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Lynne's face
Not being a political man, when a four-page survey from my local MP comes through the door, I tend to go all Sun, look at just the pictures for five seconds and then throw it in the bin. But that wasn't counting on the sheer force of will that is Lynne, making sure her face was on each page an average of 1.25 times. Still, a slightly lower ratio than the 7 times she's on her [own homepage](http://www.lynnefeatherstone.org/) _(not counting the flickr feed)_.
Sorry Lynne, wish I could be more constructive about your survey but my only feedback is that yes, I know what you look like now.
Comments
That tory is trying to run her down to score political points but really it is a bit ridiculous to ring the fire brigade over a boiler making a noise, they're just going to come and turn it off!
If you're nervous about going down there when its like that you could take the fuse out or turn your power off at the meter, then go and turn it off with the dial and then put the main power back on.
This just makes her look like an idiot, especially because she talked about it in her blog! Why would you advertise the fact that you massively overreacted and wasted the firemen's time? Surely any sensible person would have kept it quiet..
At least I don't have to wake up to her face on my doormat now I live on 'Jeremy Corbin's side'
I don't claim to be a boiler or Fire Brigade expert, but I'm amazed at the number of people following the incident who seem convinced they know better than the Fire Brigade about whether or not it was right to call them.
Personally, I'll go for trusting the information from the horse's mouth if I'm in a similar situation ever, if that's all the same to you :-)
I'm not a boiler expert, either, but I know how to turn it off. And that would the first thing I would do, rather than drag my kids outside in the middle of the night.
Do boilers even explode?
So I hear a noise coming from the boiler and, say, a wall is shaking (because remember this wasn't just a matter of a boiler making a bit of noise).
Should I really go to the boiler and try to flip a switch to turn it off? That seems to run counter to the advice I've had before. Perhaps in some (or many) circumstances that might be a safe thing to do. But the fallout if I get it wrong could be very, very nasty.
So why would it be sensible for me to say, "pah, forget all that wimpish stuff about gas and sparks and switches! I know better! I'll go and flip a switch, cos hey I'm that kind of person!"
Of course, taking the other option doesn't mean disaster is certainly going to happen. But it does seem to me odd why many people seem *so* certain that following the advice of firemen is wrong.
@rainbow_carnage - I think your comment highlights my point. If you're not sure whether boilers can explode, how can you be sure what the right thing to do is? (By the way, based on comments I've seen from firemen - yes they can and do.) As I said, I'm puzzled by this certainty.
As for whether or not the Fire Brigade would criticise - well, they do criticise people for wasted calls, so I'm not convinced by your point on that, particularly as their line has been repeated (rather than contradicted) by firemen posting individually in the online comments I've seen.
@andy Of course :-)
the important question is 'does calling the fire bridage over a noisy gas boiler mean you're a bit lacking in common sense and perhaps indicate that you're a total numpty?'
and it's one thing for the emergency services to criticise people in general for wasting their time. it's another matter to criticise an MP.
"Hi as a serving firefighter, I can honestly say you did exactly the right thing in calling out your local fire service. The fire service has a responsiblity to serve the community in all ways. Community safety is at the forefront of what we do, we would much rather see early action being taken than having to deal with the aftermath of a catastrophic failure. Your boiler could have potentially been life threatening either through a defective flue or indeed an explosion."
and
"I'm a heating/gas engineer by trade, and I say you did the right thing."
If she's not exagerating this then fair enough that could be quite worrying, and I suppose not everyone has thought through the options available when something suprising like that happens, so calling the fire brigade is one possibility, but... I still can't see myself or any of my mates in any doubt over this, you'd just turn off the boiler (at the fusebox as I said if you were worried about sparking) and if you were worried about gas you'd call the gas company.
Isn't there a special number for gas emergencies? I think when they privatised gas suppliers it was promised this service would be state funded and always available. That would be the logical number to call if in doubt wouldn't it..
You're right we won't agree. I still think she's a bit clueless as well as quite annoying.
Btw this isn't about her politics. Fwiw I generally support the lib dems and if I hadn't had a bad exerience with Lynne's office she would have been my preferred choice for mp if I still lived in Haringey simply because she's a lib dem.