Jump to content
 

rockershovel

Members
  • Posts

    5,099
  • Joined

  • Last visited

1 Follower

Recent Profile Visitors

2,867 profile views

rockershovel's Achievements

14.3k

Reputation

  1. You cannot bribe or twist / thank God, the British journalist / but seeing what the man will do / unbribed, there's no occasion to
  2. I would. A late flourish is very much the Welsh style, and Italy still haven't quite grasped that rugby matches last 80 minutes, not 60
  3. A propos the NHS, I'm generally in agreement that the actual care is quite good; the problem is negotiating the bureaucracy to gain admission. We've had a rather difficult period involving my wife's back. We did, in fact get good treatment once we managed to circumvent the admission procedure, but I don't doubt that but for a large slice of persistence and and experience of how bureaucracies work we'd probably still be waiting. The most frustrating part was that there appeared to be no method at all by which patients classified as Urgent or Emergency were monitored. Progress from the general pool of patients awaiting surgery, to an actual surgery date appeared to be wholly fortuitous; we were informed with every sign of satisfaction by the Consultants Clerk that such patients commonly spent three to six months awaiting surgery. There IS a way around this. Some might think it unethical, but I'm not responsible for other people. It DOES work, although I can only speak from local experience.
  4. When I bought my current car (a 20-plate Audi) I spent an afternoon with my son, identifying all the technological wizardry and turning it off. An afternoon well spent. The "tyre pressure indicator" is a thorough nuisance, not least because it is invariably a false alarm and can't be turned off. As to panicked motorists drowning in cars, this must be an extremely rare event. Doors DO have internal handles, so I'd assume that the actual problem was that the windows wouldn't open so the door was held shut by the external pressure. Long ago, I was told to carry one of those little pointed hammers for breaking fire alarms, for such an eventuality. It lives in the drivers door pocket. I've never wanted it, but it is there should I want it....
  5. Can't say I ever enjoyed it, although the GWO Working at Heights is probably the most thoroughly unpleasant course I've had to do.
  6. Ignore her. She is just being difficult, as women often do. The whole point of modern technology in cars is how unobtrusive it is. It's like the old canard about magneto or points ignition on old motorcycles - that you can "fix it beside the road". In my wife's case, it is saloon cars. It's actually quite difficult to find a modern saloon car, more so a decent second-hand one.
  7. Scattering of ashes next weekend. The American son-in-law has taken it upon himself to organise this - he is rather intrigued, apparently this isn't the American way. He has made a 3-weeks-or-so trip to UK, I find. We had a convivial meeting with the minister who conducted the original service, who apparently took up the vocation after retiring in his 50s. Interesting man, currently "considering his position" as they say in the light of his experiences with the Episcopality.
  8. I encountered similar fixtures on a sleeper train from Cairo to Luxor in the 1980s. The metre-gauge trains I used in Tunisia in 2007-08 were a bit more "contemporary" in their appointments
  9. To quote a period doggerel, "in the fields / we lose strength through joy" which I think is appropriate...
  10. I don't recall when I last read it, either, but it isn't recent. I'll just observe that various WW2 era urban legends persisted well into the 1970s. The "petrol in the latrine" one appears to date back at least to Chaucer. The Romans, probably the first drainage engineers in history, had a practice of floating burning faggots along sewers to clear accumulations of methane.
  11. That has a strong flavour of urban myth about it. Carbide will produce a strong "pop" but it needs to be quite concentrated - I've seen it happen involving carbide lamps on vintage motorcycles - but it produces a strong smell along with a vigorous fizzing in contact with water
  12. Urban myth. There was a widespread practice of pouring a cup of petrol in a tin of sand, and using it as a stove for boiling water.
  13. Is von Krapenhauser in Puckoon? I don't think so... my vote for the best "exploding toilet" joke anywhere is the extended farce involving Apthorpe's "Thunder Box" in Waugh's "Officers and Gentlemen", with its tragi-comic ending in the single word "Biffed!" A Mention in Despatches for Rik Mayall as Von Richthofen, for his soliloquy beginning with "Cavaliers of the clouds" and ending with a discourse on English lavatory humour. I can't imagine any of that getting on the present BBC, least of all Flasheart's closing line.
  14. Springjocks / S Africa A, you mean....
×
×
  • Create New...