The Hole in the Wall Gang

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OK - two things - firstly, there is currently a large scar and a smaller void in our living-room wall, pictured. This is down to our need to expand our heating portfolio from simply relying on electricity, which is currently ludicrously expensive, even given the belated cap currently on offer by the Kwarteng-Truss axis. We are negotiating for the installation of a wood stove by a local firm of some decades experience, and had set to in hopefully exposing the original ingle in which to site said appliance.

The reality, on exposing the infill that the cowboys left after their 'building work' in the late '70s, was that there is no extant lintel and only block/brickwork of somewhat dubious quality, all the way to the ceiling. The upside of our investigations, however, is that the flue is clear to the roof void, and the vent which Tex Ritter and his mates, thankfully, left to vent the space sits directly under the line of the flue. So we've decided to have the stove sit out into the room on a plinth, which I'll construct in advance of the installation.

Secondly, the hole in our living-room wall would also seem to be an apt analogy for the void that will surely appear in our economy before too long. I wrote yesterday of what is manifestly the folly of the n-th degree that is Kwarteng's budget statement; although what sticks particularly in my craw is his, and his acolyte's, attitudes to the population of these islands. A more classist and condescending approach to the majority of the electorate I can't imagine: he views the people of our archipelago as some manner of abstraction to be factored into his obscenely privileged Weltanschauung, much like the proles in 1984. No, pal, no... and the part of Brum where I come from, the term 'pal' is not one of endearment. I think "fuck off you tosser," is the only reasonable answer we can give to the Old Etonian twonk...

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