Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

I'd already thought about the visible breath scenario Jem, I also thought about a "Bacon Pill" see, when you walk down the street, you can smell the local "Greasy Spoon" two streets away, so, if you gave folks some sort of fried bacon pill which was inert until it reacted with any type of virus within the body, folks would sniff the result a hundred yards away, and take appropriate avoidance action.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

There would obviously have to be a meat free option though.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

I had a fair idea your brain would would be thinking along those lines Spitty.

On a serious note, to tell you the truth I was very disappointed that science with all the new technical devices at their disposal, were caught with their trousers down on this occasion, not one of them could foresee anything as old fashioned as a plague ever happening on a worldwide scale such as this one, I mean with air travel at it’s peak and cruise ships packed to capacity all year round, travelling all over the world, taking passengers on and letting passenger off, you’d imagine they would have been prepared for something in the contagious disease line to break out and spread like wildfire.
Methinks science ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Just my layman’s opinion of course.

It was very warm in bed last night, the temperature was 14.7, very unusual for this time of year, and at night time too.
When it’s warm in bed the wife has a habit of sticking out her left foot, she sleeps on the left hand side of the bed which is facing south.

Her theory is that when her foot gets cool her whole body will cool too because the cool blood in the foot will circulate throughout the blood stream, it works for her, and might I add she has very big feet and one of them sticking out the end of the bed makes an ideal non mechanical distributor of coolness, indeed I have toyed with the idea of connecting the fridge to it to save on electricity.

When I’m too warm I can put me arm around her so I can get cool too, last night she was as cool as the proverbial cucumber.

Sitting at the breakfast table this morning I smilingly said to her.

“Darling you kept me very cool last night in bed, it was like having my arms around a huge cucumber”

She gave me a belt of the dish cloth saying
“I’ll give yeh cucumbers... Daddy cool”

I’ll never understand her, it was meant as a compliment.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

What’s happening with the weather, it’s lashing rain here all day, windy and very grey, but the temperature was 16 degrees!, and we are into November now, very strange.

Me poor dog Rocky 2 was driven crazy last night with the fireworks and bangers, they went on until 2 am, I had to stay up with him, he was cuddled up beside me in the armchair, seems the older he gets the more nervous he gets, he’s only a wee fella, I think he’s 9 or 10 years old now.
I truly sympathise with the folks in Britain who have dogs come this Friday the 5th, especially if they live in build up areas like I do.


Here’s something I could never understand.

When it’s someone’s birthday, why do peoples say and write on cards “Many happy returns”?
Return where? To the same spot they are when you say it to them or the place where they receive their card?
When I’m in the bookies and I see my fellow punters writing out their selection of horse, I often wish them ‘many happy returns’ on their investment.

Would it not be a big mistake to wish someone many happy returns if it was their birthday and you were visiting them in hospital, or prison?
I never wish anyone many happy returns on their birthday, I wish them a happy birthday sure enough and tell them to have a good time, that way one cannot mess it up for them wherever they are at the time.
I could understand it if the person who’s birthday it was believed in reincarnation.


As a young apprentice I made a gold heart pendant and bought this record for my then girlfriend Phyllis on her 16th birthday, it brings back happy memories to me of dancing to it in her parlour all those years ago, the 60’s was a great decade to grow up in, so many wonderful times and happy people around, I’m glad I had the pleasure of living through it.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Have you ever been inspired to do something stupid as a kid by hero’s and legends of yore? I have, but once only.

Fionn MacCool and the Salmon of knowledge.
“Young Fionn, still known by the boyhood Demne, met the poet Finn Éces (Finnegas), near the river Boyne and studied under him. Finnegas had spent seven years trying to catch the salmon that lived in Fec's Pool (Old Irish: Linn Féic) of the Boyne, for it was prophesied the poet would eat this salmon, and "nothing would remain unknown to him”. Although this salmon is not specifically called the "Salmon of Knowledge", etc., in the text, it is presumed to be so, i.e., the salmon that fed on the nut[s] of knowledge at Segais. Eventually the poet caught it, and told the boy to cook it for him. While he was cooking it, Demne burned his thumb, and instinctively put his thumb in his mouth. This imbued him with the salmon's wisdom, and when Éces saw that he had gained wisdom, he gave the youngster the whole salmon to eat, and gave Demne the new name, Fionn” Wiki.

We were all told that story as kids in school, Fionn MacCool was my hero, cool by name and cool by nature, it inspired me so much that I took up fishing (in the canal with a bamboo pole, twine, and an opened safety pin turned up at the pointed end on which I impaled a very large brown maggot) in the hope there may be another Salmon of Knowledge lurking about in there, I could sure do with a bit of knowledge, I was very low on the stuff at the time. As things turned out I was hopeless at the fishing and never caught nothing, I soon got bored of it, but I still didn’t give up hoping to come across a wise fish willing to part with it’s repertoire of wisdom to me, via my thumb.

The problem was how does a poor kid living in the city centre get his paws on a whole Salmon? expensive food even back then.

I pondered this as I walked through Moore Street market looking at all the fish stalls loaded with stock of every description, my eyes settled on Mrs Mulligan’s catch of shining silver Mackerel at tuppence each, maybe it might work with a Mackerel I thought, and as I hadn’t got a farthing never mind tuppence I started talking to Mrs Mulligan, asked how her son Johnny was getting on with his ballet lessons (Johnny was alway into girls things, he even talked like a girl). While she rambled on about her Johnny, I slipped two fish into me monkey jacket, then pretended to adjust the zip on it finally closing it up to me neck, then I made an excuse and dashed home. The mother was out so I got the pan and put it on the gas, slapped the whole fish into it, no dripping or oil, just the dry pan, and waited till it heated up.

Well there’s no need to tell you any more, it’s obvious it never worked, all I got for me trouble was a big blister on me thump and a clout across the ear from my Mother, and the wisdom never to steal again. My Mother paid Mrs Mulligan the fourpence the next day.
True tale that, but maybe you have bigger fish to fry.

It just shows you how such legends effected young minds back in those days of innocence.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Having been effected by events, I chose the path of forgetfulness, knowing when the time is right, all will flash past, in a split second, if time is relative of course.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Photos and text, once promised so much, well before smart stuff.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Yes Spitty the camera was an excellent invention, even if it put a lot portrait painters out of work, well paid jobs they were too with plenty of perks, for instance if you made an ugly subject look handsome you’d get a nice fat bonus and the promise of painting their twin or the rest of his/her ugly family, every one was on a winner then, but the camera never lies.

I think one of the best things that ever happened to mankind has to be text, without the scribblings on those old stone tablets and in caves we’d know nothing of our past at all.

I shudder when I think of all the skills lost to humanity over the centuries, mostly because they were ‘trade secrets’, very closely guarded and passed from father to son, then along came some natural disaster or a major war and they were lost forever.
Had the know how been written in stone they would have had a good chance of surviving, then we’d have pyramids, towers of Babel, Colossus of Rhodes, and hanging gardens all over the place, far more beautiful than these ugly wind power generators.
Fortunately since the printing press was invented we can now see how they made things in the not too distant past.
I found some very interesting stuff about the old sand and cuttlefish casting in a very old library book many years ago, it helped me a lot for doing one-off tricky jobs, ask any goldsmith about cuttlefish casting today and they wouldn’t have a clue what you were talking about.

There was no such thing as the ‘big bang’, ‘stuff’ was always there, the big bang has yet to come, and it will be so far from this planet that we will only experience a general breakdown of all things electrical, and all this smart shit won’t be worth a hill of beans.

Well blow me down!, look what I found when I searched google, this video is dated Jan. 2016, almost 5 years ago, it was to be covered on the outside with built in solar panels blending in with the body, and they said it was never built because of the cost, €250 million, ah go on! pull the other one, they just hadn’t got the know how.
However I think it’s a lovely idea and would be sure to pay for itself in no time as a popular tourist attraction, the video is only 2 minutes long and it takes you inside the statue, worth a look.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

I reminded meself of that old joke.

Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get to the road island, it was a Rhode Island Red.


Polluting Cows, is the answer blowing in the wind?

They are getting very serious about this climate thing here now ever since the green party went into the coalition government, and the EC seem to be providing the cash for all sorts of experiments to keep the green gang happy. Cow farts appear to causing a lot of air pollution these days.

My student grandson got a temporary job with the department of the environment last summer, they sent him down to a dairy farm in Kerry, the home of Kerrygold butter.
He’s a keen independent lad and likes to pay his own university fees.

Every working morning he had to go out to a field at 8am and then sit in a hut shaped like a big cow that was covered with camouflage canvas.
He would take a flask of hot coffee and sandwiches to work and he had a little electric clicker plus a set of headphones, he had to click it every time a cow expedited wind, a sort of fart registering experiment.

Each of the fifty cows in his particular herd had a little microchip in the ear and when they fart he hears it on his headphones, he recorded 4.400 cow farts in his first 8 hour shift, some cows farted more than others so one would have to figure an average per cow per 24 hour day, but 4,400 in 8 hours is a lot of bovine wind, I’m sure if Elvis had been there he would have put it into a song, something like ‘Comma longa baby, whole lotta fartin’ goin’ on’.

I have no doubt that bit of priceless info will make for riveting reading for the EC scientists, right up there in the top ten with the straight bananas, bent cucumbers, round eggs, and what have yeh.

He said his thumb got all swollen from clicking, so he alternated between thumbs and fingers.
He finished up that job in September, and they’ll probably send him off somewhere else next year with his little clicker.
The money is good, but when i asked him what he tells his mates he does for a living during the holidays he avoids the question, to make it sound more important than a humble fart clicker, I suggested he tell them he was a ‘bovine wind calculator’ but he was not impressed.

Personally I’d rather starve to death than be a bovine wind calculator.

Come to think of it, I know a few fellas who clicked the odd cow, some of the poor buggers even married them.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

I have had porridge every morning for breakfast since as far back as I can remember, there’s nothing like it when it’s topped with a tablespoonful of honey, a bowlful of nature as me granny used to say.

Flahavans have always been my brand of oat and porridge has served me well health-wise all through my life, as the good Mr. Flahavan himself said when he first started milling way back in 1780.
“I would proudly take the stand and swear by my Oats”
He never had to take the stand as time proved, quite to the contrary, his product achieved universal acclaim purely on it’s own merits.

Having said all that, the wife asked me a sacrilegious question at breakfast the other morning.

“Jem” says she, “Would you not try something else instead of porridge every morning?”
“Darling” says I, “How could you ask me that question when you already know the answer, one never changes horses in midstream, and in my case I’m three quarters way across as it is, can’t turn back now.”
"Well I fancy some Rice Crispies for breakfast tomorrow, so when your going out will you bring me back a large box of them please?”
“Certainly my dear”

When I entered the supermarket I headed straight for the cereal section but couldn’t find the Rice Crispies anywhere.

There was an old lad packing shelves near me and I inquired of him.
“Have you got Rice Crispies?”
“No but I have Crunchy Nuts”
“You should try rubbing a little Olive oil on them in the mornings, helps soften them up”

He was not amused but I just couldn’t resist it, I should have thought all old geezers knew the cure for crusty nuts.