Absolutely Anything Else

SimonTrew wrote:

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Still had horses on the st. mixed in with cars..

Was quite used to that in my parents' day. My mother and her mother were walking somewhere once in London (they were by no means posh) but I guess the street was not so busy they had taken a shortcut. My mum must have been a very little child just with her mum on their own. I guess her dad my grandfather was working nightshifts for war work, he worked at Park Royal doing welding of some kind, don't know what for and probably he didn't know what for, that was the nature of war work. (He was disabled so could not serve on the front line.)

A man pulled up in a posh car to offer them a lift, which they accepted. It was Henry Hall, who sang "teddy-bear's picnic" very famous man in Britain. My mum has been taxied around by Henry Hall

My dad when he did a milk round as a youth, this would be around the  late 1940s, the milk carts were still mostly horse drawn.

My husband said in Budapest when he was a kid they still had horse carts on the streets.
Their old fridge used an ice box and they delivered house to the apt.
This was in the 1950's.
His mom had her own dairy shop located in a posh area of Vaci Utca, back then it was just a main street with lots of different sorts of businesses. There used to be cars running on Vaci Utca before it was turned into a walking street.
After the war it wasn't worth her effort to have her dairy shop so she quit it.

I and a friend were hitching a ride back around 1974 in Hollywood to our fave night club, the Starwood.
A long black limo stopped to pick us up. The driver told us he was Liza Minnelli's personal driver and limo, he had just finished dropping her off somewhere and was just cruising around until she needed him again.
It was cool for me at 17,, he pulled right in front of the long standing line of people trying to get in , opened the door and held it for us, all for show, we were regulars in that club and knew the doorman, we just walked right in without having to stand in line. At the time it was cool, looking back now it wasn't such a big deal.

One of those odd facts that most Hungarians don't know is that Hungary used to drive on the left. Until the second world war, Hungary drove on the left. If you look at old photos etc everything is left-hand traffic (as it bloody well should be of course). A certain Mr. Hitler changed them over when he tried to barge in.í

Quite a lot of around here was left-hand traffic. Czechoslovakia was left-hand traffic until 1938. It was not a uniquely british thing it was simply a toss-up. So all these myths that you drive on the left or right because of postilions or whatever are exactly that, myths. It is just an accident of history, really.

One of the  nice things in Budapest is the old signs for taxis on the cab rank. No idea who designed them but it is a very clever design, I guess most people don't notice them. either because they don't need a taxi or they do need a taxi and so are looking at the taxi not the sign (beyond it being illuminated saying "taxi")

The previous owners of this place, he drove a taxi as a bit of extra, so there was loads of kinda stickers and so on in my garage, yellow spray paint the bits you stick on the side etc etc. He is absolutely down to earth honest man, I do not mean he cheated the customer or the meter. Főtaxi are the best, they are always on time (or a bit before time), tidy cars, reliable and smart drivers.

The missus told me that they have just put the rates up, I do everything shank's pony so I don't really notice, but I guess that will be one way to tell a genuine taxi from a false one. They always have those cards in the back saying the rates etc but I have managed to get into the "wrong" taxi on a couple of occasions sitting on the rank, all its stuff in order etc. Very easy mistake to make, and I would call myself a quite observant person. Best use Főtaxi and nobody else, ever.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

A long black limo stopped to pick us up. The driver told us he was Liza Minnelli's personal driver and limo, he had just finished dropping her off somewhere and was just cruising around until she needed him again.
It was cool for me at 17,, he pulled right in front of the long standing line of people trying to get in , opened the door and held it for us, all for show, we were regulars in that club and knew the doorman, we just walked right in without having to stand in line. At the time it was cool, looking back now it wasn't such a big deal.

I imagine they do it quite a lot, you did not say where but often they have to get off the rank and go around the block, they are not allowed to wait. (Most airports in the UK are like that.) So that they go round the block, oh something to do, pick up these young girls give them a lift just to pass the time and have a bit of a natter (OK, maybe also ogle these sexy girls in their nightclub gear but so what, you can look but you can't touch, what would be the point of the whole "fashion industry" if other people did not look at it)

SimonTrew wrote:

It is this kind of save-the-planet nonsense that annoys me. We as consumers are endlessly told to recycle, etc, etc, and at the same time endlessly are given useless packaging, bits of paper and so on that we don't want or need in the first place.
....

How about tackling the businesses who produce all this rubbish?

Because there are few incentives to prevent businesses that produce the rubbish to stop. Because they do not think it is their "economic" interest to do so. That is, they know how much packaging results in so many broken products. Then they over-do it to make sure even fewer are broken in transit, as it costs more to replace a product from an unhappy customer than it costs to over do the packaging. And add to that, it only takes one customer who had their do-hicky delivered broken due to "insufficient packaging" to go on an unreasonable social media rampage and damage the business.

And to convince businesses not over-mitigate those risks to the extreme takes either a lot of education or regulation.

Education is expensive. Who will pay for it?

Regulations take governments. Who are elected officials who's campaigns are funded and lobbied by big business money that don't want such regulations.

So the consumer is trapped in this political system and is left confused with messages from two different sources with different agendas -- told to recycle then overburdened with packaging. If you want a definitive and decisive message one way or another, you will have to wait for a revolution.

By the way, the "recycle" symbol is three arrows corresponding to the idea of "reduce, reuse, recycle". So, as an example you used elsewhere, breaking up glass and using in a road is reuse and better than just putting it into a land fill or hauling it out to some part of the ocean. And if you want less packing in a new product, consider instead of "reduce" -- that is do you really need this new product? Or just want it. And if you just want it, then you should take on all the responsibilities dumped on you for having the product, even the silly amount of nested boxes it is packaged in. Or spend all your free time lobbing your politician to pass regulations to mandate package reduction.

By the way, most nested packaging today is brown cardboard -- which is fully recyclable (i.e. it can be turned back again into cardboard). You can even toss brown cardboard into a compost pile in you have one and just let is compost -- which is also considered recycling.) Foam pellets and air bags I just use to send out packages myself (reuse).

klsallee wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

I have been doing missile firing trials for nigh on thirty years. I do know what I am talking about sometimes.-

"Rocket science" is not just about in atmosphere solid fuel missile flight. It is about the science and engineering behind making rockets actually work. Firing off missile tests is not even close to being the same as designing them, which takes a bit of engineering know-how.

And especially with liquid fuel rockets, which are devices filled with highly explosive fuels. With a flame at the end. Not a good combination. Designing them to work without disaster is not "easy".

i meant the maths is easy. Designing a good rocket takes a bit of flare....  I do have a bit of engineering know-how that is why I am a Chartered Engineer. You cannot design them to work without trialing them. Then like any good engineer you adjust your calculations to account for the real world. When you trial them you damned well make sure everyone is out of the way in case anything goes wrong nobody gets hurt.

You simulate, you test on computers etc but there is no substitute for the real thing. That is why all around the British coast there are firing ranges, let alone the inland ones, to test these things safely when nobody else is going to get hurt by them. Ever heard a news story of "new missile blows up fishing party?" I haven't.

I have seen lots of stories of "Plane kills people at Farnborough Air Show". Where they are, essentially, trialling new planes. And it probably does not interest you to know I have worked at Farnborough.

Space is a completely different matter. That is why there is so much shit up in space because you have no chance of trialling it, you get one go at it. People have got killed that way. In the surface-to-air defence business we try to kill the enemy instead of ourselves.

The only difference between a solid fuel rocket and a liquid fuel rocket is the fuel. It just depends on what is more convenient. Usually you use liquid oxygen on spaceflights because that gives you the burn you need to escape gravity, but t does not affect how the rocket works, on the ground you tend to use solid propellant because it is far more compact, easier to store, and isn't likely to blow up in your face. You can use plastic explosive  (which I suppose you would call a solid propellant, the PE burns down quite slowly after the initial kick) and off it will go.

The rocket works like rockets work, by newton's second law. What propellant you stick up its backside is not important to this (rather enjoyable) argument.

The problem is not starting the little bastards. It's stopping them. THat is why firing ranges have danger zones etc in case one goes their way. They are a right bugger to get back when they are off at nearly the speed of sound or sometimes over, you can send your East Chiltern Shitehound to chase after it but it is never going to catch it. Getting the bits and pieces back to see what went wrong is a right pain in the bum and usually requires low tide and a very large set of waders.

The whole point of a trial is that it is a trial. Nobody quite expects it to work the first time. I will agree with you that space is a bit different, that you get one go and can't go out into Cardigan Bay at low tide to fetch the little bits and pieces back in. but surface-to-air or marine missiles are completely different things to space missiles. An air or water missile is usually designed to rifle, for example, a "space rocket" is not designed to do that because it doesn't need to. The basic physics, the basic rocket science, is still the same.

klsallee wrote:

By the way, most nested packaging today is brown cardboard -- which is fully recyclable (i.e. it can be turned back again into cardboard). You can even toss brown cardboard into a compost pile in you have one and just let is compost -- which is also considered recycling.) Foam pellets and air bags I just use to send out packages myself (reuse).

On this I think we can agree. I get plastic recycled which is just goes in a big blue bin/trashcan and so then that is unlikely to be separated. I haven't built my compost heap yet as the garden is more of a parking lot than a garden so haven't much to put on it (and indeed I am using second hand wood to build it if you see what I mean) but yes I compost and reuse that, lovely stuff after it gets nice and warm but that will take a year or two for that to bed down nicely where I have my own compost (we only moved here five months ago, I mean to this place in particular, I have potting shed and stuff all done but not got round to building the compost heap yet)

What I dislike is the hypocrisy. you are quite right lobby your politician. Votes actually do count, I always make sure I use mine. I still then get a package with bubblewrap and plastic tape, Sellotape adhesive tape all over it, when inside it is just a pair of earrings or whatnot that the missus has ordered, which is of course already in ITS box in ITS box and it is a Towers of Hanoi puzzle to  work out how to get all the fucking stuff off. 

Amazon are the worst offenders.

klsallee wrote:

Education is expensive. Who will pay for it?

I will. I was extremely lucky. I did my degree at the last year of the grants system in the UK and also got paid a living allowance as a "mature student" and the Government paid me to go and study. Yes, I had worked four years as an apprentice, but the government paid for my degree

I will. It is my turn to pay it back. I have absolutely no problem with paying taxes for education. That is how we pass it on to the next generation. The missus and I have chosen not to have children, but we have nieces and nephews and so on and they need education and it should come from the public purse that means all of us.

I will willingly pay more tax for a better education system. Vote for Kisallee! Higher Taxes for Better Schools! is probably not much of a votewinner.

But I will. Education is the most important thing you ever get, it allows me to be stupid here. A penny or 1000 forint on the income tax to make sure that Fluffiettes are OK and so on, yes, I would vote for that. I had the benefit, it is someone else's turn now.

I will. I will. Voluntarily I will or would. And I am not made of money. But I would rather have my taxes spent on education than almost anything else. I have benefited so much from the booklearning I have done, it was hard learning and long nights but to pay for a basic education, yep,. you have my vote.

fluffy2560 wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

My wife is off this evening to see Derren Brown the illusionist at Southend in a nice old theatre there. I think he has rave reviews, apparently he can make audiences disappear even before the interval.

They are down in the stalls in the three and nines so should get a good view I hope, Tickets purchased, and this is why I write this, paid for not by the company but by her boss out of her own pocket, to take her team to see a show. i have done it myself I do not wish to brag but don't take your team out on company expenses, that is meaningless. Take them out with your own money, that is huge. I already had a lot of respect for her on the Trew Patent Respectometer but now it has hit the limit.

Isn't that hypnotist bloke on Little Britain based on Derren Brown?

I think the company makes plenty of money so I'd have no issue with them paying.   

Take whatever you can get when it's offered.   

It's a bit like saving up points on your loyalty card.  Why save them? Take the discount or cash off immediately.  I always try and cash them in there and then - bird in the hand etc.

Vegas always gives out freebies to good players.
About 1/8  th of my storage unit is full of casino "gifts" ( which actually cost more then they are worth.)
Once while in line to collect a freebie inside a casino a nice man just walked up to me and gave me a gift he had from being a good player, a full sized bottle of name brand Vodka. How did he know he made my day?
People are sort of "drawn" to me sometimes, for good or for bad!

Well a few hours ago we "old folks" were lugging in our groceries from Tesco.
we are self sufficient people who never ask for help.
Ok, so my 70 year old husband had on a backpack full of my wine, one arm was lugging a 6 pack of water and the other a huge bag full of items.
I with my bad shoulder was carrying a water melon and a 2 kilo bag of apples.
My husband was fumbling for his keys to enter the building and I noticed some haggard looking women with a bad dye job standing watching us from about 6 feet away.I hardly ever notice my neighbors, don't really care to know many of them.
It was obvious that she was waiting on us to open the door for her!
She just stood there like a jerk and pulled out a bottle of juice and started sucking on it.
My husband is too nice in my opinion.
I realized she was just some dumb lazy B**** and told my husband to not let her in. I tried to slam the front  door in her face, wasn't able to.I actually told him not to let the lazy B in, loud enough for her to hear if she could even understand what I was saying. I wonder where many people's brains are these days,ok we were fine on our own but to see her just being so selfish was disgusting.
I am not sure if I'm the rude one or my neighbor was an idiot. her hands were free and she was younger then us. A bit worst for wear but younger.Guess she was such a loser that no one ever held a door for her before, she was scrapping the bottom of the barrel with us.
My husband tried to make me relax as he said not everyone has any brains or high I.Q.
Maybe the microwaves , bad air, water and food have already done most people in?
I am at a loss as to what is wrong with some people.
Not like she didn't have her own set of front door keys.
Sometimes I do think it's about time to go back home, the US is full of nutty people but not on such a base level.
I'll get over it, I always do, just a nice wake up call, next time I see her the door will not be laid open for her. I mean dang we were struggling and she was looking for a door man!
Sometimes it's hard to realize some people are that clueless.

Guess it's all good in the end, when the s*** hits the fan we know who to help and who not to.
Sometimes we have to just cut our losses...
Sorry for the rant, I feel better now.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

My wife is off this evening to see Derren Brown the illusionist at Southend in a nice old theatre there. I think he has rave reviews, apparently he can make audiences disappear even before the interval.

They are down in the stalls in the three and nines so should get a good view I hope, Tickets purchased, and this is why I write this, paid for not by the company but by her boss out of her own pocket, to take her team to see a show. i have done it myself I do not wish to brag but don't take your team out on company expenses, that is meaningless. Take them out with your own money, that is huge. I already had a lot of respect for her on the Trew Patent Respectometer but now it has hit the limit.

Isn't that hypnotist bloke on Little Britain based on Derren Brown?

I think the company makes plenty of money so I'd have no issue with them paying.   

Take whatever you can get when it's offered.   

It's a bit like saving up points on your loyalty card.  Why save them? Take the discount or cash off immediately.  I always try and cash them in there and then - bird in the hand etc.

Vegas always gives out freebies to good players.
About 1/8  th of my storage unit is full of casino "gifts" ( which actually cost more then they are worth.)
Once while in line to collect a freebie inside a casino a nice man just walked up to me and gave me a gift he had from being a good player, a full sized bottle of name brand Vodka. How did he know he made my day?
People are sort of "drawn" to me sometimes, for good or for bad!

Yes, the missus and I tend to play cribbage for best of three rounds and whoever loses cooks the dinner. Somehow I always seem to be cooking the dinner. I think there is some fibbing going on there, because the referee is a soft toy and I think when my back is turned the soft toy might be moving the pegs forward a bit

Gamble for fun not for money, Play with money you can afford to lose. My grandfather was a bookmaker so I can tell you all about bookmaking odds and probability. you actually have on a blackjack table if you played your cards exactly right about a 1.02% advantage against the house. But the house will spot you doing it and kindly ask you to move to another table... you cannot win at gambling. That is why Las Vegas is full of million dollar hotels and Marilyn and I are sitting in hovels in Budapest.

WIth money you can afford to lose, sure, for a bit of fun, no worries. The house always wins. Take that from a bookmaker's grandson.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

I am at a loss as to what is wrong with some people.
Not like she didn't have her own set of front door keys.

Well you have answered your own question. Some people are just lazy. I kinda book a date in my diary to be lazy, and today by your lucky chance is that day, but sheesh even I hold a door open for a craggy old woman lugging a pile of wine back from the local shop so she can get pissed with her husband in the evening...,

And why were you carrying all the wine and water anyway? Is he up for International Man Of The Year Competiton?

(pssst it is an ironic competition of the worst photos of men letting women doing all the work)

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Maybe the microwave

No no marilyn you see you are too classy Sassy Tassy.

It is not a microwave oven, it is a ping obviously because it goes "Ping" when it has finished, If you want to be all high-falutin' I suppose you could call it a RadarRange which is what they were originally called. Nah, has to be a ping stick it in the ping.

SimonTrew wrote:

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

I am at a loss as to what is wrong with some people.
Not like she didn't have her own set of front door keys.

Well you have answered your own question. Some people are just lazy. I kinda book a date in my diary to be lazy, and today by your lucky chance is that day, but sheesh even I hold a door open for a craggy old woman lugging a pile of wine back from the local shop so she can get pissed with her husband in the evening...,

And why were you carrying all the wine and water anyway? Is he up for International Man Of The Year Competiton?

(pssst it is an ironic competition of the worst photos of men letting women doing all the work)

Hmm, yes my husband does tend to over do it, hates going downstairs to collect what he can't carry all at once.
The worst part of that stupid women was when I told my husband she was a jerk, he just said , "what do you want, she's just a women"!
For that comment alone, I will spit in her eye next time I see her.
No 3 bottles of wine last me 5 to 6 days, not exactly going whole hog with drinking.
I only drink when I cook, the longer it takes me to cook the more I may drink.
Works out find though, I am making allot of nice veggie soups , wholesome grains like buckwheat and a main course with fresh salads almost every night.
Just long enough for 2 glasses of wine while cooking, really Julia Child's style.
My husband doesn't drink at all, 2 days ago we did share one can of beer for the day. It was hot outside.
Not allot of heavy drinking going on here, it would kill me , too much sugar in wine.
I stopped eating sweets and dropped 3 lbs, in less then one week without even needing to or trying.
Everyone likes to lose a few lbs but I can't afford to lose more then a couple of lbs.
Just look ill when I get too thin. I got down to 120 a few years back, had a stomach issue after taking some meds for a infected tooth. Scared myself by dropping too much weight.
5'9" tall and 125, doesn't look good to lose too much weight after age 60. makes ones face look tired.
If I had no wine I would drop to 120 within a few days.
Good excuse to drink, I'll buy it anyways.

SimonTrew wrote:

It gets you like that when you are used to thinking in a different language, you can't find the words in your "own" language.

That usually happens when you are over about 53.   Once you've assumed your better half has come in and rearranged your stuff so you cannot find it and then you've gone into a room and forgotten why you why are there, you are "Bronze" qualified.  Silver is talking to random strangers at bus stops and Gold is well.....you can imagine.

My problem is hunting for the foreign language words in the language I know best when faced with a third language. i.e. being Portugal, being faced with a Portuguese person and attempting to speak say, German.  Brain and mouth not synchronised and not in gear.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

My husband doesn't drink at all, 2 days ago we did share one can of beer for the day. It was hot outside.

Yes, can't beat a cold beer when you are doing hard physical work, I can get through five or six cans easily but then you are working off the alcohol as calories very quickly so you don't really get at all drunk, love a pint of beer. in the wintertime a good stout something with a bit of taste, but in the summer a cold lager just literally as refreshment is so nice,

I suppose people would say oh drink water then but water has no taste, that is kinda the point of water. Diet coke/Cola zero is also very nice. I don't really like sweet drinks they are too sticky and sugary. Even wine on a hot summers day can be kinda sugary depending on what wine you get even when you chill it.

Now a glass of peszgő that is nice, but that is for special occasions not because of the cost (it is ridiculously cheap) but because you tend to neck down a whole bottle without realising, that is why I tend to stick to beer when working around the house (and a can will usually last two or three hours but I work long days)

Of course, when working professionally I never drink on the job. The zero alcohol beers tend to taste bloody awful, this is not because they have no alcohol but rather that the process to remove the alcohol tends to destroy the flavour. But the missus likes those fruit beers that Gősser do that are zero percent - she is also a non-drinker but not through any kind of moral "alcohol is wrong" thing it just doesn't interest her, I imagine like your husband

fluffy2560 wrote:

My problem is hunting for the foreign language words in the language I know best when faced with a third language. i.e. being Portugal, being faced with a Portuguese person and attempting to speak say, German.  Brain and mouth not synchronised and not in gear.

Yes exactly. My brain's gearbox tends to slip into French like that, er, if it is not Hungarian and not English must be French and off I go in French and then think - hang on - this person doesn't know any French, drop down the gears and speak in English (or if it is a latin language using some lingua franca or whatever some pidgin Portuguese or whatever). They are always playing English music in the local shop and it drives me nuts I am singing  along to chirpy-chirpy-cheep-cheep the other day and then have to kinda shift gear into Hungarian, but they are used to me by now and regard it as simply amusing.

and then there are huge numbers of idioms that are simply untranslatable or rather meaningless if translated literally, what is "putting the cart before the horse" in Hungarian or French (pudding the carp before d'oevres hors). I mean, you can translate it word-for-word but it is entirely meaningless to do so and Google Translate won't help you there (if it is any help ever).

There is also the problem that languages do not have one-to-one correspondences between words. Spanish has different words for internal corners and external corners, English doesn't, so you say to someone you are meeting them on the corner and you find after a hunt they are inside the building instead of outside. There is kinda this constant battle with your own native language or rather world-view, weltanschauung, butting in whenever you get into trouble in the other language.

fluffy2560 wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

It gets you like that when you are used to thinking in a different language, you can't find the words in your "own" language.

That usually happens when you are over about 53.   Once you've assumed your better half has come in and rearranged your stuff so you cannot find it...

well the problem is my better half does rearrange stuff. I have quite a good spatial memory so  I clock when I put things down, come back did you move that spanner or suspension bridge and she has moved it, well I was just tidying up...

I keep meaning to buy her her own toolbox. I tend to arrange my tools in my toolbox the way I want them arranged. There are loads more tools in the garage/workshop, this is just a cantilever toolbox with the basics in, she is forever borrowing tools out of it then putting them back in the wrong place. Spend half my life actually trying to find things rather than getting on with the job. All the stuff in the garage/mulyhegy is kinda in labelled boxes that say what they contain, but she has learned that trick and one-upped me by rearranging the boxes, Well they look nicer like that.... wa...... it's my bloody workshop let me arrange things how I want them it is not some exercise in feng shui.

She moved that bloody laptop that I managed to get drenched last week, I have only just this morning found out where she has put it. And she has put it in a cubby hole in this big display cabinet we have in what we laughingly call a living room. Why did she put it there? Who knows.

Still love her though,

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

If I had no wine I would drop to 120 within a few days.
Good excuse to drink, I'll buy it anyways.

That is one of those differences between British and American. That we always quote weight in stones and pounds so I am about eleven stone (I haven't checked) then I have to convert to American and do the arithmetic, fourteen pounds to a stone etc. Just as bad at the doctor they ask for your height in centimetres, I have absolutely no idea I am five foot ten I have to do a back-of-a-fag-packet calculation to work out what that is in centimetres and what do you weigh in kilos oh I haven't a clue, another bit of mental arithmetic divide by 2.2 multiply that over there. Look doctor surely you have a measuring tape and a set of scales and could just tell me rather than me doing the arithmetic but they never do.

I went to the doctor once in England for a tetanus jab (they tend to want you to have them if you cut yourself badly), I said where do you want to put it. She said oh just over there on the bench. No, doctor, I meant do you want it in my arm or in my backside.

That being said I have a set of balances in the kitchen that are in Imperial that I keep on purpose just to piss the missus off, I tend to weigh everything out (if I weight it at all) in Imperial, for a new recipe etc, and oh that is four ounces or one pound eight and she is desperately back-converting so it works both ways. I can do metric/SI, but things come in the units they come in. recipes are often in Imperial or if they have updated the book in metric that is not really metric, 454g of flour (that's a pound) and that kind of thing, it is just easier for me to do it in Imperial. British houses, unless you get a new one, were built to Imperial measure, wallpaper and carpets are made in factories using machines that were built to Imperial measure, we have never quite "gone metric" and for my generation we were so used to growing up with both that I just switch between the two quite eaily, but nobody calls themselves a 182cm-er, they call themselves a six-footer.

Shoe sizes make more sense in Imperial or rather well the shoe size increases by one size for every half an inch of your foot. Bras and breasts are measured in inches, men's collar size and so on is in inches. Yes, you can convert that to metric. The point is that you don't. I have absolutely no idea what my shoe size is in metric I'm a size 11 and that's that. 42 or something I think it is.

People who have only grown up with metric miss out on some things, for one thing they miss out on doing mental arithmetic in mixed-based units. It comes as a surprise to them that not everything is a multiple of ten. There are advantages of learning a system of units which is admittedly a complete jumble but it improves your mental arithmetic.

Marilyn abbreviated "pounds"(weight)  to "lbs" and that must confuse foreigners why it is abbreviated that way. (It is from the Latin.)

It reminded me that when I first moved to Hungary I could not work out what this measure was, on the market, "db". Why are they measuring bananas in deciBels? It took me ages to work out that "db" is the abbreviation for (Hungarian) "darab", meaning "each".

SimonTrew wrote:

Marilyn abbreviated "pounds"(weight)  to "lbs" and that must confuse foreigners why it is abbreviated that way. (It is from the Latin.)

It reminded me that when I first moved to Hungary I could not work out what this measure was, on the market, "db". Why are they measuring bananas in deciBels? It took me ages to work out that "db" is the abbreviation for (Hungarian) "darab", meaning "each".

Yesterday at Tesco we were helping a Chinese man find the weight of a cauliflower( see, not always an old grouch)
I just walked to the display case and noticed it said DB.
Picked one up myself as they were nice and fresh and only 299F.

I once for "fun" took all my Dobermans measurements. He was always outgrowing his collars so I had to know how thick his neck was.
22 inch neck and a 38 inch chest. One big boy for sure.

SimonTrew wrote:

....

The first couple of episodes of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue are very funny well worth a listen.  I shall have to complain to BBC though because they played Stavanger's  electrical-only variant for Mornington Crescent and I could swear that Caroline Quentin got away with a false move going to Tooting Broadway, but perhaps that is permissible now. Jack Dee is not quite as much a stickler for the rules as Humph was,

I think Jack Dee is pretty good.  He obviously has a different style to Humph. But Jack is a master of the dead pan double entendre.  I still chuckle about Samantha's new Italian boyfriend who owns an ice-cream shop - she's looking forward to licking the nuts off a Neopolitan.  Stunningly stupid.

I'm in no way religious but good to try and see some humour in sad occasions. Mornington Crescent has a special place in my mind.  At my brother's funeral, my speech included references to Radio 4 game shows.  Specifically maybe in his afterlife he'd reach enlightenment and therefore be able to explain the rules of Mornington Crescent.   

I apologise to the non-British readers who have no idea what this is about.  But then again, not even the players know what Mornington Crescent is about.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Yesterday at Tesco we were helping a Chinese man find the weight of a cauliflower( see, not always an old grouch)
I just walked to the display case and noticed it said DB.
Picked one up myself as they were nice and fresh and only 299F.

A cauliflower, Bierce defines it in his Devil's Dictioanry, as "a vegetable that is about as large and as wise as a man's head".

SimonTrew wrote:

Marilyn abbreviated "pounds"(weight)  to "lbs" and that must confuse foreigners why it is abbreviated that way. (It is from the Latin.)

It reminded me that when I first moved to Hungary I could not work out what this measure was, on the market, "db". Why are they measuring bananas in deciBels? It took me ages to work out that "db" is the abbreviation for (Hungarian) "darab", meaning "each".

There's also doboz for "can"  which I think I've seen as "db".   For decibels, it would be dB. 

BTW, there's a HU description for "loose" which is very confusing - as in "loose bananas".  I don't recall it exactly but I suspect it's German as I first encountered it in Aldi.

Oddly enough the first edition of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue was broadcast the day I was born. It is one of those rather British things in that there are a huge number of in-jokes and so on, unseen characters, and whatever. "The laser display-board most generously funded by our hosts". It could only possibly work on radio (or "wireless" as they always call itI, being the old-fashioned British word for a radio), the pictures work better on radio. Samantha and Sven seem to be hitting it off again so I'm not surprised they are too busy actually to keep the score.

SimonTrew wrote:

klsallee wrote:

Education is expensive. Who will pay for it?

I will. I was extremely lucky. I did my degree at the last year of the grants system in the UK and also got paid a living allowance as a "mature student" and the Government paid me to go and study. Yes, I had worked four years as an apprentice, but the government paid for my degree

I will. It is my turn to pay it back. I have absolutely no problem with paying taxes for education. That is how we pass it on to the next generation. The missus and I have chosen not to have children, but we have nieces and nephews and so on and they need education and it should come from the public purse that means all of us.

I will willingly pay more tax for a better education system. Vote for Kisallee! Higher Taxes for Better Schools! is probably not much of a votewinner.

But I will. Education is the most important thing you ever get, it allows me to be stupid here. A penny or 1000 forint on the income tax to make sure that Fluffiettes are OK and so on, yes, I would vote for that. I had the benefit, it is someone else's turn now.

I will. I will. Voluntarily I will or would. And I am not made of money. But I would rather have my taxes spent on education than almost anything else. I have benefited so much from the booklearning I have done, it was hard learning and long nights but to pay for a basic education, yep,. you have my vote.

My education was paid for by the UK government subsidised by means tested grants.  Later education was entirely grant funded and then self funded.  I'm thankful for that.

My UK kids all had to pay for their education and are now saddled with large amounts of debt.

HU Fluffyettes are too young to have to pay directly for education but there are lots of overhead costs which are not obvious.  Kids are extremely expensive and as I keep reminding Mrs Fluffy, it will be worth it in the end (we hope). 

I hope that HU education at university level  continues to be cheap and I'm actually discussing with Fluffyette1 now what the steps should be in a few years when she reaches that age - we have some time to go.  Fluffyette1 is extremely smart and ambitious (that's not all parental pride, results show it)  and we're not sure she'll get the best education in HU.  She wants to do a technical job which requires higher degrees which would need sponsorship.  I'm actually thinking of encouraging her to go to Germany or Austria where first degree costs are very low and the standard is very high. 

My own feeling is that education is national investment in the future and it should be as cheap as possible.  Forcing people to pay large amounts just discourages people, encourages universities to drop standards, causes long term financial damage to individuals and distorts later educational choices.   

We might be missing out on future Professor Hawkings and Einsteins by distorting the system.

SimonTrew wrote:

I will willingly pay more tax for a better education system.

And taxes go to governments, and governments is mostly people elected by money given by special interests (mostly businesses), which will lobby to not actually spend that money on "educating" businesses like them.

Won't work.

SimonTrew wrote:

i meant the maths is easy. Designing a good rocket takes a bit of flare....

Then you meant to say you dislike a phrase like "it isn't rocket math". Because "rocket science" includes the engineering aspects as well.

fluffy2560 wrote:

My own feeling is that education is national investment in the future ...
We might be missing out on future Professor Hawkings and Einsteins by distorting the system.

What happened to our idealism? I am a realist, but yes, indeed, we could be. There is that crap expression about "learning how to learn" and I learned mostly on the job, which is not a bad way to learn, but you have to have some theory behind it too if you want to be an engineer or whatever, you have to understand why it works not just how it works. And it should be publicly funded, all very well saying student loans etc but then they are saddled with debt as soon as they start working.

The fact the missus and I have no children, that is a personal choice. (Neither of us is infertile it is very much a choice.) That still does not somehow relieve me of responsibility to pay for others' education, I will happily pay. I get a "free ride" in that I do not have all the daily expenses of children. That if anything should make me more obliged to pay for others' education.

Taxes are there to redistribute wealth for the common good, or they f-ing well should be. If education is not a common good, what the f- is? I do not have a lot of wealth but I should pay my fair share.

SimonTrew wrote:

What happened to our idealism?

I can not speak for fluffy2560, but.... my Father was a teacher. My Sister was a teacher, my Wife was a teacher. It is a grossly underpaid, inefficiently supported, not respected career. Many teachers leave after only a few years in disgust. I think the average is 5 or 7 years (I have not checked the stats recently to be pin point accurate on the time). Quit frankly, most people are "educated" to see teaching and education as a second class job. The idea that "those that can do, while that that can not teach" has been too ingrained into people's thinking (it is also wrong on many levels -- especially the idea that simple because someone has a degree, they can teach that topic. --- Teaching is actually a skill one must learn as well, which takes.... education). Teachers, and education, is not a respected profession. Why? Simple: the uneducated people are easy to manipulate through propaganda. So governments, especially the nefarious ones, actually have little incentive to give their citizens a real well rounded education and spend the money to do so. Because with that, the people can think based on actual objective knowledge and are then less pliable to "education" through propaganda. And for those, in such societies, that start to actually think independently, they get sent where? To government "re-education" camps. Think about that twist on words.

I was a professional trainer and dealt with education issues for many years on many different continents. I was paid very well for my work. But even there, a lot was just about spending, mostly grant, money to put a check on some box that someone was "trained" to do something. And then most and promptly "forgot" what I trained them. Not because they were not interested in applying what they were trained, but because there was no follow through by higher ups in any real meaningful post training support. Again, undervaluing real education.

klsallee wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

What happened to our idealism?

I can not speak for fluffy2560, but.... my Father was a teacher. My Sister was a teacher, my Wife was a teacher. It is a grossly underpaid, inefficiently supported, not respected career..

It used to be respected that you were a teacher, that was kinda part of the compensation for being underpaid etc that you got respect. Now it is not. I have taught in the sense you are talking about, I teach people my skills at every opportunity, but I am not a qualified teacher of any kind. To turn it round, no doubt I could get a bit of paper from somwehere saying I could teach something. I could go to one of the language schools here and get a job teaching English (bit late in the season but plenty of offers for that). That does not make me a teacher because I have never been taught how to teach. I can do it but I forget that people learn in different ways, some need to be shown, some need to do, some only need to be told. And I forget that not everyone takes it in the first time.

My wife was a teacher of touch-typing and shorthand, skills no longer required for obvious reasons, so switched career. Teachers are part of the biggest trade union in the UK and the most vocal so they tend always to be on the news asking for higher wages: we would all like higher wages. But somebody has to fund it. And I think I it should be me. I took out, if you like, I benefited from free education, now I should put back.

Society as a whole, if it wants something, it has to pay for it. If it wants better roads, it has to pay for better roads. If it wants better education, it has to pay for better education. If it wants better cream cakes, it has to pay for better cream cakes.

It is a matter of choice. Now, I am not a road user except shank's pony so I don't give a damn about the state of the roads, let car drivers pay for them. But when it comes to education that is a common good, It's like Orwell said about streetlamps, you cannot light the streets for the rich and then turn them off for the poor. My parents would not have by any means been able to pay for my education or my brothers', yes we did apprenticeships and saturday jobs but totting all that up would go no way to what my education cost. Somehow we have to pay for it and loading it on students at the starts of their careers is not, in my opinion. the right way to pay for it. It has to be funded properly out of general taxation.

I am not saying I came from a particularly poor family just normal working class family. My mother's family was quite poor and my father's family was poorer. Even our butler's family was poor...

klsallee wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

i meant the maths is easy. Designing a good rocket takes a bit of flare....

Then you meant to say you dislike a phrase like "it isn't rocket math". Because "rocket science" includes the engineering aspects as well.

No I didn't. I don't dislike the phase "It's not rocket math(s)",because that is not a phrase or idiom in common parlance. You're now twisting my words but you are arguing from false premisses, in an attempt I think at a  reductio ad absurdem, but you have a non sequitur. You're trying to argue backwards from a conclusion not actually established.

klsallee wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

I will willingly pay more tax for a better education system.

And taxes go to governments, and governments is mostly people elected by money given by special interests (mostly businesses), which will lobby to not actually spend that money on "educating" businesses like them.

Won't work.

But then this is all about "hypothecated" taxes, that you set aside taxes for individual causes. Never have done, never will do. They are always adding tax to my packet of cigarettes where does it go? It does not go into some kind of Smokers' Remuneration Fund, it goes into general taxation. Same with tax on cars, does it get spent on roads, not on your nelly. Governments are always against hypothecated taxes because it makes them accountable, which of course they do not want.

Take my disgusting smoking habit for example, the last year I checked (and I did), in 2009,. smokers contributed far more in tax to the Exchequer than was paid for the entirety of the National Health Service oncology. Smokers are a net benefit to the economy (saving a lot in pensions by dieing younger, on average 7 years younger) and paying a fortune in tax. it is a complete con that governments tax smokers to kinda discourage them from smoking, they tax them because they know they won't give up. It is an absolutely filthy and disgusting habit and I accept that, but smokers are a net contributor to the economy. For if not, just ban it. Don't have government-controlled shops selling harmful drugs.

Don't sell harmful substances like benzin/petrol/gas then make a moral argument to tax it that you are discouraging people driving. You're not and you know it. I have to breath in petrol and diesel fumes every day from all these pillocks who drive around in cars. I don't get some kind of shank's pony rebate for it and I don't go around complaining about "passive exhausting", which is far more injurious to my lungs than anything I inhale by choice.

Now, if they said on the back of the packet every now and again, "Smoking this packet of coffin sticks will contribute to the Fluffiettes' education", I might buy the argument. I tend to go for the ones that say "Smoking when pregnant harms your baby", don't have a baby, not likely to get pregnant, those are the ones for me.

Oh and do I remember rightly that Kenneth Clarke the ex-Chancellor of the British Exchequer sits on the Board of British American Tobacco? Or is that old news? I quite like the old buffer but this sheer hypocrisy gets my goat sometimes

I just found 20 filler coin (old Hungarian currency) in my garden. Better hurry to Western Union to exchange it, might be worth nothing...

Not sure about what teachers get paid, my SIL makes over $80,000 a year as a grade school teacher but she has been working in Ca. for over 30 years and keeps going back for more degrees, she plans on having her own school , being the principle, or guess in the UK it would be head master?
Both of her parents were principles of their own schools.
My cousin has a PHD in education and seems he made a ton of money over the years.
One of my female cousins in Poland just moved back to Poland about 2 years ago, was teaching in the US for over 20 years. She no longer is teaching, she and her husband have their own construction co. now.
Several other cousins were and still are teachers both in the US and in Poland.
They all seem to of had a good life and don't exactly look under paid.
My SIL though here in Hungary was teaching chemistry at a Budapest university and also having to clean homes on her Saturdays off.
Me, well we were told flat out as kids that not all of us were going to college and we had better learn something else.
My parents just couldn't afford  it with 6 kids.
My cousins also come from large families but in my opinion they did better because their family unit was not broken up by divorce. Most of my male cousins also got help with schooling after their time in Vietnam in the US military. Seems there are many ex vets in the family.
My other SIL here in Hungary was super smart and wanted to go to college but since their father had a new family and wasn't paying for his old kids in any way ( my MIL refused help) she couldn't go to college because her mother just couldn't afford to support her for years.
She had to learn a trade, she became a tailor and was put in charge of a pattern cutting factory in the cold war years.
Still all her life she was mad about not going to college.

So my US SIL who is a teacher has it good really, she makes double what my bro does and gets 3 months holiday a year lus all vacations the kids gets throughout the year.
I think it all depends on how hard you push yourself in any career.
In the 1980's when I was an assistant  in a S. African beauty salon in Westwood, Ca. many of the senior stylists were making between $80 to $100,000  a year just doing hair.
This was in the 80's I'm sure they are all doing even better now if they are even still in need of working.
Hard to believe but seriously the parking area was full of exotic pricey cars and they all traveled the world doing hair shows or working off hours for magazines.

Even being a games dealer in Vegas, well used to be better tips there but years back it was normal for some casinos to pay over $400  a day in tips alone, plus hourly pay. Some casinos paid only about $12. to $20. a day , one reason people start at the bottom and move up in any field of work. Even I who barely knew the table games was making a good $300. a night at one point before that lamo 9/11 happened, it about killed Vegas for awhile.
My husband was paid very little by Hungarians in NYC when he first moved to the US, later making $100. a hour was not a big deal, sub contracting jobs.
One just has to see the angle for any sort of career and get to the top , education is good but I know more people who made great money without ever stepping foot in a college.
My brother who has no children really resented having to pay high taxes because of schools for kids. I sort of think people should pay for their own kids education because that's how it went in my family for the most part.
My sister worked her way through college by serving hamburgers and ice cream cones.

Of course what do I know, I never went to college, only beauty college...
I also know more women who went to college just to meet a husband then to learn anything of importance.
Used to be that way, go find yourself a meal ticket by going to jr, college at the min.
These days it seem people need a degree to even get their foot in the door, not at all convinced  that they are all smart, just got the papers.
In the 1970's they used to sell degrees under the table so any one with a good front could practice in the medical field.
My deceased sister had an I.Q. of over 145, she got all A's in school but never went onto college.
My good friend was put into higher classes , always getting straight A's without ever doing any real study.
She never went to college after graduation from HS.
I asked her why not, she said it was never even brought up with her parents, her older sister went to college and became a teacher but she just got a job cleaning houses after school.
She still cleans houses but has her own personal clients which she has had for decades and makes really decent money working for them.
She used her smarts to make the most of her situation.
I stopped working at age 50, 16 years before full retirement age, guess I'm the dummy here.
Then again I am living in a "hovel" ( No I'm not) in Hungary, not exactly the S. of France.

I know , I sound a bit mad but college isn't for everyone, what's wrong with learning a trade?
Guess trade work actually involves a bit of physical effort.
My German friend in Vegas never went to college, just dance school.
She is the owner of LV Craft Shows, they owner/ operator of Sir's rescue Rangers, a non profit shlter.training center for pets in Vegas.
Teaches yoga and fitness classes and owns a nice house in Vegas and a even nicer one in Kona , Hi.
All done on her own with just using her brains.
Also know allot of people in Vegas who are very well off with just having done dancing or circus work.
Not table dancing, I mean as a Rockette in NYC.
Also knew a group of ex-pats older ladies from the UK who had moved together in the 1960's to dance in the Follies shows in Vegas.
They own homes in both Vegas and the S. coast of the UK.
Don't even bother flying like us sardines do, they do not enjoy flying so it's rail across country then cruise to France then over to their vacation homes in the UK.
All from dancing with feathers on their heads.

SimonTrew wrote:

Society as a whole, if it wants something, it has to pay for it. If it wants better roads, it has to pay for better roads. If it wants better education, it has to pay for better education.

"Society" today is infected with propaganda. What "society" "wants" can be manipulated by the powers that be. Just look at Hungary. The teachers just a few years ago were gaining momentum with their complaints about the terrible working conditions and low pay, which the government was loosing ground on and public opinion was turning against the government.

Then the government found a scape goat source of distraction by pushing propaganda about the "immigrant threat".

The entire teacher protests and their public support crumbled in the collective psyche and was replaced with government manufactured fear of immigrants. Ergo, a lot of money went to build a fence along the boarder. Not to improve teachers salaries, working conditions or schools.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Not sure about what teachers get paid, my SIL makes over $80,000 a year as a grade school teacher but she has been working in Ca. for over 30 years

After 30 years she has clawed her way up to $80.000 a year. With multiple degrees. And experience. And actually contributes something real to the community, state, nation, society.

While an IT person who just makes it possible for people to put pig noses on other people in photos in some phone app, can make $80,000 their first year, as "a low paid" worker.