I'm laughing out loud because lead shot has been illegal for years, and we'd only need to weight the house down on one side, because the other side is build off the edge of the dijk. (ie the front door is at road level, but the back door is a floor below, at the bottom of the dijk).
[penelope] *sighs* it is only called lead shot. It is made from less politically harmful materials now to avoid unnecessary hysteria in the unchemist poplace. Hidden text The only non-fish lethalities ever sustained by lead shot would appear to involve a delivery system based on gunpowder or nitrocellulose and a stout metal tube through which to guide the said lead shot to the lethalee at high speed. The danger posed by lead in massive form has always been more to the politicians than to the public. The only person to have died from a non-paint lead-involved non-shooting in New York was, I believe, a child killed by a falling sash weight. It is left as an exercise for the reader to calculate the cost benefits involved in this nonsense.
I have to say that joining the EC has made of England a land of scaredy-cat weenie runaway sissies. I was lectured last month by someone in the UK offended that I had the audacity to suggest on a forum using acetone as a cleaner for metal, and last year was taken to task for my Hitler-like suggestion that brake fluid would fetch paint off plastic quite effectively.
I clean my glasses with whiteboard cleaner, AKA Isopropyl Alcohol, largely because it's provided free at work. It works a treat. I've been toying with taking it home to try removing some stubborn chewing gum.
(Stevie) Yes, metallic lead is not a hazard. My mains water comes through several feet of lead pipe. I've just made a little counterweight for my trombone out of lead from an old car battery which involved melting it and bashing it into shape. It's worth not ingesting lead compunds though and the banning of tetraethyl lead from petrol was a good thing. I wouldnt't say it was joining the EU that has made us so risk-averse; they have just added an extra layer of absurdity to a process that started about 30 years ago in which we decided to become princesses, or as I prefer it, spoilt wankers. Acetone, BTW is one of the least toxic organic chemicals, comparable with ethanol, i.e you can drink it, preferably diluted.