Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

What are ya wanting Apps on you TV For? For me, I like a TV that will fit in the downstairs Khasi, why you may ask, its simple, I like things "Bog Standard". Said before. in 1978 the group Be Bop Delux Predicted the situation we now find ourselves in with electrical appliances, a track called Superenigmatix "There's one in the TV, and its waiting there to please me" Bugger Apps, just want a Tele without an errant Remote Control, just want to press the button, and, the TV to respond first time, does that make a person a Control Freak?

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

What do I want apps on the TV for?
Well first, and most important to me, are the security cameras, I have four of them in good strategic positions covering the house and the front back and side garden, with the right app I can view the whole four together in a four way split screen using the app tools, or singly at the flick of the remote control, i can record, zoom in and out, take single still shots and change the rotating angles too.
Then there's the Mobdro app, one of several that lets me view the two racing channels for free plus channels from all over the world, very handy that one.
It’s great to have them all on the same TV, saves having to have various boxes and wires all aver the place, the wife hates to see too many wires and the less wire you have the quieter the wife, and oh what joy that brings to a man.

You might consider getting a few security cameras in Spitty when you have all your work done on your home, a lot of sheds and out buildings are targets for thieves now, and it’s far less expensive than you’d think if you do it yourself, my cameras were less than €20 each and I have them a few years now. I’m not really technically minded, the cameras today are simple to use, just a basic understanding and anyone can install cameras and get them online so you can check your home from anywhere when your away.

Have you ever been out lazing in the garden in good Summer weather when suddenly a neighbours burglar alarm goes off?, they are away on holiday and the thing keeps going all day until the battery is exhausted.
Well good news for you, the age of the unattended alarm pest is past, cameras have taken over now and everything is there on record, so if you happened to get burgled all the evidence is on hard drive for the coppers.
Just one look and the culprit is nabbed.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Oh I forgot to add as a warning, one can become totally obsessed with security cameras, it nearly happened to me when I was tempted to buy the ultimate all bugles and bells 32 camera kit complete with 3 TB of recording space in the control box, thankfully I was rescued when the missus talked me out of it, it was touch and go for a while as I hoovered on the border of becoming a camera dependent freak.

Here’s a useful site for those who suspect they may be in danger of becoming a Cameraholic. “Lookawaynow@gmail.com”, you answer 12 simple questions like “Do you frequently dream of cameras?” and “Do you ever take a sneaky shot just before you go to bed”. if you say yes to 5 of them then you are a cameraholic.


The Securiy Camera Freak.
By Jem 14/7/20

There’s a camera at the entrance, just above the gate
There’s a camera in the letterbox to see if the post is late.

There’s a camera at the door, it lights up and emits a pleasant scent
There’s a camera in the window, but that’s just an ornament

There’s a camera in the kitchen, there’s a camera in the hall
There’s a camera in the mantel clock, but you can’t see that at all.

There’s a camera in the garden, to watch the birds and bees
There’s a camera on the dogs belly, to check for any fleas.

They’ll have a camera on my headstone, six feet above my head
And a camera in my coffin, to see if I’m really dead.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Nice one Spitty.



When I first got married back in the 60’s we lived for a short while in a new housing estate. There was a new pub there too and I decided to try it out one night, this is true by the way.

At the bar was a grey haired man of about 70 sitting alone, both his arms were missing and when he needed to swallow his pint he gripped the rim of the glass in his teeth, raised it to his mouth and took a long gulp, then he placed it down again, he seemed well used to doing this.
There was a good crowd in the place but yet he was left alone at the bar. I asked the chap next to me why nobody talked to the old man, was he black listed by the rest of them or what?
“No son” says yerman “It’s just that when he want’s to go to the toilet he asks the nearest to him to take him out and help him to go, unbutton his fly that kind of thing, so if there’s nobody near him to ask, one of the the barmen has to do the honours”
He also told me that those who had helped him before said he was a randy old devil and was to be avoided.
“Oh I see” says I as I finished me pint and left, thankful that I hadn’t sat at the bar, I decided to use the other older pub down the road from then on, just to be on the safe side.



There was an old joke doing the rounds just after the Korean war, about chancers who were never there but were taking advantage of it. It seemed everybody was talking about Korea when i was growing up, then came the endless war films about it.

A fella walks into a bar and calls for a pint, he’s dressed in an old army greatcoat and all hunched up, his only hand is shaking, the barman asks him is he OK and yerman says.
“Oh I’ll be alright in a minute” he holds up the stump where his left hand used to be and says “Korea you know”
The barman takes pity on him and tells him the pint is on the house.

The next day another fella comes in dressed in an army tunic thats too small for him, he has a patch over his right eye and he’s acting very nervously as he calls for a pint. “I’m a bit shell shocked, I lost me eye as well, but I’ll be alright once I get the pint down me, I was in Korea if you must know”
“That’s terrible, the drink is on the house auld son” says the barman.

The following day a chap comes into the bar and calls for a drink, his jacket is all wrinkled, one lapel is shorter than the other, and the sleeves are way too long, the buttons don’t button, and the cuffs completely cover his two hands as he places them on the counter.
The barman, now a bit grumpy at the thoughts of having to give away another free drink says “I suppose you were in Korea too?”
“No Sir, never been in the army in me life, I just collected this made to measure suit from Burtons tailors and I’m badly in need of a double whiskey after the shock.

I think you’d have to be of my generation the get that joke, Burtons suits were the worst in the world, and H Samuel were the worst jewellers in the world.

This song was one of my mothers favourites in 1952, it was featured a lot on the radio then and I remember it well, I once said to her “Hey Ma, how come Joe Stafford sings like a girl?”

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

What is it with dogs? Have they got more senses than we have?
My little fella knows when there are strange dogs approaching from a long way off even if he can’t see them and they are well out of smelling range.

How he knows this is beyond me, he is not allowed jump up on the window ledge so he cannot see them, the front gate is a good 15 feet from the front window, and even it the dogs are on the other side of the road he knows they are there, how is this possible I wonder?

Another thing with my dog, anytime under normal circumstances when I was returning from the local, and although he can’t see me he would start barking as soon as I arrived at the top the road, alerting the wife at a good 100 yards from my house, have dogs got built in radar or what? I am truly puzzled by this gift they have of seeing through concrete walls.

I think they should forget about going to Mars and spend the dosh on picking the brains of dogs and other animals, they obviously know plenty that we don’t know, we have lived with them all through human history and yet their thinking remains completely alien to us, I believe that if we want to advance our own thinking we could try contacting our own animal aliens here on earth, not so daft when you realise that almost all of our most effective medicines come from plants, another form of life, maybe all the answers to our problems are right here on this planet just waiting to be discovered.


Some ads are really stupid, talk about buying a pig in a poke, i refer to the one about buying a used car without leaving your sofa.
Five to one that bad things can happen when you buy a car without leaving your sofa, you could end up with a car worth less than your sofa, and even harder to get rid of, and you’ve only yourself to blame.
So if you want to buy a decent car get up off your fat arse and go out and shop around for one.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

After Bonnie went, I said "No more Dogs", but was out voted, so, accepting the inevitable, saw a picture of Maisie, my comment was, That is one very knowing Dog, we ended up with her and I wasn't proved wrong.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

She found her way back, after 24 hours in a dangerous situation, say no more.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Yes Spitty, when they get out it's a very worrying time, I had to make a small wooden fence to fix at the end of the hedging after my lad went missing for a couple of hours, he had squeezed out under the hedge, luckily some one found him about a mile away and seen the address on his collar disc.

Spotted this on the BBC news site.

What was I saying about cameras everywhere?
God almighty the poor unfortunate insects are not even safe now.
What they hope to gain from observing the daily routine of yer ordinary garden variety beetle I don’t know.
Now if it was a dung beetle they might get some useful information that the civil service could use, dung beetles are experts at shifting crap from place to place.
Alright so it weighs a tenth of a playing card, but that’s no excuse, just look at the skinny legs on the poor beetle, the camera is so heavy on it’s back that it’s chest is touching the ground, that would be like a man carrying ten paving slabs on his back in the one go, excruciating work, that’s cruelty in my opinion, but then who cares about insects, it’s OK to slaughter them by the billions.

Did Yoko Ono crush the Beatles?.
They were never the same after she entered the picture, I used to love them before she came on the scene, then they began to row amongst themselves and eventually split up, such a shame for four nice lads from off the street getting a big break, who knows how many nore great song the could have written had they stayed together for a few more years. Harrison was always my favourite Beatle, rest his soul.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Just to keep you updated, I have reported the treatment of that poor beetle to the International Court of Wildlife Crime,
I got a swift reply back from them saying
“Thank you for your concern James, I can assure you steps are afoot to stamp out this practice as I write”
I’m not sure how to take that message, steps, feet, and stamping,? not exactly music to a beetle’s ears is it?

Does anyone remember a long running newspaper cartoon strip called “Jiggs and Maggie”? It was also available in comic form.
Maggie’s favourite word for Jiggs was “insect”. I remember reading it every night in the Evening Mail, a paper that closed down in the early 60’s here.
Maggie was a terror, I actually knew some men who had wives like Maggie, of course there were no complaints from them, I mean what kind of man back then would own up to being battered by a woman.

Jiggs was a martyr to the gout, just like me at the moment but I’m not complaining, it could be worse and it always passes, besides Phyllis is a bit more sympathetic than Maggie and her rolling pin has long been decommissioned.