01-05-2015, 05:11 PM
3872
Re: Today I have .........
Originally Posted by Grumblewagon
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Mups, I'm up to my eyes in clocks at the moment. The chimes on our Westminster chime wall clock have become 'sticky'. When I and a lot of others left our IT jobs some years ago, one colleague became a watch & clock repairer. Ten years ago, he repaired and serviced the clock for us - new springs, some new bushes etc... Mate's rates, he charged £50, but said that if it died, I should buy a new movement because it would be cheaper than repairing it. A new movement would cost around £150 today (Hermle westminter movement).So, I've decided to build a 'Shaker style' wall clock with a quartz movement with pendulum and Westminster chime . Today, I've set up a 'test rig' with the movement to get the dimensions correct and ordered a fancy dial and hands.
02-05-2015, 06:44 AM
3874
Re: Today I have .........
One of my most treasured belongings is a fob-watch,which I wore when I was an undertaker. I felt it lent a certain dignity to proceedings,to have a watch-chain and fob across the front of my waistcoat. I bought it at a small independent jewellers in a village near Chelmsford,Essex. The watch and chain cost a grand total of £33,[which at the time was a fair bite out of a wage] both are hallmarked,both are silver of good quality. I later added a silver Rupee as a 'dangler',which was-and still is,really very nice. I got the Rupee at a boot-sale for the princely sum of 75 pence! I don't often wear the ensemble now,but I sometimes get it out of my suit pocket in the wardrobe [I don't wear suits now either] and wind it,just to let it tick down. I recall the jeweller telling me the problem with many old timepieces is that they DON'T get wound,which seizes the mechanism.The watch and chain,although bought separately,are both 1910 and the Rupee is 1901. Sometimes I just look at it and marvel at the history that watch has lived through,the changes it's seen.......
jumpers for goalposts and bread 'n' jam for tea...
...oh,dear-I must be getting maudlin,or summink.....
02-05-2015, 09:15 PM
3876
Re: Today I have .........
I have an old silver pocket watch meself somewhere Pug, I must dig it out and give it a winding.Today I was in the local £1 shop, it is now the local 2 euro shop and I hear mutterings of them rounding it up to make it an even 5 euro shop shortly.
When I was there this morning I noticed they had a new brand of cigarette papers for people like me who roll their own smokes, 4 packets for 1 euro, not bad at all. I think they are made in China and they’re called “Funn-nee” and have a grinning Chinaman on the front, when you lift the cover there is a joke similar to the corny Christmas cracker jokes, but it was the caption on the back that made me laugh, “Buy Funn-nee and roll with laughter” Pretty clever I thought.
03-05-2015, 07:46 PM
3878
Re: Today I have .........
Originally Posted by Pug
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..err...you DO realise that in Han Chinese,'Funn-nee' means 'recycled toilet paper',Jem?How's that smoke tasting NOW,bro?
I was wondering what the wife meant the other night when she said "Jimmy, what kinda shit are you smoking now?"
05-05-2015, 08:21 PM
3880
Re: Today I have .........
Indeed not Pug, but I can recall a year, 1986, when I sported THREE black eyes in the same year though obviously not all at the same time.The first one was bestowed on me in a public house by a bigger man than me, I had contradicted a statement he made about the running or my favourite horse of all time Arkle, I won't bore you with the details, anyway I was proved right when the landlord contacted a sports reporter in the press (that's how a lot of questions were settled in pubs before google) and apologies and free drinks settled that once and for all.
Number two came just as number one had cleared up and on the same eye too, I was playing with my two year old nephew on my lap when he let me have a sudden belt in the eye, accidental of course, but you try explaining that away.
The last one came just before Christmas day Dec.23 when I actually walked into the kitchen door, albeit I had one over the eight at the time. So there you have it, how a peace loving man and hater of all things violent can end up with three black eyes in the same year, it has to be a record.
Beat that if you're not a boxer!
About the wife's backside, I think that backfired on me, when she said "Jem does my arse look big in this" I was reading the newspaper and only half listening so trying to compliment her I absent mindedly answered "Of course Darling, your arse would look big in anything"
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