Sissi likes to help me with the ironing. She does not like it when I iron her tail.
I quote from my Blog of 28 January 2009.
“The men came to fix the air-conditioning and spent six hours here. After much farnarkling their solution was to cut pieces of cardboard from a number of cardboard cartons and put these pieces of cardboard into each air-conditioning unit. They said that they would get metal pieces made to replace the cardboard and one man spent some time drawing the specifications of these pieces of metal.
The men indicated that they would be back before the end of the century to fit these. This raises a number of questions - for example - if the air-conditioners require cardboard to make them work why was this not fitted in the factory?
The air conditioners are 10 years old. Why has the absence of cardboard not been noticed before now?”
Well - you know how thorough the Austrians are.
On Monday this week Cate received a call from one of the Administration people in her office. The Administration person had heard from someone who wanted to ‘fix our fan’.
After consultation with me and much too-ing and fro-ing we deduced that what in fact had happened was that (Gasp!) the man wanted to come and replace the cardboard with (we assume) metal bits that have been carefully hand carved by little Elves in the Vienna Woods during the last 20 months.
20 Months!
Each one a delicate work of art. Carved, scraped, shaped, prodded, padded - tested in a wind tunnels and finally sand blasted and hand polished by skilled Artisans.
The reason for the delay is apparently that they have been on display in MAK where viewers have gasped in awe at the delicate filigree and burnished aluminum.
Putting work of this quality into our clapped our Air Conditioners seems to me to be a bit of a waste of Earth’s precious resources but the momentum for this project is now unstoppable and - even as I write - workmen are feverishly packing the pieces with bubble wrap for the journey to Am Heumarkt on Tuesday.
Well there is going to be some disappointment if they want their cardboard back because most of this has been thrown away by the succession of people who have poked around in the innards of our Air Conditioners during the last year or so.
I imagine they thought ‘WTF is this cardboard doing in here? - it is obviously the cause of the problems’.
I am entirely confident that the new aerodynamically designed pieces will make not one skerrick of difference to the system. But it keeps people in work and in this day and age that is important.
More important is an entire unit - the size of the Fiat Panda (but more attractive) that has sat there idle and sullen for more than six months.
The man has ordered the parts so I have made a note in my diary to set aside some time in 2012 for the repair work to be conducted.
