Fake 133

The Duplo, most of which was acquired at Barnardo's as reported at reference 2, was tower tested today. The idea being to build a tower from the floor which is jammed against the ceiling with an appropriate thickness of soft newsprint, on this occasion an 'Evening Standard'.

We got the tower to the ceiling alright, but failed to hold it steady enough while I jammed the newspaper in. Snapped here with a slightly dazed helper, this despite the thick woolly helmet protecting her head from falling bricks, discarded top right for the purposes of record.

Investigation suggested that the problem lay in irregularities introduced by a small number of pieces of fake Duplo, some near a millimetre out of spec.

Over the next few days I shall attempt to weed out the fakes against a further assault on the summit at the end of the week.

PS 1: a bit more her usual self, earlier in the day. 

PS 2: nothing wrong with the tapered design, which makes good use of the bricks available. That is to say it tapers to a column of the small square bricks of two by two prongs, topped out with a small platform at the top to give the newspaper something to bite on. But I shall think on whether using a bamboo as a scaffold would help: would the bother of tying in the ties be worth it? Maybe cotton or thin ribbon ties which could be locked between courses? 

PS 3: it is oddly reassuring to read in the FT of China doing a lot of the same sort of regulatory and management things that we do to keep business on the straight and narrow. So today I read of a fierce new Data Protection law coming into force there, apparently on much the same lines as that in force in the European Union. See reference 3. From where I associate to the complementary Freedom of Information law, with the two of them together causing much mandarin angst in my last decade or so of service. Plus a modest amount of evasion, or at least failure to keep to the spirit of the two laws, rather than just the letter. From where I associate to the nonsense whereby important Budget measures were deeply secret until they were announced by the Chancellor on Budget Day. Which made grown up discussion of the issues involved a lot more difficult than they might otherwise have been. I don't think things are quite so bad now.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/10/fake-132.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/09/autumn-heritage-day-1-session-1.html.

Reference 3: The data officers who have become China’s most sought-after staff: Sweeping legislation has created huge demand but job risks have risen alongside salaries - Eleanor Olcott, FT - 2021.