Campsite Electricians
I stayed on a lovely farm in Cornwall in my camper van. It had 8 electrical hookups, each with two sockets, fed by separate incoming circuits , to supply mains electricity. One hookup was faulty, and would constantly trip the circuit breaker when anyone connected to either socket. Cue local electrical contractors spending eight hours (two men, 50 quid an hour) trying unsuccessfully to diagnose the fault, and telling the poor farmer they would have to dig up the supply cable and relay it, would cost thousands. As I was paying the rent, she told me the tale of woe. 30 minutes of tracing the circuits with my multimeter showed that incoming supply 1 positive was connected OK to socket 1 positive, but also (wrongly) supply 1 negative was connected to socket 2 negative. So although both sockets showed 240 volts available, any load made the circuit fail. Five minutes swapping the wrong connections, job done. The electricians (??) never got paid, I got cheap rent for the rest of my stay. Sorry for slight technical geekiness.
(Classic Ray, Mon 17 Oct 2011, 5:14, 5 replies)

*applauds*
That feeling you get the moment you turn it all back on and everything works again like it should? Priceless.

When I get that feeling, it is perpetually accompanied by the theme music to the A-team.
(CADmonkey rollllllllled another one, just like the other one, Mon 17 Oct 2011, 10:11, closed)

Only cheap?
Miserable bastards.

This reminds me of me and GF at the time once being invited to dinner at a fairly posh restaurant by another couple, who cheerfully announced over desert that they would like to 'pay half your bill', as, presumably, some token of great friendship.

'Er, it's OK, we'll manage'. Freaks.
(username failed moderation, Mon 17 Oct 2011, 11:19, closed)

I like this.
This might not be the case as I'm not enough of an electrical geek to know, but I get the feeling it's a doubly good deed as the solution proposed by the original contractors wouldn't have worked anyway.
( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Mon 17 Oct 2011, 12:17, closed)

I thank you
For your kind comments. Unfortunately most often when I turn things back on, especially laptops and iPhones after micro surgery, my hopes and dreams of cheap repairs making me a millionaire disappear in small puffs of acrid smoke. But on this occasion I did not black out the Falmouth area, the rent discount turned out to be a considerable sum as I stayed four months, and the hot glow of success is with me still. But just in case, I have decamped for a warming sojourn in balmy Thailand, only the floods interrupting the paradise that is the jewel of South East Asia! And the hotels are so cheap here, no one needs camper vans.
(Classic Ray, Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:05, closed)

Fucking up a lot
makes not fucking up sweeter
(CADmonkey rollllllllled another one, just like the other one, Mon 17 Oct 2011, 18:43, closed)