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User
Posted 02 Jun 2025 at 09:03

 😂


Or even worse you hear the snap of marigolds, feel the squelch of the lube, then notice another pair of trousers have been thrown on top of yours!

Edited by member 11 Jun 2025 at 17:49  | Reason: Spelling

User
Posted 02 Jun 2025 at 09:40

I love the old DRE gags.


'I asked the doctor if he could write my wife a note saying that my head was not stuck up there'


'Never ask for a second opinion. He'll do it again, using two fingers.'


'There. All done. I'm a cleaner. The doctor will be in shortly."


"Doctor! You could at have taken your ring off!" Doctor, "I'm not wearing a ring. That was my wrist watch."

Edited by member 02 Jun 2025 at 09:53  | Reason: Not specified

User
Posted 02 Jun 2025 at 11:43

Morning All,


Sorry no jokes from me this morning, just letting you know that I got a holding response this morning from the Techs at PCaUK for the 502 errors: 


"Apologies for the delay in replying to your message I was on holiday last week. Thanks for reporting this issue our developers are currently investigating the problem. I will keep you posted regarding a fix for the issue."


I'm going up the allotment this afternoon, got a load of weeds to mash 😁, and seeds to plant (aka feeding the wood pigeons)


Cheers


Spongebob.

User
Posted 02 Jun 2025 at 12:31

Hi Spongebob


Thanks for the update mate. Hopefully the 502 problem will become a zero problemo


I was all showered up, Lynx lower body spray, generously applied. Planning to head off into town for a few bevvies. No trains, no replacement bus service. So I'll soak up the sun in the back garden and have a few tinnies instead.


 

User
Posted 02 Jun 2025 at 22:28

We watched that Lynx advert and my wife told me to stick to Tesco's own.  Mind you, could be made by Lynx for all we know.

User
Posted 02 Jun 2025 at 23:09

I went to the chemist looking for deodorant.


The shop assistant said, "Ball or aerosol?"


I said, " Neither. It's for my armpits."


(The old ones are the best 👌)


 

Edited by member 03 Jun 2025 at 07:55  | Reason: Typo

User
Posted 05 Jun 2025 at 11:50

Well, since we had the maintenence man in this week, access to the virtual pub has improved significantly. He must have put a spot or two of oil on the hinges of the entrance door.🙂


 

User
Posted 05 Jun 2025 at 18:11

The door is much easier to open now, well done. I’ve haven’t been around much as we have been tending the veggie garden and I’ve been playing in my flower garden. We have lots of lovely veggies sprouting nicely and the poly tunnels are looking good.


In my younger days I trained as a gardener and florist in the dreaded family business, and hated it to my inner core.
So, now enjoying gardening gives me a quiet giggle, as my family wouldn’t believe it.


After my three years working in Palestine I came home and did various things until I found my career niche. My yearn to travel has always been there.
As a mature traveller I backpacked around SE Asia, one laughable memory, I was stepping onto a high footplate of a train when I felt hand on my backside, and a little voice ‘ I push mama’ it was a young a Thai man who clearly thought my behind was too big to heave onto the train.


My travels were that time were to Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar. I loved the north of Thailand and we did a trip to see a tribe and we were told it was the day of a village wedding. We were invited, but politely declined after seeing the guests were mostly drunk as skunks on Mekong Whisky, one elderly lady was under the table slugging generously out of a bottle.


We were then invited by a local to go and admire their opium gardens, once again a polite declined, evidently it’s legal for some tribes as it’s cultural, or so I’m told.


My favourite town was Chaing Rai, where I found a lovely cafe run by girls whose parents had died from hiv aids and had been abandoned, they were very entrepreneurial and had the cafe, a craft shop and the older girls managed the place.
It was my daily place for breakfast. One evening in my last day there I gave a donation in Stirling and the girls rushed off to change it, I met one later and she was delighted, it wasn’t a great deal, but I hope it helped a bit.


One evening in a beach bar I needed the loo, it was on the island of Koh Phan Gan, I asked where it was and was pointed into the jungle and given an oil lamp, off I trotted to find a hut with a porcelain loo over a hole in the ground, fine I thought.
Large barrel of water to wash and flush. Whilst in there I heard a very loud croaking noise, and was faced with the biggest frog I’ve ever seen, better than a snake I thought.
On my return to the bar I was told the frogs were very common and if licked they provided the ‘ licker ‘ with amazing hallucinations, and evidently the locals flogged said frogs to anyone wanting a trip.
Not my scene.


I’ve also backpacked around the Greek island, France, and a few other places.
Whilst in Tunisia I was staying in a hotel and order a glass of wine in Arabic and the hotel owner was summoned and my Arabic isn’t too good these days but enough. The owner was delighted and I had a wonderful day with his family being treated like a queen. I have lots of lovely memories of travelling.


During my travels I never covered up my head or wear long skirts, just careful to be culturally considerate.


My first trip to Gaza I was told to go to the local shop it was before I could speak the lingo, so off I went on the public bus, found the shop and in my best reading voice I read out my phonetically prepared speech. The shop keeper looked aghast, and I repeated my speech, he raised his hands in dispair. My third attempt, he looked at and said in a loud slow voice like a Brit on holiday and said, Do you speak English.?
His English was fluent and he was lovely he took me my destination and waited for me, then invited me to his home for supper and meet his lovely kids.


I was so lucky to do these things and it was better than any university education.
That’s all for this one lads, let me know if you’d like more of my daft traveller experiences. Please feel free to say no of course.


Leila


 

Edited by member 05 Jun 2025 at 18:16  | Reason: Not specified

User
Posted 06 Jun 2025 at 13:46

Absolutely amazing experiences Leila. I really admire people who can speak foreign languages, especially ‘difficult’ ones like Arabic and it must be fantastic to be able to converse fluently.


It might be hard to believe but I once had a good collection of Arabic words and phrases. This was way back in the day when I was at Uni on my teacher training course. For some reason the Uni put me in a Hall of Residence that was populated almost entirely of foreign students with the majority seemingly from Algeria. I used to feel sorry for them because for most of them one of the main reasons for choosing to come to England to study was to meet English people, instead they were holed up in a block like a United Nations convention. Mind you there was also Graham, he was from Croydon, a Crystal palace fan and he had a Scouse girlfriend who you might guess was a Liverpool fan, but Graham had the most fabulous looking car, a bright yellow Austin Allegro complete with black roof. I was so jealous of that car, because I didn’t even have a rusty push bike to my name and I therefore had to rely on the tiny Norwich buses that seemed take forever to get anywhere, they would visit every bus stop in the city, before finally stopping at the one I wanted.


We had a good laugh with our foreign friends, and of course during our long sessions of banter in the kitchen the common denominator was swear words which we exchanged and learnt. So, my once impressive collection of Arabic words cannot really be repeated on this forum, suffice to say that I think that they have more swear words than us. I have also got a similar collection of Dutch swear words but that’s a different story.


Graham was a good friend, and it gives me great pleasure now to think how happy he must be wherever he is with Palace having just won the cup. He helped me to stay sane and on the straight & narrow, as I really struggled under the daily strain and the stress of teacher training, I was living on the edge of my nerves, always just on the verge of snapping. One day I was coming back to base on the bus after yet another long miserable hard day teaching and I was very happy with the thought that I’d soon be tucking into my tea which was going to be half of the delicious roast chicken that I’d cooked for my tea the day before. As I sat there, I was consumed by the very thought of it. But then when I got back, I entered the kitchen, I opened the kitchen door and all I could find in the fridge were the remains of just a few meagre bare chicken bones. The thieving little greedy bassards!!!!!  


 I was absolutely fuming; there must have been smoke streaming out of my ears quite literally. I reached for a black marker pen, and writing on the fridge door in big bold letters I explained in precise detail what was going to happen when I find out which little scroat had eaten my chicken. With that done I wandered off to my room to blast out some Led Zep and to chill. What my blood pressure must have been like in those days!


Now, please don’t get the wrong idea, I am a very reasonable, tolerable and nice person, and as such of course I would never ever get violent over a bit of chicken. Putting up that notice actually gave me “karma”, and I managed to regain my composure quite quickly. Then as the record stop playing, I could hear the slightest faint ‘knock, knock, knock’ at my door. Not knowing what or who to expect I went to open the door to find that there kneeling on the floor with his head bowed muttering a thousand pardons and begging profusely for forgiveness was Mustafa. His arm was outstretched holding out a carrier bag containing a replacement chicken. I felt a real $hit.


It turns out that it was all an innocent mistake. Mustafa had found my chicken in the fridge and assumed that it had been prepared for him by one of his friends. It wasn’t unreasonable as I could see that they did share their food regularly as a matter of course. In fact, they were always cooking, using all the ovens and hobs at all times of the day, which meant that I would have to muscle in each time just to cook my Yorkshire puddings.


You can understand, therefore how much I was looking forward to Ramadan which would have meant surely that as they would all be fasting then I would have free reign over the kitchen for a whole month. Crikey, I was so naïve in those days, it just goes to show how very little I knew because when Ramadan came around the kitchen got even busier. Busier because even though they were fasting they would spend all day cooking, and then when as soon as the sun set, they would then stuff themselves silly. The one consolation for me was that their daily nocturnal feasting coincided with my return from the bar, so I was able to join in (invited of course). Consequently, I have very good memories of couscous and hot curries it was fab!  Two fingers up to all the other teacher trainees who thought themselves fortunate to be all lodged together in their own Hall of Residence, their banter would have been all tea parties and ‘teacher’ talk.


We had such a good time, and these guys were real characters. My next-door neighbour, I called Yossa because I couldn’t pronounce his real name, unfortunately was a baldy, well balding to be precise. He disappeared one day and then turned up a week or so later wearing a beanie hat. He’d only gone and sneaked off to London to get a hair transplant! He lifted his beanie to show me the result, and it was an horrific sight with several raw looking tufts of hair in the middle of his head and small bare patches at the back of his head. His ambition was to be able to return home to Algeria to show his family a full head of hair. Happily, the last reports I have of him indicated that he did actually achieve a full head of flowing locks.   


 And I worry at the possible plight of some of my other friends of the time like the Syrian guy Younis, and what might have happened to his life given all that has happened in Syria in recent years.


So yes, anyway, apologies for another long ramble, it's Leila's fault, her tales have got me reminiscing again. I've got to say though I'm pretty sure that I would be able to keep away from licking frogs so long as there was a ready supply of beer and/or wine.


Have a good weekend all - I'm off up the allotment 😁


Spongebob

User
Posted 06 Jun 2025 at 14:59
Hi Phil (and everyone else).

2nd Chemo was on Tuesday. Chemo mouth is now just irritating, can't taste much at all, plus the mouth ulcers are annoying. Am having fun seeing what works and what does not. Water tastes awful, ice lollies are good, Roquefort (blue sheeps cheese) is the best at the moment - I can really taste it. Can't taste meats and the like. I'm actually putting weight on as the only way to get any energy is eating sweets (thats my excuse). I've also tried some of the Zero alcohol beers and they have improved a lot over the years. I remember Kaliber and White Swan - awful, but the Zero peroni and Birra moretti are fine to drink - nice to pretend to drink a beer when sitting in the garden.

I was puzzled about the Mini being a 3 cylinder then realised it was a modern one. I've had quite a few classic minis, my favourite was the one I painted matt black and covered with Skulls and crossbones and a big Double Zero ( Dick Dastardly from Wacky Races). Had a Stage 2 tuning kit, 1275 engine, gas shocks etc. Favourite game was to get a boy racer type behind me who would be trying to show off, accelerate off towards a roundabout, they'd be keeping up, then I'd go round the roundabout without having to slow down because of the legendary handling and see them frantically braking\swerving behind me trying to get round. Immature but fun.

I've managed to buy another T-shirt that says "I don't know what's so hard about Cancer... I'm already on Stage Four"

Incidentally the Error 502 is often associated with too many people trying to connect i.e. lots of bots trying to access the site. Usually putting in an initial Captur login works.

Off to look at a moped tonight, going to sling it into the campervan to go away with so can pootle around shopping and leave the van parked up.

later
Al


User
Posted 07 Jun 2025 at 18:18
.............and I bought the moped. So that makes 4 vehicles plus the standard car to drive around in... oops
User
Posted 08 Jun 2025 at 09:41

Originally Posted by: Online Community Member
I've managed to buy another T-shirt that says "I don't know what's so hard about Cancer... I'm already on Stage Four"


Very funny but very sad, all at the same time.


 I don't know if I'd have the guts to wear one.


I'm sorry to hear that you are suffering with tasting food, Phil has similar problems. It must be awful, on top of all the other things you lads are having to deal with.


 

Edited by member 10 Jun 2025 at 09:51  | Reason: Typo

User
Posted 09 Jun 2025 at 10:33

Hi Al,


I remember chemo mouth. I was so manned up to deal with all other effects that chemo mouth sort of crept up on me. Apparently pineapple chunks might have helped, so I learnt by my 4th or 5th session, but I didn’t try it. Everything tasted so bland and even a cup of tea was horrible. But I did have a routine of celebrating each chemo session with a firey hot curry 🥵 - I’d recommend that, can’t beat a Vindaloo!

User
Posted 09 Jun 2025 at 11:03

Hi guys. Me again. I just logged onto my NHS portal to see my blood test results from last week. CRP infection marker now up to 139. So my missus just so happened to be in the GPs and asked and they said they’ve marked it urgent and I may have to go in for an antibiotic infusion. So we’ll see. 


I see the lovely stories are still coming. Its great reading them. 


Here’s a little one from me from when I was a twigglet. 


When I was between 16 and 23 me and 2 mates would sail one of our Dads 20ft sailing cruisers up the East coast from Canvey up to Alderburgh. As you can imagine we had a few escapades on our trips. I’ll save you from the embarrassing and ‘naughty’ ones…!

Remember this was a while back and the boat was old so we had no Radar reflector, no radio, no echo sounder (just me on the lead line) and no exterior lights. Plus a very small outboard motor which we never used as we’d prefer to sail up to a mooring. (Showing off our sailing skills) 🤣. 

One day we were moored off St. Lawrence in the Blackwater. Lovely sunny day and there was a regatta going on and we were watching with a few tinnies. I think we were probably 18ish then. It was pretty gusty and the tide there is very strong.

Lots of boats sailing past us and the rescue boat was being kept busy. This young lad capsized right next to us and being so little he couldn’t get his boat upright. You may or may not know that most sailors wear a buoyancy aid not a life jacket which is too cumbersome. A buoyancy aid doesn’t necessarily keep you the right way up so you don’t want to be getting hit by a flying boom. Anyway I could see he was in trouble so I jumped in , caught him up and helped him right his boat and sent him on his way. I tried to swim back to our boat but the tide was too strong. My mate then came up in the dinghy and I climbed in. But when he tried to row us back he couldn’t against the tide with 2 of us in the dinghy. We’d gone quite a way now from our boat , probably half a mile. So I said I’ll jump out and swim to the beach , walk up past our boat and swim out to it. I managed to do it ok although it was a long hard swim and a longish walk up the beach. Wonder if the young lad remembers that and I wish I could swim like that now 🤷🏼… 


cheers 


Phil

User
Posted 09 Jun 2025 at 12:01
Ah, Pineapple, there's an idea. I haven't had it in years because there was a medication I was on that forbade pineapple (I'm diabetic and asthmatic). Thing is that I've stopped taking a lot of the drugs because of weight loss and a special NHS diabetic programme I'm on so I should be OK now. I can't eat grapefruit because of the statins I'm on, but pineapple could be an idea.

As for dealing with Stage 4, I've viewed it as a wake-up call. So many people live their lives in a rut until (as Arnold Rimmer in Red Dwarf gives as an example):
"Mind that bus!"
"What bus?"
*splat*

So I've got a time limit now, but more importantly I've got the opportunity to do something about it. I am going to try and do the things I want to do. I've got a to-do book which i fill in most days with tasks. I wouldn't say I have a bucket list as such, primarily because of the way these are portrayed..... someone got me a bucket list book with various ideas including "Having a meaningful conversation with a homeless person", "watching the sun go down over ", "stand under a waterfall" and it just made me cringe - too self-indulgent. I mean, meaningful conversation? Just give the person some money so they can get through their day and if it's drugs or alcohol they spend it on, so what? and stop making yourself feel good about yourself, let the poor sod have something nice that day without having to listen to you.
Oops, I didn't mean to rant about that too much, but one other thing - have they actually stood under a waterfall? tons of water hitting you on the head and shoulders, freezing cold as well - its not the experience they think it is.

Anyway, enough of this, time for a work story. So I spent nearly 20 years installing and training people on Business Software - accountancy, manufacturing etc. Very stressful - usually due to the Sales guys saying the job could be done in half the time it needed to be, but sometimes you met interesting customers and shops\businesses. So I went to Honour Clothing - don't look it up on Google, they are still in business! They specialise in PVC and rubber fetishware. They have a shop in Kings Cross (london) and a warehouse and shop in Watford.
So I'm there installing a retail and accountancy system with a new trainee, Elizabeth, 21, first job out of Uni. So first of all we're in the King's Cross shop, Elizabeth has brought the hardware in and is standing behind the counter, while I'm in front setting stuff up. So I'm talking to her and as happens I focused on the backdrop behind her and it was individual items on full colour printed cards, an entire walls worth..... of cock rings and the photos showed them being worn by gentlemen who were, shall we say, excited to be wearing them. She said my whole expression changed and she asked me what on earth was the matter? I had mental images of her marching out of the shop. Luckily she didn't but it was an interesting explanation...
Then a bloke came up with a riding crop to buy, at the time my wife had a horse so I knew these things cost about £5 from a saddlery....£28 they charged him for exactly the same brand!
Then we went to the Warehouse, but I'll tell that one later...



User
Posted 09 Jun 2025 at 12:30
Hi everyone
Just a quick. Haha imagine Adrian’s face when reading this.

Iv not been on a lot. Just been leaving u guys too it. All the stories are fantastic. Leigh’s was fab. Furthest iv been is spain. Got fam in Australia & Thailand but…don’t think I could handle them flights.

Phil so glad that’s kitchennearly finished. Might be by now actually. Sorry to hear about still not being able to eat. You are a true trouper Phil & all your stories are great. You n Mrs Phil have been through a lot. Yet you still have great sece o humour 👍.

Iv read all your posts Adrian 🤣🤣you deffa should be a screen writer as for the link advert I bought it for my hubby. He say wthell is this. He gave it to oldest grandson.

SpongeBob. You stories are great also. They all make me laugh.

Still not beenhospital to discuss hubs treatment. 23rd. It just seem to be going on forever. 😢
User
Posted 09 Jun 2025 at 12:37

Sporry guys posted that by mistake. 


adrian how’s grandkids. Mines are all good. 


I have missed you all esp Phil kev Adrian & SpongeBob but I prefer to let yous have great


chats n them good stories. I have never forgot about any off you. 
well guys hope you all are doing ok. Or best ok you can be. 


take care everyone. Might catch up with yous all soon. 


suzz💚💙🦋

User
Posted 09 Jun 2025 at 13:06

Originally Posted by: Online Community Member

Then a bloke came up with a riding crop to buy, at the time my wife had a horse so I knew these things cost about £5 from a saddlery....£28 they charged him for exactly the same brand!


I remember it well. Still got it . Worth every penny.😁


Hi Suzz.


The grandkids are fine. They're in Italy, on a family holiday combined with a wedding of one of their mum's best friends.👰🍾. A very expensive marriage for the happy couple, and their guests.🫤

Edited by member 09 Jun 2025 at 22:32  | Reason: Additional text

User
Posted 10 Jun 2025 at 12:34

Bonne apres-midi all,


I think I’m getting addicted to radishes, they are delicious or “oyshee” as they say in the back of Japan. Al - I definitely recommend that you put radishes on your bucket list 😬.


Apart from weeds, radishes are the only things that I’ve managed to grow so far. My next hope is a strawberry 🍓, there’s one that looks like it might be turning red. Who knows it might be ready in time for Wimbledon. 
Crikey Phil, that was an amazing tale from the high seas, you must have been a good swimmer, Jonny Weissmuller. It read like an episode of the Onedian Line, or maybe Howards Way ⛵️?


Have a good one everyone,


Spongebob

User
Posted 10 Jun 2025 at 16:18

Hi chaps. 

Updated my ‘health’ thread this morning so if you feel the need my visit to A&E yesterday is chronicled. 


Al, after I was diagnosed Stage 4 incurable I had a drink with a couple of mates and one of them asked about bucket list things and I thought it was so funny. And brave of him to say it. But I’ve never really had a list and wasn’t gonna start then. I think maybe Everest was out already 😬…


Crikey Phil, that was an amazing tale from the high seas
Just a product of growing up next to the sea. Our first house actually backed onto a creek, no rear garden just water.


Al, My younger brother was a Mini person and had all sorts of tuning bits on his including an extremely wobbly one piece front end. But he bought my Mk1 Escort Sport off me when my new Capri came in January 1979. I’d had the Mk1 a couple of years and I loved it. Engine was a peach and with close ratio Sport box was quick off the line. In fact faster then my mates Burton engineering Mexico - much to his horror.. When I bought it it had holes in the wings already. So new wings and a total respray. Removed all the suspension rubbery bits and Bilsteins all round. Mexico wheels. New rack and rear springs. Place near me did a set up on their rolling road when I fitted twin Webers. He took it out and said it was the best handling road car he’s ever driven… I was young and impressionable…! But it was definitely faster then an Alfasud I was going to trade it in for. And definitely more fun in the wet. 
On the old N Circular there was a roundabout and with my mates in the car on our way to Watford Hi Fi I got cut up by a van. So hero me stuck my foot down . Car went one way then the other and managed to go through the central reservation backwards between the hedge and railings without touching either, parking itself in the outside lane on the opposite side. … Just restarted and pulled away going round the roundabout a little more carefully this time… Looking at the gap we went through I couldn’t have done it on purpose. Not the only time I spun it round…! 

I also fitted carpets instead of the std rubber flooring and had a massive sheepskin rug in the back to please the girlies 😉. I did try a roll cage at one point but it was too restrictive 🤪… 


God knows how much I spent on that little beastie. I did love it. But moving onto a brand new Capri was like suddenly growing up… 🤔 But of course being a kid at heart I had to change the std wheels to wider Alycats… I was now cool again …?


Phil

 
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