One year

It was May 13. 2023 when we moved into the new house. We'd taken ownership a few days earlier, but had waited for the new carpeting before we moved in. Then two months later we moved out for three months while 25% of the house was gutted and rebuilt. Then in February we had the deck built - 21 square meters or 226 square feet, not including the spa, taking up nearly half of the yard. We put in the no-dig garden over summer and in April we dug that out and built raised garden beds, taking up another quarter of the yard. We also installed two heat pumps, replaced all the curtains, changed a lot of the electrics, painted the hallway and updated the kitchen. We've spent so much time working on the house, it's hard to believe we've had anytime to enjoy it. 

And we did it on a shoestring. All up, we've probably spent about NZ$100,000. (The budget was $50,000.) We re-used most of the bathroom fixtures. I dug the holes for the deck posts myself. The spa was bought on eBay for $200 and just needed a new pump, which cost $250. Most of the curtains were on sale and we hung them ourselves. The french door was bought from a recycler. I did much of the painting and the deck staining and built the garden beds. There were only a few indulgences: Rae got a rain shower for the guest bath; I got a shower dome for the en suite. There were a few unexpected expenses: Our sleigh bed frame wouldn't fit in the new bedroom so we ended up buying another (straighter) frame, but even then we got it second-hand. The only new furniture we bought - two dressers, a shoe rack and am outdoor sofa - were all very cheap.

But we love it. We love the new layout, we love going out on the deck, we love getting in the spa, we love sitting in the living room, we love entertaining guests, we love the new pantry. It's a far cry from the dowdy house with the weird layout we looked at just over a year ago. When we found out our offer had been accepted, we were both a little disappointed - we'd bid on several houses that we were much more excited about. But after we put in the carpet and drapes, we could really start to feel the house coming together. And when the renovation was finished, and we got to move into the new master bedroom, it was really exciting. And when the deck was built, and it suddenly had that "indoor/outdoor" feel, we could not have been happier. 

There's still a mountain of things to take care of, but there always will be. Last weekend I took off the back door, which was peeling badly, stripped it and painted it and now it looks great. I also started painting the handrails. Down the side of the house, which was full of weeds last summer, we've started to cover it with cardboard and mulch. The cardboard we collect from the dumpster behind the local shops, and the mulch is available for free.

Before and after of the back door:

Drasha 18 May 2024

 Leviticus 24:19-20 

If any party maims another: what was done shall be done in return—fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.

This portion is a call-back to Exodus 21 with its more pedantic, “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.“

A literal reading would appear to be a barbaric form of justice and retribution. Furthermore, it doesn’t distinguish between intentional and accidental damage. If you hit another car and the other driver suffers a fractured rib, should your rib be fractured as well? Who is going to do it? And how does it help the other driver get his car fixed, or get back to work? This parshah appears to be an affront to our modern sensibilities and conceptions of how justice should be administered. However, the sages turned this literal reading on its head.

In a 2016 article in Scientific American, called The Psychology of Disproportionate Punishment researchers found humans are prone to “intergroup bias.” When online participants were shown a video of a crime and asked to deliberate on appropriate punishment, they were generally reasonable and fair. However, when asked to make a split-second decision, the results were dramatically different: If the person was considered an “outsider,” they were subjected to vicious retribution.

The article concluded, “While our slow, thoughtful deliberative side may desire to maintain strong standards of fairness and equality, our more basic, reflexive side may be prone to hostility and aggression to anyone deemed an outsider.” 

So perhaps the Torah isn’t justifying violence so much as demanding restraint and restricting the retribution to be no worse than the crime. Morris J Fish, in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, argued that proportionality is a moral principle of punishment. 

“Eye for an eye” seems to have been borrowed from Babylonian laws. The Code of Hammurabi (circa 1750 BCE) states:

• If a man has destroyed the eye of a man of the gentleman class, they shall destroy his eye .... 
• If he has destroyed the eye of a commoner ... he shall pay one mina of silver. 
• If he has destroyed the eye of a gentleman's slave ... he shall pay half the slave's price.

The Torah introduces two key differences. First, in Babylonian law crimes against one's social betters were punished more severely, whereas the Torah states, “You shall have one standard for strangers and citizens alike.” Second, in the Code of Hammurabi the punishment for theft is death whereas the Torah values human life ahead of personal property.

Regardless of the intent, the Rabbis in the Gemara found “eye for an eye” impossible for practical reasons:

• Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai argues it is impossible to inflict the exact same injury on the perpetrator as that suffered by the victim, with the example of a victim who is partially blinded in one eye.
• Beit Hezekiah notes the process of inflicting injury on the perpetrator may result in a more unjust outcome, using the example of maiming a person causing complications leading to death. 
• Sa‘adia Gaon asked, “If a blind man should blind the eye of a sighted person, what should the punishment be?”

They all agreed the Torah must refer to monetary compensation. Maimonides wrote:

How do we know that the intent of the Torah's statement with regard to the loss of a limb, "an eye for an eye," is financial restitution? That same verse [in Exodus 21] continues "a blow for a blow." And with regard to the penalty for giving a colleague a blow, it is explicitly stated: "When a man strikes his colleague with a stone or a fist…he should pay for his being idled and for his medical expenses." Thus, we learn that the word tachat (תחת) mentioned with regard to a blow indicates the necessity for financial restitution, and so one can conclude that the meaning of the same word with regard to an eye or another limb is also financial restitution.

Ayin tachat ayin, eye for eye. 'תחת' (tachat) literally means “under” but contextually means “in place of.” Consider how it is used in Genesis 22 when Abraham offers the ram as a sacrifice in place of his son Isaac, and again in Genesis 44 when Judah begs Joseph keep him in place of his brother Benjamin.

Lastly, Exodus 21 says, “if a ransom is demanded, the owner may redeem his life by the payment of whatever is demanded.” And Numbers 35 says, “You may not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer.” In other words, kofer, a monetary payment for atonement, can take the place of bodily punishment for any crime except murder, and that exception is only because the Torah places such a high value on human life that there can be no possible compensatory payment.

(I will add that even for murder, the Talmud set such a high bar that they effectively did away with the death penalty, and today all major branches of Judaism reject capital punishment.)  

Rabbi Jonathan Kligler notes, “The Talmud even develops a comprehensive set of standards for compensation, taking into account damages, pain, medical expenses, unemployment, and mental anguish.” However, their standards were a bit funny:

• For damages, the court appraises how much a slave would be worth before and after the injury.
• For pain, the court evaluates how much money a person would be willing to take in order to be made to suffer in the same way.
• For loss of livelihood, the court uses the pay scale for a “watchman of cucumbers.” (When I read that, I thought it must be a joke, but Isaiah 1:8 says “The daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a watchman’s hut in a cucumber field.” Apparently, it was a thing, although "cucumbers" was a generic term for melons.)

It should be noted there is not a single case where punishment involved amputation or mutilation in all Hebrew Scripture. This is not a question of rabbis reinterpreting Torah for a more enlightened age, but hints that the Oral Torah always taught that this was not to be taken literally.

This begs the question, why didn’t the written Torah just say this? Maimonides suggested that had the Torah simply ordered the aggressor to pay damages, this would have actually diminished the value of life. A wealthy man would have thought it sufficient to pay the victim and be done with it. The Torah is teaching that if one person harms another, he should understand how it would feel to have the same done to him, contemplate the profound damage to the quality of life he has caused, beg forgiveness from the injured party, perform Teshuva and ensure a similar act will not be repeated.

Rabbanit Judith Levitan put it similarly: “Perhaps the seemingly harsh language of the Torah is an echo of the victim’s roar of pain. It is a reminder that whatever compensation is provided, money remains an imperfect way of making up for the loss suffered. What is lost – the ability to see, to walk, to feel safe, to trust - can never be fully replaced. The victim’s experience and memory of the violent act can never be fully erased… We need the raw emotion of the written law, tempered with the logical and measured approach of the oral law, to help the victim acknowledge the pain and then contain it.”

So “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” is not a barbaric and outdated form of retribution. In fact, Leviticus (va-yikRA) 19 specifically forbids this: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against members of your people. Love your fellow [Israelite] as yourself.” Instead, it is a call for empathy and restraint, seeking a way to make the victim whole whilst reminding the perpetrator that this is not possible, and telling us all we should always be mindful about how we treat others.

Dry measurements

I spent last night filling 40-litre bags of mulch (don't ask) which got me to thinking: Why does the metric system use the same volume measurement (litres) for liquids and dry goods, while the US does not? Even worse, why does the US use the same terms for entirely different concepts?

Let's start with the ounce. As a unit of weight, it's 1/16th of a pound. As a unit of volume, it's 1.8 cubic inches. For water, 1 ounce of volume is about one ounce of weight. (And one pint of water weighs about one pound.) So that makes sense for water, but not for other liquids: One ounce of canola oil weighs 0.95 ounces while one ounce of honey weighs 1.48 ounces. To deal with this confusion, "fluid ounce" is supposed to be used for volume and "ounce" for weight, but they are still often used interchangeably.

The US (liquid) gallon is defined as 128 fluid ounces of water, which is 231 cubic inches. However, the US (dry) gallon is defined as 1/8 of a US bushel, which is 268.8 cubic inches. In other words, a dry gallon has a 16% greater volume than a liquid gallon.

"Dry" gallons have become obsolete in the US, but the "dry" pint is still used in supermarkets. 

Teaspoons, tablespoons and cups have the same volume for liquid or dry measures (0.3, 0.9 and 14.4 cubic inches, respectively). That is to say, there are two cups in a "liquid" pint but 2.33 cups in a "dry" pint.

In the metric system, 1 liter is always 100 cubic centimeters, so moving between the two is very straightforward. (30 litres = 0.03 cubic meters, which is roughly 1 cubic foot.)

So I could have described my 40 litre bag as 9 "dry" gallons or 10 "liquid" gallons, but Americans would have looked at me like I was crazy.

The "official" US dry measurements are pint, quart, peck (8 quarts) and bushel (4 pecks, about 1.24 cubic feet). However, there are many other measures, usually for specific commodities:

• sack (cement, 1.15 cubic feet)
  
• dry barrel (4.08 cubic feet)
  
• dry hogshead (sugar, 8.4 cubic feet)
• bale (wool or cotton, 13.5 cubic feet)
• ton (as a measure of volume, about 60 cubic feet)
• cord (wood, 128 cubic feet)

The US liquid measures used to be based on the "minim" which was defined as one drop of water. The dram was 60 minim, the teaspoon was 80 minim, and the tablespoon was 3 teaspoons or 4 drams. Of course, this lead to large variances, depending on the temperature and water quality, so when the US system was standardized in 1893 the values were based on -- I kid you not -- the metric system. So now a drop of water is 0.05 grams in weight and 0.05ml in volume. A teaspoon is 5ml (100 drops of water) and a tablespoon is 15ml. The cup should be 236 6 milliliters but the US rounded up to 240ml. (The UK rounded to 250ml.)

One fluid ounce is defined as 2 fluid tablespoons, which is why I started by saying 1 ounce of water weighs about one ounce -- presumably they started out the same, but since the definition of fluid ounce changed, one ounce of water now weighs 1.04 ounces!

Other liquid measurements include:

• jig or shot (3 fluid tablespoons or 1.5 fluid ounces)
  
• gill (4 fluid ounces or half a cup)
  
• pottle (2 quarts or half a gallon)
• Beer barrel (31 gallons)
• Standard barrel (31.5 gallons)
• Whiskey barrel (40 gallons)
• Oil barrel (42 gallons)
  
• hogshead (2 barrels or 63 gallons)

By the way, the US is only one of three countries that have not adopted the metric system. The other two are Liberia and Myanmar. It isn't for lack of trying, however: In 1793, Thomas Jefferson requested a standard kilogram from France that could be used to adopt the metric system in the United States. However, the ship was blown off course by a storm and captured by pirates. The Metric Act of 1866 supplied each state with a set of standard metric weights and measures. In 1893, metric standards were officially adopted as the fundamental standards for length and mass in the United States, with the definitions of US customary units based on metric units. In 1966, Star Trek started using metric measures (albeit inconsistently). In 1975, Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act and in 1988 the Omnibus Foreign Trade and Competitiveness Act designated the metric system as "the Preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce" and required most federal agencies to use the metric system by the end of 1992. Post-1994 federal law mandates most packaged consumer goods be labeled in both customary and metric units.

On the other hand, TV and screen displays throughout the world are defined in inches. Nobody knows why.

I'll end this where it all started, a UK royal decree in the 13th century: "By consent of the whole Realm the King's Measure was made, so that an English Penny, which is called the Sterling, round without clipping, shall weigh Thirty-two Grains of Wheat dry in the midst of the Ear; Twenty pennies make an Ounce; and Twelve Ounces make a Pound."

A two-month holiday

Where I left it, the plan was to move back into our house on September 7. Needless to say, that didn't happen. There was some miscommunication which resulted in the plasterer starting two weeks late, which delayed everything else. (Apart from the flooring—for reasons unknown, the builder decided to go ahead and lay the flooring before the plaster and paint. As you can imagine, the new flooring looked like shit when we moved in. Thankfully, most of it came up.)

 

So our build that was ahead of schedule was suddenly two weeks behind schedule and we were in a blind panic to find some place to live. A friend who was heading to Israel offered us her studio flat for three weeks, another friend offered to host our son and a third friend offered to host our daughter. (She was supposed to be on placement in Gisborne for seven weeks but at the least minute she cancelled it, and then left it to us to find her a place to live. Shis is 22.)

 

The fixtures finally arrived but it turned out the builder was only interested in the bath, and only because we'd designed the bathroom to the exact width of the bath. He built the bath wall parallel to the hallway, and he built the bedroom wall parallel to the outside wall, so both of those rooms are perfect rectangles. However, we later discovered where those walls intersected – in the en suite – was not square! (When I was measuring the existing rooms, it looked like the hallway was narrower at one end, but I thought I was doing something wrong. I now realise it was because the walls weren't parallel.)

 

The rest of the fixtures went in the garage, and it was so packed when you opened the door it was just a wall of stuff. We even had to store our bikes elsewhere.

 

Meanwhile, we started getting nasty emails from our neighbour. The house is actually the rear-unit of a townhouse (or "semi-detached" if you're from the UK) with a shared drive and two garages in between the two. The shared drive is quite small and I'd assumed there was no way to get a car in the garage. I even told the neighbours before we moved in we were going to park our HV on the drive so we could charge it. They did not say anything at the time.

It turns out they normally do keep their car in the garage, but at the time I spoke to them they were storing some stuff for a friend, and so weren't using it. Once the friend collected his stuff, they wanted the drive clear; otherwise they couldn't angle the car into the garage. Except at that point, the renovations had started and the builders were using the drive as a tip/work area. Hence the emails. Unfortunately for her, I have a long history of ignoring people who are complaining, so I didn't respond, which obviously made her even angrier.

We told the builder we had to move again on the 22nd, and to his credit he made a big push to try and get everything finished. Unfortunately this meant that the painter, plumber, electrician and builder were all trying to work on the same day. We stopped by in the morning and they had so many questions, and needed lots of little things (like door knobs) that we ended up spending the entire day with them, adding to the body count. However, by the end of the day everything was looking pretty good so we...moved to another friend's house.

The areas that were renovated looked good but the rest of the house was a disaster. The plasterers, in particular, had sanded down the walls without any protection, and there was plaster dust everywhere. (Funny story, my wife complained and the next day they had taped up sheets to stop more dust. Why they didn't think to do that in the first place is beyond me.) We spent an entire day cleaning the house, and by "we" I mean my wife, son and someone we hired. The two daughters made themselves scarce. Our son just focused on his room because he was desperate to move back, while my wife tackled the rest of the house and I...did other stuff. (Stuff that was important for moving in, like installing toilet roll holders, to be fair.)

It was also Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. My wife was leading two of the services so she took the day before to prepare for that, while I went to the house to do the last final bits to get it ready for move-in...and then got distracted and painted the hallway. Or more specifically, half the hallway. The other half had been part of the renovation and been painted, while the other half was wallpaper. The painter wanted $5000 to strip the wallpaper, smooth the walls and then paint, which was simply not in the budget. Instead, I painted over the wallpaper, which doesn't look great but is good enough. At some point in the distant future, we'll look at stripping the walls, but right now that's not even in the top 10 list of things the house needs.

After Yom Kippur we started shifting things back to our house and finally moved home...into our old bedroom. We'd just spent a lot of money creating a new master bedroom with en suite, but we couldn't move in because our bed was too big. Our sleigh bed is 2.6 meters and the new bedroom is 2.8 meters, so there was only 20cm (about 8 inches) to squeeze past the bed to get to the en suite! The answer was to buy another bed frame, but I wasn't willing to buy new and my wife didn't like any of the used ones we saw,, so we were stuck. However, the day after we moved in, we found a bed on Trademe (New Zealand's answer to eBay) that she liked and we could afford, so we bought it. The only problem is it's in Hamilton, about a six-hour drive away, so that's a project for next weekend.  

We moved out on 2 August and moved back on 29 September, so it was like a very expensive holiday, except we didn't go anywhere or see anything. We moved four times (five if you include moving home), almost separated once (that's kind of my thing) and didn't enjoy a single minute of it. While we were in town, living on our own in a studio with a barely-functional kitchen, we thought we'd at least get to experience Wellington's nightlife, but instead we were just fighting all the time. And in the end, we don't have a flash, fabulous space; we just have a functional space. But we are quite happy with how it came out, and we've turned what was effectively a 2 bed/1 bath (with a study and extra toilet) into a proper 3 bed/2 bath home, so I have to believe we've increased the house value significantly. (But don't tell the local council, as they'll just increase the property tax...)

. 

Drasha - 8 July 2023

My drashot tend to fall into two themes: Family or progressive Judaism. This portion is all about family, so let's talk about progressive Judaism.

The daughters of Z'lofchad petition Moses for their father's holding, and God responds that their request is just. This is often celebrated as women's rights, as progressive Judaism. However, God then spells out male-preference primogeniture: All sons will inherit first, and daughters only if there are no sons. That may have seemed revolutionary at the time, but hardly seems worth celebrating today.

Immediately following this, in Numbers 36, other members of the Menashe clan argue that when the daughters of Z'lofchad marry, their holdings will be transferred to their husbands, thus reducing the Menashe portion. God resolves this by declaring the women who inherit property can only marry within their own tribe. One step forward, two steps back.

As progressive Jews, we constantly struggle with morally problematic statements like this. How do we treat the Torah as a moral authority while honestly confronting the ethical issues it raises? Dr. Rabbi Zev Farber argues that responses fall into three basic categories:

Fundamentalist—Double down and argue that the Torah reflects God's will and must by definition be moral; it is actually our modern ethical sense that is wrong.

Dismissive—Such laws simply showcase the worthlessness of religion, which should be toppled entirely for the betterment of society.

Selective—Point to uplifting parts of the Torah and ignore the problematic ones. 

The third option is quite popular because it's easy, but it's also self-serving: How do we engage with the fundamentalists, the dismissives or the apologists if we aren't engaging with the same texts they are? This is not a question of different interpretations; this is them having a viewpoint and us feigning ignorance.

The good news is, we're not the first to grapple with issues in the Torah; the Talmud is almost exclusively dedicated to this. For example, the rabbinic sages were quite distressed by capital punishment: how does Judaism hold that life is sacred when the Torah casually states, "One who insults one's father or mother shall be put to death"?

The sages' response was ingenious: They didn't argue the Torah was wrong, but they put so many restrictions on it that it became moot. Cases concerning offences punishable by death had to be decided by 23 judges, with at least 13 finding the defendant guilty. (And if all 23 find the defendant guilty, then the person is released, because clearly something was wrong with the court.) Two witnesses were required, they both had to be adult Jewish men who had seen the crime in full, had seen each other, had warned the defendant that the crime was a capital offence, had heard the defendant say he was aware but was going to do the crime anyway, and the witnesses had to agree to be the executioners. (Some of this comes from Deuteronomy – "A person shall be put to death only on the testimony of two or more witnesses… Let the hands of the witnesses be the first to put [the condemned] to death" – although in that portion God was only referring to blasphemy and idolatry.)

I think it's fair to say very few executions occurred under these conditions. The Mishnah states that a Sanhedrin that executes one person in seven years — or seventy years, according to Eleazar ben Azariah — is considered bloodthirsty. In 75 years, two people have been executed by the Israeli government: Adolf Eichmann in 1962 and Meir Tobianski in 1948. I don't need to say anything about Eichmann but you may not be familiar with Captain Tobianski. He was accused of spying by the director of the IDF's intelligence branch during the War of Independence, and after a field court martial was executed by firing squad. A year later, an inquiry was held and Captain Tabianski was exonerated, reburied in a military ceremony and his gravestone reads, "Killed by mistake." The man who ordered his execution was tried and convicted of manslaughter.

In 1954, Israel outlawed the death penalty except for treason and war crimes. In 1959, the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Union for Reform Judaism passed a resolution formally opposing the death penalty, calling it "a stain upon civilization and our religious conscience."

Dr. Rabbi Aaron Panken talks of a rabbinical school discussion with Dr. Lawrence Hoffman, debating the difference between "Truth" and "truth". Truth with a capital "T" was a singular, irrefutable truth that could never be changed or adapted, while "truth" with a lower-case "t" represented truths that were malleable, transformed or reformed by time, location and experience, seen differently by those with varying outlooks. By that definition, the Torah is not always "true" but it is always "True" in that its ideas and narratives remain the vital underpinnings of Jewish life, debate and thought.

So the "Truth" of Torah is the march of progress, from stoning rebellious children to supporting them. We celebrate the daughters of Z'lofchad while we reject male-preference primogeniture and the entire concept that when women marry their holdings become the property of the husband. We don't deny the Torah contains these things, but that those were truths - lower case t - for the age and the time that have been re-interpreted under the Truth - upper case T - of tikkun olam, making the world more just over time.

Shabbat shalom.

1 Farber, Z. (2021). Can the Torah Be a Moral Authority in Modern Times?. TheTorah.com. https://thetorah.com/article/can-the-torah-be-a-moral-authority-in-modern-times

2 Exodus 21:17

3 Deuteronomy 17.6-7

4 https://reformjudaism.org/why-reform-judaism-opposes-death-penalty

5 Panken, A. (2015). Torah's Progressive Truth. TheTorah.com. https://thetorah.com/article/torat-emet-torahs-progressive-truth

WTF?

The original plan was simple: Take a large laundry area+second toilet and turn it to a  large laundry/storage area+small bathroom, then take a small bedroom+large bathroom and convert it to a large bedroom+small bathroom. There was a clear dividing wall, and because we would always have a working bathroom there was no need for us to move out. So what the fuck happened?

First, the builder thought the bathroom and laundry should be reversed - big bathroom with a window and small laundry. However, that left no storage area, and so it wasn't going to happen. 

Both the builder and plumber said a shower-over-bath was out of fashion, but I wasn't willing to get rid of the bath, so I re-drew the plans and squeezed a separate bath and shower in the family bathroom. This stole space from the other rooms, of course, but crucially it meant I had to tear down the dividing wall, so I wouldn't have a working bathroom. This was probably for the best, as it meant the builders could do everything at once, but it meant we had to move out. The builder estimated 4-6 weeks. 

Remarkably, my wife found a couple who were going to Europe for 3 months and wanted a house sitter. More remarkably, they didn't have any pets, as my allergies probably couldn't deal with that for any length of time, and they had three bedrooms. We had two kids at home (although one was only with us for a couple of weeks) and this was some divine-intervention level luck. 

Back to the house, I noticed the driveway was about the same size as the part of the house we were remodeling, so I took a role of masking tape and marked off all the walls, then drew the fixtures in chalk. The first thing we noticed was that the family bathroom, although bigger than the first iteration, was still too small for a separate tub and shower, so we went back to a shower over tub. The second thing we noticed was what I thought was chalk was actually indelible on porous surfaces, such as a driveway, so the driveway now has blue toilet fixtures drawn all over it. 

Once we agreed on the new layout, we started looking at fixtures. We went to the fancy plumbing shops but It quickly became obvious we had a Home Depot budget. So no tiling, no "wet areas," everything was modular with acrylic walls, etc. It was the most vanilla layout imaginable, but we consoled ourselves that it was functional, and we could upgrade later (even though we know we never will).

The couple were leaving on Tuesday and the builder said he could start Thursday, so we were all set to go. I put in an order for the fixtures and we started packing our stuff. My daughter had the day off and my son didn't have any early classes so it was the perfect day to move. 

Monday morning, the builder called and said he could actually start Wednesday, which was great. Monday afternoon, the couple called and said the wife had an atrial fibrillation and they were cancelling their trip.

Now this is the weird part of the story. We didn't have a plan B and I was mentally preparing to call the builder and cancel. He was squeezing us in before he started a big job, so I knew we couldn't postpone as he wouldn't be available again for at least six months. I was back to square one, trying to find a builder, only now I had a bunch of fixtures on the way.

But the couple, who knew our situation, said they were going to stay with their daughter nearby so we could still move into their home! That was very generous, but it was also crazy. Who in their right mind would kick an elderly couple out of their home while they're dealing with medical issues? Turns out, I would.

They just asked for an extra day to pack so they would move out Wednesday morning, the same day the builder was starting. My daughter was working and my wife had to drive her, and my son had an early morning lecture. Needless to say, it was a bit mental but thankfully it was only ten minutes away. Then we started calling everyone we knew to find another place to live. (I looked at some long-term rentals but the cheapest were $1000/week and that was just not in the budget.) 

We had several friends going on holiday and we put together a complicated plan, moving between three houses over 6 weeks. Then, one of the friends had to cancel. In desperation, my wife called the builder and asked when we could move back in. He said he should have the electrics and plumbing working first week of September, so the new plan is to move into our friends' house on August 18, when they go to babysit their grandkids, then back to our house before they get home on September 7.

Meanwhile, the renovation is ahead of schedule, which is great, but those fixtures I ordered two weeks ago still haven't arrived, and I can't even get a delivery estimate! I'm just told it's with the manufacturer. I think Kiwis have perfected the art of "drop shipping" in that, they just drop the ball. The builder is already talking about having to stop work if they don't have the fixtures, which would mean they won't be ready for us to move back.

Watch this space. 

A moving tale

After 7 years, we finally bought a house! (Technically, a townhouse.) I don't remember if I discussed this previously, so apologies if I repeat myself. (I know I mentioned it in passing here.) When I arrived in New Zealand in September 2014, I didn't have a work permit and my now-wife was divorced but still in the process of selling the family home, and not working. I did not think that was the best time to ask the bank for a mortgage, so when we decided to move to Wellington in January 2015, I suggested renting for a year. In fact, I remember showing my wife a chart of house prices and pointing out they'd been relatively flat for six years, so we wouldn't be "missing out" if we waited a year. Famous last words.

Fig 1: The chart that convinced my wife it was ok to rent for a year.

We found a nice house in Karori and signed a one-year lease, with the intent that at the end of 2015 we'd buy a house. Except...I didn't get my work permit until November 2015, so I still didn't have a job! We approached the landlord about moving the lease to month-to-month, which is when they announced they were moving back into the house and needed us out in January!

Suddenly, instead of looking for a house to buy, we were frantically looking for another place to rent! Thankfully we found another house in Karori and moved in. The landlords didn't even want a one-year lease, which seemed odd but they assured us they weren't planning anything. Two months after we moved in, they put the house on the market.

By then I was working and we considered buying the house ourselves, but having lived there for three months we knew how much deferred maintenance it needed, so we passed. It was also right about then my wife was first diagnosed with cancer, so that was all we were focussed on. A young family bought the house but needed to fix up and sell their old house, so they said we could stay until December. My wife had surgery and was scheduled for radiation therapy in January, so we weren't looking for a new place at all. Then a Hanukkah miracle occurred: The new owner got a job offer in Australia and so was moving his family there, and we could stay as long as we liked!

Now it was 2017 and we still hadn't bought a house, but the real estate market had shot up 40% in the past year! I honestly don't know what happened to cause that, but I was sure that it was a bubble and again convinced my wife to sit tight and wait another year.

Fig 2: In 2016, between February and December the median house prices went from $400,000 to $540,000!

Needless to say, in 2017 house prices went up another 33%!

Fig 3: From $400,000 in 2015 to $600,000 in 2018, that's a 50% rise!

At this point we were getting scared we'd be priced completely out of the market, but couldn't find anything we liked. That's when I learned about leaky homes, NBS (New Building Standard, an earthquake rating) and all sorts of weird and wonderful things about Wellington property. (I heard the New Zealand Company, which was responsible for British colonization, drew a map, divided it into sections and sold them sight-unseen to Brits without revealing the topography of Wellington! As a result, Brits would spend three months on a steamer to get to New Zealand only to find their "land" was straight up a hillside! What could they do except build a house in the hillside!)

In New Zealand (as in the UK), you have a seller's agent but no buyer's agent, so you're left to do all the due diligence and negotiating yourself. In addition, New Zealand has developed the "tender" process, which is best compared to a silent auction: Everyone submits their "best and final offers" in sealed envelopes, and at the appointed time all the offers are opened and the buyers choose the best one. (Or they can reject all of them.) In the US, if you saw a house you liked you'd submit an offer, there would be some back-and-forth, if you came to an agremeent, great, and if you didn't, you moved on. In the UK, the process wasn't quite so straightforward, but it was similar. In New Zealand, suddenly you're submitting an offer that was legally binding for three weeks! If you saw another house you liked, you couldn't make an offer until you'd heard back from the first! And you couldn't make an offer "subject to inspection" so you'd have to organise an inspection -- and pay for it -- before making an offer. You also needed a lawyer to review the paperwork so you were spending $500-$600 every time you made an offer, with no guarantee of being successful! And we were astoundingly unsuccessful: We were consistently outbid by $50,000 or more.

In one instance, we made an offer on a place we really liked of $800,000 and it sold for $875,000. Less than a year later, a nearly identical property came on the market and we were determined to get it, so we bid $900,000. It sold for $950,000. (Thank goodness; I don't know how we would have serviced a $900,000 mortgage.)

Then in 2020 Covid-19 hit, we were all in lockdown, the economists were all predicting a financial apocalypse and all I could think was, we might finally be able to afford a house! Instead, prices went up another 20%.

By this point, my wife had been told the cancer had returned and was stage 4, and the 5-year survival rate was 25%. Suddenly, having the stability of a house was more important than ever, but our requirements had changed. One of the kids had moved out so we could get away with a 3-bed, but we didn't know what my wife's mobility would be like so we started looking at single-level houses "on the flat." In Wellington, these are quite rare, and coveted by baby boomers who were downsizing, so they could outbid us every day of the week. We eventually stopped looking because the median price had doubled since 2015 and we simply couldn't afford anything bigger than a broom closet.

Thankfully, the owner in Australia was happy for us to stay and pay his mortgage. He only raised the rent once in seven years, and that was less than 8%, at a time when most rents in Wellington had gone up by about 50%. We even looked at renting a smaller house but we would have ended up paying more.

House prices peaked in 2021 and then did a 20% nose dive. This was a combination of inflation causing mortgage rates to go up; the government finally implementing restrictions to stop people from taking out unaffordable mortgages*; and the borders re-opening. So many Kiwis had returned to New Zealand during the pandemic that New Zealand had its first "net positive migration" in decades, and they were all cashed-up from working overseas. Once the borders opened again, there was a mad rush for the exit. In mid-2022 we started looking again, and in November we made an offer on a cute townhouse with an evil doll's closet. (Don't ask.) We were going to bid $850,000 but with more doom and gloom prophecies in the news, I reduced it to $825,000. It didn't matter; it sold to someone else for $875,000.

My wife was devastated. She was exhausted from looking and very worried about how much time she had remaining. In addition, sellers were holding off, so there were very few properties on the market. We were looking across Wellington, from Khandallah to Miramar, and everything was very depressing. In March a property came on in Karori, not far from our home, so we went and looked and were completely unimpressed. It smelled of mould, it looked very tired, it had the most bizarre layout (fully a third of the house was devoted to the bathroom and laundry area!) and although the house was on level, it had stairs to the front door. However, the previous owner had obviously had mobility issues as he'd installed an outdoor stair lift, so that wasn't a showstopper.

If there had been other houses to look at, I would have quickly forgotten about that one, but instead I sat down with the room measurements and realised we could turn the tiny third bedroom into a proper master bedroom with en suite, that would make the house nice and improve its resale value. My wife agreed, but neither of us was particularly interested in taking on a big remodel, so we submitted a low-ball offer. Of course we won.

We went into full panic mode. We tried to see if we could do the remodel before we moved in, but it quickly became apparent that was not going to happen. We were lucky to get the carpet replaced before we moved in! I think we had both resigned ourselves to living in a dump until we did the remodel, but with the new carpet the house stopped smelling of mould, it was warm and comfortable, and it looked much better. We're actually enjoying living here!! (But we still want to do the remodel.)

Fig 4: The full picture of Wellington house prices over the past 10 years. We figure the same house we paid $750,000 for in 2023 would have cost $420,000 in 2015, which is when my wife wanted to buy.

* The phrase "closing the barn door after the horse has bolted" is applicable here. Many young people, who had only experienced low mortgage rates and increasing house prices, had stretched themselves to get onto the property ladder. Unfortunately, when the rates went up they couldn't afford the mortgage, and when the prices dropped they couldn't even sell their homes for what they owed!

B'shallach

[Drash, 4 February 2023]

Depending on who you ask, the Israelites have been enslaved for between 861 and 400 years. However, I'm not going to talk about maths; I'm going to talk about the first two verses of B'shallach:

eretz pelishtim ki karov hu ki amar elohim pen-yinnachem ha'am bir'otam milchamah veshavu mitzrayemah.

G-d did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although it was nearer; for G-d said, "The people may have a change of heart when they see war, and return to Egypt." 

vayyassev elohim  et-ha'am derech hammidbar

So G-d led the people round about, by way of the wilderness.

At first glance, it appears G-d is trying to protect the Israelites by taking them on a longer but safer route. Except it wasn't safer: At the end of B'shallach, Israel is attacked by the Amalekites! And after the battle the Israelites did not want to return to Egypt. So what was the point of taking the round about way? 

Let's hold that thought and consider what G-d must think of the Israelites. He has just sent ten signs - or plagues - which devastated Egypt, and has appeared as a pillar of cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night to lead the way. Does G-d really think that, at the first sign of hardship, the Israelites will abandon Him and rush back to Egypt, into the arms of their enslavers?

We don't have to wait long for an answer. Less than a week since they left Egypt, the Israelites say to Moses:

Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness? For it were better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness.

Moses' response is to part the sea, and the Israelites sing a song to G-d, but just five weeks later they again complain:

Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt…when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

Quail and manna rained down to feed them, and yet in the very next chapter the Israelites are again murmuring against Moses and Aaron:

Wherefore hast thou brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst? (17:3)

 

And that's just B'shallach! In Ki Tisa, the Israelites create the Golden Calf, and in Shelach, after the report of the twelve spies, the Israelites cry out:

And wherefore doth the LORD bring us unto this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will be a prey; were it not better for us to return into Egypt? (Numbers 14:2-3) 

Honestly, the Israelites sound like whinging POMs. However, Mati Shemoelof, in a 2016 article entitled "What we left behind," wrote: "Egypt in this context is not the Egypt of an enemy. Egypt is their identity. Egypt is their mother tongue. Egypt is the first memory. Egypt is the frame of reference, the context in which they live. When they say that they want to return to Egypt, it is like saying that they wish to return to their mother."2

Now let's go back to the question: Why did G-d lead the people in a round about way? Rashi3 suggests it was a trick, so when the Israelites inevitably tried to return to Egypt they wouldn't know which direction to go.

However, I have a simpler explanation. If the Torah is a metaphor for life, and Genesis is about birth, Exodus is about growing up. G-d is pushing the Israelites out of the nest. He didn't bring them the long way around to protect them or confuse them, but to teach them. As slaves they were infantilized, provided with food and water, shelter and protection. As they had to contend with providing for themselves, it is natural they looked backwards and longed for the familiar.

Mati Shemoelof goes on to suggest the reason the Israelites, including Moses, were not allowed to enter the Promised Land was because G-d realised they were so assimilated, they would always identify as Egyptians. "Their call to return is almost childish… Their wish to [return to] Egypt is a wish to be with the dead parent…but there is no way to heal the trauma and to make peace with it." Rashi also suggested only one-fifth of the Israelites left Egypt; the rest were so assimilated they would never leave. Joshua and Caleb, the only spies who looked forward and could see themselves living in the Promised Land, were the only men from their generation allowed to enter.

We've all taken a "round about" approach to life. Not long ago, one of our children said to us, as only a teenager can, "No offense, but I don't want your lifestyle." [pause] Surprise, honey, neither did we. When we were her age, neither of us dreamed of a middle-class suburban lifestyle in New Zealand. But here we are, and we wouldn't change it for anything.

Wouldn't it be great if we could stay children forever? No responsibilities, no consequences, everything is taken care of for you. But we know that would not make us happy. According to the Zohar, Mitzrayim is derived from m'tzarim, meaning "narrow straits." Leaving Mitzrayim is to go from a narrow strait into the wider world. Being taken care of is comforting, but constricting; it closes us off to opportunities and prevents growth. The wilderness is scary, but it is full of possibilities.

B'shallach translates to "When he let go." As we push our own kids out of the nest, I don't know what their future holds, but I hope they have the same hope, faith and resilience as the Israelites to walk into the wilderness.

I will end with the poem "Scaffolding" By Erez Bitton (translated by Tsipi Keller). It may be about Moses, unable to finish the journey but encouraging his children to continue. But it's also about my own father, who passed away 28 years ago. As some of you know, he had a massive heart attack when he was just 45. Back then, open heart surgery was in its infancy and nobody knew if he'd survive but, with three children under 13, he promised my mother he would not abandon her. He did survive but his heart was badly damaged. When it finally failed, 14 years later, his youngest child was 21. He wasn't able to finish his journey, but he kept his promise.

On the threshold of half a house in the Land of Israel

my father stood

pointing to the sides and saying:

Upon these ruins

one day we will build a kitchen

to cook in it a Leviathan's tail

and a wild bull,

upon these ruins

we will build a corner for prayer

to make room

for a bit of holiness.

My father remained on the threshold

and I, my entire life,

have been erecting scaffolding

reaching up to the sky.

1 Seder Olam Rabbah (Ch. 3), https://www.sefaria.org/Seder_Olam_Rabbah.3

2 https://www.972mag.com/what-we-left-behind-in-egypt-mizrahi-thoughts-on-israel/

3 https://aish.com/48942381/

A car tale

The GM EV1 came out in 1996, 26 years ago, and ever since then I've been saying, "My next car will be electric." However, as the saying goes, man plans and God laughs.

Of course, the EV1 was a bit of a novelty. First, you couldn't buy them, you could only lease them, in part because (I believe) they knew the batteries wouldn't last. Monthly payments started at US $500/month, which is equivalent to $950 today, and at the end of the lease you didn't own anything, so it was more like an expensive rental. Initially you could only get them if you lived in LA, Phoenix or Tucson because (I believe) they were worried about cold weather performance. But the real issue was a stated range of 70 to 100 miles (110-160km) with no charging stations anywhere. Nevertheless, they were a hit, which is why GM shut down the assembly line, cancelled the leases, repossessed the cars and crushed them. (I'm not kidding.)

In 1996 I was 27, making good money and had no kids: I could have afforded it. But my commute was 34 miles (54km) each way and my Dodge Colt - which I'd bought new in 1988 - was getting unreliable and I was always worrying if I'd get home or not. I wasn't going to pay all that money to have the same worry! (In addition, I was carpooling with two co-workers, and the EV1 was a two-seater, so that would have been awkward.)

I realized with my Dodge Colt that buying a new car was a sucker's game--the depreciation was ridiculous, and good brands were quite reliable--so I bought a 3-year-old Pontiac Sunfire convertible which, to this day, was my favourite car. I kept it until I moved to Pennsylvania in 2006, but when my relationship fell apart I decided to fly back to Los Angeles instead of driving, and I effectively abandoned it. (I honestly have no idea why I did that.) My ex-wife sold it for peanuts.

In 2007 car sharing - where you could rent a car parked on the street using your smartphone - had become a thing, and I went for three years without owning a car. However, in 2010 I got a job with a large consulting firm which required some travel and their standard package included either a BMW or a monthly stipend for using my own car. I hate BMWs for no rational reason. They were the status symbol for yuppies when I was younger, and I've always had a negative association with them. I did not want a BMW even if it was free! However, claiming a monthly stipend for using my own car when I didn't own a car seemed dishonest, so I decided to buy a cheap car and pocket the difference.

The Toyota Prius had been released worldwide in 2000 so I could have bought a used hybrid. The Nissan Leaf was introduced in 2010, so I could have bought a pure electric vehicle. However, and I'm embarrassed to admit this, I really loved having a convertible, and so I bought a used Peugeot 306 Cabriolet for £2000. The company stipend was £200 per month and I worked for the company for 4.5 years, so I did quite well out of it. I liked that car but when I decided to move to New Zealand I found -- for reasons mostly my own fault -- I couldn't sell it, and I ended up taking it to a scrapyard.

In New Zealand, my partner already had two ICE vehicles: A Toyota Wish (which I've never seen marketed anywhere else) and a BMW Z4, which her ex-husband had bought as a sort-of apology. (She divorced him anyway but kept the car.) The BMW was a two-seater and highly impractical for a young family -- plus it did nothing to change my feelings about BMW -- so we sold that about 6 months later. The Toyota Wish was a great little car but by 2016 the kids were outgrowing it. When some friends decided to leave New Zealand, I jumped at the chance to buy their Volkswagen Touran for NZ $10,000. At the time, all the hybrids were small four-seaters and the only EV that would fit five was a new Tesla Model X, which cost about NZ $70,000.

Fast forward to 2022, the 14-year-old Touran had several very expensive repairs and was no longer reliable enough to be our only means of transportation. Plus with two new drivers in the family we could definitely use a second car. New Zealand was flooded with used Nissan Leafs, but because they don't regulate battery temperature, you have no way of knowing their actual lifespan and I wasn't willing to take a gamble. About the same time, New Zealand introduced a "clean car rebate" and the cheapest new EV - an MG ZS SUV - cost NZ $42,000 after rebate. It comfortably sat 5 and had a range of 270 miles (440km), which was perfect. There was one problem: There weren't any available in New Zealand.

We were told they'd be available in December so we patiently waited. In November, the local equivalent of Consumer Reports came out with a study showing hybrids were much more reliable than EVs. This was counter-intuitive, since the EVs had fewer moving parts, but the problem seemed to be new companies (especially Chinese firms, such as the one that had bought the MG branding) were new and still learning, plus they were trying to cram in new features. This scared me off a bit, and I decided to look at plug-in hybrids (PHEV) as a good compromise: The Prius PHV, for example, had an EV range of about 16 miles (26km), enough to get us to the airport and back. There weren't many used PHEVs available, and the ones that were sold for $3-4k over their non-plug-in counterparts. Even at current petrol prices, it would take a while to recoup that difference.

Then I saw a dealer listing a 2014 Prius PHV for $12k, which was the going rate for a regular Prius. I was sure there was a catch, but the car had just passed its Warrant of Fitness, so I knew it was roadworthy. I even got an independent inspection and he said it was great for its age. I decided that because the PHV versions are so rare, the dealer had unwittingly priced it the same as a regular Prius. I decided to buy it, even though the car was 220 miles (350km) away and I hadn't seen it.

Of course that's not the end of the story. We're also looking at buying a house, so I didn't want to eat into our downpayment. I was already aware one of the big banks was "virtue signalling" with a special interest rate for EV cars, so I contacted them. I have a great credit rating and plenty of cash, so I thought the process would take a few hours at most. So far it's been over a week, and I still haven't gotten a definitive answer yet. The issue does not have anything to do with me, but everything to do with their process: I had to fill out an online form with all my financial details, then they sent me an email which I had to respond to with all my financial details, then they called me and I had to tell them all my financial details!! At this point it's almost comical, except the dealer is getting very agitated that I haven't paid for it yet. The bank won't even tell me how the process works until I'm approved, so I don't know if they're paying the dealer or just giving me the funds. It's just nuts.

There are only a few flights from Wellington to New Plymouth and they are designed for commuters, leaving at 7am and 4:30pm, neither of which would work. On Wednesdays there is a 12:30pm flight and I intend to be on it tomorrow, even though I haven't paid for the car yet..Hopefully the dealer won't mind, and this will all work out. 

And maybe my next car will be fully electric.

Sparky humour

What did the electrician say right before his death? Don't worry, the power is off.

In the UK (and NZ) a sparky is an electrician. Oddly, there's no equivalent nickname for plumbers, carpenters, etc. But then, they don't have the sense of humor a sparky has. If a plumber installs pipes the wrong way, they leak. If a builder frames a wall the wrong way, it collapses. But a sparky can run electricity pretty much any damn way he wants and get it to work. The trick is that when you're trying to troubleshoot an issue, you basically have to reverse-engineer everything he did, with the added bonus that you can't see any of the cabling. I think they know that and so go out of their way to run wiring in the most convoluted fashion, just to amuse themselves knowing that for the next 50 years people will be trying to figure out what they did.

Our house was last renovated in the 50s, I'm guessing, based on the use of fluorescent strip lights in all the bedrooms. They looked horrific, even more so because the batten covers were broken or missing. When they started flickering, I bought floor lamps but they weren't hooked up to the switch so you'd have to turn on the fluorescent light to find the floor lamp!

About two months ago, someone showed me an LED batten designed to replace the strip lights. Whilst not ideal, the cost was reasonable (about $40 US) and they looked a lot better, so I bought one and put it in one of the rooms. It was fairly easy to install but there were two issues: 1) It wasn't exactly the same size, and someone had painted around the strip light, so this now exposed a chunk of unpainted ceiling; and 2) it was three times as bright!! Way too bright for a bedroom. 

I found another batten that was half as bright and installed it in the second bedroom. Again, installation was easy and it revealed a chunk of unpainted ceiling, but it still looked much better than the old light and it didn't flicker or hum. It was still a bit bright but it was OK, so I ended up replacing the first light with the same model. 

My plan was to return the ultra-bright light but then for some reason I decided to put it in my office, which had a double strip light, even though I didn't have any problems with that light. I turned off the switch and pulled the old light down, just as I had done in the bedrooms. I hadn't really paid attention to the wiring because I'd already done this twice before. I connected the new light and flipped the switch just to make sure everything was working and...nothing. 

I thought maybe there was a loose connection so I turned off the switch, got on my step ladder, started checking the little screws clamping the wires and got a nice, little shock. 240 volts right through my hands. Thankfully I wasn't grounded and I was able to release what I was touching, so the only damage done was to my pride. Nevertheless, I decided to stop working on it for the night and deal with it the next day. 

That evening I noticed the light in the stairway was out, and later one of the kids mentioned the light in the bathroom was out as well. Putting two and two together I realised I'd screwed something up. My assumptions about how the light was wired were completely wrong, and it would take me two days to figure it out, in part because of two things:

1) The wire I thought went to the switch actually went to the upstairs bathroom. When I first checked it, the circuit was open (ie no current flow) but later on I checked it again and it was closed (ie short-circuited). I could not figure out how this was possible, but later I realised it was because the bathroom switch was originally off but a child had flipped it on (and left it on).

2) if you threw the bathroom switch the bathroom light wouldn't come on, but the stairway light did! I'm still not sure how that is possible, but I did realise the cause: After my first failure, I had disconnected some of the wires but left two wires connected. As far as I'm concerned, that was strictly voodoo. 

On top of that, the wiring was so old the insulation kept coming off in my hands and I kept having to shorten the leads to minimize exposed wires. There wasn't a lot of room to spare and I was very concerned that if I needed an electrician to install more romex, he was going to insist everything be brought up to modern code. 

The obvious solution was to hook the hot and cold wires together, but with one circuit closed I was sure I was going to short-circuit the entire house. However, I didn't have any other ideas so I hooked them up, grabbed the fire extinguisher from the kitchen and turned on the electricity. To my amazement, everything worked again!

Now you're probably imagining me working in my nice, clean office standing on a stepstool, but nothing could be further from the truth. Two weeks ago I'd dragged in three boxes of food from the Civil Defense (ie. earthquake) supplies, and I'd replaced all the expiring food but hadn't gotten around to finishing the inventory, so they were spread across the office. And the stepstool was just one step too short, so I'd brought in the only other thing I had: a full-sized aluminum ladder, which took up the entire room. It was so tight, if I dropped something on the wrong side of the ladder I practically had to take the ladder out of the room to get to the other side. (And yes, aluminum ladders are a poor choice when working with electricity, but I made sure I was wearing rubber-soled shoes.) 

The old strip light had space for the wire connectors but the new light didn't, so I needed to shove them into the ceiling, except the hole wasn't big enough. I could have gone to the garage for an appropriate tool but instead I grabbed a kitchen knife and started stabbing the ceiling. Eventually the hole was big enough and, 24 hours later, we haven't had a ceiling fire so I'm counting this as a win.

Photo: I did wrap everything in electrical tape before so I'm sure it will be fine.

The last thing was to snap the light to two clips mounted on the ceiling. I got one in but could not get the other, and eventually I gave up. So far one clip seems to be holding it. The other thing is the office ceiling wasn't painted, but appears to have had some sort of wallpaper instead. The paper had chipped and cracked and each time I brushed the light against the ceiling, large chunks flaked off. Some of them were big enough to drop in the bin, but most broke apart and needed to be hoovered. Oh, and the ceiling was fibrous, which makes me wonder if it had asbestos.

But the important point is that it's finished and I know better than to touch the electrics again...at least until this weekend, when I replace the heated towel rack in the kids bathroom.

Photo: The wires into the switch. Note the red romex with the single black wire--what the hell is that for?! 

Footnote: A few months after installing the light in my office, I noticed a slight odour that wouldn't go away. After ignoring it for several weeks, I finally took down the light and found the wall-paper like ceiling coating was discoloured, as if by heat. I couldn't remember which DIY shop I bought the light from, so I googled the model to see which came up, and found a recall notice! Apparently these light fixtures were starting house fires!! I immediately took it back to the shop and traded it in, very grateful that a little discoloration was all that had happened.