HOUSEHOLD TIPS NOT FOUND IN WOMAN'S WEEKLY

[Stanley]

I don't over analyse why contacts drop off. Most due to lost addresses I think. Some people are good communicators, some are not.
Today's tip. The worst excuse for not messaging someone is "It's their turn to take the initiative".

[Marilyn]

Or for those that can’t be bothered, then DON’T...save us both some time...

[Stanley]

It all depends doesn't it Maz, how important they are to you.

[Marilyn]

True. I am a very busy woman!

[Stanley]

A small thing that isn't mentioned in polite society but there is a lot to be said for following the example of most Arabic countries and the Romans and always washing your bottom after defecating. (With the left hand)
It always amuses me the way folk avoid mention of essentials like this. We are all human! Does anyone still put cut down socks on table legs to avoid sight of them?

[Marilyn]

I think that would come under the heading of “Personal habits that no one wants to know about”, Stanley.

I was thinking about people who contact you out of the blue after 20 years - chances are they are now selling Amway - or involved in some pyramid scheme ( and yes, it has happened to me several times...and I tell them to get knotted)

[Stanley]

But still an essential that, as you have just demonstrated, people avoid.

[Marilyn]

Don’t tell us you bleach your bum!

[Stanley]

No Love, Imperial Leather.

[Marilyn]

Phew...

[chinatyke]

I was thinking about people who contact you out of the blue after 20 years - chances are they are now selling Amway - or involved in some pyramid scheme ( and yes, it has happened to me several times...and I tell them to get knotted)

One of my best friends from schooldays contacted me out of the blue. I was aware he lived near Perth Australia but we had lost touch. After a few exchanges he eventually tried to recruit me into a scheme that generated mega amounts of interest paid monthly with only half a million quid investment required. I told him what I thought about scams and Ponzi schemes. From that day I've never heard from him again. Unbelievable that he would target me! Ex-friend now. Beware, con men come in all disguises.

[Tripps]

Does anyone still put cut down socks on table legs to avoid sight of them?

No - and I doubt they ever did. This chap, despite his odd name, seems sound on the matter -Professor Buzzkill

[Marilyn]

China, I was contacted by an old friend ( who had a husband I had never met), because somehow they believed I would love to invest in their business ( which consisted of the two of them working from the kitchen table). I felt I had the right to ask how much equity their was in the business, set up costs, ongoing costs etc. I discovered they were flat busted broke and the business didn’t exist beyond a thought bubble in their heads, but for just $10k I could reap “millions”.
Yeah...right...bye!

[Whyperion]

Does anyone still put cut down socks on table legs to avoid sight of them?

No - and I doubt they ever did. This chap, despite his odd name, seems sound on the matter -Professor Buzzkill

I have those plastic/ wooden cups to make it easier to slide furniture - or to spread the weight - one snapped in half ! some just give a bigger indentation in the carpet.

[Stanley]

Thanks for Buzzkill, on the whole I agree with him. However two points, I once read a critique of Strachey and 'Eminent Victorians' after I had read it. Basically he isn't very reliable on some points. It's complicated but it appears he had axes to grind.
Then there is the fact that Americans have some slightly prudish traits. Chicken breast is never referred to as such, it's known as 'white meat'. They use the word 'zerk' for grease nipples.
I rest my case....

[Stanley]

If you live in the foothills of the Pennines and have the promise of a day when we shall get near 30C, don't complain about it being hot, just relax and enjoy it!

[Stanley]

One good way to make a hot day bearable is to give your feet a treat and have a nice long soak in Epsom Salts. Funnily enough a hot foot bath cools you down more than a cold drink.

[Stanley]

Today's tip. If you expect a thunderstorm it's best to actually unplug your computer overnight. Doesn't protect the router of course, that's on line 24X7.

[Marilyn]

Unplug TV too..if on stand by. I unplug everything...even the kettle.
We are on National Broadband ( which is fabulous) but it can still get knocked out and need a gee-up after a blackout/thunderstorm.

[Stanley]

I was talking to a friend, Treasure, yesterday and discovered that we both love thunderstorms. My mother made sure that I regarded them as entertainment and not a threat. Today's tip is to follow the same policy.
We had a mini storm yesterday evening and I enjoyed watching kids opposite running round dancing in the rain in the Garden Fronts. They were having the time of their lives!

[chinatyke]

I'm like you and enjoy the spectacle. We have some cracking electrical storms in the tropics and they are frequent, there is so much energy in the air. You can tell when one is approaching, even the "singing trees" go quiet.

[PanBiker]

I love a good storm but have a healthy respect for lightning having had a very near miss a lot of years ago now. I was fishing on the cut bank at the roller bends between Southfield and Church Pool at East Marton. There are grid pylons in the vicinity where the power lines cross the canal. It was a lovely summers night and the grass and trees were singing with the wildlife in both. The air became very oppressive along with a darkening sky all in matter of minutes. The most eerie thing was all the birds stopped singing and the insects in the banking and grass all went silent. I was about 30 ft from one of the pylons and was in the process of putting my brolly up when I felt all the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand on end just before the pole transformer on one of the pylons exploded, I saw the return strike head back into the storm cloud as the thunder clap rang out. No counting and dividing by five, it was on top of me! I could have give Usaine Bolt a run for his money when the flight reaction kicked in.

I bet there are restrictions for fishing there with the advent of carbon fibre rods and poles, they don't let you setup within 100 yards or so of power lines now. Strangely enough, some of the best fishing places on the canal are where there are power lines and you are no longer allowed to fish. Sods Law, there were some good Tench to be had from the lilly pad beds on the roller bends.

[Stanley]

Worth repeating....
"I had a funny experience one afternoon as I came down from Scotland with a load of beasts. I was just coming along the road into Long Preston and it was thundering but not raining. I saw something in the field to the right of the road in the river bottom which was so extraordinary that I pulled up at the side of the road and got out to watch. Another wagon stopped behind me, he had seen the same thing. What we were looking at was bolts of lightning striking the ground and where they hit they left a big blue ball of fire which rolled round for a second or two and then vanished with a sharp crack. There were dozens of these and I was fascinated, I had read about them but never seen them before. They were working their way over towards the road so I decided discretion was the better part of valour and drove on.
Years later I described this to a bloke who knows about these things and he told me that what I had seen was ball lightning which is a mysterious and very rare phenomenon. He told me he would have given his bottom dollar to have witnessed the sight, he had been studying lightning for years and never seen this phenomenon."
There were some cracking storms in Berlin as well, something to do with being in the middle of a large land mass I think.
Another related subject which Ian reminded me off with his pylons is induced charge.
"When the M6 was put in round Carlisle one of the elevated junctions was under a supergrid line. It was a convenient place to stop and have a peep at my ladies and a cup of tea. I soon found that on a dry day the box built up a static charge (it was a wooden body but had a steel frame). If you reached up and touched the metal catch of the calf door you got a considerable belt of static! I soon worked out that the cure was to jump up, grabbing the wooden edge of the lower air vents and look in that way. I admit to catching one or two unfortunates out by asking them to open the calf door....."
On a dry day you could get the same effect from an induced charge caused by friction of the tyres as they flexed and I believe from the exhaust gases as they left the tail pipe. Remember the conductive strips many fitted to drag on the road because of a theory it was the induced charge that caused car sickness?
Today's tip. The safest place to view a storm from is inside a Faraday Cage!

[plaques]

Quite a number of ball lightening experiments have been performed using old submarine batteries as a power source. They get mini balls of lightening running across the lab floor Ball Lightening

[PanBiker]

A car is basically a good Faraday Cage. When I was doing my C&G at Burnley College we used to experiment with the rather large Van der Graaf generator that was in one of the electrical labs. Wooden pallets and a plastic dustbin came in very handy. Holding fluorescent tubes when you were in the zone and you had your very own light sabre. You had to develop a healthy respect for electricity as our working lives would be spent working on live equipment, 8Kv available in a mono TV and 25Kv in colour equipment. Cant fault find them when they are switched off! Working in peoples homes was the most dangerous, we had trips on all the benches but you don't get that in the corner of customers living rooms, You do now of course but in the 70's we were on hard wired fuses. Going in and out of folk's hoses all day, it always amazed my why there weren't more house fires with the rats nests some folk would create behind the telly.