The Night Mail

[Tony_S]

Just now, polybear said:

 

A Party without cake and jelly JUST ISN'T A PARTY.  🤬

I am not sure if the “don’t serve cake, ice cream and jelly” to toddlers “or you will regret it” in the 1990s was urban myth or based on some folk wisdom. By the time Matthew was preschool and at infants  it was usual to book a session at an activity centre where they could throw themselves off obstacles and then eat pizza. It got easier when the request was to go to a pub  for a family meal.
 

[Northmoor]

2 minutes ago, polybear said:

A Party without cake and jelly JUST ISN'T A PARTY.  🤬

I was once at a fancy industry lunch but had to leave before the dessert to be back home for my daughter's birthday.  When someone said what I was missing and I mentioned there would be jelly at where I was going, three blokes asked if they could come too.....

 

For another one of the early birthdays we did the usual and hired a room at a play centre.  Everyone was having chicken nuggets and chips or similar for tea, except one "guest".  I asked him if he didn't like chips and he said, "Nah, they make you fat!".  I can support any parent trying to teach children good nutrition, but to seemingly teach a four year-old that to be fat is the worst possible outcome in life?

[Oldddudders]

22 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

I can support any parent trying to teach children good nutrition, but to seemingly teach a four year-old that to be fat is the worst possible outcome in life?

Get 'em early! It's worked for religious foundations for many years....

[PhilJ W]

There was an item on the London BBC news today about getting preschool youngsters *vaccinated. To encourage them one medical centre held a party where as well as jelly and cakes they had the vaccine. *No needles, just a nasal spray.

Edited October 7, 2023 by PhilJ W

[monkeysarefun]

54 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

I think that so few British towns and cities being twinned with those in Australia is because of distance. When I lived in Romford we were twinned (tripled?) with Ludwigshaven-am-Rhein in Germany and Pasadena* in the USA. I had several trips to our German twin but I never went to Pasadena. Basildon is twinned with Meaux in France and Heiligenhaus in Germany. Again I've only visited Meaux in France which is an ancient town who's original centre was on a loop of the River Marne, very similar to Shrewsbury. I have visited it several times with the Basildon MRC. They have a thriving model railway club helped by the mayor being a member. I still hope that some day I will be able to visit Heiligenhaus, the attraction there is that it is only a trolleybus ride away from Wuppertal and the suspended monorail. *The same applies as to places in Australia, distance.

 

 

 When the Shire of Bland in NSW  twinned with both the towns of Dull in Scotland and Boring in Oregon USA, they made a feature of the distance.

 

 

[SM42]

2 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Will you be volunteering to stay afterwards to clean up? I think cake and jelly had fallen out of favour when we had such parties. 

 

Nope. 

 

It's and eat and run type of visit 

 

Andy

[Happy Hippo]

14 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

They walk among us....

 

 

What do you expect?

 

He wouldn't share his LDC!

 

PB would have torn his upholstery as well.

[polybear]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

I am not sure if the “don’t serve cake, ice cream and jelly” to toddlers “or you will regret it” in the 1990s was urban myth or based on some folk wisdom. 

 

No doubt to save multiple applications of barf all over the carpet.

 

Whilst working at WHL Yeovil a buddy & I went to Pizza Hut one evening, only for a coach load (literally) of older rugrats to arrive for a Birthday Party; no doubt Mummy & Daddy considered that the cost was worthwhile in order to dodge the wrecking chaos at home.

 

I watched a programme earlier about the development of the Harrier; the decision to scrap it in favour of two huge (and very expensive) White Elephants was nothing short of criminal - Spain are still flying theirs and plain to continue doing so "at least until 2025".

That's a Rant.

 

ION.....

I've a feeling that a certain Middle Eastern organisation may come to regret their actions today - I suspect retribution will be severe...and some....

 

BG

[Tony_S]

4 minutes ago, polybear said:

No doubt to save multiple applications of barf all over the carpet.

I think it was due to jelly chucking being a thing , or at least an alleged thing.

[Tony_S]

7 minutes ago, polybear said:

buddy & I went to Pizza Hut one evening, only for a coach load (literally) of older rugrats to arrive

We had our silver wedding anniversary at Pizza Hut at the Festival Leisure Park in Basildon (locally known as Bas Vegas). I had joked with Matthew that traditionally children organised a party for their parents 25th wedding. He said he was only nine, but wouid do his best. He told MiL he was going to take us ( he meant we would drive to ) Pizza Hut. He was presented with £10 by MiL to pay for us. We had a nice evening. 

[J. S. Bach]

3 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

I think that so few British towns and cities being twinned with those in Australia is because of distance. When I lived in Romford we were twinned (tripled?) with Ludwigshaven-am-Rhein in Germany and Pasadena* in the USA.  ...snip...

 i have been to Pasadena many times, it is only a few miles south of Baltimore(where I lived) on the main north-south road.

[J. S. Bach]

Night owl from the Piedmont.

[BR60103]

My wife quotes a saying that "Nothing interesting happens more than a day's mule ride away."

 

When I was growing up, my father knew someone who grew up in the next valley to Richard Burton.  Did he meet him?  No, he lived in the next valley.

 

We have places named after very many old world towns in Ontario. I can't find Birmingham, but London, Brussels, Dublin and Belfast, Paris, Seville just in a quick scan of the index. Waterloo is close enough to us that we can hear the cannons. 

There is also Punkeydoodle's Corners. Named because there was an old Pennsylvania Dutch farmer who would come into the tavern and ask for his favourite song, "Punkeydoodle came to town".

There are 4 places named Ebeneezer.

 

[AndyID]

15 hours ago, Rugd1022 said:

 

My 2012 FIAT 500 was built in Poland, with parts sourced from Italy and Germany amongst others. Folk often deride Italian cars for unreliability, useless electrics and build quality issues, but by far the worst offender in my 2012 Alfa Romeo Giulietta was the German produced wiring loom!

 

 

 

My 2017 FIAT 124 Spider was assembled in Hiroshima. Have not found anything wrong with it yet.

[Flying Fox 34F]

Well it is a Mazda!

 

Paul

[AndyID]

44 minutes ago, Flying Fox 34F said:

Well it is a Mazda!

 

Paul

 

Mazdas seem to lack the essential turbocharger 😅

 

Not to mention some decent Italian styling. If you want drive around in something that looks like a poached egg that's entirely up to you.

 

 

 

Edited October 8, 2023 by AndyID
improved insult

[iL Dottore]

On 07/10/2023 at 00:14, PhilJ W said:

I take it you mean *Frances Bardsley School which was an all girls school. Although completely separate schools, my school Hylands, an all boys school shared a sports ground with them. The only barrier between each schools playing fields was a strip of rough grass about two feet wide. Woe betide any boy who even dared to go near that strip of grass. *In my time it was known as Romford County High School for Girls. Frances Bardsley was the headmistress back then.

Ah yes, I remember it well...

The Virgin Megastore....

[iL Dottore]

13 hours ago, Northmoor said:

 ...I asked him if he didn't like chips and he said, "Nah, they make you fat!"...

Sensible child...

[petethemole]

14 hours ago, Tony_S said:

I think it was due to jelly chucking being a thing , or at least an alleged thing.

Not just for toddlers.  When I was a student I went to a party in a student house where somebody had the bright idea of filling a tin bath with jelly.  It started after pub closing and by about 1am it was impossible to stay upright, the floor was so slippery.  When Martyn was small we didn't have jelly at parties, which we usually held in the Scout Hut nearby.

[Tony_S]

On 06/10/2023 at 23:14, PhilJ W said:

Hylands, an all boys school

When I worked in Havering the boys only schools were Campion, the RC school and Royal Liberty, a boys comprehensive. Girls schools were Frances Bardsley comprehensive and Sacred Heart RC. I think Hylands School may have become the Harrow Lodge campus of the Technical College. Possibly a housing estate now. Frances Bardsley was on two sites, upper and lower school. Later I worked at the Borough sixth form college which was primarily for students whose schools could not support a viable sixth form. We were not supposed to poach students from schools with active sixth forms but were able to offer places if they applied. I was once given a tutor group that was made up of students from such schools and a few from out of Borough. The college principal seemed to get much satisfaction poaching from the established schools so those of us with those tutor groups  were supposed to ask about what it was had made them choose the college. Two of the girls from Sacred Heart answered “boys”. 

Edited October 8, 2023 by Tony_S

[Hroth]

4 hours ago, Flying Fox 34F said:

Well it is a Mazda!

 

Paul

 

When I see Mazdas, I always think of lightbulbs...

 

[SM42]

I think of of something else when I see an Osram lamp. 

 

Andy 

( try putting o sram into a translator from Polish to English and you'll find out why they may not sell well)

[Tony_S]

I did some playing with trains yesterday. I wondered if anything on my garage layout would  work after not using it for ages. The layout didn’t seem to be affected by dust or track dirt and the two trains left on the tracks since last time both trundled off nicely. 
I had also at sometime placed an ex ROD, ex GWR, BR 2  8 0 on the layout. It didn’t respond after I entered its number on the DCC handset. I then noticed it was making a slight noise, not a buzz, more shhh really. Anyway I took it in and placed it on my programming system. No response. It wasn’t a dead decoder, I hadn’t even fitted one. Not sure how that happened. All ok now.

Tony

Edited October 8, 2023 by Tony_S

[Dave Hunt]

This morning our friend who is with us and to whose house in Spain we are going tomorrow realised that she had left her iphone at her son and DiL's place where we were yesterday evening and is about an hour's drive from here, as well as leaving the keys to the Spanish house at her place in Oakham - roughly a 2hr 15min drive from here in the opposite direction. I breathed a sigh and was trying to ready myself to a nearly five hour drive to Oakham and back while Jill did a two hour drive in the opposite direction, when she (the friend with whom we are going to Spain) remembered that her daughter, who was staying at the house where we were yesterday, also has a set of keys to the Spanish place (do try to keep up at the back there) . That daughter's house is about an hour and a half away but in roughly the same direction as the house where she left her phone so after contacting said daughter plan B was for me to drive to son and DiL's place, pick up the iphone then follow daughter to her house to get the Spanish keys. Still with me? Well done. So off I went and achieved the first bit of plan B but as I was about to carry on towards the location of the Spanish keys there was a phone call to say that our friend had remembered that she had left a set of keys with a couple in Spain who had been doing some work at the house. The only snag there was that the phone number she had for them didn't work. Fortunately one of the many people by then involved (at this stage I was losing track of who was doing what, where) had the phone number of some other acquaintances in Spain near to the people with the keys so a call was made to them and they then contacted the people who had the keys, who will now leave the keys in a hiding place at our friend's house. I then drove back home with the iphone and went to lie down in a darkened room for a while.    

 

I now need a holiday. Anywhere but Spain will do.

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

4 hours ago, petethemole said:

When I was a student I went to a party in a student house where somebody had the bright idea of filling a tin bath with jelly.  It started after pub closing and by about 1am it was impossible to stay upright, the floor was so slippery. 

 

Once in my youth I went to a party  where I got completely ratar*ed and at a late stage in the proceedings found a spot on the floor where I could go to sleep. By then all the lights were out but I found what felt like a nice soft pillow and was soon in the sort of sleep only drunks can manage. It was with a feeling of some dislike when I awoke in the cold light of day and discovered that my nice soft pillow was actually a plate of cornish pasties, which during the night had turned into a gooey sort of mush. And the house didn't have a shower.

 

Dave