Things that make you :)

[Dave 46]

I thought my TNBDA (Thursday night beer drinking association) had been going for a long time - over thirty years, but that pales into insignificance compared with 56 years. We shut down during the COVID lockdown, and restarted meeting at lunchtime as we were all retired.  There are now four regular members and one occasional.

 

Dave

 

[newbryford]

The joys of autocorrect....

I'll just leave this here

( only those that know the name of 31128 will understand)

 

 

Edited Saturday at 19:51 by newbryford

[TheQ]

The only people I've met most weeks are a few members of the sailing club, and that's only 23 years, that's the few that sail summer and winter. Often that's only in passing..

 

[J. S. Bach]

Where/what did the autocorrect do here? The poster's name? TIA

[Ramblin Rich]

2 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

Where/what did the autocorrect do here? The poster's name? TIA

Class 31 No. 31 128 actual name is Charybdis...

[Stanley Melrose]

On 18/10/2024 at 15:41, J. S. Bach said:

 

Maybe he married her?

Well, I'm tickled pink that my original posting caused so many rejoinders but I feel I must confirm that I did not marry the lady.  She married another of my school mates and they are still married.  I bought my first car from his dad (a 1934 Austin 7) which I think he still resents, as it could have been his.

 

On the other hand, her older brother was my best man at both my weddings.  I should also add that I also dalled with her elder sister and she remembers me, too . . .

 

Now I'll sit back and see what "witticisms" appear next.

 

Stan

[5944]

[jcredfer]

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

The only people I've met most weeks are a few members of the sailing club, and that's only 23 years, that's the few that sail summer and winter. Often that's only in passing..

 

 

Perhaps you might consider meeting in the clubhouse, rather than those exciting moments as one yacht is passing another.....    😇 

 

.....  Granted the fun generated from the passing conversations keeps the adrenaline flowing, particularly on the closer communications, opened cans in hands, in the higher Beaufort numbers.....     😱

 

Nothing, too, dramatic really, just a few moments of calm conversation, with maybe a small libation, in the hand, to give the impression of a shared peaceful event.  [Club bar profits also contribute to the running of the Club, too.  Double bonus, painless contributions..... 🤔 ] 

 

Just a thought.....     🤣

 

 

[jcm@gwr]

[The Johnster]

Back in the 70s, one of my neighbours was a ship pilot (so was my dad, but he wasn't a neighbour) who would occasionally take on a relieving captain job on a coastal or near-sea voyage.  On one such occasion he took a ship from Cardiff to Felixtowe, and paid me to drive his car to Felixtowe to meet him so he could drive home, with me sleeping in the back seat.  Well, I'm always up for an adventure, so.

 

Now, East Anglia was not a part of the country I'd ever been to before, and this was November, a 7-hour journey in those pre-M25 days, and it was a particularly overcast and gloomy day.  The light started failing as I drove past my limit of previous knowldedge, about Aylesbury, and it became apparent that, the further east I went, the flatter and more featureless the countryside became. and the darker; distances between villages were greater, and the traffic thinned out, until I was a solitary dot in the immensity, my world constricted to the range of the headlights.  There were eyes reflected in the stubble in the fields, none of which had hedges, only broken-down fences, but I sort of understood that these were not actually eyes, or anything real, they were, well, something else and I thought it was probably none of my business.  It got darker, colder, and bleaker, until eventually, following the route I'd been given, I arrived at the great port of Felixtowe. 

 

There were the sort of lights of cranes & ships I expected in the distance, maybe a mile off, but for immediate purposes the entrance to the great port of Felixtowe was a tin hut occupied by the sort of chap who made you think that the stories about people with webbed fingers weren't all that far-fetched...  He said something, I didn't understand what it was but guessed that it was something along the lines of 'what be yer bizness 'ere, stranger from a far land'.  I asked where the ship (I've forgotten her name, now) would be berthed, and he murmered something else unintellible that might well have been 'beware, knowlessman stranger, for there be things abroad what man ain't wont to wot of, evil things, hunched 'orrible creepin' things that have learned to walk but should crawl in the slime'.  But he waved an arm in a general direction and opened the barrier, so off I went. 

 

Eventually the darkness relented enough to show a portacabin, with steam coming from the ventilator and a couple of lorries parked outside, so I went in to find out more.  I eventually worked out from the 'ave yer gotta loight, buoy' that the ship was to dock at x berth, and that she was delayed by 3 hours, and my best course of action was to head for the fleshpots (this was about half seven in the evening); 'go inter town, buoy, an' ave a beer and some fish'n'chips an' come back about 10'.

 

Town? What town?  Apart from the dock lights everything was blacker than the inside of cow out there, and nothing between me and the Urals, and the wind was bitter.  The eldritch screeching may have been gulls; yes, that'll do, lets say they were gulls, the alternative is, what, the Fell Beasts of the Nazgul from Lord of the Ring, or worse.  I convinced myself I heard a fox bark, but deep down I knew it wasn't a fox, or anything that small...

 

So I found my way into town, Great Yarmouth, and it was closed.  And the wind was getting up, and colder.  I did manage to find a pub, with two people in it, who looked at me as if I was a Martian; I was reminded a little of the 'Slaughtered Lamb' in American Werewolf in London, but that was much more welcoming and friendly.  There were definitely no fleshpots, for which I was grateful...  I also found some inedible fish'n'chips (not fair, the fish was pretty good), that looked as if they'e been warmed up from a week or so before, but that was clearly wrong, because these chips had never seen warmth, yet they weren't raw, served by something a bit like Cousin It from the Addam's Family that was apparently incapable of speech.  Everybody was hunched and gnarled, and should have been called Igor or Boris...  Or, and much worse, Morticia...

 

When I got back to the great port, everybody had gone home, or back into their feral lairs or burrows at least, the barrier left for me to lift and put back after me.  She'd just berthed, and my neighbour was disembarking with a duffle bag.  The fox, yes, it was a fox, of course it was, what else could it be, that's right, it was definitely a fox, ok, barked again as I replaced the barrier at the gate, closer this time, with much more menace.  Did I mention that it was absolutely positively definitely only a fox?  By this time I'd had enough of East Anglia, and settled down in the back seat after exchanging pleasantries, to be woken for a cuppa anna sosij sarnie in a transport caff somewhere in Hertfordshire.  Rural Hertfordshire!  Lights, buildings, warmth, slot machines, music. other traffic. people that looked human, and living; it was a bit of a culture shock. 

 

It was some years afterwards that I became familiar with the legend of Black Shuck.  I'm glad of that, not sure I'd have wanted to know about it that night, especially thinking about that fox barking...  I like night driving on my own, find it relaxing, and I thought this was going to be easy money, but I reckon I earned it!

[TheQ]

Felixstowe hasn't improved, GY isn't that much better, though if you went to GY today the most common languages aren't Martian, but are Portuguese or asylum seeker...

[DavidB-AU]

15 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

 

One out of five ain't bad!

 

All the descriptions used in this advert are correct, they are just not in the right order..🤣

 

 

 

[Jol Wilkinson]

3 hours ago, TheQ said:

Felixstowe hasn't improved, GY isn't that much better, though if you went to GY today the most common languages aren't Martian, but are Portuguese or asylum seeker...

As a resident of Old Felixstowe for the past four years and of Suffolk for twenty, I can assure you that your prejudice is misplaced. Felixstowe benefits from not being a trendy  East Anglian town, such as Aldeburgh, Woodbridge, Blakeney and others, so local people are welcoming and pleasantly normal.

 

Sadly, Ipswich is the Suffolk town that has deteriorated considerably, partially through commercial decline and partially through other (politically influenced) reasons.

 

The Johnsters story of his visit to the docks shows a city dweller's inability to cope with the countryside. As I visitor to the east coast for over five decades. including sailing along it in the 1970s and the 2020s I don't recognise his description of the area. Further his description of the local accent would put him many miles further north in deepest Norfolk.

 

My career meant that I lived in a number of locations, including Buckinghamshire, Warwickshire, Northamptonshire, Shropshire, Essex, East London and the Sussex coast. Of those the two I wouldn't return to are East London and the Sussex coast

[GrumpyPenguin]

56 minutes ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

The Johnsters story of his visit to the docks shows a city dweller's inability to cope with the countryside. re, Shropshire, Essex, East London and the Sussex coast. Of those the two I wouldn't return to are East London and the Sussex coast

More like the inability of some to come to terms with a sense of humoUr or the ability to recodnise what tongue in cheek means.

 

Bet you have never read a Bill Bryson book ?

[chris p bacon]

1 hour ago, GrumpyPenguin said:

More like the inability of some to come to terms with a sense of humoUr or the ability to recodnise what tongue in cheek means.

 

While others have an inability to use a keyboard 😂

[steve1]

41 minutes ago, chris p bacon said:

 

While others have an inability to use a keyboard 😂

 

That’s where the extra fingers help…

 

steve

[franciswilliamwebb]

3 minutes ago, steve1 said:

That’s where the extra fingers help…

 

Available on the web...

[Jol Wilkinson]

2 hours ago, GrumpyPenguin said:

Bet you have never read a Bill Bryson book ?

You lose, I have read Bryson's books (who lived in Norfolk for ten years but is now slumming it in Hampshire). 

 

We still have several in one bookcase, although gave away some to the local Samaritans Charity shop when we moved house in 2020. They sit alongside those of another of my favourite writers, Pete Brown, whose books should not be missed by those who enjoy a glass of beer..

Edited Sunday at 12:36 by Jol Wilkinson
Additional text

[GrumpyPenguin]

2 hours ago, chris p bacon said:

 

While others have an inability to use a keyboard 😂

If you are referring to my speeling of humoUr I do the same with neighboUr, harboUr & so on to emphasise to our North American friends the error of there ways with regard to English then you (as well as others bit).

[GrumpyPenguin]

1 hour ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

You lose, I have read Bryson's books.

In that case I would have thought you would have seen the TIC/irony/hunoUr in The Johnsters post.

 

Currently, I'm re-reading Bills books..........

[chris p bacon]

1 hour ago, GrumpyPenguin said:

If you are referring to my speeling of humoUr I do the same with neighboUr, harboUr & so on to emphasise to our North American friends the error of there ways with regard to English then you (as well as others bit).

 

I did add a laughing emoji, but judging by your reply I should have added 'And the ability to be condescending' 🙄

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, GrumpyPenguin said:

If you are referring to my speeling of humoUr I do the same with neighboUr, harboUr & so on to emphasise to our North American friends the error of there ways with regard to English then you (as well as others bit).

I failed at yesterdays NY Times Wordl because the word was FIBER.

[J. S. Bach]

5 hours ago, franciswilliamwebb said:

 

Available on the web...

Amazon? ebay? 🙄

[J. S. Bach]

4 hours ago, GrumpyPenguin said:

If you are referring to my speeling of humoUr I do the same with neighboUr, harboUr & so on to emphasise to our North American friends the error of there ways with regard to English then you (as well as others bit).

That should be "THEIR ways"!!!! 🙃

 

 

Edited Sunday at 17:37 by J. S. Bach
To correct a typo

[GrumpyPenguin]

3 hours ago, chris p bacon said:

 

I did add a laughing emoji, but judging by your reply I should have added 'And the ability to be condescending' 🙄

for some strange reason emoji's don't show up on my screen..........