Written by Gordon Aspey
29 August 2018
Bathroom scales have never been a particular source of interest for me. I tend to eat when I’m hungry, I feel this is as nature intended. Of course I try to avoid unhealthy excesses but generally don’t worry too much about calories. However when Babs appeared in the kitchen with a heavily creased brow complaining of a sudden weight increase of 10lbs my interest was aroused. This number had some significance for me, it just happened to be how much I weighed at birth.
Surely! she couldn’t be pregnant? Not at 90 years of age. Forget my input! (That’s not up for discussion).
After much testing I was of the opinion the scales were the most cantankerous bit of gear I had ever come across. Not only would they keep changing the settings from stones to kilos, they also gave different readings when placed in different positions. They were all over the place, a bit like the scales of justice with its old boy network.
I shook and cursed them and even gave them a sharp kick. The only consistency being the largest errors showed when the scales were pointing to the north east. My own weight became more akin to an African Elephant when pointing in this direction, that might of been some sort of machine type retaliation.
As far as I’m aware bathroom scales have never had a requirement for a compass rose. Maybe a small chunk of the earth’s magnetic crust had infiltrated the mechanicism of this one. If I could calibrate its exact position on the bathroom floor it might give a correct reading in the desired format.
As I recall in the 1970’s when I used to mess around in boats there was a standard procedure to check your heading. The formula was TVMDC which stood for TRUE VARIATION MAGNETIC DEVIATION & COMPASS or if you needed help in remembering (True Virgins make Dull Company). I’m not sure that would be acceptable today and maybe some would say virgins belong in the hen’s teeth category.
The idea being a compass starts with TRUE NORTH then you apply the MAGNETIC VARIATION to allow for the earth’s magnetic field, then apply the DEVIATION caused by objects in close proximity affecting the compass reading.
They would include all manner of metal objects eg: beer cans, watches, tools, spectacles etc. Even shipwrecks on the sea floor can cause deviation..
Large ships use a gyro compass which is not affected by the earth’s magnetic field.
‘I know – I know this is ever so boring but you need to learn stuff to make progress!!
My head is full of useless crap like algebra and history I learnt at school and after buying my first boat the learning continued. I had to learn navigation, flags, Morse code, VHF, the phonetic alphabet, tidal vectors and god knows what else, most are now totally obsolete. Unfortunately the human brain doesn’t have a facility to unlearn information that has no further value.
There may well be some correlation between the ever increasing mental problems in the population and information overload. There’s far too much learning going on, the main cause of broken brains. The young have never experienced the tranquillity of sitting empty headed supping a glass of Rioja with no television, snap chat, face book, tablets or mobile phone. To be reclining beneath a peaceful cloud of emptiness unaware of the outside world. Of course this doesn’t apply to the less fortunate born with screwed up genes.
I have stuff nailed to my brain like King Harold and 1066 -Jesus I’ll remember that even when I’m dead. How useful is that? Sometime in the future a bright young thing will produce an app you can plug into your anus that will sift through all the useless information. Then, with a click of the delete button or perhaps discreetly break wind and unburden the mind.
This would be of immense benefit to the taxpayer and even more so to the people who are on the brink of going bonkers.
Our bathroom lies immediately above the kitchen and I wondered if all the saucepans Cutlery and other metal utensils were affecting the scales. I considered moving them all into the living room to see if that altered the reading. But after a few harsh words from Babs I decided against it.
Our eldest son popped in for a cup of tea and I told him about our problem. He’s a Yacht master and knows all about compasses and stuff. He stared at me with dismay. ‘Dad, he said. You only need a compass if you’re going somewhere, you can’t row the Atlantic on bathroom scales, they’re static. I’ll take a look he said raising his eyebrows, but I think it’s crazy.’
Shortly afterwards he reappeared and announced ‘Well I’ve weighed up all the err angles and everything will be fine if you replace the battery.’
‘Battery, what battery? I didn’t know they had batteries.’
‘Everything has to have a source of energy you should know that.’
On his way out I overheard him whisper to his mother, ‘I think Dad’s really going bonkers.’