THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

I was listening to President Obama making his emotional appeal for modification of the gun culture in America. It's not guns that kill but the people who use them. One of the big differences I see today is that there is a deep undercurrent of intolerance in society. I think that in Britain, our war experience encouraged tolerance and cooperation in society and it seems that it might be wearing off..... I don't remember this degree of fundamentalism then.

[Stanley]

I can remember the days when the Chancellor of the Exchequer resigned if he was caught out in the smallest peccadillo. Compare and contrast!
Ossie is economical with the truth, keeps a straight face and gets away with it.....

[Tizer]

...caught out in the smallest peccadillo...

For me that conjures up a picture of Osborne pedalling his way across flooded waters in a small boat. And pedalling fast because the little boat is sinking!

[Stanley]

That's exactly what they are doing, making as many changes as they can before the boat sinks under them. They will be OK they have the resources to survive but it's a bad outlook for us ordinary people. Compare and contrast with the Atlee government of 1945 and weep......

[Stanley]

Report this morning that the £66million National Lottery jackpot has been won by two tickets. Am I alone in considering this to be a form of lunacy? I can remember the days when the maximum pay out of the pools was £75,000. I have always said that the lottery is a tax on stupidity, I see no reason to modify this view. You had a reasonable chance on the Treble Chance but the odds against in the lottery must be astronomical. A parallel report on the even bigger lottery in the US estimates that the odds against are the equivalent of tossing a coin and getting heads 28 times in succession.... Go figure!

[Tizer]

I agree but my concern is more with the concentration of money within a small number of individuals. It seems obscene to me. We make a big fuss about bankers and similar types getting massive bonuses and yet we condone giving £33 million each to two people (and it could have been £66 million). I was appalled to hear a lottery spokesperson boasting that they had already made 67 people into millionaires through Lottery prizes! I don't like gambling and would prefer to see the Lottery shut down but at the very least they could have given out £1000 each to 66,000 people instead of giving it all to two people. Better get my pills...

[Stanley]

No Tiz, don't adjust your view. It is society that is at fault. Like many things today it's a crazy situation. The 'value' of a person is no longer their ability to contribute to society, it is the capacity to consume. Celebrity culture extends to the obscenely rich... Of course I would say that wouldn't I!

[chinatyke]

Sorry, I don't agree with either of you and I wish the winners good luck and hope they enjoy their wealth. For a lot of ordinary people, "doing the Lottery" gives them hope, just like believing in a god and talking to imaginary people in the sky fills the same purpose. If I had been in England I would have bought a ticket myself. What I don't agree with is that the profit goes to good causes and isn't retained as taxation.

[Stanley]

China, it's not so much the gambling itself that worries me as the effect it is having on society as a whole. A good weather vane is the character of advertising on TV in the UK today. If all adverts for lotteries, loans at excessive rates of interest and exhortations to sue anyone on a 'no win no fee' basis were removed the TV companies would be in dire straits. 'Celebrity' is one of the main drivers for all sorts of TV programming. It's an indicator for the state of society and it saddens me.

[Stanley]

One of the things that constantly surprises me these days is the price of items connected with the shed. I am completely out of touch. Of late I have had to look at the prices of some things for the next two engines and one thing that caught my attention yesterday was £135 a foot for 3" bronze bar. I have a piece 3ft long in the treasure chest and it didn't cost anything like that. I am a wealthy man! It makes me wonder about pension funds.... a long time ago my late friend Roger Perry advised me to invest in good photographic books, looking at today's prices he was right so the advice could be buy bronze bar stock and photographic books, you could get a good return in 30 years!

[Tripps]

That would explain why plaques in crematoria, and bronze sculpture items are so attractive to some people.

I was thinking today of the historic price of fuel. I now discover that oil was $3 a barrel in the early 70's and I can clearly remember buying petrol for 5/= or 25p a gallon. That was just over 5p per litre. At its recent peak it was about £1.40 per litre. Who would then have imagined it would rise so much?

[PanBiker]

Owd Bill Motors at Skipton used to have a 24 hour pump on the forecourt which back in the day took a £1.00 note (it had to be a good one). Problem was you could not fit all the fuel you got for a quid in the tank of your motorbike. You always had to go with a mate.

[Stanley]

One of the things that strikes me about price rises is that if you convert the prices to how long you had to work to earn the price, things are so often cheaper today in real terms than they were then. The Mars Bar used to be a very useful measure of this until they started mucking about with the sizes.....

[Tripps]

My Xmas present to me was a DVD with every edition of the Eagle comic on it. Reunited with old friends Dan Dare and the Mekon, and Captain Pugwash. The software is a bit clumsy, but it's very interesting. There is an advert for the Mars Bar in an early edition, and the main selling point is the size of it. I don't think the ad for the Webley Air Pistol would find much favour today.

[Tizer]

We got some money out at the village post office the other day and the postmistress had a difficult job separating the notes to count them. They were so new and perfectly smooth and flat that she had to crinkle them up before she could get them apart. I wonder if this is a crafty ploy by Osborne to support his austerity push?

Incidentally, these were almost the last notes she had. She hasn't been supplied with any since before Xmas. No wonder post offices are closing. Our village shop closed a few months ago. Now we're hoping the bakery stays open but at least it's well known throughout Somerset and well supported.

[Stanley]

One of the problems about getting older is that the certainties we grew up with that made life so easy are gradually being eroded. Access to banks, post offices and even retail shops on the corner is vanishing. It will end up with us all sat in the kitchen tapping keyboards.... Many people have already lost the ability to walk more than 100 yards or conduct an intelligent conversation. The latter is what makes OG so attractive, we actually listen to each other and respond....

[Stanley]

It's a hard frost this morning and icy underfoot. My mind goes back to the winter of 1962/63 when I was on the tramp. I woke up one morning in an outhouse in Stilton where I had slept the night with half a dozen other drivers. It was so cold the water was frozen in the ewer that was the only washing equipment.... It was a bad winter, if you went into a cafe for a pot of tea you had to take your own water because most of the water pipes were frozen. Starting a big diesel on a morning like that was a test of how good your maintenance had been. Water in fuel filters froze and some diesel fuels waxed up, blocking the fuel filters. I used to put a gallon of petrol to ten gallons of diesel, that cured the wax! Happy Days!

[Stanley]

As I went out in the snow this morning I remembered that when I was a lad it wasn't unusual to see old folks with a pair of socks on over their shoes to give them a better grip. I also remembered the old fashioned galoshes, loose fitting rubber overshoes to protect your normal footwear from the snow and slush. I doubt if they are even made now.... (I was mistaken, I just looked on tinternetwebthingy and they are alive and well!)

[Stanley]

I noted the news this morning of allegations of match fixing in high level tennis. (LINK) Looking back I never saw fixing going on at this level but knew for a fact that it was going on. In the 1960s I had first hand knowledge of greyhounds being fixed at Powder Hall track in Glasgow. I even saw the money used to place to spurious bets on ringers, dogs that had their odds enhanced by running a look alike in previous races. I suppose that as long as there is a chance of easy money someone will take advantage.....

[Stanley]

News this morning that G4S have been accused of painting asylum seekers doors red so they could be identified. Both my outside doors are red. Should I be worrying?
I can remember the day when the standard colour for outside painting was Buckingham Green with cream piping.....

[PanBiker]

Mines red as well, mind you, I consider myself a socialist which is probably viewed to be as bad by some folk.

[Stanley]

Same here Ian. Keep the red flag flying I say!

[Tizer]

.. painting asylum seekers doors red so they could be identified...

By coincidence I happen to have read and heard a lot just lately about the treatment of Jews throughout history. I knew how often they were stigmatised and worse in recent times and centuries ago but the more you look the more you find. Just one example is the attitude and behaviour of the motor car industrialist Henry Ford...Henry Ford I see this `scapegoating' as similar to burning witches. If people can be made to be frightened then they seek out a target and you can direct them to whatever you choose, they are easily led.

[plaques]

One of the interesting things coming out of the 'red door' saga is the rise of G4S into the property market. They have apparently got the contract to house 9,000 asylum seekers. G4S No doubt the tab will be picked up by the tax payer with the profits going to G4S. A nice little earner as long as we can keep the war going in Syria.

[Stanley]

Amazing how core industries like steel go to the wall and services like G4S prosper. One of the biggest changes I have seen in my lifetime....