You can't get the wood

摘要

The older I become, the more things baffle me. For example, why does our answerphone say 'Thank you for calling' after the caller has hung up? This mystery joins a list of long-standing puzzles, such as why were roller towels in the rest rooms of office buildings placed so high up the wall that water would run up your arms when you lifted your hands to use them? More recently I've become puzzled by the way some simple electronic components, such as decent 'MN' law balance pots, seem to have become unobtainable. OK, a balance control on an amplifier is now thought passé, but they can be handy and I use a balance control almost every time I listen seriously. Yet when I'm making up some DIY circuit or other, I find myself having to dig out one of my boxes of ancient components because I can't easily buy a new one.