Patrick Audley // Identity Collected

This is an amazing photograph of that little street in Carlisle with the quaint teahouse you, Elizabeth and I visited last year. I had it blown up to 36 x 24 inches and framed with a wonderful green textured wood. The perspective is such that it looks like the wall extends into the street from the bricks by our fireplace. I have had many comments on this photo – it is truly lovely.

For weeks in July 2002 we debated getting a kitten for Oliver. Would he get along with it? Would he feel threatened? In the end we decided to get a female kitten for Oliver as a playmate. On August the 3rd we picked up Shiva from an excellent cat shelter near Dundee (after a bad experience with the local cat shelters…). Shiva is aptly named and more of her exploits will follow.

Appliances are supposed to be conveniences. Minor items that make our life easier. We hardly notice them. We just expect them to be there and to work well.

The Old World has a very different view of appliances that influences their design and makes them very different from the standard New World models. Efficiency in the NW means: "How well does it clean my clothes? How quickly? How much can I do at once?". OW appliance makers seems to market for: "How little power will this use? How little water? How small can we make it?" This leads to a great many designs that take much longer to do a very poor job with a small amount of laundry... but it doesn't cost much.

Enter the Germans They seems to share bits of both views and design appliances that are both functional (clean clothes well, reasonably throughput) and energy efficient. Our new washer and dryer, both are made by Miele who makes appliances for nuclear submarines, came with the standard European settings -- use as little water and power as possible but perform badly. While reading the manuals I came across this little gem:

All systems come from the factory with Sensitive Systems enabled to converse energy. Disabling this option will use more water and power but will clean more efficiently.

A few minutes reprogramming and viola! The washer fills with water instead of just trickling it over the clothes and the dryer moves faster and uses more air. <sigh> Perfect.

A good altar of appliances really is bliss.