poliphilo: (Default)
poliphilo ([personal profile] poliphilo) wrote2009-01-27 09:35 am

Unexplained

The boiler broke down Saturday night- so we were back to electric fires and hot water bottles on Sunday. It was no hardship. I wonder how much we'd save if we turned the central heating off full-time.

The engineer arrived Monday morning.  "Do you use a lot of olive oil?" he asked. I boggled a bit- and he said that a plug socket inside the boiler was all gunked up with something that looked like olive oil- and this was causing fuses to blow. There was so much of it- this oily stuff- that it had collected in pools inside the casing. Where the hell had it come from? The boiler is high up on the wall so it isn't a spill- and if it had condensed out of the air from all the frying we do there'd surely be oil all over the kitchen- and there isn't.   The engineer couldn't come up with an explanation and neither can I. Weird!

[identity profile] idahoswede.livejournal.com 2009-01-27 12:59 pm (UTC)(link)
A Greek poltergeist?

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2009-01-27 01:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Heh-heh-heh. Could be!

[identity profile] pondhopper.livejournal.com 2009-01-27 02:26 pm (UTC)(link)
I find that oil residue collects in the weirdest of places even though it's not apparent. Still, that is just weird.
I think a Spanish poltergeist is more likely as we use even more olive oil than the Greeks!
:)

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2009-01-27 05:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Alternatively it might just be a middle-class English poltergeist. I'll bet the English middle classes get through as much olive oil these days as any of the Mediterranean nations.

[identity profile] mummm.livejournal.com 2009-01-27 03:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Well that's just darned strange!

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2009-01-27 05:46 pm (UTC)(link)
If there's a simple, rational explanation I can't think what it is.

[identity profile] amritarosa.livejournal.com 2009-01-27 05:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Your fuse box must be exuding ectoplasm.

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2009-01-27 05:46 pm (UTC)(link)
It has no business doing so. :)
sovay: (Psholtii: in a bad mood)

[personal profile] sovay 2009-01-27 06:41 pm (UTC)(link)
Where the hell had it come from?

Poltergeist? That likes cooking?

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2009-01-27 08:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Ha!

It's a plausible as anything I can think of.