ffutures | A good week for bargains

About ten days ago I noticed that someone was selling a "deflection EM bottle" on eBay for a minimum bid of tenner plus postage. When I looked at it it turned out to be one of the phenomenally expensive Teltron discharge tubes used for teaching AL physics, listing at £300+ new; it wasn't in perfect condition because one of the connection plugs was missing, but it was otherwise intact, and it turned out that I was the only bidder. If it hadn't worked it would have been useful to have just for showing the kids the electron gun design, but in fact it arrived on Wednesday and turns out to work perfectly, and there's even a stub of wire where the connection is missing that can be used to make that part of it work. I'm pleased, my boss is pleased, and the physicists are VERY pleased.

I also found Babylon 5 Season 1 on DVD for £8.00 ex-rental at a video store; I wouldn't normally have gone in there but I parked just across the road while I was buying some resistors for work, and decided to take a quick look before heading home.

Finally, I've managed to pick up several books I was after - the last but one Falco novel, two of Kage Baker's "Company" series, and a couple of other SF hardcovers I wanted but had been putting off buying, all at £3-£4.

VERY pleased... to some extent this sort of luck makes up for things like the blasted dishwasher.