Do you remember the time scrap metal buyers and dealers used to charge you to take away your crap scrap? (I’m thinking more along the lines of scrap car dealers to be fair, but one did tell me a few years ago (’95) when prices weren’t quite as keen as they are today that it was scrap metal prices being so low that was the stumbling block - then again, I’m a bit of a dolt.)

The Guardian manages to point a crooked finger in China’s direction while claiming:

The police believe illegal metal trading costs the UK economy almost £360m every year. Lead from church roofs, drain covers, railway signaling cable, Henry Moore sculptures, bronze plaques have all been stolen.

Between January 1 and April 16 this year, British Transport police recorded 637 metal theft offences and arrested 153 people. A two-day crackdown targeting illegal scrap metal trading and involving 38 police forces is currently under way.

A crackdown on illegal scrap metal trading in a burgeoning black market worth £360m a year?

Well it obviously wasn’t that much when I couldn’t part with a clapped-out Renault van without paying somebody for the privilege.

But enough of me bitterly whining about being unable to get fifty quid for some old banger; it appears East Lancashire, and Colne especially, are one of the current illegal scrap metal dealing epicenters of the UK. As the LET reports:

* Copper wiring has been stolen from the Royal Blackburn Hospital causing power failures.

* In Darwen thieves stole a 12ft gate, a 20ft car park barrier pole and a cattle grid.

* In Colne businesses and schools have been targeted with scrap metal raiders stealing lead from their roofs. Flashing and water-proofing has also been taken.

* In one of the most audacious incidents a gang of thieves diced with death by cutting down poles carrying 11,000-volt electricity cables in the hunt for scrap metal near Pendle Water in Brierfield.

At least some council high-up puts it all into perspective:

County Coun Doreen Pollitt, deputy leader of Lancashire County Council, said: “I am amazed that anyone has the brass neck to go out and brazenly steal public property in this way.”

Doreen, you wag….

Harland & Wolff Ship Broken for Scrap

The linked photoset from this weekend’s Guardian:

April 12 2008: Belfast, UK: The MSC Napoli cargo ship lies in a dry dock at Harland and Wolff ship builders as it is dismantled for recycling. The ship was grounded off the English coast after getting into difficulties during bad weather in January 2007. After she was split into two pieces, the largest front section was floated to the Harland and Wolff shipyard for recycling in August 2007. After the removal of approximately 80 cubic tonnes of waste oil and other pollutants 150 workers began the task of cutting up the high grade steel of the Napoli by hand. The steel is then smelted locally in Belfast and will most likely be used for ship building. The whole process will be finished in three to four weeks.

This is one for Jasper seeming he spent his apprenticeship in the shipyards of Glasgow. I’d like to say he’s bored us rigid with his tales of welding ship floors, but we still don’t have a clue from day to day what he’s talking about. Think of it as a blessing in disguise.

But I’m also pretty confident it’ll get everybody who swarms round The Tinbasher for out-of-date scrap steel prices hot under the collar, too.

Currently, there’s a commercial doing the rounds for Time Warner Cable’s Road Runner internet service celebrating their tenth birthday.

It just so happens that it’s mine and Stephanie’s most cringeworthy and hated commercial of the year so far. Apologies for my inability to post a video of the abomination, but here’s a description instead:

The basic thrust of the thing has various middle class/middle-aged white to white-ish folk dancing an arthritic one-person samba - you know, that thing where one hand stops the belly from wobbling whilst the other is lamely dangled in the air. Then hips start gyrating with the caution of someone who’s just had them replaced as they take it in turns to go ‘Beep Beep’.

That’s the bit that makes me cringe. The bit that has me swearing is at the end where the birthday cake pops up and there’s a voiceover which finishes with (and I paraphrase): “And the icing on the cake is great customers like you.”

I would dearly love an explanation as to who or what Time Warner thinks the bloody cake is.

Maybe you’re a tinbasher with a secret hankering to create a futuristic musical mash-up along the lines of Blade Runner vs Deliverance. Or, perhaps you’re at a loss what to do with that mouldy galvanised sheeting at the back of your steel rack.

Any pig-squealing city boys in the house?

Then again, you could be just like this guy:

Retired drummer, Bill Winner, wanted to sit under a tree at the lake, and play… but playing the drums just wouldn’t do. So he built his own band of instruments, all crafted out of sheet metal and scrap metal.

The sheet metal band consists of various instruments, including drums, washtub bass, guitar, various Dobro-like open-tuned slide guitars (nicknamed Bilbros) and a fiddle, tuned in 5ths.

Read more about the sheet metal band here and listen to an mp3 of them here.

……and my Dad’s Bruce Lee.

He drives me round in his JCB.“

Not one of these bad boys he doesn’t.