Papier-mâché

Some years ago, I was surprised to discover that much of the fancy work at theatres and such is not made of plaster, rather papier-mâché. And more recently FIL used the very same stuff - carefully made from paper from the Epsom Guardian - it added to his frisson of excitement & adventure that it was free - to pack the gap which had opened up between the bottom of the skirting board and the top of the parquet at the base of the front wall of his room. A gap of about an inch, caused, one can only hope (as the alternative would be worrying) by settlement of an inadequately compacted screed under the parquet.

Thinking, wrongly as it happens, that the solution was to cunningly insert batten underneath the skirting to fill the gap, I set out to remove all the papier-mâché. I started off using a screwdriver as a chisel, but the papier-mâché was rather rubbery and most of the time the screwdriver just bounced of the stuff and after about 3 inches of the 3 yards to be done, I gave up and searched around for alternatives, lighting upon the implement illustrated, bought in Kemptown in Brighton on or about August 21st 2011 (see http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/). It did very well, with sharp points combined with a very strong grip meaning that one simply poked and grabbed, with large chunks of the papier-mâché coming away each time. Job done in no time.

The thrill of achievement was only slightly marred by it subsequently being explained to me that one would probably get a much better result by placing the batten in front of the hole rather than under the hole. No need to have extracted the papier-mâché and, more importantly, no tricky join between the bottom of the skirting and the top of the batten to smooth down and fill up, a bigger problem than that of cutting the four mitre joints involved in the other approach - something which real carpenters take in their stride but which I have never got the hang of. No eye for it I suppose.

This is the second time that I have attempted to use the Brighton dental gear, the first being to use the tidied up hypodermic (broken needle and near empty ampoule of novocaine removed) to try and get myself used to the such a thing against a then upcoming visit to EDH where they were likely to be deployed big time - having had a serious problem with them since childhood. A problem for which there is no doubt an explanation, but one which is now lost in time. This DIY homepathy didn't work nearly as well as the Big Pharma solution called valium. Happily, a much better result this second time around with an implement which my dentist tells me is more usually used to extract the root fragments of upper back teeth which sometimes get left behind during extractions.

PS: coincidentally, I may be able to pursue the fad mentioned in the other place tomorrow. I quote: 'The whole new minor fad being the pursuit of exotically ground flour'.