24-06-2017, 10:07 PM
2562
Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)
Lovely to see you all in good form lads.
God rest his soul Gummy, what an embarrassing shock for his relatives living here, still there’s no shame in going out with a bang these days.
Nice to see you still admire female beauty Pug, as me 94 year old dad used to say, the day you lose interest in that you may as well throw in the towel.
Cave explorers and pot holers have more guts than I ever had, the thoughts of being caught forever between a rock and another rock does not appeal to my sense of adventure.
Yes pot holes, In the old days the common folk would repair their old pots and kettles with pot stoppers, little metal discs with a nut and bolt going through the cork lined centre, they came in different sizes on cards and all hardware shops stocked them, nothing to do with caves but I just thought how little stuff we wasted back then before the throwaway society took over, nothing gets repaired anymore, it breaks because it’s made to break so you just throw it away and buy a new one, then they say WE are polluting the planet and start charging US more for disposing of THEIR shit, mad ain’t it.
25-06-2017, 01:23 AM
2563
Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)
well seeing we're all in good form have I shared this with yuz before?Is this true--
An interesting fact Manure : In the 16th and 17th centuries, everything for export had to be transported by ship. It was also before the invention of commercial fertilizers, so large shipments of manure were quite common. It was shipped dry, because in dry form it weighed a lot less than when wet, but once water (at sea) hit it, not only did it become heavier, but the process of fermentation began again, of which a by-product is methane gas. As the stuff was stored below decks in bundles you can see what could (and did) happen. Methane began to build up below decks and the first time someone came below at night with a lantern, BOOOOM! Several ships were destroyed in this manner before it was determined just what was happening. After that, the bundles of manure were always stamped with the instruction ' Stow high in transit ' on them, which meant for the sailors to stow it high enough off the lower decks so that any water that came into the hold would not touch this "volatile" cargo and start the production of methane. Thus evolved the term ' S.H.I.T ', (Stow High In Transit) which has come down through the centuries and is in use to this very day. You probably did not know the true history of this word. Neither did I. I had always thought it was a golf term.
25-06-2017, 11:29 AM
2565
Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)
The way my engine works Spitty is the gas comes first, then the shit.
An interesting little tit bit there Gummy, everyday’s a school day on here.
My mind was at sea last night too, I was reading about all the folks on the British Isles who owned slaves before slavery was abolished, quite a few middle class people owned them including vicars and brothel madams, they never actually seen their ‘Property’ but owned them nonetheless, they were investments.
I didn’t know that the government of the day compensated the slave owners for the loss of their ‘Stock’ to the tune of £40 million, quite a sum back in 1833. There were rows in the ‘House’ about the huge payments paid out to prominent individuals.
Before that in the 1650’s there was Cromwell and the Irish slaves, I came across a piece in a book by Robert E West called “The Irish Slave Trade” I’ll dig it out and post it when I get round to it, very interesting and stuff I never heard of before, I always wondered how the Irish became so widespread in the world.
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25-06-2017, 10:32 PM
2567
Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)
I was looking through some photo’s of old work I did in the past, I try to keep records when I can, and I remember this one very vividly, there’s a true story behind it and you’re going to hear it whether you like it of not, but remembering Gummy’s rules about long posts you have my word I will condense it as much as possible.I was sitting with my son having a pint in his local about 4 years ago when the landlord approached me and asked would I do a favour for one of his oldest customers, I said if I could I surely would and a while later he sent this old lady over to our table, blah blah blah, she had this glass ball and wanted it mounted on a long silver chain, she didn’t mind what it cost her, she was Rumanian and her granny had left it to her when she was a child. More blah blah blah, anyway I finished the work and gave it to her , she was delighted, paid me my modest fee and said I could now make a wish, I made my wish and that was the end of it.
The following week my son told me that his wife was expecting after 10 years of marriage, then the following March my grandson was born, my wish had come true.
I am a sharing caring person so feel free to rub the screen and make a wish, but I’m not sure if it works over the net, no harm trying though.
26-06-2017, 11:42 AM
2570
Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)
Balls perhaps Gummy, but I remember working with that particular ball very well, it was handled by me a lot during the making and though it was winter time in the shed the ball was always very warm in my hands, even when left overnight and picked up the next morning.There’s more to this mumbo jumbo stuff than meets the eye believe me, metals, glass, and stones have strange properties we don’t yet understand, take graphite for example. I could keep you here all day with tales of strange events while working with the above materials. But why bother, us humans have everything scientifically worked out, we know how everything in the universe works don’t we?
Disclaimer.
Incidentally if you wish for money it will have the opposite effect and bad luck will befall you, so the lady told me before I made me wish, woe betide any of yez who got greedy.
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