Orbital anvil delivery service: order placed.

• Wikipedia Brown, Boy Detective. (Bah! We did this ages ago!)

In an utterly unexpected turn of events, no gas fitter has called or shown up. At 1pm, redcountess called the HSE. They took our details and those of the agent (who may also be in trouble — they are in fact supposed to get the gas safety certificate, and by not passing on the landlord's address they've put themselves in the way); they'll be contacting the agent, and told us our next move for immediate action on the boiler was to call the council. Housing Services pointed us at the Tenancy Relations Officer, and we left a detailed complaint with them. The HSE are writing to the agent and the council will be dealing with it in the next couple of days, but we feel confident the orbiting anvils are slowly moving out of orbit and targeting Canterbury (where he lives) in an orderly fashion.

I just called the landlord again and he babbled "he's coming! really! Just get him to do whatever it takes, at whatever cost!" so we'll, ah, see.

Accuweather says it's seven degrees, feels like two. Yes. Yes, it does.

Update: New gas fitter showed up. He looked at the flue with a "wtf" expression on his face and ... promptly wanted to take a photo for Gas Installer himself. He's trying to see if a flue for that model of boiler is even available any more and will get back to us.