Leisurely Scribbles (Part 2)

[gumbud]

well despite all this weariness with covid and wars etc etc we are cheered up no doubt by the find of the Endeavour in excellent condition - it looks like its had a spring clean which when you think about it - it has in the pristine clean waters and ice of Antartica.

and wow I never realized that the South Africans had an ice-breaker and got involved in the search. South Africa - ice - ships - no still don’t get that!

Now is there anyone here called Weddell cos you are now famous the ship was found in the Weddell Sea - there ya go made immemorable in time!

A story that should stir us all ; cheer us up ; give us hope and give us some more endurance??

[Mags]

@gumbud ….thank you for posting news about Jem, I was concerned that he hasn’t been around for a while. I’m pleased to hear he is ok and having a tour around to see some sights.

[gumbud]

thanks for posting Mags I’m hoping he will return refreshed!! I do miss him terribly!

[Mags]

I hope so too Gumbud and I hope you you are able to keep the Scribbles going for him.

[gumbud]

@Mags I am also a bit concerned about spitfire who seems to have taken off too anyone know anything? maybe his suron was too fast in the end and took him away to the hills?

[Mags]

Yes I noticed that too @gumbud, I hope he hasn’t gone down with the virus or worse still had an accident.

[gumbud]

@Mags - I would hazard a guess he is suffering from the same malaise as Jem. Although since RJ and Pug and Solo dissappeared from this slot it has become quieter and poor old Jem has been pushing the barrow with a little help from Spittie and Fruitcake. I have only been able to get back on recently due to new fangled rules! Mind you my guess of who can spin a yarn or two as good as Jem goes to Fruitcake - he does have a good knack for it!!

[gumbud]

aggression ? - i have often wondered whether the human race is sorta programmed with aggression? we certainly see plenty of it around but on the other hand we see plenty of non-aggression too?

well our good old scientists have discussed what has been dubbed “the warrior gene” which they have labelled MAOA - it would seem that it has been indentified in a lot of cases where aggressive crime is involved. and some criminals have had their sentences reduced because of these findings in them?

but it seems that they are in the minority but are they ? - when cain killed abel or the other way around maybe he had it? - when the Israelites attacked Jericho with Gods encouragement maybe some of them had it. Maybe it has been there from the very beginning even in the Garden of Eden?

However I like to think that the majority of the current human race does not have this gene although maybe it’s on the increase? Do we see more aggression around us than we did a few years back? funny old world heh?

the warrior gene

[Fruitcake]

A yarn you are wanting is it?

Many moons ago I was working in a land far, far away, and would pick up one of my colleagues on the way to far, Farnborough away on a Mondegg Morn. One week we needed to pick up some equipment from work, and called in whilst it was still dark of the early morning ack-emma part of the nightshift.

My colleague and I were somewhat surprised to find the office empty, the guys on shift having taken a late lunch break to go jogging. The only reason we knew this was a-cause the pair were regliar runners, and had left piles of their clothes on the orifice floor.

One of the main tools of our trade were rolls of white 50mm wide cloth tape. We used it by the kilometre on every job to make temporary labels for hardware including ampilfires, monitors, 50m drums of 25 core cables, of which there could be several dozen strung out for each worksite.
The tape could be torn into all sorts of sizes, both across and along its length.
I grabbed a roll and started ripping it into half its width, spread the shirt and trouserings out with arms and legs at interesting and humorous angles to simulate a body, then stuck the tape to the flooring to give it a “crime-scene” type outline.

Then we went off to the job-site 150 km away. We never told anyone were were calling in, and never said a word to anyone (until today). We just chuckled at what the nightshift must have thought when they came back to re-dress and found what we had done.

In an unrelated incident, another job had run over, but the colleague I was working with had forgotten to extend his car hire period. This resulted in a snottogramme being sent to our boss with comments about theft and fraud prevention.
As my colleague started to tell the rest of the team we were working with, comments about prison and jailbird, and bounty-hunters were made.
At the same time, I quietly tore strips of cloth tape and stuck prisoner “arrows” over the back of his coat. It was two days before he discovered them, despite having worn the coat to home and back at least twice.

I loved my job, but the only parts I miss are the insults and banter and mickey taking that kept the department going.

[PixieKnuckles]

Oh I do like this! I bet your friend wasn’t your friend for a while after he discovered the arrows

Talking of cable drums, there were roadworks on the main street close to where I used to live recently. I politely asked if I could take an empty one when they were done with them (I had an idea to paint it and make some sort of table with it). They agreed, and shortly afterwards, I was rolling this huge empty drum along the main street and up the road, heaving it up 4 flights of stairs and into the house.

I painted it, and it looked quite lovely (if I say so myself), so I thought to myself I could actually do more of these and give them to the local nursery.

I ended up with 5 of them

…And the nursery didn’t want them. They had a point when they said I might have asked them first…!

They got thrown out when I moved, shame really. But hey it was a fun project!

[gumbud]

cable drums heh - well some ponderable questions there - my memory of them is that they are rather biggish or very biggish ? cannot imagine what use you think they would furnish in a seedling or flower or vegetable nursery? and indeed even more bizzare a childrens nursery ? - the little tots would hardly be able to see over them never mind eat their meals from them and rolling them around could prove quite disasterous.

as for fruitcakes adventures - absolute tomfoolery of the nursery type!! grown men sticking things on each other - my word my word - bizzare but fun heh?? you must have been able to work very quickly to fit tomfoolery in too and travel such many miles to avoid detection - how marvellous a truly truly flexible kind of job that allowed the stretching of things ??

[PixieKnuckles]

This photo isn’t mine (my photos got lost in a dying laptop), but just to show you the kind of idea. You can DIY cable drums, and also wooden palettes too.

[gumbud]

and the circumferences or widths and heights would be?? - they look very pixie like and ideal for either a plant nursery or kids nursery ? you might have been able to do a roaring trade in those and made an handsome packet?

[PixieKnuckles]

Mine were about 3ft across by 2ft high. Short and squat, with a thick core. I enjoyed painting them, and yeah if I had the space I would have done more, but I was just so disappointed with the nursery saying no that it didn’t occur to me to sell them - if I couldn’t give them away, who would buy them?! Now of course this recycling idea has become more popular, so I missed the boat on that. Never mind…I have lots more ideas

[gumbud]

yea but never fear - recycling includes ideas - and I do think you are onto something there - especially if you can get them for nothing and then sell them at a straight profit - I would re-consider and expand your market options!!

[gumbud]

and I do think you might have a kindred spirit with Mr Fruitcake here. He is into all things like that aren’t’ you Sir - fancy some entrepreneureal business ventures?? how about “fruityknuckes”?

[PixieKnuckles]

Haha! “fruityknuckles” That made me laugh. Yes I do appreciate Fruitcakes DIY experiments - if only I could be half as talented. I just adore quirky things and often find various purposes for things not meant to be used in such ways.

But often, its simply the creative process which is the best bit, and if something is made to sell, it kindof demeans it (in my mind anyway). I don’t know how others perceive their endeavours, but when I have made things before, and people want to buy it, I just give them it. It sucks the joy out of making things when money gets involved I could never be a business person

[Fruitcake]

Fruityknuckles made I larf as well.

R Mar always called those big wooden cable drums, cotton reels. I think you made a really good job of yours, and I have seen them used in play and recreational areas. I think you were just ahead of your time.

The ones we used at work were roughly 20 - 30% bigger than your average garden hose-reel depending on whether they were 50m or 100m cables. Each kay-bell, as we enginerds pronuncified it, was about 25mm in diameter with a 25 pin plug the size of half an apple on the end.

Moving kay-bell drums and equipment around was always known as “humping”. We had lots of silly names for equipment and jobs.
Checking the phase of a signal was always preceded by, “Set Phasors on stun.”
We used A LOT of acronyms and abbreviations, including DVM (Digital Volt Meter0, which became known as a Devious Volt Meter, or just a “Devious”.

Everyone took the p1ss, and most people gave as good as they got. If people didn’t insult you, it meant they didn’t like you.

As I said before, I miss the insults and the banter.

[gumbud]

my first job ever was as a trainee managership at a “pot bank” this one was situated by the side of a canal so in the original days the wares could be transported by barge! - unfortunately those days had past so I never got a ride on a barge!

I think the program was a prototype so I suppose i could have been called a proto-trainee manager!

the plan was for us small group of selected ones to be based in the clerical offices which housed all sorts up to and including the company director as in those days it was a family owned co.! we were allocated to one of two managers and then spent time on the ‘factory floor’ going through all the various depts of the company for on the job experiences.

I remember working in the design shop were new sanitary wares were shaped and completed before being agreed as a new product - products?? well they were washbasins and their pedestals ; toilets ; biddees ; etc. clay was liquified and spun in a big centrifuge must have been 20 foot or so diameter until the correct consistency for pouring into moulds that were housed in large factory sheds. The liquid was piped from the original centrifugale depot to these sheds and poured in by a handful of workers who all had their own section of molds. fascinating process in itself. the factory itself covered acres of land with the main offices in a large building adjoined to the canal bank and the rest of the factory spread out in their own large sheds. walking from one to the other kept you pretty fit. And I’ve jsut remembered they even had a factory keeper who lived in a double roomed house on site. I would get to work earlier than usual at times and stand outside his house sheltering from the rain waiting for him to get up at 7am to open the offices. they were toughing days but interesting ones and then there were the office girls to deal with!! that’s another story!!

[PixieKnuckles]

If we are talking about first jobs, mine was as a fake Faberge egg designer. I was in the North of Scotland and had to get a lift from a tractor to get to the farm workshop where these eggs were made.

Myself and another girl worked with an older woman who had lost an enormous amount of weight, and thus was “able to get away without wearing a bra now” - quite what the relevance was to eggs, I never knew, but she regaled us with fat - v - thin stories anyway.

We blew the goose eggs, carved them in half, placed lush velvet interiors and decoration on the edge. Most had filigree designs etched into the top half - done with a hand held gizmo, I forget the name of it. Diamante, rhinestones, velvet, satin…all these materials used to create luscious eggy containers for jewellery down in the Big City Shops. I used to imagine very rich ladies dressed in fur with long red nails and posh handbags, perusing our handcrafted creations made in a freezing workshop on a northern farm. Good times After that, I ended up at a livery stables galloping horses along a beach. I never followed a proper career path after that!