British engineering

The British did a marvelous job in engineering some 2 centuries ago.
The voctorian age where engineering ruled, was an age of technical progress and scientific ingenuity. Kingdom Brunel is only one of the famous names of engineers, who's work is well known in the industry.
Steam engines developed at the speed computers do now.
Britain ruled the industrial revolution!

...To bad they stuck to those ages...

Nowadays British engineering can be considered the laughing stock of the industry. Rover just went bankrupt. Not even the Chinese wanted them!!! Jaguar, Aston Martin, TVR, Bentley... All famous names, famous BRITISH names...None anymore British than you or me...

Houses are still build largely from wood! Heating by default is night-storage-heating (a process where cheap electricity at night, heats up bricks, that subsequently release their heat during the day, when no one is at home because they work!).

My water heater broke down (thank god that someone had the idea to put gas central heating in my place... and insulate it as well....). Although I still have hot water, I do not have any heating.
Unfortunately for me it has been freezing in bristol for the last week. yet we haven't been without heating since last thursday. On friday the landlord said someone would come in on saturday. Needless to say no one did... (Famous english "I am lazy and don't give a shit" syndrom). I called the landlord on monday morning and said no one came around. He asked if his side kick hadn't called (another lazy wanker). Ofcourse he didn't! That would mean he would do his job, an dthat is really not possible in ENgland. God forbid you do your job! And it would even be blasphemy if you do it quick, efficient, good and cheap!!! That is just plain heresy!
SO someone would come in on monday evening. Miraculously this "engineer" did come in, not even that, he actually came on time!!!! (normally with an apointment in england add 30-60 minutes for a more realistic time frame).
So this guys starts to play with the buttons. Asks for a manual (which we don't have). Asks us 5 times where the thermostat is, on which we 5 times reply the same answer: there is no thermostat, you have to adjust the temperature using the dials on the heater (direct control, no temperature feedback loops). Basically he did all my flatmate and I had already thought of. Then he gave up and said that he had to get a gas engineer to come in.
Relaly you don't need a "gas engineer" for such a job, just someone that can fix heaters. I bet this guy just came in to stall.
My expectations are that not today, but maybe tomorrow someone comes in, by which I would already have bought a portable heater, and deducted that from my monthly rent (obviously). It will probably be fixed in 2 months time, guessing by how they treated the water leakage that went on for months last time...

It's sad that a once great empire has now been reduced to a third world country, by people that are rather lazy than tired...