The Night Mail

[polybear]

45 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

If you are asking that due to you weighing up  whether to go on it, just be aware you need to have a liking for sheilas with novelty  eyebrows and lips like a Blue Groper.

 

Not even Bear is that sad.....

Besides, after just having a shufti at the 2024 cast every one of them looks high maintenance. 

 

 

[Winslow Boy]

22 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

Not even Bear is that sad.....

Besides, after just having a shufti at the 2024 cast every one of them looks high maintenance. 

 

 

Oh go on Bear there's nothing we wouldn't give, well apart from finger tips that is, to see you strutting your stuff down under. 

 

Ps just don't go trying to fit a silencer that's all.

[polybear]

11 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

Oh go on Bear there's nothing we wouldn't give, well apart from finger tips that is, to see you strutting your stuff down under. 

 

Ps just don't go trying to fit a silencer that's all.

 

s'pose a head-to-head against Chimpy @monkeysarefun, @Grizz and Bunny @The White Rabbit could be a good wheeze.....

 

 

[Dave Hunt]

Bear, I guess a head to head with a few really big spiders would be out of the question?

 

Dave

[Winslow Boy]

10 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

s'pose a head-to-head against Chimpy @monkeysarefun, @Grizz and Bunny @The White Rabbit could be a good wheeze.....

 

 

Just remember that not everything is the same down there as up here.

So the spiders can kill you. As can the snakes and the jellyfish. And thongs aren't, well I'll leave you figure that one out.

[Happy Hippo]

8 hours ago, br2975 said:

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My grandfather was a Corporal rifle instructor in the Home Guard, or more correctly the LDV  - Local Defence Volunteers, or as my grandmother would say to him 'Look Duck & Vanish'

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His greatest initial problem was the lack of a rifle with which to train his comrades, and when that arrived, the lack of any ammunition.

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When 'Dad's Army' first aired my grandfather described it as more a documentary than a comedy, as he recognised most of the characters from his own platoon.

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During the Luftwaffe raids on Cardiff in January 1941, my grandfather was working ( close to a certain Hippo's then family seat ) at the Cardiff Gas Light & Coke Co. Grangetown gas works and spent the nights on top of a gasometer extinguishing German incendiary bombs as they landed.

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As an 8yr old I Ionce asked him  'what if the gas holder had exploded ?"

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"Well I wouldnt have known anything about it !"  He chuckled.

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Ironically, it wasn't the Germans that killed him, but the gas works did, he died horribly of asbestosis after lagging pipes with wet asbestos paste, applied with his bare hands.

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Our Grandfathers may well have known each other, as my Grandfather, who during the day was driving fuel tankers around,  was a 'firewatcher' and was often over at the gasworks.

 

Fortunately, for the rest of the family, one night when he was not on duty, as he had been on a late shift, a raid started and an incendiary bomb came through the roof of the house and started a fire on the half landing.  The family were all hiding 'under the stairs' directly below the fire.  My grandfather picked up the incendiary bomb with his bare hands and dropped it into a bucket of sand.  Despite being burned, he then ensured the small blaze that had started was extinguished.

 

If he had not heard the incendiary come through the roof and hitting the floor of the landing, then the house, and possibly most of the terrace, would have gone up in flames.

 

When the house was being refurbished in the early 70's, the builders exposed the place the incendiary had ignited and asked about how all the charring of the timbers in the staircase has occured. 

[Happy Hippo]

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

 

Isn't that statement a  double oxymoron.... 

 

On Holland America ships the food service guys are Indonesian but the drinks staff were Filipinos, mainly to avoid Muslims handling alcohol. It was interesting that if you complained about the food staff, some sort of liquid recompense was duly delivered by the drink's staff. 

 

Jamie

What about  getting bacon butties made?

[polybear]

36 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Bear, I guess a head to head with a few really big spiders would be out of the question?

 

Dave

 

Unfortunately I'm busy that day......

 

 

[Oldddudders]

1 minute ago, Happy Hippo said:

What about  getting bacon butties made?

On Olsen's MV Balmoral, an easy DIY job in the self-service cafe. I cannot imagine a breakfast choice that isn't offered. We hope Borealis next week has something comparable.

 

On Brittany Ferries, their self-service breakfast offer now includes a really super served FEB for under a tenner, much better value than the à la carte restaurant, actually, where the FEB is less generous and the service can be sniffy despite the price!

[Northmoor]

3 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

What about  getting bacon butties made?

A recent TV series about life on a Type 23 covered this.  A young Muslim chef wondered about how he would go about handling pork; he consulted his Imam who showed an impressively practical attitude to such things, saying something like, "You've got those disposable latex gloves haven't you?  Wear those. Any other questions?".

[Dave Hunt]

Just won £150 on Premium Bonds. Now, what can I spend that on?

 

Dave

[Oldddudders]

2 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Just won £150 on Premium Bonds. Now, what can I spend that on?

Something GWR, perhaps?

[Happy Hippo]

3 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Just won £150 on Premium Bonds. Now, what can I spend that on?

 

Dave

Me!

 

I want a Heljan 7 mm scale Class B tanker with Esso Branding:  In fact wait until they arrive and automatically get discounted and you can get me a pair.

 

This would guarantee the Ferry Lane Branch would get built, so both Danemouth and br2975 would be very pleased with you.

 

(The line on which it would be based actually ran between the house I was born in and the gasworks mentioned by Brian earlier.)

[Tony_S]

12 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Just won £150 on Premium Bonds. Now, what can I spend that on?

 

Dave

A house on Regent St?

[skipepsi]

13 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Just won £150 on Premium Bonds. Now, what can I spend that on?

 

Dave

A Deltic?

[polybear]

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

Just won £150 on Premium Bonds. Now, what can I spend that on?

 

Dave

 

Cake.....

Let's see now......  44.7761 Co-op LDC's sounds pretty good....

[Dave Hunt]

Thank you for all the suggestions about spending my windfall guys. I have, however, decided that it will be spent on various bits for my layout, basically to avoid creating ill-feeling among those left out should I choose one of your suggestions ( although I can confirm that Oldddudders’ idea didn’t even get onto the starting blocks).

 

Dave

[Darlington_Shed]

4 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Isn't that statement a  double oxymoron....

 

After due consideration, I would argue not. It's certainly possible to be discerning while having poor taste. And while I have met very few hippos, I am forced to conclude that there must be some who exhibit both poor taste and a lack of discernment, particularly in matters unrelated to muddy hollows.

 

The alternative view, which your argument seems to embrace, is that HH is an entirely average, nondescript specimen of his species. I am sure that was not your intention.

 

Any suggestion that I am typing this drivel as displacement instead of mowing the lawn, as "requested" by the management, would be entirely accurate. I think you for the distraction 🙂

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

Just won £150 on Premium Bonds. Now, what can I spend that on?

 

Dave

Do you have to ask? But whatever you do DON'T put that question to SWMBO.

[monkeysarefun]

14 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 I have, however, decided that it will be spent on various bits for my layout

 

 

Yes - follow your dreams!

 

 

Failing that, half a tank of petrol....

[jjb1970]

On pork it was a regular thing when we were based in Ashdod (Israel) that local contractors, agents etc would ask for bacon butties when coming onboard.

 

Pork is easy to find in Indonesia and Malaysia as it's a staple of the Chinese community in those countries. The Muslim majority either avoids it or indulges themselves (as with the western world and religion many people are nominally Muslim but basically non-observing).

[Tony_S]

21 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

Yes - follow your dreams!

 

 

Failing that, half a tank of petrol....

My car had a bit of a present yesterday. It got topped up with the E5 super duper Shell instead of the normal E10. Qualified for £5 off so not too bad a mistake. At least the pump nozzles don’t  allow diesel to be put in! 
It was really quiet out today. Huge car park outside M&S Food was quite empty. Screwfix car park was too, and it only took a minute to collect my DiY bits and pieces that I had ordered online.  No queue in the pharmacy either. 
Perhaps everyone had gone away for the weekend. 
Tony

[Happy Hippo]

12 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

On pork it was a regular thing when we were based in Ashdod (Israel) that local contractors, agents etc would ask for bacon butties when coming onboard.

 

Pork is easy to find in Indonesia and Malaysia as it's a staple of the Chinese community in those countries. The Muslim majority either avoids it or indulges themselves (as with the western world and religion many people are nominally Muslim but basically non-observing).

When my late father in law was serving in the RA(TA)  during WWII, one of his fellow gunners named Sid, was Jewish. Sid was quite aggrieved that he couldn't indulge in the tinned bacon/pork that was a staple of combat rations.

 

He saw the Rabbi, and explained he was being short changed in the rationing department, so the Rabbi, quite sensibly, gave Sid an immediate, written dispensation, which permitted him to eat all pork products.

 

When he was demobilized at the end of the war, Sid conveniently held onto his written dispensation!

[Oldddudders]

55 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Thank you for all the suggestions about spending my windfall guys. I have, however, decided that it will be spent on various bits for my layout, basically to avoid creating ill-feeling among those left out should I choose one of your suggestions ( although I can confirm that Oldddudders’ idea didn’t even get onto the starting blocks).

I am deeply, but deeply, disappointed.

[jjb1970]

I must admit I am not a fan of the turkey 'bacon' found in some Muslim countries. I find chicken frankfurters OK but efforts to make substitute bacon all seem awful.