Absolutely Anything Else

SimCityAT wrote:

Spangler,,,

I think you are getting a bit mixed up, Spangler was the guy who invented Spangles in the 1970s, obviously. That is why we have the verb "to spangle", to eat a boiled sweet and visit a dentist. I didn't realise on a Sunday I had to teach a course in linguistics.

fluffy2560 wrote:

How does he continue to look youthful?

By selling songs from EMI on infomercials.

He did write some nice songs. One talent I do not have is I cannot play any kind of musical instrument. I have just no idea how to do it, I spent ten years studying the piano and said, yep that is definitely a piano. I played bugle in the Boy's Brigade, but a piano is really hard.

A piano just really has a bad user interface. I can never remember which is the soft pedal and which is the clutch, and all the keys, unlike your standard typewriter keyboard, come in two colours and they all look the same.

Now, I have a suggestion to improve the user interface of the piano, what you could do is give some kind of audio feedback, that might help.

Excuse me while I sing "my old man said follow the van" on the comb and paper.

Exciting news....even the bears don't like OV.  Clearly Soros inspired.

No one in our family learned the piano but for some reason my mother bought one and placed it in her living room...
Once in a blue moon my 2nd step-dad would bang away on it, playing some half drunk/ half crazed bar room songs.
I did learn to play the opening bit on ,"she's a Rainbow" that was about it.
When we looked at the house we bought in Ca. the owners had a mini-grand piano in the living room.
For some reason I thought that was classy, then they showed us around the house.
We opened up one of the many built in cabinets in the kitchen and we discovered they lived on Kraft Mac and Cheese, there were at least 20 boxes inside!
I was confused to say the least.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

No one in our family learned the piano but for some reason my mother bought one and placed it in her living room...
Once in a blue moon my 2nd step-dad would bang away on it, playing some half drunk/ half crazed bar room songs.
I did learn to play the opening bit on ,"she's a Rainbow" that was about it.
When we looked at the house we bought in Ca. the owners had a mini-grand piano in the living room.
For some reason I thought that was classy, then they showed us around the house.
We opened up one of the many built in cabinets in the kitchen and we discovered they lived on Kraft Mac and Cheese, there were at least 20 boxes inside!
I was confused to say the least.

My MIL has a mini-grand piano in her living room.  It's basically become a table to put the TV and any other junk on it.   I have no idea why they had it as no-one can play it.   

There's talk of removing it and giving it away. But there's just no way it is worth anything and you'd have to pay someone to take it away.  It's not even well made and it's not been touched for 40 years. People find it hard to accept that  their pianos are not worth anything. I've suggested smashing it up to get it out the window and then burning it.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Exciting news....even the bears don't like OV.  Clearly Soros inspired.

THat is very exciting news. And do, by any chance, mammals ursine defecate in an arborial environment?

Before reading the storys from a Hungarian tabloid I would never have guessed that IHungarian bears aer migrating fromH ungary  to Romania to  escaope OV. THat is fair eough for the bears, but then who is going to make  my Medve soft chees?. The lack of bears in Hungary could become a serious drain on the economy, this is what haoopens with open borders.

fluffy2560 wrote:

People find it hard to accept that  their pianos are not worth anything. I've suggested smashing it up to get it out the window and then burning it.

You are mistaken. II watch many daytime TV programmes where they turn som,e useless piece of junk into money. They are always bashing away at some perfectly good piece of furniture in the hope it may add some value. And at the piano, we have Colin Sell....

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

No one in our family learned the piano but for some reason my mother bought one and placed it in her living room...

Well the top of an upright piano should be full of beer glasses and ashtrays that is why it is there.

What you really need is a pianola with the piano rolls so it plays itself. Saves you a lot of effort. Gershwin used to write or rather punch or play onto piano rolls so that is quite nice rather than scorá it old Georooge would just bash it into a piano roll. Not sure what Ira wouold be doingk counting the kitty probably.

One of the mosdt wonderful thiongs you can do in London is to go to the Proms, the Promenade Concerts, at the Albert Hall. It is very cheap if you don't mind standing. The missus and I went a few Years ago with a concert of Gershwin's works in the three and nines and it was simply wonderful. Rhaopsody in Blue with a fuill orchestra, the London Sympohony Orchestra, echoing round the Albert Halll. For two pounds sterling, 700ft.

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

People find it hard to accept that  their pianos are not worth anything. I've suggested smashing it up to get it out the window and then burning it.

You are mistaken. II watch many daytime TV programmes where they turn som,e useless piece of junk into money. They are always bashing away at some perfectly good piece of furniture in the hope it may add some value. And at the piano, we have Colin Sell*....

It's really decrepit, the veneer has started separating.  It's just pure junk.  Maybe Neil Sedaka can come and collect it.  No-one would be stupid enough to buy it.

*Sorry to non-British readers - this relates to a long running radio show that's about nothing, everything but always nonsensical and this guy Sell has been on it forever.   Strangely enough I just heard Mr Sell on the radio catchup on the  you know what show.  But he can source his own pianos.  More importantly,  Samantha's been working with people compiling dictionaries and has managed to achieve 16 new entries an hour.

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

Exciting news....even the bears don't like OV.  Clearly Soros inspired.

THat is very exciting news. And do, by any chance, mammals ursine defecate in an arborial environment?

Before reading the storys from a Hungarian tabloid I would never have guessed that IHungarian bears aer migrating fromH ungary  to Romania to  escaope OV. THat is fair enough for the bears, but then who is going to make  my Medve soft chees?. The lack of bears in Hungary could become a serious drain on the economy, this is what haoopens with open borders.

I suppose they could be special Soros protesting bears. Apparently there are 6-7,000 of them in Erdely which seems an awful lot.  I'd have thought 600'ish at the absolute maximum. It's not that big a place. 

Anyway, I'm looking forward to some humorous comments emerging on bears, OV and the EU - like the EU paying for an anti-bear fence with Romania.

SimCityAT wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

SimCityAT wrote:

Hoover... (at Wikipideia)]

Oh dear, another fall guy who believes everything he reads on Wikipedia. Obviously Hoover was retronamed after the US president, John F. Kennedy, because the peanut guy, Carter, was busy making carts and missed the opportunity.

Do some more research Simon, the net is full of it. Not just Wikipedia. That was purely an example.

I have been spending the afternoon researching my hoover, well actually it is a dyson, and it is absolutely filthy. So I have cleaned out all the parts of the hoover, er, dyson, and now the hoover is nice and clean and the missus is on strict warning now not to use it and make it dirty again.

The law of the conservation of filth: you cannot make something clean without making something else dirty.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Samantha's been working with people compiling dictionaries and has managed to achieve 16 new entries an hour.

Yes, according to Sven she has been flat out in bed after a long session, but I hope she will be back soon to keep the teams' points up.

fluffy2560 wrote:

[Maybe Neil Sedaka can come and collect it.

Hmmm the postman has just delivered me 135 songs and I am trying to arrange them into order. They are all numbered but do not seem to fit into the shelves. I think it is a sedaka puzzle.,

fluffy2560 wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

People find it hard to accept that  their pianos are not worth anything. I've suggested smashing it up to get it out the window and then burning it.

You are mistaken. II watch many daytime TV programmes where they turn som,e useless piece of junk into money. They are always bashing away at some perfectly good piece of furniture in the hope it may add some value. And at the piano, we have Colin Sell*....

It's really decrepit, the veneer has started separating.  It's just pure junk.  Maybe Neil Sedaka can come and collect it.  No-one would be stupid enough to buy it.

*Sorry to non-British readers - this relates to a long running radio show that's about nothing, everything but always nonsensical and this guy Sell has been on it forever.   Strangely enough I just heard Mr Sell on the radio catchup on the  you know what show.  But he can source his own pianos.  More importantly,  Samantha's been working with people compiling dictionaries and has managed to achieve 16 new entries an hour.

Yes, Colin Sell actually lectures in music at the University of East Anglia so it is rather a sideline and he is always the butt of the jokes for his apparent inability to play. He will occasionally answer back but he doesn't get very far because "they don't give me a microphone".- Neil Innes was on the show once, when Colin was not available, and the introduction was "after writing Urban Spaceman and the scores for Monty Python, it is this kind of talent that has brought him in to where he is today. Standing in for Colin Sell". In  a round of "pick-uiop song" he had to accompany himself to "Urban Spacemen"  and was not within a gnat's crotchet on the music's return.-

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

Samantha's been working with people compiling dictionaries and has managed to achieve 16 new entries an hour.

Yes, according to Sven she has been flat out in bed after a long session, but I hope she will be back soon to keep the teams' points up.

I think they've moved on from Sven. 

Samantha's got a new Italian BF who is rather partial to ice cream. And after the show, it looks like Samantha will be looking forward to licking the nuts off a Neopolitan*.

* again, sorry to non-British readers.  It's a long running series of jokes.

fluffy2560 wrote:

* again, sorry to non-British readers.  It's a long running series of jokes.

Well I can think of another long-running series of British jokes, but you get the politicians you deserve.

My wife every year for my birthday gets me a subscription to Private Eye, which also has an enormous amount of in-jokes and takes a bit of getting used to. "Brenda" is the Queen and so on, your regular columnist "Polly Filler" (Polyfilla in British English is what americans call spackle) or if she is off on holiday Phil Space. Everthing is always "continued p. 94" (it does not have that many pages). The letters column tnds to have a "lookalike" which very occasionally might actüually look alike but usually is not, with the tagline "are they by any chance related? I think we should be told" for people who are patently related or are patently unalike. Sometimes they actually have the same picture of a politician on both sides of the lookalike, to point out hypocrisy. "Has anyone else noticed the similarity between Boris Johnson, the keen remain-in-europe campaigner, and Boris Johnson, the Brexiteer and Foreign Secretary? Are they by any chance related?"

So it is rather a mixture of sarcasm and important investigative journalism. When it started the architectural column was written by a certain J. Betjeman, who god bless him I hope he is proud that St Pancras station in London was saved and restored when they wanted to knock it down, he was a founder member of the Victorian Society to preserve victorian architecture in England. He has a nice bronze statue in St Pancras now waving his hat at the beautifui glass roof. They made a total mess of Euston when they "modernised" it in the sixties.

But who gives a damn everything has to be modern and functional. At least in Hungary because nobody can be bothered to demolish it we still have some nice architecture. When I walk around at 3am around even in my own suburb, the little faience or the rococo that is when we used to know how to build things to last. Nobody cares now. I live in a house that is about a hundred years old, and I did in the UK, and that is not at all unusual. Well over half the housing stock in the UK is over a hundred years old. But now it has to be all steel and glass with no adornments. Postmodernism has a lot to answer for.

But there is a beatuful infant's school not too fa from me in the brutalist and modernist style and it is just perfect, it is absolutely wonderful. I am not against modern architecture and whoever designed that shouold have a medal, it does its job and it has light and spave, I have never been inside it I don't have children but it seems so perfectly suited to its function as I go past on the bus.b If I were a child I would have fun in that school, it is perfectly designed. I am not against modernist architecture. But you don't have to tear nice old buildings down to put up some crappy steel and glass box.

fluffy2560 wrote:

* again, sorry to non-British readers.  It's a long running series of jokes.

I suppose that is something I should do, I have never actually been to Mornington Crescent. I have passed throuigh it many a time but never actually got to Mornington Crescent. These days I believe the terminology is "bucket list", I used to travel on the Northern Line all the time but on the Edgware branch but I have never actually got to Mornington Crescent.

But I suppose that is karma, it is rather hard to get to Mornington Crescent, especiaally now Jack seems to be enforicing the nid rules and Stovold's parallel variation much more than Humph ever did. But then Jack is more of a sdticker, and sometimes I think back and wonder if Humph actually understood the rules.

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

* again, sorry to non-British readers.  It's a long running series of jokes.

I suppose that is something I should do, I have never actually been to Mornington Crescent. I have passed throuigh it many a time but never actually got to Mornington Crescent. These days I believe the terminology is "bucket list", I used to travel on the Northern Line all the time but on the Edgware branch but I have never actually got to Mornington Crescent.

But I suppose that is karma, it is rather hard to get to Mornington Crescent, especiaally now Jack seems to be enforicing the nid rules and Stovold's parallel variation much more than Humph ever did. But then Jack is more of a sdticker, and sometimes I think back and wonder if Humph actually understood the rules.

I have been to Mornington Crescent* and it was (back then, 1980s) very nice.  Quite a long street.  It was a row of Georgian type buildings of a type typical with leafy green bits.  I was driving a van at the time so I saw it from a moving vehicle. However, being an annoying self-centred oik back then, I didn't realise the quasi-religious nature of my accidental pilgrimage.  I should have got out and taken notes.   

*apologies to non-British readers.  It refers to a place and nonsensical game where no-one actually knows the rules and they make it up as they go along.  Excellent training for politicians.

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

[Maybe Neil Sedaka can come and collect it.

Hmmm the postman has just delivered me 135 songs and I am trying to arrange them into order. They are all numbered but do not seem to fit into the shelves. I think it is a sedaka puzzle.,

oh, btw, speaking of possibly creepy candidate Neil Sedaka, he wrote the catchy "Do you know the way to Amarillo?" which was revived by comedian Peter Kay (miming) and then revived again by Tony Christie (singing it, again). 

However, in the middle of the video (see it on YouTube), creep-meister Jimmy Savile pops up. 

Extreme creepiness.

fluffy2560 wrote:

I was driving a van at the time so I saw it from a moving vehicle..

One day a long time ago I rented a seven and a half ton van for reasons too bornig to explain and the companz got wind of this (possiblz the presence of a seven and a half ton van in the car park might have been a giveawaz) we need some furniture moved for the indian subcontractors thez are moving house. OK if zou pay for the diesel. OK. Oh now Matthew is moving to Islington and can you move him, he will pay the rent on the van. YEah all right. Down from Cambridge to London, a sde street a crescent in Islington  straight off the A1, got the van in, can!t get it out. I mean physicallz it is possible but I have to reverse it into a stream of traffic. Matthew, the non driver, tries to guide me back. Matthew, iyou have to stand so that I can see zou in my mirrors.... sheesh... then I got back and did what I rented the van for.

fluffy2560 wrote:

oh, btw, speaking of possibly creepy candidate Neil Sedaka, he wrote the catchy "Do you know the way to Amarillo?" which was revived by comedian Peter Kay (miming) and then revived again by Tony Christie (singing it, again). 

However, in the middle of the video (see it on YouTube), creep-meister Jimmy Savile pops up. 

Extreme creepiness.

Neil Sudoku has written some quite good songs, but tended to hand them to other people to perform. Sheesh, zou had Carole King as a girlfriend and you somehow managed to cock that one up, how is that possible? I mean, any man in his senses would want this beautiful talented woman to be his other half, how did zou manage to cock that one up? I dont see Carole King doing iinfomercials.

fluffy2560 wrote:

[
However, in the middle of the video (see it on YouTube), creep-meister Jimmy Savile pops up. 

Extreme creepiness.

Let me get this sraight right away, anz kind of kiddy fiddling is just well I cannot use the words that deserve it but it is the worst crime possible. Give me the rope and I wll do the job myself, and I think I am a fairly liberal man. Kiddy fiddling is just disgusting, abhorrent, awful, I don¬t know what kind of pleasure anzone would get out of that, it is depraved. Sex with consent, do what you like, don!t go kiddy fiddling. Disgusting.

One of the side effects is the "J!accuse", unfortunatelz, that then everybodz has appaently been kiddy fiddling. I seem to reemember Cyril Smith was accused of it, but managed to die before it got to court. All knds of people are getting fingers ponited at them. I heard that the BBC have paid 850,000 GBP to Cliff Richard out of court, this was after the West Yorks police gave the BBC a tip-off that we might be going round to his place while he is in Portugal and see if he has any kiddy fiddling stuff, don!t saz I told you, says Officer Dibble, but you might possibly want to get a helicopter up while we break in. Now Cliff Richard has the money and resources to fight the case and quite rightfully won. You and I don!t. Well done Sir Cliff for sticking up to it, but those who don!t get PRS cheques each month, we would not be able to fight the case. I forget who it was who said, "The Law is open to all, like the Ritz Hotel".

My late father, when mzy niece was about six so about twenty years ago, said to me "I don!t dare cuddle her or give her a kiss any more". This is her grandfather, who loved her so dearly and would not hurt her, and he was scared to give hiis granddaughter a kiss goodnight or a cuddle. That is very sad. My father, her grandffather, cannot or rather does not feel safe to give his granddaughter a kiss and a cuddle. That is sad when the world comes to that.

SimonTrew wrote:

SimCityAT wrote:

Spangler,,,

I think you are getting a bit mixed up, Spangler was the guy who invented Spangles in the 1970s, obviously. That is why we have the verb "to spangle", to eat a boiled sweet and visit a dentist. I didn't realise on a Sunday I had to teach a course in linguistics.

I am not mixed up at all....

Vacuum cleaners are commonly called “Hoovers” in the United States by William Henry Hoover who bought rights to manufacture and sell invention of James Murray Spangler - the first portable vacuum cleaner powered by a motor.

James Murray Spangler (1848 - 1915) is known as an inventor of a first portable vacuum cleaner. His invention was an improvement of relatively recent vacuum cleaner which was so big that it had to be drawn by horses, could not enter buildings and needed more people to operate it.

James M. Spangler was born on November 20, 1848, in the family of William and Elizabeth Lind Spangler, among nine other children. They all first live in Plain Township, Pennsylvania and the moved to Stark County, Ohio. He married Elista Amanda Holtz on May 21, 1874, and with her he had three children Clarence, Francis, and Jennie.

After they moved to Akron in 1880, he started working as a salesman, first with his brother and then for the Aultman Company. At that time, he started inventing things. His first patent was a patent on a grain harvester in 1887 where he removed a standard tailboard and replaced it with a sliding tailboard which was adjusted according to the grain of different length. His next patent was a combination of a hay rake and tedder which was patented in 1893. Because it was a combination of two tools, it had a lower cost. He tried to sell it and made a company which would do that but it was unsuccessful and of a short life. In 1897 he patented a velocipede wagon which he managed to sell to a company in Springfield, Ohio but bicycle became popular at the same time and wagon didn’t sell well.

James started working as a sweeper at the Zollinger Department Store in the Folwell Building. The problem was that he was asthmatic. Dust that sweepers he used made irritated his lungs, and he decided to find a solution to that problem. He decided to make an electric carpet sweeper. In 1907, he made a first variant for which he used a mechanical carpet sweeper as a base. He mounted an electric motor from a sewing machine on it and placed fan blades in a hole at the back of the box of a sweeper. Motor rotated brushes off the sweeper which removed dust from the floor, and fan blades sucked the air from the box into a dirtbag (which he made from a pillowcase). For an improved version of this cleaner (which he called "suction sweeper") he used a wooden soap box as a body. And his invention worked! He used it to clean Folwell Building, his asthma receded and at last, he had an invention that he could sell. He continued to improve it and finally patented it on June 2, 1908.

http://www.vacuumcleanerhistory.com/vac … -spangler/

SimCityAT wrote:

Vacuum cleaners are commonly called “Hoovers” in the United States

Says who? I thought "hoover" was very much British English. Dictionary.com marks it as "chiefly British" for example and my 1982 Collins Concise does the same, my other dictionaries are yet to be unpacked but I thought the more common word in US English was just "vacuum".  Wiktionary also marks it as "chiefly Britain".

SimonTrew wrote:

SimCityAT wrote:

Vacuum cleaners are commonly called “Hoovers” in the United States

Says who? I thought "hoover" was very much British English. Dictionary.com marks it as "chiefly British" for example and my 1982 Collins Concise does the same, my other dictionaries are yet to be unpacked but I thought the more common word in US English was just "vacuum".  Wiktionary also marks it as "chiefly Britain".

I cannot see Dyson becoming a verb in the same way Hoover has. My Mum used to use an cylinder type Electrolux vacuum cleaner but still called it a Hoover.  Later on she was advised to get an upright version and that was actually a branded Hoover.  I don't think my Dad knew how to use it.

More importantly, the inventor of the Hovercraft, Sir Christopher Cockerell used a vacuum cleaner and some tin cans to show how it would work.  We should be thankful he didn't want to call it a Hoovercraft. 

Of course they are different mechanisms in action - one being a suck job and the other a errrr....well you get the picture.

fluffy2560 wrote:

More importantly, the inventor of the Hovercraft, Sir Christopher Cockerell used a vacuum cleaner and some tin cans to show how it would work.  We should be thankful he didn't want to call it a Hoovercraft..

I had a book once that I got at a second hand shop called "whatever happened to the hovercraft?" written by the chief executive of Hoverlloyd as was, his reminiscences essentially. I have been on one of the big SRN-4s from Ramsgate to Calais for a day trip when I was very young (our extended family all used to take our annual holidays at Broadstairs). it was a bit choppy and that is the main problem with hoovercraft that they do tend to bounce you around a bit. Quite good fun when you are seven years old,. though.

The main problem actually is to keep the blanket of air underneath the thing, when they came up with the side cushions the air actually did manage to stay in a bit. Also they had managed by coincidence to make the hovercraft the same length as a typical wave in the English Channel so the SRN-4s before being extended hit every single bow wave, kinda a resonance. After extending them the effect was much less. But the hovercraft was even more fun than the rollercoaster at Dreamland in Margate.

All we did was mooch around Calais which is a dump anyway, had a bit of lunch and came back again. But I have been on a cross-channel hovercraft and you haven't, so yar boo sucks with no returns. It is one of those things,. I have done it and nobody now can....It was the oil crisis (I forget which one) that really killed them, the fuel cost is a far larger proportion of your total running costs than it is for a great big ferry

fluffy2560 wrote:

. My Mum used to use an cylinder type Electrolux vacuum cleaner but still called it a Hoover....

Indeed it is a genericized trademark in the UK, like yo-yo or (in the US) Kleenex to mean any kind of paper handkerchief, or aspirin or heroin (which was a brand name of the Bayer chemical company) and loads of other words that used to be trade names but have come into common parlance.

When I was a nipper my mum had one of those rather odd hoovers that actually did hover, the Hoover Constellation vacuum cleaner. advert here on YouTube. This would be in the early to late seventies. but I guess she had had it for years and years before I was even a glint in me dad's eye

You can"t seem to buy an upright vacuum cleaner in Hungary.

I got a few cans of Dreher's Pale Ale for the weekend. I think the IPA that both Dreher and Soproni do now is pretty good. not sure which I prefer there is not much between them, they are not quite what an English IPA would be but getting pretty close, nicely hopped and bitter but a bit too much CO2.

Anyway I went to open a can and, as sometimes happens, the ring pull came off without opening the can. Of course then you have a struggle to actually get the can open, but man against beer can, only one of us is going to win. It made me remember that in my childhood the ring-pull tabs actually came off and you would put the ring and the tab together and ping it like a little helicopter across the school playground. They were lethal. nice sharp edges etc,

No wonder kiddies these days just sit on their playstations or whatever because they are never allowed to do anything remotely dangerous, At least when I was a lad, you were kinda expected to get bumps and scrapes from playing and your mum or teacher would just put on a bit of "magic cream" and off you went, fallen out of horse chestnut trees because the best conkers are always at the top, the ones on he ground are rubbish of course, we were kinda allowed - even encouraged, to a certain extent - to get dirty and mucky and come home with cuts and bruises. We had extremely lethal playground and of course in my imagination the climbing frame reached to the moon (it was a spaceship, this was that kinda era of playground architecture( but if you fell off it was three metres down onto asphalt, not these rubbery mat things. It is a pity really that childtren are not allowed to have fun and explore the world nowadays because everything is too dangerous. I am glad I didn't have that when I was growing up.

Some years ago one of my then partner's work colleagues got a paper cut. on her eye. How is that possible, how can you possibly womanhandle a sheet of A4 in such a way as to cut your own cornea with it? She was all right the cornea etc did heal left a scar etc but she didnt do too much damage, but how is it even possible?

SimonTrew wrote:

No wonder kiddies these days just sit on their playstations or whatever because they are never allowed to do anything remotely dangerous, At least when I was a lad, you were kinda expected to get bumps and scrapes from playing and your mum or teacher would just put on a bit of "magic cream" and off you went, fallen out of horse chestnut trees because the best conkers are always at the top, the ones on he ground are rubbish of course, we were kinda allowed - even encouraged, to a certain extent - to get dirty and mucky and come home with cuts and bruises. We had extremely lethal playground and of course in my imagination the climbing frame reached to the moon (it was a spaceship, this was that kinda era of playground architecture( but if you fell off it was three metres down onto asphalt, not these rubbery mat things. It is a pity really that childtren are not allowed to have fun and explore the world nowadays because everything is too dangerous. I am glad I didn't have that when I was growing up.

Schools are scared that they might be sued, there have been reports of Horse Chesnut trees have been cut down in school playgrounds as well in case the nuts hurt someone when they fall to the ground. Kids can't even play tig in case they fall over on a hard surface. Conkers another school activity played in the breaktime no longer allowed.

SimonTrew wrote:

....

....But I have been on a cross-channel hovercraft and you haven't, so yar boo sucks with no returns. It is one of those things,. I have done it and nobody now can....It was the oil crisis (I forget which one) that really killed them, the fuel cost is a far larger proportion of your total running costs than it is for a great big ferry

How do you know I haven't been on it?

As it happens you are right.  Mrs Fluffy wanted to go on it, we booked up, got to Calais (from here) and the thing was cancelled due to bad weather.  And in true bad luck, it was the last day of services. We were disappointed.

But you can still travel on a hovercraft.  They are still running to the Isle of Wight as Hovertravel and there's always the Hovercraft Museum in Portsmouth.  I've been meaning to go there for years but never managed to have the opportunity to do it.   They have one of the SRN4 hovercraft named Princess Anne which they intend to restore. 

When the old thing gets overhauled, probably with new skirts, you too along with many others in the past can ride Princess Anne once more.  I'll stop there.

SimonTrew wrote:

You can"t seem to buy an upright vacuum cleaner in Hungary.

Media Market sells them.

SimCityAT wrote:

......
Schools are scared that they might be sued, there have been reports of Horse Chesnut trees have been cut down in school playgrounds as well in case the nuts hurt someone when they fall to the ground. Kids can't even play tig in case they fall over on a hard surface. Conkers another school activity played in the breaktime no longer allowed.

Mein Gott....that's bonkers about conkers. I bet they haven't banned boules/pétanque in French towns. 

I've played conkers with my kids in the past as I want them to know about that cultural item.   

How did we ever survive playing conkers?!

SimCityAT wrote:

Conkers another school activity played in the breaktime no longer allowed.

I think that is a myth, I remember the story but the headmaster of that school was doing it on purpose, as the good Albert Haddock said, the quickest way of ending a stupid law is not to ignore it but to enforce it.

My ex-landlady!s son is now eight years old and he is kinda never allowed out on his own, in a quiet not particularly dangerous suburb in Budapest, there are probably four or five kiddie parks within 400m of their house and he is not allowed out on his own. He is eight years old and still sleeps with his mother, he has a bicycle but is not allowed to ride it, yes their house is on a busy street but the side streets etc are all traffc calmed and not busy at all, anyway he has to learn some traffic sense one day. Perhaps it is because he is an only child but he is really kinda mollycoddled and protected and one day he will have to learn that the world isn't like that.

When I rented there (there are two separate houses on the same plot so they live in one and rent the other out), I was in the back garden doing some bit of carpentry on my black and decker workmate and the landlady asked can you make a cabinet for the kiddie just to go in his bedroom, sure, so I made a start and the kiddie came out to watch me and I said do you want to  help (in Hungarian of course)? And he was quite happy for me to teach him how to use a ripsaw and then a tenon saw to make a simple  mortice and tenon  joint and use a handbrace to drill holes for the screws, and then get the screws and so on and put the tools away when you are finished, just learn some basic carpentry.

My grandfather taught me that way at that age, but his parents wouldn't really let him go near tools even though he was keen to learn and it was fun for him (and me too) - and these are hand tools not power tools, I tend to prefer hand tools far more convenient and precise - let the tool do the work. But somehow that would be too dangerous for him. Poor little mite, how is he ever going to learn any practical skills? I told him that you always have to sign on the back the day it was made. and your name, with your carpenter's pencil. It was fun, but they are so overprotective of him I think.

SimCityAT wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

You can"t seem to buy an upright vacuum cleaner in Hungary.

Media Market sells them.

Yes, they do. 

Click here: morzsaporszívó

fluffy2560 wrote:

SimCityAT wrote:

......
Schools are scared that they might be sued, there have been reports of Horse Chesnut trees have been cut down in school playgrounds as well in case the nuts hurt someone when they fall to the ground. Kids can't even play tig in case they fall over on a hard surface. Conkers another school activity played in the breaktime no longer allowed.

Mein Gott....that's bonkers about conkers. I bet they haven't banned boules/pétanque in French towns. 

I've played conkers with my kids in the past as I want them to know about that cultural item.   

How did we ever survive playing conkers?!

I would go crazy being a kid in the UK today, and they say kids are obese, well if the only energy they can burn off is in PE lessons, no wonder.

SimonTrew wrote:

SimCityAT wrote:

Conkers another school activity played in the breaktime no longer allowed.

I think that is a myth, I remember the story but the headmaster of that school was doing it on purpose, as the good Albert Haddock said, the quickest way of ending a stupid law is not to ignore it but to enforce it.

My ex-landlady!s son is now eight years old and he is kinda never allowed out on his own, in a quiet not particularly dangerous suburb in Budapest, there are probably four or five kiddie parks within 400m of their house and he is not allowed out on his own. He is eight years old and still sleeps with his mother, he has a bicycle but is not allowed to ride it, yes their house is on a busy street but the side streets etc are all traffc calmed and not busy at all, anyway he has to learn some traffic sense one day. Perhaps it is because he is an only child but he is really kinda mollycoddled and protected and one day he will have to learn that the world isn't like that.

When I rented there (there are two separate houses on the same plot so they live in one and rent the other out), I was in the back garden doing some bit of carpentry on my black and decker workmate and the landlady asked can you make a cabinet for the kiddie just to go in his bedroom, sure, so I made a start and the kiddie came out to watch me and I said do you want to  help (in Hungarian of course)? And he was quite happy for me to teach him how to use a saw and a handbrace and whatever it was we were making, to use my ripsaw  and make a mortice and tenon  and use a handbrace to drill holes for the screws, and then get the screws and so on and put the tools away when you are finished, just learn some basic carpentry.

My grandfather taught me that way at that age, but his parents wouldn't really let him go near tools even though he was keen to learn and it was fun for him (and me too) - and these are hand tools not power tools - somehow that would be too dangerous for him. Poor little mite, how is he ever going to learn any practical skills? I told him that you always have to sign on the back the day it was made. and your name, with your carpenter's pencil. It was fun, but they are so overprotective of him I think.

No, its true, half my family are teachers back in the UK. Stupid rules and regulations just as you have to be a qualified electrician to change plugs or light bulbs.

fluffy2560 wrote:

I cannot see Dyson becoming a verb in the same way Hoover has.

Oh, in English every noun can be verbed.

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

I cannot see Dyson becoming a verb in the same way Hoover has.

Oh, in English every noun can be verbed.

Sure but Dyson is too obscure and there is more worthwhile verbage to spend on. 

We should revisit it in 50 years after I've stopped Fluffying here.

SimCityAT wrote:

....Stupid rules and regulations just as you have to be a qualified electrician to change plugs or light bulbs.

I think a lot of that is ignored.  Plenty of people can mod their electricity safely.  If anyone says anything, then it's easy to say, "oh, it was there when we moved in".   Done!

Changing a plug is a life skill like driving, riding a bike, doing CPR, repairing a bike puncture, changing a wheel, boiling an egg, explaining space time or quantum computing