String ... the master of man.

Mankind can truly believe that he is the master of this world, now that we have cracked the gene code and can clone virtually anything all we need next is time and space to be sorted... but there are a few things that can master man....

I speak about string, that simply little thing, but string, string, string can be the master of many a man...

I for one was conquered by this apparently simple item, I got knotted, and not in a good way.

Being blessed with the D.I.Y gene, I tend to do all my own repairs and things, and this can include cars, houses, computers and generally anything I'll have a try at repairing, of which string can play a major part... But this does not blend well with the being the random abnormal sort of person I can be at times.

I was the slave to string during my recent D.I.Y, which was an attempt to get my house feeling warmer. (my friends and my girl friend say it's cold, but one bound to feel it more, wink wink nudge nudge.. do you catch my drift).

So after working out all the fundamentals - bit's of wood, that used to live in the window frame, panel pins which once were hammered into my doors (I try to recycle as much as possible), I got into my D.I.Y super suit and bobble hat, strapped a torch to my head and ventured into the trap...

The trap consisted of the area underneath my floor, approximately 2 feet high, full room width, white mold growths here and there, plentiful amount of dust, bare earth and the odd spider web complete with a desiccate spider corpse. Thankfully I'd not bought the house off either a guy called West or Shipman, as there could have been some more surprises (The other thing the trap manages to do is make you smell like you've just been dug up).

So armed with everything I needed and more, away it went, smoothly at first but then snaggs began to appear. The string I was using was one of the many that my father seems to own. The ones that I think existed before me, possibly purchased by him, never seem to run out and will probably be passed on by me to my son, (if the winds are favourable) and to his and so on...

It began to tangle, like nothing else.

So after the excessive amount of dust making me cough, and bits falling on my face as I hammered and laying on my back in what really is a big coffin, this is all I didn't need, but this is where a normal sort of person would have reached for the scissors, snipped the offending piece of string and carried on. But being of made of the strange brew, (maybe a few more puppy dogs tails than normal, as plenty of friends and people know) I began to untangle a 20ft knot...

My brain was totally focussed on the freeing of this string, so for the best part of an hour, in my makeshift coffin (since I was mostly on my own, no phone it could have been my resting place).

I happily sorted out the knot. (I hate being beaten by a problem and equally I hate useless knots, How can a hosepipe packed away cleanly get so messy? answers on a postcard to the usual address). I should have used the time more wisely, working out a possible string theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory) but sadly no.

So what were the benefits of such a time?... yes I got my brain and hands to untangle a problem, but did I lose something in the process?... it did have a prize at the end, I finally got it done, but unlike the knot below... no fun was ultimately had....

A nice knot to undo :)