Lock Repairs

Can A Rotherham Locksmith Remove A Snapped Key

Well hello there again. Are we still all okay? We have now passed the twelfth week of lockdown, and it seems it’s beginning to lift, albeit very gradually. I sincerely hope you are all staying well and will continue to do so, as we all look forward to getting out a little bit more. 

The lifting of the lockdown does have one major advantage – it means you don’t have to suffer the new pun I’ve been working on. Hot on the heels of the whole “key worker” debacle of the last 2 blogs, I’ve realised “lockdown” has its possibilities too, and that’s what I’ll be looking at today – that instances when your lock goes down – lockdown, see. Oh, sorry, I didn’t save you from that pun in the end – I went right ahead and did it anyway. But you would expect nothing less from me.

Locksmiths In Rotherham During COVID 19

Hello there, how are you? And yes, I do mean it. It’s a question people tend to ask all the time as a greeting with no great interest in the response, but I’m finding recently that it has taken on a new meaning given the circumstances in which we are living. So I do hope you are managing in these turbulent times. 

To be honest, not a lot has changed since last month, has it? A lot of us are living a Groundhog Day type existence, only without the attraction of Andie McDowell at the end of each day. We are of course doing this in order to try and keep vulnerable people and key workers safe – again, all I can recommend is you follow the latest advice from the NHS and government on this score.

Are Rotherham Locksmiths Allowed To Go To Work

I trust you’re all keeping as well as possible out there and doing all you can to stay safe. It’s a strange time, and no mistake, isn’t it? One minute we’re all talking about Brexit, Liverpool and Love Island (well, some of us) and the next it’s all immediately pushed aside as everything focuses on the threat from COVID-19. As someone pointed out a month or so back, COVID-19 can easily be sang along to the tune of Come on Eileen, but that seemed slightly funnier all those weeks ago before it all became very real with government press conferences, self-isolation, and a use of the word “unprecedented” that was, well unprecedented in modern times in its ubiquity.

Locks and Films

Let’s face it, the weather has been pretty awful for the last month or two with the biting cold wind, rain, storms Ciara and Dennis, Jorge and who knows what next, all of which has left fence manufacturers rubbing their hands together with glee at the damage wreaked across the country. 

As it’s not really been the month for outdoor pursuits, there’s not a lot else to do in any spare time except get comfy, settle down and watch a good film or two. Hot on the heels of the film award season there has been a lot to catch up on, whether it be old classics, new releases on DVD, or even an award winner at the cinema such as the Oscar winner Parasite, or the immersive 1917. With my Barry Norman head on, I should inform you that both of these are very fine films, by the way.

Rotherham Upvc Door Handle Advice

Right, it’s not long until Christmas, and I’ll let you into a secret. Sometimes I try to compose blogs that are relevant to the time of year – you may remember I’ve done specific Christmas blogs the last few years, and sometimes I already have a subject in mind, and just try to crowbar in a reference to make it seem as if it’s relevant to the time of year. See if you can spot which one I’m doing today. 

Christmas is all about the Messiah, agreed? Jesus, and the wise men, and the stable and that. A child is born, and all that jazz. Well, who wrote a famous oratorio called Messiah? That’s right, it was Handel.  In 1741, if you want to be precise. And if we transpose the last 2 letters of Handel’s name, we get Handle. Which brings us to the subject of today’s blog – handles. Seamless see! (Yes, it’s the second kind of blog today).

Doncaster car crime increases

I believe it was that great philosopher Gary Numan who once said “In cars, in cars, in cars. In my car, in my car, in my car, in my car, in cars, in cars, in my car, in my car, in my car, in my car.” Really makes you think doesn’t it.  That may give you a clue as to what I’ll be talking about this month. Nope, not 80s electronic synth pop (although I’d be happy to wax lyrical on that at a later date) but cars. 

But hang on, you’re thinking. You’re a locksmith, not a budding Top Gear presenter. Why on earth are you banging on about cars? Have you gone mad? At which point I’d do that “A ha” thing and whip out the following link, http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/thieves-target-high-value-cars-in-doncaster-1-8586423  seen in the Doncaster Star last month.  And then you’d go “Oh, I see, you’re not going mad after all and it’s all beginning to make sense.” And then you might buy me a beer, we’d become friends, and you’d ask me to be the godfather to your children. And at that point I’d hesitate because I’ve got quite a lot on and am not sure if I want that further responsibility, and then I’d remember this is all hypothetical anyway and breathe a sigh of relief. 

Who wants a less secure door?

You might be reading the title to this blog and thinking - 'well, nobody', but you'd be surprised at just how lax some people are with their home and office security.

Your door and its locks are the only things preventing unwanted visitors from entering your property. It therefore makes perfect sense to have the best, most secure locks possible… right?

History of locks, part 2

Happy New Year everyone. Now the festive period is safely out of the way, the tree's in the attic for another year, the bin collections are back to normal, and that last mince pie is going stale in the cupboard, it's time for a real treat. Yup, it's the second in our series looking at the history of locks. You'll remember of course that we started this in December with the first part, and I thought I'd respect tradition in following up with part two - after all, best not confusing things this early in the year. 

I could now do a brief catch up of the story so far, as the BBC no doubt do with their adaptation of War and Peace. However, you'll be pleased to know the story of locks won't last *quite* as long as Tolstoy's epic, and there's certainly less Russian names to get your head around. Plus, of course, I'm assuming that you've thought of little else over the last month anyway, other than the information I gave last month about Ancient Egyptian locks. It probably even distracted you from the Christmas edition of Downton Abbey, but there's no need to thank me, really.

Rotherham security advice

I don't know about you, but I've been enjoying the series of poetry programmes on the BBC recently. Yes, really! Just because I'm a locksmith it doesn't mean I'm not allowed to like poetry, y'know - don't judge a book (or poetry anthology) by its cover!

Anyway, the programmes got me thinking about poetry related to this time of year. There is of course the famous mists and mellow fruitiness of Ode to Autumn by John Keats, for which I, as a renaissance locksmith obviously have a soft spot because the author's name sounds rather similar to  keys. But moving on, another of my recommendations is Autumn Song by Dante Gabriel Rossetti  I find the whole poem really quite evocative, full of metaphor and meaning. Google the whole thing if you've never read it, but the first two lines go:

Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the heart feels a languid grief

"Hang on," I can sense you're thinking. "Isn't this a locksmith blog? If I wanted poetry I'd switch on chuffing  Radio 4." Well wait a second, I'm getting there. Because I'll now seamlessly (or not so seamlessly) segue to the subject at hand - Autumn, and more specifically the more unsavoury aspects it brings. To illustrate, I'll dreadfully mangle Rossetti's first two lines above to the following:

Know'st thou not that the sound of a thief                                                                      Will cause a household misery and grief.                                                                          

Security advice from a Rotherham locksmith

Percy Thrower, Geoff Hamilton, Capability Brown...if you know what I'm talking about here then, a) you're probably of a certain age, and b) those names will have hopefully steered you brain towards the subject of gardeners. Which then, through some sort of hypothetical name association game, may lead you from gardeners to gardens, then the wider subject of the whole of the outside of your house, and, unlikely as it may seem, the leap to how to improve the security of your garden and home exterior. Okay, that's a bit of a jump from Thrower, Hamilton and Brown to garden security, but it was the best way I could think of to start this blog. Sorry about that. Anyway, in the following paragraphs I'll be giving tips on how to defend your property from the outside - this will also cover garages, sheds, and gardens.

Making the boundaries  of your home more daunting a burglar has the dual effect of decreasing the probability of your garage/coal shed/greenhouse being broken into, and also increasing the security of your house itself. Consider yourself a hypothetical burglar for a moment; there are houses you have identified as break-in targets, both with similar locks and alarm systems. However, one of them also has a series of landmines dotted throughout the garden and pathways - which house is going to be the unlucky one? (As a disclaimer, this was an illustration - we are not actually advising that you bury landmines around your property - and your neighbours may not be overjoyed when their beloved cat, Tiddles, happens upon one)

Landmines aside, here's a few hints and tips on beefing up that security.