Plumbing teacher #2

So there is D, whose first-hand support and advice has enabled me to sort out our dodgy thermostatic radiator valves. He takes the classroom lessons, on a Tuesday. We like him.

And then there is B, who takes the workshop lessons on a Thursday. He likes to watch you struggle with a blunt hacksaw for half an hour, and will then produce a new blade and, half an hour after that, when half the rest of the class have sneaked over and sawed bits up for you because you're still getting fucking nowhere, a steel pipe cutter. Using a hacksaw in 2006 is like using log tables in maths at school. You just don't need to. First principles fine, but there comes a point you wonder if he's just getting his kicks.

Tonight it was about screwing pipe clamps onto a board to hold copper in place for soldering. You can't do this with brute force alone unless you are Mike Tyson. So you get the drill and ask how to use it. You are instructed to drill pilot holes and then use a screwdriver. The only way to make this work is to hang your entire bodyweight off the screwdriver, and you have to do this for plumbing S as well as she doesn't have enough bodyweight. After half an hour of this you have got three screws in and you are knackered.

At this point B appears with a screwdriving drill bit and vague guidelines on torque. J the man who looks after the stores has been off with a broken leg for about eight weeks so the only screws you can find are huge, and the drill bit has been so abused that it doesn't bite. You persevere because you're not premenstrual and you will not fucking let it fucking get to you.

Then one of your fellow students appears and asks if you want some proper wood screws. Here's the box he used, his girlfriend's brother left them in the van, you can have them if you want. Then another one appears and lends you his proper drill bit, sharp as you like and with a magnetic tip that grips the wood screws. Those screws positively glide into the board.

Yes, says B, but you learnt a lot from all that didn't you?

Yes. I learnt that the tools in this college are shite, and that for some reason you like watching us trying to use them. This is like teaching people to cook with crappy thin pans, blunt knives and a ceramic hob. What can possibly be ennobling about not using decent tools? How can shite tools improve a learning environment?

I'm annoyed. But now I know that I need some drill bits for my birthday...

joella