A place to have a chat.

Hi Adrian,

Too right about Blue Peter and that advent calendar 😬. Also the other stuff they made using sticky back plastic. I remember one that turned a jar into a snowman using cotton wool. John Noakes our hero and “Get down Shep”. 

A lot of our stars turned out to be creepy didn’t they. Annoys me that we won’t ever hear ‘Two little boys” again””, that song always reminded me of me and my brother then again of my two sons when they were teeny, and can easily bring a tear to the eye. Still find Rolf Harris hard to believe. Let’s also throw in Gary Glitter, his concerts were amazing but best not mention that he is properly on the wrong side of the road.

Yes, I agree it’s not the same without Phil, I don’t think he would be too happy with hapless Spurs. I’ll raise a glass for him on the day, it’ll most likely be a toast of Madeira which goes one glass into the gravy and rest of the bottle for me while I listen to Junior Choice on the radio.

Cheers

Spongebob

Meanwhile, here’s a rabbit 🐇 update: Those pesky rabbits which appear to be making regular daring raids onto the allotment are troughing out on all my sprouts 😡 - aaaargh! Whilst nothing eat’s the spinach!

Adrian - I agree about the excitement of being a dad at Christmas. The logistics could get quite complex in planning the hiding of presents and then crucially getting them under the tree sometime during the night without the kids having a scooby. Tell me, how did you do it and did you dress up as Santa at the same time?

9 days to go!

Spongebob

Good moaning all 😃, 

Let’s talk about Scrooge, incidentally, often watched in the past by inebriated dads on Christmas Eve patiently waiting for their kids to go to sleep so that they can then go on present retrieval manoeuvres up in the loft 😬. Christmas isn’t complete without watching a good version of ‘A Christmas Carol’, well actually probably goes without saying that it does have to be the definitive Alistair Sim version also featuring a young Arthur Daley. 

However, at the risk of forging myself a few more rings on the chain, with each year that I watch this I find myself sympathising more and more with the poor old fella. I mean all he’s trying to do is ‘mind his own business’ and save up a bit of money. Although grant you, I will admit that his treatment of his nephew is uncalled for. Is it me just getting old?

So what are your thoughts?

And Which film is best?

Meanwhile- Here’s a Squirrel 🐿️ update: The pesky pests having long since snaffled my hazel nuts are now digging holes in my lawn. I’ve just caught him at it and to think I was blaming the dogs!

8 days to go!

Spongebob

Good moaning all 😃, 

I was watching some rubbish for the hundredth time on UK Gold last night and it put me in mind of a story I heard umpteen years ago, which goes as follows:

The story concerns farmer Giles who was a jolly farmer enjoying his life looking after his thousand strong herd of Jersey Cows in lush green meadows on his farm. Mind you, it wasn’t all ‘making hay’ with EEC subsidies in those days and it required very early starts everyday. For the uninitiated that meant him getting up at 3am every single morning to milk his cows.

This one morning farmer Giles got up as usual at 3am, he put his wellies on and went up to the top field to round up his cows to bring them in for milking. It was a cold night, proper ‘brass monkey’, so much so that farmer Giles needed three jumpers and two fleeces over the top of his Damart longjohns. 

What he saw on arriving at the top field floored him dead in his tracks and will stay with him forever. For every single cow was standing perfectly still with not a sound, neither of munching nor crunching. 

After rubbing his eyes over and over again, farmer Giles went to inspect the nearest cows more closely and he was alarmed to find that all the cows were actually frozen solid.  

As you can imagine, Farmer Giles was really worried, all his money was tied up in those cows and he had not seen the like before. So he took off at full pelt back to his farmhouse as fast as he could possibly run in his wellies. On reaching his farmhouse he reached for the phone and fortunately managed to get straight through to Dennis the vet, who sprang out of his bed full of beans at the prospect of a nice big call-out charge.

To be fair Dennis was at the farm in no time, but even he was dumfounded when he saw all the frozen cows. He scratched his head and racked his brains to try recall any previous such cases. But he’d never seen or even heard of such a case ever in his whole career. 

Eventually, without having much of a clue what to do, he told farmer Giles not to worry and then he went back to his Vets Practice with a plan to consult with his colleagues and on leaving the farm he did promise farmer Giles that he would be back asap.

Sure enough Dennis was good to his word and came back to the farm later that morning with a couple of his colleagues. Catching up with farmer Giles, he laid out his plan which was made up of 3 steps: 

(1) First was to try some highly recommended ‘Thermo-ignium’ tablets, these are intended to warm up the cow quite rapidly from its insides. If they haven’t worked after 2 hours then they would then need to consider moving on to step 2 in order to avoid overdosing which could result in the cow being blown up. So they quickly set about getting the tablets into the cows which was easier said than done. The best way they found to achieve it was with an extended tube to act like a ‘pea shooter’ pushed up each cow’s nose.

Unfortunately, after 2 hours there wasn’t a muff or even slightest sign of any recovery as a result of using those tablets from any one of the 1000 cows. 

(2) The 2nd step involved utilising the ‘Universal Cow-insulator tog 36’ which had been so successful in Mongolia. This involved covering each cow with a specially designed overcoat come sleeping bag and then inflating it up to 58 bps. Luckily, Dennis had had the foresight to arrange for an expedient delivery of 1000 such coats and which arrived in time. Once a cow was enveloped in the insulator then it should/would take just 2 hours for full recovery. It was amazing to see how quickly the 3 vets and farmer Giles managed to dress each cow. But then it was easy because they were stationary being frozen solid. Once it was done they waited the necessary two hours.

However, 2 hours later there was a palpable air of exasperation again as it was then clear that step 2 had also failed. The field at this point being full of cows seemingly wearing inflated duvet jackets resembling a set of giant mushrooms. 

Reluctantly they moved onto step 3. Surely, step 3 couldn’t fail. 

(3) This solution was a bit of a throwback given that it has its origins dating back to the First World War. It was an adaptation of flamethrowers which were sometimes used on stricken horses. Dennis had arranged for his boss to bring over the latest model which was in effect like a huge hairdryer. The principle behind this method was to quite simply heat up each cow by blasting it with hot air from the ‘big hairdryer’. 

Dennis and his boss set about heating up each cow with the ‘big hairdryer’, but after 3 hours there was no sign of any movement from any cow. Unfortunately, they were now faced with another failed attempt.

As we have seen from years of watching James Heriot it is a huge dent to a Vet’s pride to be left with any case that cannot be resolved. By now it was quite late in the day so the vets who were determined to find a workable solution retired back to their base promising to come back at 9am the next morning. 

Meanwhile, being totally pee’d off with the situation Farmer Giles went down to the pub to drown his sorrows. When he got there he told all and sundry about his cow problem. Then out of the blue, from the other side of the pool table a fellow called Stan piped up, and claimed that he might be able to help. 

He said that he would need a bit of time to arrange something but he should be able to get some help up at the farm by 9am the next morning. Coincidentally, as we know that was the same time that the vets were also going to turn up.

The next morning, at 9am, up by the field there they all were, farmer Giles, the vets and a thousand frozen solid cows. Then, taking them all by surprise a little vintage Morris Minor car arrived, it was Stan. 

Stan got out of the car and then went around it to open the passenger door. He placed a zimmer frame by the door and a little old lady wearing thick glasses climbed out. Then clinging onto the zimmer frame, she slowly made her way across the field towards the cows. 

Amazingly, as soon as she reached out to touch the first cow it sprung immediately to life and trotted off in sprightly fashion around the field. The little old lady then progressed with the same success to do the same with all the other cows.

Farmer Giles could not believe what he was seeing but he was certainly one very relieved farmer whilst Dennis, his boss and vet colleagues were left absolutely gobsmacked. Dennis turned to Stan and asked him “What just happened there? What? How? - just who is that old lady with the zimmer frame?”

Stan looked at him and replied “Oh! That’s Thora Hird” 😬.

(‘Thaw a Herd’ - get it?) God bless her rip.

Meanwhile here’s a spider 🕷️ update - The massive humongous spider in the shed is still there hiding under the bucket 😱

6 days to go!

SpongeBob

Peter

I got the traction engine, my brother got a radio controlled boat. After the boat sank, with some double sided sticky tape and a bit of ingenuity, I had a radio controlled traction engine.

Good moaning all 😃, 

Ha! Ha! Ha!, so it’s socks, socks and more socks in Adrian’s house. I could do with a refresh of my own sock draw, it’s currently jam packed mostly with odd socks. I’ll have to drop some hints to the family as there is still time 🤔 before the big day.

I’ve set the family a £5 Christmas present challenge this year, where we all have to get each other presents costing £5 or less. Primarily because I don’t want my ‘kids’ who are still students from wasting money on each other. It would seem that a pair of socks or two might be ideal for this game. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not playing Scrooge and the wife & kids will still get “big” presents as-well.

Talk of socks as-well reminds me of another annual staple and that is a pair of new slippers. We would all get a new pair every Christmas. For my dad, a pair of slippers was an essential piece of ‘dad kit’. He would go everywhere in his slippers, even up the ladders to go on the roof. 

Once after a storm, a few houses on our street lost some roof tiles and my dad considered it to be his neighbourly duty to go around with his ladders and fix them all. Which he did, and in most cases without even telling his neighbours, but of course he did it all whilst wearing his slippers 😬.

It’s amazing isn’t it to think how excited we got over simple things. Remember those selection boxes, there was one type we used to get most years that was in the shape of a stocking. Unfortunately, for us the sweats in the selection boxes did not present as ‘a free for all’, instead we always had to get permission before eating anything from them.

Talking of sweets have you seen what they’ve done to tins of Roses and Quality Street? In our day these tins were substantial, containing a plentiful supply of chocolates and toffees inside. Nowadays, it’s just a small shallow plastic box with just a couple of dozen sweets inside it, if that. And is it just me or am I right in noting that today’s sweets are of far inferior quality, tastewise? What do they take us for? Do they think we’re thick? ‘Shrinkflation’ they call it.

And once we’d eaten something from our selection boxes and then perhaps a handful of Roses/Quality Street (leaving those penny shaped yellow toffee ones until last), then we’d reach for the nuts. The nuts being Brazils, Walnuts, Almonds and Hazelnuts. As a kid, if Brazils were almost impossible to crack then almonds were impossible. To this day, I struggle to crack Almonds and I am yet to find a technique other than a hammer that works!

My dream toy would have been a radio controlled plane but there was no chance, in those days they would cost £100 or more. I still have an ambition on that front though and I will get myself my own RC spitfire one day.

At one time one of the most exciting presents for us kids was skalectric. Mind you it was always a bit frustrating as skalectric was fraught with problems. The cars would regularly fly off the track especially on the corners and then one of the cars would usually typically develop a mechanical fault and not work very well. And there would be track problems with sections disconnecting all the time especially if invaded by the dog who might sit on the raised section.

The dog also caused problems for ‘hot wheels’ tracks. We’d have that bright orange track all over the place, starting off down the stairs and yes, the gormless dog was good at accidentally dismantling it! All the same, Hot wheels was good fun. It goes without saying too that the dog would also ruin many a game of subbuteo but that is another story.

One of my very favourite presents one year was a new go-kart (aka  a bogey or a gider). It was fabulous, it was made of red metal tubing and was suppose to double up as a sledge when turned upside down. Me and my mate went everywhere on that go-kart. Footwear in those days (probably from Morrisons) was a pair of plastic sandals and the heals on them such as they were would wear down in no time at all from braking around the corners, much to my mum’s furious annoyance.

As it was also a sledge then part of the deal was to give up my Morrison’s sledge to my sister (yes that’s right, a wooden sledge also bought from Morrison’s - the best sledges around in the day!). There were plenty of big steep slopes around by us so sledging was a favourite past time. Of course it did help that we used to get snow in those days! Disappointingly, my new bogey/sledge was absolutely rubbish as a sledge and I had to plead and beg to my parents for a new Morrisons sledge. Thankfully, I managed to persuade my mum to see sense and I was soon back on the slopes on a brand new Morrisons sledge 😃.

Are there any toys that I’ve not mentioned? What about ‘Major Matt Mason’ - does anyone remember him?

Meanwhile, here’s a grain weavel update - none seen in the cupboard for several days 🥳

3 days to go!

SpongeBob

Good moaning all 😃, 

Pete’s post about dressing up as the real Papa Noel got me remembering times past when I would often like to get creative with fancy dress. I never attempted to be a real Santa clone like Pete, although years ago we would put on Santa outfits for our pre-Christmas mountain bike ride in the Yorkshire Dales. Not that we ever really saw anyone about other than bemused sheep and the occasional landlord in the pub. Nowadays of course it’s common as muck, I see loads of cyclists out dressed as Santa - good on em 👏.

New Year’s Eve was the traditional fancy dress night, no matter what the weather. I’ve been a caveman wearing not much more than Tarzan, and I well remember getting suitably battered by hailstones in that outfit whilst running from pub to pub. One of my favourites, and it wasn’t mine was when I saw a bloke come into the pub dressed up as the ‘big mama’ from Tom & Jerry, complete with mop and bucket! That was genius! Of course, that disguise would probably not be allowed anymore because of PC infringement 😬.

I think it might have been June 2000 BK (“before kids”) when me and Mrs S were out walking in the Yorkshire Dales. During a lunchtime sejour at a pub (which I won’t name) we saw a poster advertising a New Year’s Eve stopover with fancy dress party. It looked like just the thing for us, so we booked in. And then we spent the next 6 months very much looking forward to it - traditional rustic pub, Theakstons Old Peculiar, roaring fire, dinner, fancy dress party, cosy bedroom topped off with the prospect of a full cooked breakfast the next morning.

There was no theme for the fancy dress, instead it was a ‘free for all’, ‘anything goes’. I’ve always done a good pirate complete with Parrot, “Aaargh Jim lad” etc. So that was me, got myself an outfit together with the aid of a bit of needle and thread work. And the missus got herself a medieval maid outfit, and her choice seemed to be very befitting for the ‘olde worlde’ pub we were going to. 

Forgot to mention that there was a prize on offer for the best fancy dress. It was a good prize aswell, a free dinner, B&B, - not to be sniffed at 🤑.

When we arrived on the day, it was late afternoon and we had a good chat with landlord who promised that it was going to be a really good night. So we went upstairs to our room  and we got togged up in our fancy dress then went downstairs to the bar area and we sat at our allotted table. I lined up the beers and we were quite excited at the prospect of the night ahead. 

It all seemed to be going a bit slow to me, but no worries and the pub gradually filled although far from overflowing. So guess what? Yes, no-one else was in fancy dress! I went to enquire with the landlord several times but he assured me that there really was a fancy dress competition and that there would be people getting dressed up.

Anyway, dinner came and went and more time passed. Still there was only me and the missus in fancy dress. Worse than that we could see people pointing at us and we could hear people sniggering. More than that it was a really dull party. It was New Year’s Eve and I really didn’t want to get angry with any smart arses, so at around 9:30pm, me and the missus made an executive decision, which was to cut our losses and to change back into our civvies.

You won’t believe what happened next. At around half past eleven a few people disappeared and then came back 5 minutes later having changed into fancy dress. The couple who had been sitting at the table nearest to us came back dressed up as Rocky Horror show characters. Ten minutes later they were awarded the fancy dress prize, and five minutes after that they were back dressed normally again. Well what a con! - unbelievable!!

Next morning we got up, despite the previous night’s fancy dress debacle we did succeed in getting in a state where we ended up nursing typical New Year’s Day hangovers. We headed to the dining area for a much anticipated fully cooked breakfast only to be confronted by a message on a large blackboard which in summary read as follows “To allow our hardworking chef a well deserved lie in on New Year’s Day, today’s breakfast is Continental’. In short, instead of a full cooked breakfast we were treated to a bread roll and a cup of tea. I was in despair, who did these clowns think they were? Not surprisingly, the pub changed hands not too long afterwards.

Right, I’m just going to go into my garage to search for my vice, to get ready for those almonds - thanks Mike 😬.

Meanwhile, here’s a rabbit update - A bagful of Christmas sprouts has been successfully harvested on the allotment despite Harvey trying his best to chomp them all 😬.

2 days to go!

SpongeBob

Just popped into the pub for a quick virtual pint and a mince pie.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and low PSA. 

Cheers, 

Kev.

Merry Christmas everyone 🥳.

Actually it is now Boxing Day. The footy has gone rather well hasn’t it and now watching the Great Escape (“classic”). I do hope that Steve McQueen finally gets over that border fence on his bike this time. I’ll give him top marks for trying, he’s had a quite a few attempts now.

chin, chin

Spongebob

Edited by member 26 Dec 2025 at 17:21  | Reason: Typo