Taskmaster

There's a tv programme I like called Taskmaster where celebrities (of varying levels of practicality) try to perform odd little challenges as quickly as possible using things that can be found around the house. For example: consume an egg; carry a lit candle from the bedroom to the shed past a fan and a sprinkler; empty a bath without pulling the plug.

On new year's eve I didn't go out celebrating, instead I went to be early with a sore throat, but before that I got to play a challenge that might have appeared on the tv programme. I live in a terraced house with badly designed gutters. We had a lot of rain and one my gutters blocked and started to overflow. I don't have a window that overlooks the gutter, and the objects that I can find around the house don't include a three section ladder, but they do include an IP68 certified endoscope.

I made reasonable progress in clearing the gutter by leaning out of the bedroom window holding above my head alternately a trowel on the end of a broom handle and a shaving mirror. I somehow attracted my neighbours attention while I was doing this (I think it was the barrage of swearing and clanging) when I dropped the trowel out of the window.

The correct solution turned out to be to fix her hose to the broom handle and operate it from my window while she observed from her dorma window and shouted Chuckle Brothers type instructions to me. To you. To me. Hold it there.

The funniest bit was getting her hose from her patio to my bedroom window. It's done in 4 stages: Throw it over the fence; throw it over the shed; throw it over the washing line; hook it inside with the broom.

Richard "Happy New Year" B