omg mon put it away you don’t’ know where it’s been!!
that lovely comment warms the cockles of me heart - so many just living alone with sometimes not a lot of social outlets or connections - well done that man - I lived with my paternal grandparents for a while and as I kid it all seemed quite normal to me and despite a few hiccups it was jolly too - a case of more the merrya. these days wot with OPH’s and granny flats etc we all seem so divided? The ME peoples seemed to do it much better once but maybe they’ve gone all modern too? No I am a great believer in taking care of the elderly if at all possible and that doesn’t mean shuvvin em in an OPH or granny flat if at all possible.
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hic hic hic hic - burp burp burp burp - pardon - …t…t…t…t exuse moi - erh erh - no - no not me madam - I’m just ya regular frankie??
well someone told me on good authority this is how to kick start it again? and of course hurrah hurrah hurrah for Mrs queenie heh? I’m hoping to get back there this year and have a cup of tea with her - left it all to my agent ?
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I was at Doncaster bus station waiting for a bus the other day, which was over 30 minutes late by the time it turned up, but that will have to be an issue to be aired another time. Also waiting for the same bus were a man and woman with two children in pushchairs, although I didn’t know for sure at the time that they were waiting for the same bus as me. There were also a couple of friends with them, who turned out not to be waiting for the bus, and whose presence I can’t account for. The lot of them were in their early twenties, I would say.
I should just mention that I recently received my elderly person’s bus pass, which I not long since became entitled to, and am still in the process of getting the novelty of travelling by bus out of my system. I think I’m almost there. What had never occurred to me was that I would by no means be the strangest person on the buses.
But back to the awful little group of twenty somethings: They were very noisy, in a yobbish sort of way, but not aggressive, and then I became aware that the tone had suddenly changed. I looked to see that an overweight woman -also with a pushchair- had now joined them, and she was being shouted at very loudly by the man of the original couple. He was accusing her of doing something behind somebody’s back, and the something was “shagging”, or so it seemed. The woman wasn’t taking it lying down, though, which would have been her usual position if what she was being accused of were even partly true. She was screaming back at the man, and jabbing her finger at his face so closely that she was almost picking his nose. The others all chipped in occasionally, and the whole thing was just like that terrible Jeremy Kyle show that was banned from TV.
You couldn’t make up what happened next, yet I have. The woman reached into her pushchair and brought out a hammer, and delivered a most forceful blow to the side of the man’s head. He fell to the floor, and she continued to smash him about the head with the hammer. There was blood everywhere, and everyone was screaming.
When my bus eventually turned up and I got on it, I was very dismayed to see the couple with the pushchairs also get on board, and sit themselves right in front of me. I was on the bus for twenty minutes, and during that whole time they talked of nothing but the row with the other woman. Every sentence they spoke seemed to contain either the word, “slag”, or “shag/shagging”. What it amounted to was that this couple took a very dim view of the slag, but I don’t think it could have been any dimmer than the view I took of them. I don’t know if there was anyone further back taking a dim view of me, I never looked. It was a real pleasure to get off the bus when it reached my stop.
Is this the sort of thing that happens all the time on public transport? I suppose I’ll get used to it if I make the effort, but I am only prepared to make the effort because of the free travel.
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Step too far for me Harbal, I don’t do free, if I have to negotiate with ghosts.
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well thank you Harbal for your rather erudite account of life in the fast lane? I would imagine you would get a cross-section of the popn using PT and not private? and they undoubtedly would be of many persuasions and languages and ages and emotional temprements? But I would guess that you are probably mixing with the poorer end of society who cannot afford their own private means of transport? these people can range I would imagine from harmless and well mannered to the kind you encountered? Reminds me of going to those travelling circuses and side shows that used to travel the length and breadth of the country - usual catering for the lower esholones of society - sometimes harmless and othertimes not?
However I come to an intriguing question Harbal ? - why do you not have a car - doesn’t have to be big and flashy can be cheap and nasty but it would help you to avoid this sorta encounter??
Ps: and back to the bus encounter: of course when you select a seat to sit upon I am sure no one has wiped it down for your health benefits??
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I do have a car, but I can travel on the bus for free now.
No, but I don’t sit on the seats that pose a health threat. 
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it would seem that most of the english now have forgotten how to “scribble” these days and once you have mastered that comes " leisurely" ? - I’ve seen scribbles that have been rather rushed ; and what seems to be aggressive scribbles and then perhaps drugged scribbles but never ever these days the full monty - leisurely scribbles [part 2] rare as a hens egg these days? I wonder what leisurely scribbles part 3 will be all about if ever we get there? scribbling used to be defined once as a true art : a writing skill done quickly that only the writer could decipher and which was illegible to all other comers?
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Well I haven’t really grasped the concept of leisurely scribbling, so I don’t know if I have it in me to master the art. What I do know is that I have a strong desire for what I write to be understood, so I guess that will always be there to undermine any ambitions to achieve true leisurely scribbledom. All I can do is pop in now and then and offer my meagre attempts. 
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What will be will be Gummy. 
Nothing but political talk in the pubs these days, wars and scandals, and of course the cost of living here, there’s no escaping it, quite pint me arse, but I do relax, lie back and relish it when I hear the juicy bits.
Tell me more tell me more…
I heard this in the pub today, I’m never up to date with politics, so it’s new news to me but not to you, anyway any juicy bit of scandal about these lousy leaches is always welcome.
Seems a member of parliament was caught looking at porn in the house of commons some months ago, and had to go, quite right too, back in the 70’s one of our political strawheads was expelled for reading the racing pages in the Dail.
The British lad said he was looking at tractors with a combined harvester attached, wonder if he was arrested could he bail himself out the back of it with the other bales?
“Fairy tales can come true, they can happen to you, if your’e a lying old fart…”
“There was an young tory called Neil
Who was bursting with sexual zeal
So the randy old git, went on the net
To ogle a tractor, it would seem”
“Tell it to the marines” as our American friends would say. His fascination for sexy tractors could have began when he was a boy, who knows, didn’t some woman marry a tree not so long ago? 
I neither know or care, sad situation but it will be resolved, before last breath. 
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Good to see ya, Jem. 
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Oh Ho, suspect, that not Harbalish.
dah I see he’s combining his wurzels with a combine harvester? is that hands across a thread or tread or what -don’t let a silly little wheel come between us - a picture paints a thousand tales or summat - hold my hand and I’ll pull you over? I do miss those dulcet tones of the ‘man who lived on an island’ he had such a explosive way of putting things and then I wonder how old uncle vinny is these days - ah those were the days my fries we thought they’d never demize - perhaps we have just been too too leisurely about it all and let it slip away from our grasps or maybe we have just forgotten how to use a pencil and a rubber and sharpener anymore ? remember when we had a lovely fountain pen and an inner tube filled with ink - ah those were the days - and how DID that ink come out at exactly the right proscribed flow to let the letter glow - ah those were the days !
oh wait a mo he wants to ‘atracter’ is that what it is? or is this ring big enough perhaps ?
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I do not expect sympathy for self inflicted wounds, but one is slightly cream-crackered as well as covered with scratches, splinters, and bruises.
Near every day I seem to be calling out to my Lovely Cousin, “Nurse, Nurse, I done hurted mysel agin.”
It was something akin to a snowball effect or chain reaction or simliar. In order to do one specific job, many others were revealed as a result, and had to be done in a specific sequence in order to achieve the final result.
Ignoring a suggestion from the highest authority in the land is like disobeying a direct order, so when my Lovely Cousin “suggested” I build a mini-gym to house an exercise bike and dreadmill in the garage where once our classic car resided, I set about its construction.
Materials were ordered, then I started installing three new power sockets for the dreadmill, a heater or fan as the season’s declared, and on the insistence of my Aunty/MiL somewhere to charge her mobility scooter. This involved removing a redundant circuit with four sockets, replacing and repositioning them on a radial circuit, and rerouting the cables, relocating the supplementary fridge and freezer, and cutting a series of holes in the ceiling to access the existing ring main and rerouting part of it.
I wasn’t happy with the old garage fuse-box and underground cabling from the house, so I installed a brand new jobby with surge protection and miniature circuit breakers each with individual residual current protection, and a brand new overhead armoured cable run through roof joists and along the house wall.
After finishing the construction of the new gym, I went on to building cupboards and shelves, and installing brackets to hang up all manner of things that were getting in the way including ladders and platforms and extension leads and ropes.
Yesterday, Alec (Trician) and his mate Pat (Testing) came to connect and certify the new electrickery installation before I then proceeded to rip out the old cabling and fill in holes in the wall.
My Lovely Cousin and I then drove down to Bridgewater to pick up a pair of chimmley pots that had been advertised on ebay. They were much bigger than we had expected from looking at their likeness on a phobile moan screen, being as tall as my hip, and exceedingly heavy original glazed terracotta jobbies. We had to carry them down a series of steps in the back garden, one at a time, weave our way through the seller’s house as there was no back entrance, then down an S shaped set of steps of carrying width, depth, and height to get to road level before hoisting them into the back of my Lovely’s car.
Then we had to do it all over again for the second one, before unlading them in the garage on our return.
As I say, one is somewhat cream crackered, although senior management is delighted with the work completed … so far. I still have to move a couple of coat rails and install shelves in a couple of cupboards within the hose as space for all my Uncle/FiL’s medical paraphernalia is at a premium.
As a result, today has been declared a day of (physical) rest. I say physical, a-cause I shall begin to do my Outlaw’s tax return today so I can later submit it to the UK Government’s Department of Robbery and Excise.
Does dear old Donny still have two bus stations, one serving the North, and the other serving the South.
I remember there was a furore when they were built, or perhaps it was just the Northern Bus Station, because the designer had said bare metal would be used that would change colour due to oxidation and end up as a pleasant natural brown colour, or some similar rubbish.
Of course, within a few moths the sheet steel was covered with 'orrible surface rust, and nasty brown streaks ran down the concrete to permanently stain it.
Unfortunately for the council, there was no comeback on the designer or building contractor because they had stated precisely and truthfully what would happen to the bare steel, but the powers that be were too stupid to understand that oxidising steel meant rusting.
The term was put into the contract to “save money” because the steel wouldn’t need to be painted, and would never need the added cost of being repainted. Bargain, thought the council; will have some of that.
yes tradesmen have a lot to be taken into question about - like turning up on time for a jobby ; and not just visiting you every few weeks in between other jobbys who are getting the same high standard of treatment? then there are the smokos and tea breaks and constant load music being played on their trans knees??
yes the heart and sole of the british empire - its them wot keeps everyfingy running heh?
I rely on trades persons as little as possible, but there are certain things I cannot do, including the black arts (plastering and brick-laying), things that I can no longer do such as car repairs and maintenance, and things I am not permitted to do such as eklectrickery and gas certification.
I did all the electrical installation and mods myself, but needed a qualified person to make the final connections then test and provide a sir-sticky-foot to comply with UK regliations.
Thanks Harbal, I was delighted when I logged in yesterday to see you back after your holiday break 
, best of luck to you mate.
Good God! it’s either a feast or a famine here, great reading lads.
I hate all those cremation and funeral ads during the day aimed at us old folks, jaysus we all all know we’re going to kick the bucket but do we have to be reminded of it four or five times during the screening of a film?.
Having said that we are stuck with the ads and that’s it.
I like to amuse meself by picking holes in some of the scripts the poor actors have to read. Like the Smart insurance ad where the magic words from the applicant seem to be “I’m 32 and I don’t smoke” Whoopee!, big bleedin deal, sure everybody who’s 32 today doesn’t smoke.
Next it’ll be “I’m 32, don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t gamble or have sex, should I sign up with you or become a Trappist Monk?”.
Then there is the lovely blonde girl in the guide dog add, she reads through the script and near the end she says: “ And I have a dog, I’m getting married too”, there is not much of a pause between I have a dog I’m getting married too, maybe she does it for devilment.
This old tune was regularly played on the radio back in the 1950’s when I was a toddler, I was sick asking the adults what was in the box, never got an answer, anyone know?
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