above issues, nor does the lack of uniform in other European countries. 

The overriding theme of the above is to do with fashion and jealousy. The price of school uniform is almost as high as the highest of high fashion, which few can afford, and I would suggest that the last bullet point is the critical factor in the UK's obsession with uniforms - tradition and the other 'reasons' are merely camouflage.

Rhetoric

The government is using the rhetoric of the extreme right and creating enemies of institutions that hold it to account - a classic, totalitarian strategy.

Use of the phrase 'lefty lawyers' and 'thwarted' are all part of this rhetoric. When Suella Braverman says that the government has been thwarted by lefty lawyers, what she actually means is that her illegal plans have been derailed by the law of the land and lawyers, whatever their political leanings, who are paid to represent their clients, using the law of the land, which results in the government losing in the courts.

Her government, and especially her department, is in charge of those laws and is tasked with upholding them, or changing them, if they so desire. What Braverman is being thwarted from doing was breaking the law - laws that apply equally to all - by lawyers whose political persuasion is immaterial. They have only one weapon at their disposal - the law.

As for the mooted tagging of asylum applicants. Why? If an asylum applicant wants to abscond and disappear into the black economy, the tag can be merely cut off. It achieves nothing and is a dog whistle to appeal to her rapidly shrinking core base of people without a brain.

One wonders which ministers have shares in companies that make tags or whether a company having no record in the tag market has been handed a contract...

Working Flip-Flops

It's that time of year again when we stock up on logs for the winter.

As you can see, I wore my steel toe-capped, safety flip flops for the job. They also double as welding flip-flops due to the additional protection they afford.

When I was at sea in the early 70s, we had Chinese crew on the ships that went to the Far East and back, and they insisted on wearing flip-flops for every conceivable job. We used to call flip-flops Chinese sea boots or Chinese safety boots because of this.

Having Chinese below-decks crew was advantageous for a number of reasons, not least of which was the fact they worked very hard. The other benefit, as a young cadet, is that you would occasionally be invited into their mess deck to partake of real Chinese cuisine, as they had their own galley and cooked their own food.

Another 4  or 5 loads of logs can be put in there before it's full, and I'll attend to that next month. However, the bikes are going to have to be relocated. I need another shed!

Energy

If green energy were to be decoupled from the price of fossil-derived electricity, even the most diehard fossil fuel supporting dinosaur would switch to green electricity and there would be a stampede to generate it. Why? Because it's almost half the price (based on 2021 prices, before the current crisis) and human nature would take over.

Allow green electricity to set its own price and there would be a boom in green energy production as demand soared - and prices would fall further still. It would all be Britain's too and not traded on the open market like oil and gas are. Even though oil and gas a traded on a market, it's not a free market, as OPEC limits production to maximise profits.

Agreed that it requires some technological advancements and benefits of scale to decouple renewables from fossil, but it's not impossible and more than anything it requires a commitment and policies..

If green energy was decoupled, there is a chance that the oil producers would respond with a massive price drop too, but there would come a point where it's too costly to produce for the returns.

Paying for Opulence

I was inveigled into dropping off a BMW to have some work done on it at the BMW showroom and service centre in Cheltenham yesterday. No wonder BMWs are expensive; I kid you not, the place was like a 4 star hotel. Such a waste of money on public image - and the customer has to pay for it.

The plaques on the walls in the opulent service area maintained that the mechanics weren't mechanics at all, but Master Technicians.

I've been to many showrooms and service centres and this one beat even the Porsche one in Tewkesbury for sheer decadence and plushness. It was huge too - 3 stories high.

However, my eye was drawn to this conversation piece:

A 1974 BMW 3.0 CS in Polaris Silver, also known as the E9. A beautiful piece of motoring history with a body designed by the legendary Karmann.

I always lusted after a VW Karmann Ghia, but never got to own one. The only affordable examples in my youth were rotten to the core. However, prices have plummeted and you can get a perfect one for £15-16k now.

Curry Sauce

Just a quickie on the panels I made - a bit of judicious reworking of the margin I had in the flanges resulted in both repair panels fitting perfectly.

I thought of taking a fibreglass cast of the bumper iron dimple and then inserting the actual cast into the repair panel with pop-rivets and extra fibreglass. The dimple doesn't actually bear any weight or stresses, except possibly in the fore and aft direction, through the circular hole in the instance of a shunt from behind, which is immaterial to the medium of the dimple itself.

I've also bought some burr drill bits for £8 on e-Bay and will attempt to fashion a former out of a couple of oak block cut-offs from the purloin beams I kept from the house build. Then it's a case of beating the shape into the panel over the oak former to transfer the information within the dimple.

There again, is the dimple even necessary? All it does in create a vertical surface in a curved panel. The necessity of this can only be determined by inspecting the bumper attachments.

To the subject:

Wherever you go in the UK, the curry sauce on chips from a chip shop tastes the same. This leads to the conclusion that there is a single curry sauce baron who supplies all chip shops with curry sauce.

The strange thing about chip shop curry sauce is that is has a taste you never find in an Indian or Pakistani restaurant - or, indeed, in restaurants in India. It's a uniquely British concoction and, like salad cream was Britain's answer to mayonnaise, chip shop curry sauce is Britain's answer to a Madras.

It is highly addictive though, so I presume there's some form of opium derivative used in its preparation. Could the Sackler family be behind it?

You have to admit, though, that it looks like shit.

Panel Imaptience

I thought I'd have a go at making my first DIY repair panel for the GT6 - a panel for the N/S rear valance - and learned a lesson; to be patient. Actually, it's not strictly true that it's my first DIY panel - I have made another panel, but it was just a simple, rectangular patch for the cockpit bulkhead.

I didn't use the sheet metal bender as I haven't yet bolted it to a solid surface - given all the tools I've purchased, solid surfaces are at a premium in my workshop, especially for such a long item. Instead I used a vice and hammer, which did a fair job of forming the various flanges. The photo above shows the panel laying on its left side.

The metal stretcher / shrinker was brought into play (after having changed the heads from shrink to stretch) and was run along one flange, which created a perfect contour. 

The dotted line at the top is where the panel butts on to the central valance and would have to be either butt welded or shouldered, so it slips under the central valance, and then spot welded (or rather drilling holes in the outer valance and plug welding through the holes in an imitation of a spot weld), so as to retain the contour. Butt welding thin metal isn't recommended (burn through is highly likely, if not 100% certain), so shouldering and filling the plug welded join with bodyfiller in the only real solution.

However, I was way off on the width of the panel on one side where it butts on to the lower rear wing. Whereas I had assumed a 90 degree angle with the top of the rear valance (which it is - bottom left angle in the photo above), the angle actually increases further down the panel. An easy enough mistake to make when doing it by eye.

It only took me about half an hour to make the panel, so not a lot of time was wasted and I have plenty of 0.9mm sheet steel available.

I made another, this time using a paper template and, before forming it, I made a mirror image panel for the other side.

However, I labelled the panels cack-handed, resulting in me bending the top and bottom flanges the wrong way, which I corrected. The final result is shown below, lying on the car rear.

The fit is about 95% perfect. I will probably have a 2nd go sometime, adjusting the measurements on the basis of ones I've already made.

The basic shape of the panel is not really the issue, it's the fact there's an indent where the bumper support goes through it, as you can see in this photo from the other side, which is due to be cut out and replaced by the bought panel.

In order to recreate that indent I need to perform some fancy metal hammering, which is where I could do with taking an impression of the indent and make a former over which I can hammer the panel to obtain the right shape. However, what do I make the former from? I could only try to carve it out of wood, using the woodworking skills I sorely lack. I will, however, give it a go, once I have made 2 more panels.

To help me shape metal I've bought a leather pillow which you 3/4 fill with sand. A metal panel is then hammered out on it, using a domed hammer to create a bowl shape.

Making DIY panels wasn't an issue when I rebuilt my MGBs, as all the complete panels were readily available and cheap due to the popularity of the car. However, the GT6, being much rarer (albeit sharing many panels with the more common Triumph Spitfire), suffers from a lack of panels and some are simply no longer available, especially small repair section panels.

Get On Yer Bike

Went to Swindon last week to collect something Hay bought on Facebook Market. The bloke I collected the item from rolled this out of his garage in order to access the item was collecting and I quizzed him about it. He wants to distribute these e-bikes in the UK on behalf of the American maker.

The apparently have a range of over 100km, but they're not cheap at £5,000. 250W and limited to 15 mph, so entirely legal, if somewhat pedestrian.

On a Roll - or a Belt

 I'm on a roll with my tool purchases.

A Lumber Jack bench sander with assorted belts and discs. £40 on Facebook Market. New price about £140.

I seem to be finding a lot of people who are moving to a house with either no garage, or a very small one and are under orders from their wives to clear all their bulky and expensive tools out ASAP, at whatever price.

What really crave is an English wheel, which is a device to create domed shapes in sheet steel. The ones used in classic car body shops cost several thousand pounds; however, there are some fom Metz or Clarke between £200 and £325, but I'm not sure how well they work beyond simple hobby use. Metz and Clarke do, however, have a good name for tools. Some research is required before I decide buy one.

That said, I found a video on YouTube for a homemade one that cost the bloke who made it under £75. It was a bit wonky, but did the job.

My current conundrum is how to make a mirror image, left hand repair panel from a right hand template that I have. There surely has to be a way. Yes, I could buy a left hand repair panel, but they're very expensive and I want to make as much as I can myself on this GT6 project. "God help anyone who inherits it," I hear you say...

In the absence of an English Wheel, or a method of creating a mirror image, I've ordered a £15 suede pillow that you fill with fine sand, and a a domed, polyester beating hammer to have a go at shaping a repair panel.

The metal bender and stretcher/shrinker will help with the flanges and curvature. I have enough metal left in the original panel to take a cast over which to beat a shape, but the cast has to be very hard and I'm at a loss as to what to use for the casting material.

Bench Press Women

I had every good intention of watching the Women's World Cup yesterday: I enquired of Google when the match was scheduled and learned it was on TV at 09:30. I duly switched on at 09:30 and watched what I thought would be half an hour of lead-up. 

No, it went to an hour and a half, by which time I'd read a few chapters of the book, 'Johnson at 10 - the inside story' by Sir Anthony Seldon (well worth a read if you want to know the chaos that reigned when he was PM), and fallen asleep on the settee. Woke at 10:30 and went outside to do some plug welding practice and then went to collect a tool I'd bought on Facebook Market.

When the lead-up is as long as the bloody match itself, it gets a bit much and puts you off. It was nothing to do with it being women's football and everything to do with the TV companies need to fill TV minutes with pointless chatter.

I managed to watch the last few minutes and was rather amused to see the Spanish team's dugout crew celebrating by hugging each other and, as far as I could see, every single one was a bloke. There's obviously a long way to go.

If women's football is attracting sponsorship, that must mean that the existing sponsorship has to be spread further. Will that mean lower salaries for the men's game?

If there were to be mixed football, a team with a female goalkeeper would be at an advantage in the scenario of a male taking a penalty, as women are psychic when it comes to men and would know which way the ball was going to be kicked before the kicker got anywhere near the ball.

The number of us still alive who can remember England last winning a World Cup is shrinking every year. Chat GPT estimates there are only 26.5m of us left. The number will decline at an accelerating rate as the years go by.

Anyway, another Facebook Market bargain was collected yesterday.

A Sealey bench press drill and a free 'thingie'. I've yet to determine the function of the 'thingie', but I'm sure it will dawn on me. The new price of the drill is £180 and I got it for £20 - bargain!

I hope to have a bench sander by the end of tomorrow.

Bend it Like Beckham

 Got a nice sheet metal bender on Facebook Market yesterday.

77cm width, so well suited to a selection of car panels. A bargain at £25 - a third of the price when new.

Got my eye on a £20 drill press now.

Winch

I got Colin to drill the partition wall between the garage and workshop, so I could fit a manual winch that I bought last week on Facebook Market for £20. I need it so I can pull the GT6 back into the garage on my own after working on it in the open. The lip at the garage entrance is just too steep for me to push it in by myself (it takes 2 or 3 people), and I want to be able to get it in on my own within a minute if it happens to rain while working on it out of the garage.

The winding handle meant I had to locate it by the workshop door entrance in order to give me the room needed to swing it round.

It actually takes a minute and a half, which isn't that bad. While I have lots of lights in the garage, slight imperfections in the bodywork are only visible in daylight and some of the welding is best does outside.

In the absence of a towing point, the cable is wrapped around a baulk of wood placed through the back windows. I may, at some time in the future, upgrade to an electric winch, if I find one cheap enough, although the implications of an electrical problem and it not switching off could be catastrophic. 

Shed in a Day

For a while I've wanted to build a shelter for my ride-on mower to protect it from the rain. I've been using a car cover, but it's a pain putting it on the mower every time after use and it continually blows off. Not only that, but it traps damp in the ground.

Yesterday I got Colin, our tame builder and neighbour, to help me build a shelter for it - well, I actually assisted him. 

We used only wood I'd reclaimed from a friend's building project, plus some wood we've had lying around for ages, including the remains of a summerhouse a friend brought round to put on our bonfire.

A bought shed would not be suitable due to the narrow door width, the lack of weight bearing capacity in the floor and the door lip.

We built it between the cabins at the top of the garden, attached to one of them as a lean-to. Now I can simply drive the ride-on mower in and leave it. It's long enough such that it's almost impossible for rain to get to the mower, but I may close one end with a roll-up tarpaulin.

Total cost was a day of Colin's time (£200) and a roll of roofing felt. It's so handy having a builder as a neighbour.

Hello Ducky

The pond is attracting waterfowl.

You can see a duck between the reeds. A good sign of health, although I don't think Hay is too impressed, as they'll add nitrates to the water. 

A couple of weeks ago I added 10 Swan Mussels, which feed on the algae in the water and thus help to filter it. Some say they're a pest, as their progeny apparently latch on to the gills of koi but, according to others, they drop off after a while and do the fish no long term harm, it just being a normal part of their lifecycle.

Going to need a duck house in the middle of the pond at this rate. It would be nice to have a family of ducks in residence.

The local cats are being stupid.

The Welding Gear Box

On Monday I was searching for the collar that goes on my arc welder's spot welding attachment. I was also searching high and low for a flange/locking nut for one of my two grinders. I couldn't find them anywhere. I even asked Hay's dad and No. 1 Son to cast their eyes around the garage, but to no avail.

Today I noticed there was a box in the workshop on which I'd written Welding Stuff, so I thought I'd have a look in it - and there is was. How idiotic for someone to put some welding stuff in a box that has Welding Stuff written on the side - pure idiocy.

The locking nut manifested itself when I took the twisted wire brush off the grinder - I'd inadvertently put 3 locking nuts on it - two that belonged to it and one from the grinder that was missing a nut.

Losing things I've just put down is getting to be a habit. I had to get Hay's dad to phone my mobile yesterday to find my phone in the garage - it was in the GT6. I've fixed a couple of magnetic tool holders to the wall in the garage so I can lodge tools there temporarily once used, rather than losing them among the detritus on the floor or somewhere in the GT6.

Accent of Duty

Have you noticed that on film and real life, you never see a Chief Constable with a working class or pronounced regional accent.

On film and TV, especially, the most brilliant detectives have pronounced regional or working class accent, but they never seem to progress to the most senior rank. Usually they are portrayed as insolent, or having some other flaw which prevents promotion. 

Stretching & Shrinking

Got the Metz stretcher / shrinker bolted to my workbench when we got home and I gave it a go.

You can mount the device in a vice, but there are also two threaded holes on the underside where you can bolt it down to a convenient and sturdy surface. The vice in the foreground is simply in the foreground and not attached to the stretcher / shrinker in any way.

First I took a small rectangle of metal and shrank one edge. I then took another rectangle of metal, bent it 90 degrees to create a flange and then shrank the flange to create a nice curve to the whole piece.

As you can see from the photo above, it worked perfectly. The rectangle curved around the edge that was shrunk and the flanged piece curved nicely for what could be the perfect shape for a repair section I need to insert into the rear valance of the GT6, with the flange being spot welded to the inner wing panel.

I'm most impressed.

Table Legs

We're staying at a farm campsite near Winchester while visiting No. 2 Son and it happens to have a table manufacturer in one of the outbuildings.

We saw some table legs (below) that would be ideal for my live edge ash table slab. 

They said they would accommodate just a set of legs at a cost of £525 which, while expensive, isn't exorbitant.

Some thinking to be done. 

Curves

Finally managed to get the right connector for my Sealey sheet metal nibbler.

It transpired that it was 3/8ths BSP, but not the usual 1/4 inch, or indeed the next most popular 1/2 inch.

I bought it from a local automotive repair shop where I was informed that manufacturers occasionally modify their tools without telling anyone, leaving the instructions untouched. 

I must say I'm impressed with its operation and ability to cut out complex shapes. A great improvement on my pneumatic shears, which are OK for straight lines, but useless for curves and leave a lot of waste.

Next on the tool list is a budget device for shaping and crimping sheet metal, thus enabling me to fabricate repair sections, rather than having to buy complete panels. There's a vice-mounted device that's cheap as chips. 

Useful for short pieces of repair sections. 

Found a hardly-used, Metz sheet metal shrinker / stretcher on Facebook Market, which I'm hoping to pick up today. Advertised for £50, which is a fraction of the cost of a new one. Useful for creating flanges on curved panel repair sections. 

Having played with the spot welder, which is fabulous, the main drawback is getting it into tight spaces and locations beyond the reach of the arms. What's needed is flexible extensions to the arms, but I don't believe that's possible. There are all manner of complex, solid arms, but nothing bendy. 

Climate Change

Heard some interesting comments on Climate Change the other day, which are worth reiterating.

People complain about Just Stop Oil and how its tactics lose supporters from the Cause. However, Just Stop Oil is simply one brand among many.

When you use washing powder, you tend to select one brand to the exclusion of others. If one brand particularly alienates you, perhaps because of their adverts or because it's not very good at getting dirt out of your clothes, you don't stop washing your clothes altogether.

In the main, those who complain vociferously about Just Stop Oil are analogous to those who stop washing their clothes. They don't actually like any brand of Climate Change activism.

Another observation that was made was that there are several strings to the Climate Change issue.

Oil companies have millions at their disposal to lobby governments and that money is very effective at directing government policy.

The public has very little lobbying power and, generally, has three options:

• To do their small bit by recycling and living green lives, 
• To vote once every 5 years, hoping that combating Climate Change is a policy on the table, and that any promises made will actually be carried through, or
• To engage in direct action activism.

Of those options, the 1st and 2nd do not, on their own, achieve much. The 2nd one, especially, can be negated by the oil companies leveraging their money. The 3rd option, however, has much greater effect at combating oil company lobbying.

We all need to become a bit more attuned to activism.

Deflection

It seems to me that those supporting that thug and fraud, 30p Lee, are focusing their anger in the wrong place.

• They generally, although reluctantly (probably to deflect charges of racism), seem to agree that genuine refugees should be accepted, although a good proportion believe we should house our own homeless first - which no government has ever done nor ever will, as there are no votes in it (as an aside on the this point, they keep asking those who have a bit of compassion how many refugees they've housed, but they resolutely refuse to answer how many homeless British veterans they have housed - given a choice between higher taxes to house homeless Brits or lower taxes, they would almost unfailingly vote for lower taxes).
• They don't seem to be able to accept the official government statistics that 73% of asylum applications are approved at the first stage, which gives the lie to their assertion that they're all economic migrants. They're overwhelmingly NOT economic migrants - and that's not an opinion, yet the government refuses to clarify the matter.
• They insist refugees are illegal, oblivious to the fact international law that is signed up to takes precedence over domestic law, and the UK is signatory to the ECHR legislation.
• They don't seem to realise that both sides of the argument are in agreement that the backlog in applications is unacceptable.
• However, they are reluctant to attribute the blame for that where it should lie - with the government that's been in power for 13 years.
• Both sides agree that those who game the system need to be returned to where they came from; however, a proportion of those against the Tories believe even economic migrants should be allowed in. They are, however, a minority.
• The 30p Lee supporters bemoan the cost of housing applicants in 4 star hotels, but none are actually kept in 4 star hotels - they ceased having whatever stars they had when they became refugee acceptance centres. Refugees don't get 4 star (or even 2 star) service. They will not get room service and valet parking, for a start and most of the staff have been let go. The government purposely uses this 4 star language to enrage its supoprters.
• Apropos of the above point, the government staunchly refuses to release the cost of housing applicants in the Bibby Stockholm. One wonders why?
• The government is also pressing ahead with its Rwanda plan, which costs £168k per person. They might as well give each applicant £100k and tell them to get a flat and a job - the saving would be massive and they would be contributing to the country and the Exchequer.
• If the hotel costs are too high, I'm sure the government could offer their mates in the hotel trade lower rates - take it leave it. It's a free market and hotels aren't faring that well at present.
• There's no doubt that there are sectors of the economy that would benefit from having an influx of workers. Why not use these applicants while they're waiting for their cases to be considered, thus reducing the cost dramatically?
• As for the barge itself, Lee's supporters appear to have no issues with a barge designed for 200 being filled with 500 souls, and that multiple agencies have declared it unsafe, including the the Health and Safety Executive and fire brigades. The government, which seems to lack any expertise in any area, disputes that without any supporting evidence.

So, the 30p Lee supporters are being encouraged to direct their anger at the refugees, rather than the actual architects of the current situation. 30p Lee is using the inflammatory language of 1930s Germany and a favoured populist tactic, dehumanising refugees while hoping to deflect anger away from where it belongs. The debate is now around his F word and not the iniquity of 13 years of failed policies.

Don't forget that the misinformation around refugees is brought to you by the same people who brought you the Brexit benefits. One wonders when 30p will become the new face of the UNHCR......

I wonder if stoking up hatred comes under election expenses?

Spot On 3 - With a Bit of BSP

Being new to spot welding, I'm learning about a few of the issues with this new, old, spot welder.

The first is getting replacement electrodes. With my machine being ancient, I can't seem to source the exact electrodes, which comprise 5mm copper rods which have a thread at one end, the thread screwing into a copper holder, which has a 6mm shank that is held in the welder arms by a grub screw. Not an insurmountable problem - I can just buy 6mm rods (I think) and plug them directly into the welder arms, eliminating the holder completely. Alternatively I can add a thread to 5mm rods with a die.

The next issue is the fact that new car panels come with a tough, electro-deposit primer (EDP), which interferes (as I discovered) with the circuit between the two arms of the spot welder, rendering it useless. This necessitates the removal of any paint, which itself can cause opportunities for rust formation at the joints at a later stage, which is not so much of an issue inside the car, but certainly is on exterior parts. However, I've discovered that you can coat the work area where the paint has been removed with what's called weld-through primer, which is rich in zinc and enables a circuit to be made through the paint. 

You don't get these problems with arc or MiG welding - so long as there's a good earth, an arc will jump across almost any paint barrier, providing it's not too thick. Spot welding, on the other hand, is resistive welding and requires a complete, unimpeded circuit. 

On another issue, I was trying to get an air connector for my new sheet metal nibbler and got really confused. Why is 1/2" BSP not half an inch when measured?

A 1/2 inch BSP thread actually measures more like 3/4 inch with a ruler. Apparently the size was originally based on the inside diameter, measured in inches, of a steel pipe for which the thread was intended. How bloody crazy is that?

It wouldn't be so bad if all the adverts for my Sealey 28A nibbler said it uses a 1/4 inch BSP, when it obviously doesn't (I have a bunch of 1/4 inch connectors and they're too small). It's a 1/2 inch. It's a bloody wonder that the British with their weird measurement systems ruled the automotive world at one time. It's probably also why they lost that position.

Speed

If, as he claims, Rishi Sunak in on the side of motorists, I look forward to him eliminating all speed restrictions, especially on motorways.

The 20 MPH zones were introduced to reduce deaths in towns and cities; motorway speed restrictions were to reduce deaths on motorways. 

It's inconsistent to get rid speed limits in one area, because they inconvenience motorists, and not to get rid of them in every instance where they inconvenience them.