You really couldn't make this up ...

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Aren't they?

 

My niece and nephew aged 10 and eight are always doing things with the school vastly more dangerous than I would have done as a child such as canoeing, rock climbing and abseiling. The difference is they are properly supervised with proper equipment. Does that spoil it? Not in the slightest.

 

Does it spoil it? To a degree, yes, I'd say, if you can't do anything unless the conditions are extremely controlled (and they're not vastly more dangerous when they are that controlled). I'm not advocating that children go out freeclimbing unsupervised by the way - the examples you've given I'm certainly not going to argue with them being supervised and protected like that, I'm more trying to make a much more general point - I'm glad I grew up before things got to quite where they are now. I'm also glad I grew up later than the times when surviving childhood was quite the feat.

Edited August 7, 2019 by Reorte

[Colin_McLeod]

1 hour ago, Wheres_Wally said:

Abseiling DOWN cliffs? In my day we were climbing UP chimneys to clean them.

 

Kids today etc. etc.

 

You had chimneys! 

[kevinlms]

4 hours ago, PatB said:

I remember, early in secondary school, so around 1979 or so, we were told that out of our class of 30ish, statistically two of us would be dead before reaching 30. No idea if it turned out to be true, but I had enough close calls in the subsequent 20 years to wonder if one of them was supposed to be me :D. 

I can remember a discussion at secondary school, where we were all asked how many grandparents we had left. Out of the entire class, I was the only one to have a full set of 4 still alive. Quite a few had only 1 or 2 left. A number of grandfathers had died during WW2.

 

My first grandparent (maternal grandfather) died when I was 20 and the last (paternal grandmother) when i was about 50.

Unfortunately, I didn't see much of any of them beyond aged 11, as we were in different countries. My maternal grandmother, did end up coming to Australia for her last 10 years, so she was the one I saw most.

[Colin_McLeod]

The grandchildren of our personnel manager had four great grandparents still alive.

[melmoth]

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

 

Does it spoil it? To a degree, yes, I'd say, if you can't do anything unless the conditions are extremely controlled (and they're not vastly more dangerous when they are that controlled). I'm not advocating that children go out freeclimbing unsupervised by the way - the examples you've given I'm certainly not going to argue with them being supervised and protected like that, I'm more trying to make a much more general point - I'm glad I grew up before things got to quite where they are now. I'm also glad I grew up later than the times when surviving childhood was quite the feat.

 

Yes, but you can allow a situation to happen, which is controlled, but in which children feel that they are uncontrolled, which is to say, there are safeguards and measure in place to minimise risk, but which are not necessarily obvious to the participants.

 

Sorry, I'm sure that could be said in a much less grammatically difficult sentence.

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, Colin_McLeod said:

 

You had chimneys! 

We just had a fire in the middle of the room and the smoke went out the hole in the roof............

[petethemole]

You had a roof?

[tomparryharry]

We had it tough in our days. We had peat fires....

 

Then Pete got up and left the room......

 

Yeah, we 'ad it tough...

[Phil Bullock]

Anyone thinking that what we buy from a shop is safe should watch this video.

 

 

 

[Reorte]

2 hours ago, melmoth said:

 

Yes, but you can allow a situation to happen, which is controlled, but in which children feel that they are uncontrolled, which is to say, there are safeguards and measure in place to minimise risk, but which are not necessarily obvious to the participants.

 

Sorry, I'm sure that could be said in a much less grammatically difficult sentence.

I follow what you mean!

 

I agree up to a point, and it's what (good) parents have probably always done - but I say up to a point because minimising risk isn't 100% a good idea for development. The learning mechanism requires getting hurt, the thing to avoid is getting seriously hurt. Why don't I run around where I could easily trip up? Because I've an instinctive feel of the consequences so my brain tries to make me avoid them, and that happens because I'll have tripped up and fallen flat on my face a few times when I was young, picking up some scrapes and bruises in the process. If I'd just bounced back up every time I rather doubt I'd have the reluctance of falling over now - when I'll hit the ground that much harder.

[Reorte]

2 hours ago, Colin_McLeod said:

The grandchildren of our personnel manager had four great grandparents still alive.

 

Two of mine were alive when I was born although I don't remember ever meeting either.

 

John Tyler, US President from 1841 to 1845, born in 1790, has two grandchildren alive today.

[Colin_McLeod]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

We just had a fire in the middle of the room..

 

Early form of central heating. 

[Reorte]

Just now, Colin_McLeod said:

 

Early form of central heating. 

 

Groan button now!

[pH]

With 4 young (5 and under) grandchildren, I find I have to watch myself  when telling them "Don't do that". You have to adjust the urgency of the warning to the possible danger in what they're about to do. Too often, I find I'm saying "Don't" to something that's only going to annoy me and nothing worse. Do that too often, and when you really mean "Don't - you could seriously hurt yourself/someone else", they may ignore it because they've heard "Don't" so often before for things that turned out not to be serious.

[johnarcher]

12 minutes ago, Reorte said:

 

Two of mine were alive when I was born although I don't remember ever meeting either.

 

John Tyler, US President from 1841 to 1845, born in 1790, has two grandchildren alive today.

That's quite remarkable, do you have the dates?

I always thought I was doing pretty well because my grandfather was born in 1858.

 

PS Just found the dates -

(http://mentalfloss.com/article/29842/president-john-tylers-grandsons-are-still-alive)

Tyler's son born 1853, his sons born 1924 and 1928.

[melmoth]

2 hours ago, Reorte said:

I follow what you mean!

 

I agree up to a point, and it's what (good) parents have probably always done - but I say up to a point because minimising risk isn't 100% a good idea for development. The learning mechanism requires getting hurt, the thing to avoid is getting seriously hurt. Why don't I run around where I could easily trip up? Because I've an instinctive feel of the consequences so my brain tries to make me avoid them, and that happens because I'll have tripped up and fallen flat on my face a few times when I was young, picking up some scrapes and bruises in the process. If I'd just bounced back up every time I rather doubt I'd have the reluctance of falling over now - when I'll hit the ground that much harder.

 

I think we probably agree. Note that I said "minimise" rather than "eliminate" risk. My son has just made it into double figures with only a few minor scrapes and prangs. There have been times when I've let (and watched) him do things that I knew would end (and indeed did end) in pain, embarrassment or a healthy combination of the two. On the other hand, the one time when he was with me and though it was wise to step out into oncoming traffic, he got swiftly (and none too gently) pulled back followed by the sort of full Anglo-Saxon invective that could strip paint at 30 yards. Similar sorts of lessons, hopefully all learned.

[melmoth]

2 hours ago, johnarcher said:

That's quite remarkable, do you have the dates?

I always thought I was doing pretty well because my grandfather was born in 1858.

 

PS Just found the dates -

(http://mentalfloss.com/article/29842/president-john-tylers-grandsons-are-still-alive)

Tyler's son born 1853, his sons born 1924 and 1928.

 

According the Guinness Book of Records (circa 1977 edition), in the UK the last direct link with the 18th century was woman called Alice Grigg who died in 1970 or 71, and whose father had been born in 1799.

 

That was before they started taking out all the interesting records like the fastest time to eat a bicycle (about 3 weeks IIRC), and the most copious drinker (a 19th century publican).

[Compound2632]

On 04/08/2019 at 10:57, spikey said:

"No" says I, "I'm just recycling these jam jars."  "What do you do with them?"  "Put jam in them." 

 

 

Surely you are re-using them, rather than recycling them?

 

On 04/08/2019 at 11:35, Brinkly said:

The only thing I worry about is taking food the birds might eat;

 

I wouldn't worry about that. In my experience, the best blackberries are always just out of reach or at least only pickable at the risk of multiple lacerations. Probably only 5% of the fruit is accessible for human consumption.

 

I never put jam in jam-jars, being a marmalade-maker only. Why aren't they called marmalade jars?

 

[melmerby]

44 minutes ago, melmoth said:

 

According the Guinness Book of Records (circa 1977 edition), in the UK the last direct link with the 18th century was woman called Alice Grigg who died in 1970 or 71, and whose father had been born in 1799.

 

That was before they started taking out all the interesting records like the fastest time to eat a bicycle (about 3 weeks IIRC), and the most copious drinker (a 19th century publican).

How about "fastest time to eat yourself"?

 

That would be interesting!

Edited August 7, 2019 by melmerby

[PatB]

2 hours ago, melmerby said:

How about "fastest time to eat yourself"?

 

That would be interesting!

http://www.heretical.com/miscella/mppoetry.html

[Nick C]

20 hours ago, Reorte said:

but the real question is "what are the odds of it happening to me?" (which I'd take to include "if I was doing that, even though I'm not") rather than "how many in total?"

This of course brings up the related issue of scaremongering in the media:

 

"Doing X doubles your chances of dying from Y" sounds pretty scary when splashed across the front page, but the vast majority of the time you look into it and find that the chances of dying from Y are so tiny in the first place that doubling it doesn't really make much difference...

[Reorte]

2 minutes ago, Nick C said:

This of course brings up the related issue of scaremongering in the media:

 

"Doing X doubles your chances of dying from Y" sounds pretty scary when splashed across the front page, but the vast majority of the time you look into it and find that the chances of dying from Y are so tiny in the first place that doubling it doesn't really make much difference...

 

A related issue, which has been hinted at in some posts, is the "boy who cried wolf" effect that can have which results in people not taking some warnings as seriously as they should.

[Colin_McLeod]

13 hours ago, melmoth said:

 

According the Guinness Book of Records (circa 1977 edition), in the UK the last direct link with the 18th century was woman called Alice Grigg who died in 1970 or 71, and whose father had been born in 1799.

 

That was before they started taking out all the interesting records like the fastest time to eat a bicycle (about 3 weeks IIRC), and the most copious drinker (a 19th century publican).

 

Let me get my head round this. Alice Grigg died 171 years after her father was born. So she must have lived a long time and/or her father was old when she was born.

[kevinlms]

11 minutes ago, Colin_McLeod said:

 

Let me get my head round this. Alice Grigg died 171 years after her father was born. So she must have lived a long time and/or her father was old when she was born.

Has to be both, if it was true.

[melmoth]

11 minutes ago, Colin_McLeod said:

 

Let me get my head round this. Alice Grigg died 171 years after her father was born. So she must have lived a long time and/or her father was old when she was born.

 

Yes. If she died aged 100, her father would have been 71 when she was born.