Locksmithing Blog

Hey, you can’t keep a good man down, as they say. No sooner was I settled down here in Hereford & Worcester, than I was missing the job. So I made a call, and bingo! Off we go again!

So, Monday and Thursday last week, I was back out on the doors. First, one kebab shoppe. I don’t really like them. Kebabs seem like a great idea after several pints, but have you ever braved one while sober? Even a shish kebab doesn’t seem the best idea in the world, but a Doner? And then you read about a guy in Blackpool who gets done for the murder of his under-age girlfriend, the body was never found, and they only caught him because he boasted to a friend that they never would because the body had been ground up and served… Urgh! Then, one of the warrant agents tells you that they cut the guy’s shop off a few weeks before. Glad that wasn’t me, and lucky for the agent that the afore-mentioned sicko was already behind bars, and separated from his kebab knives.

Anyway, since that day, I’ve only set foot in kebab shops, with their mystery “meat” machines and, to date, common lack of shine to every surface, on professional business – of putting them out of business. If you ever want to go on a diet, go round the back of a few kebab shops. Spending an hour kneeling in the remains of the vomit and droppings of the night(s) before whilst opening the door really is one of the worst things about the job.

I had parked on double yellows about 40 yards from the shop, and we had seen them raise the electric front shutters while we did introductions. So we walked right in, the agent, the sparky and me. Apparently the gaffer is out the back, so our gaffer heads off for a chat, while I start chatting to the sparky. Every few minutes I look out to check for traffic wardens, and so, after about 20 minutes, I say to the electrician that I’m just going to move the van, just in case. Not really sure where the agent is, and the guy from Blackpool, as well as the many other places we have been where you can hear the owners and occupiers creeping about upstairs.

I’m a few minutes moving the van, as the nearest parking was a brisk minute away, around a corner. My heart, I confess, leapt, when I saw the shutters were down, and there was no electrician in sight! No one behind the counter, and no sign of life. Urk! So, I walked around the back. It was a typical kebab shop rear, so I stood well back, and tried to work out how the heck the door would have worked if I’d had to open it, since there was no lock at all, just a plain wood face, while I phoned the agent to check everything was ok. Straight to voicemail. So either off, or he was on the phone, talking to the office. If he was talking to the office, he wasn’t dead from a meat cleaver. If it was off, then his killers were smarter than the average. And where was the electrician?

I tried the agent’s phone again. Perhaps needless to say, everything was, in fact, fine.

On Wednesday, I got a second run for the same day, at 10am, starting a single opening 40 minutes away from my original run, booked for 10:30. I must say, this is fairly typical, but I sorted things out, and arrived ten minutes early. I chatted to the electrician, who sat in his van to protect against the rather vicious cold. It looked like they were in, so I relaxed a bit. The agent arrived, on the phone, and, as Sod’s Law states when you have a tight deadline, the owners got in their car and drove off! Wah! Nice lever lock on the door, and no time to play with it. Then the agent arrives from his car. “The computers are down. I can’t get the go ahead, so we’ll just knock on the door and see if they are in.” In unison, the sparky and I said “They just left. That ‘V’ reg that nearly ran you over a moment ago? That was them.” “Oh”, says he. “Probably for the best then, since what could we do if they *were* there? Let’s go.”

So I was on time for the next run, which was nice, and the cleaners let us in, so I got another easy day!

I’m dreading Monday, though. I’ve no job sheet and it’s a new agent and company, with a day of British Gas warrants. BG are a tough taskmaster, liking to give you 30 doors in a day, and all of them “hard”. Fingers crossed!

I went, I saw, I (mostly) conquered.

This was my third Dutch Open, and this time, I made it into the final. I’m the first UK person ever to do so, and I’m quite proud of that, and my overall performance was very pleasing, what with the lack of practise in the previous weeks, due to the upheaval of relocation.

I’ll just run through the  rules and procedure, for those of you who are interested.

Everyone enters their name on a slip. This is entered into the random draw, and the pairs are drawn randomly. Your first pairing is against everyone else in the contest, and the second name called moves to the first name called. You are then presented with your two locks, and you take one each. Which one doesn’t matter, as will become apparent.

You may put your tension tool(s) in the lock before the timer starts, but not any pick. You then start, and you have 10 minutes to open the lock. Once open, you call “Open!” and note your time, which is called out to you. You pick head-to-head, which adds significantly to the pressure.

At the end of the time, you swap locks with your opponent, as well as note how he did. (Yes, it’s the honour system – you could probably cheat, but the random draw makes that really hard.) Then you go again. At the end of the round, if neither lock was opened by either of you, there is no score. Otherwise, the opener of the most locks wins. If you both opened the same number of locks, the faster time wins.

My scoresheet. If it doesn’t have a dot, it’s in seconds. And yes, my first opening was in 2 seconds of the start of the first half of the first round, and was the first lock of the competition!

This sterling effort got me to the required 5 points in the 6th round. Andre and another chap were already there, and Julian, Eric and I got there at the same time. However, the final required 4 people, not 5, so we went head to head, with 3 locks in rotation.

So here’s the back of the sheet:

In retrospect, I should have written smaller to get it on the one side!

Suffice to say, Julian (Germany) and myself (GB) got through the pick-off, beating the USA’s Eric S.

I didn’t get the times for the final in full.  I lost the final by 6 seconds, putting me in the race for 3rd or 4th place, rather than 1st or 2nd. If I’d just got that last lock open… In the final head-to-head, I again lost, despite opening the high security Zeiss-Ikon in just 3 seconds. I just couldn’t get the Pffenheim. After a full 15 minutes trying, I ran out of time. (I did, however get it after another 8 minutes during the second leg!) But that didn’t count for anything, especially since my opponent opened it in under 4 minutes, to his obvious shock!

Well done to the three who beat me – André Matuschek (who was the only person to beat me on the way to the final) was third, Peter Danilov came second, but really Julian Hardt deserved to win (again!). He got a 2 second opening at the same time as I got my 3 second opening, but he opened all final 4 locks!

You can read more about the entire event, and the days before it, at Barry Wel’s blog, which is called “Blackbag” and is also found on the sidebar links.