Linking used to be a pleasant experience, closeness is comforting, my wife still links me when we go out together. I think old Abe Lincoln was responsible for the tradition, he was visiting Boston one Summer with Mrs Lincoln and a voice in the crowd roared out “Look folks, the Abrahams Lincoln” Oh God take him off quick.
But linking arms seem to be going out of fashion, when I was young all the girls would link one another walking through town or going to a dance or whatever, they don’t do that anymore I noticed, and they laughed more and looked far happier than the sour faced young ones do today, femininity is on the way out, thank God I’m finished with all that chasing crap, some of the young ones going around now you wouldn’t chase with a hatchet.
Yeah, the thing that rescued me is now redundant.
i still like linking - gives me a sense of closeness and that i “own something” also feels like ya having sex with all ya clothes on and no one is watching much! one girlfriend used to do the “double switch linkage” she would start on the right side and then swing over to the left - left me feeling quite bemused and dizzy and sometimes thinking she was another girlfriend. she didn’t like it when i got the names wrong!
holding hands is different from linking - a more equalizing balance which I do not prefer. Linking makes ME feel in charge. I once linked a chimpanzee but that is another story!
never liked girls linking always thought it was the beginning of lesbianism. 
did anyone ever used to link theirs mudder or fadder? - now that was a strange feeling!
pity there isn’t a link icon on here heh? well there is actually but I can’t reproduce it - how about spittie?
dummy run for the real thing
deleted for prudence dear prudence
Time, gentleman please. maybe now is the Time, there is something restrictive about a Lock In.
Ecclesiastes 3New International Version (NIV)
A Time for Everything
3 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Yes there is a time for everything RJ, and there’s always time for a pint, as the old Guinness ad went.
We were all slaves to time in our working years but with retirement it gives you some control on how you want to spend what time you have left, I honestly wouldn’t swap retirement for 20 years more of being a young man again, I’m really enjoying it.
Time is an evil wicked clock that can play havoc on the body and make it a crock
From the day it gets it’s very first wind to the day we leave this World behind
Rushing around like a blue arced fly making a living so you’ll get by
Time is lazy and can go very slow from Monday to Friday as I’m sure you all know
But you can take it from this old Dub, it flies when your laughing in the local pub.
And when God loses the key and I’m wound up no more, they can take their time with them out through that door.
very prophetic Jem my dear fellow!
how about time is in fact an illusion - a man made event - artificial with no substance. sure the sun rise and moon comes out but they are not connected to time but to movements. us humans have this obsession of timing everything - time to get up and work - our birthdate is set in time and we celebrate it at a specific time each year - seconds; minutes; hours; weeks; months and years are artificial artifacts of human invention - does the crab use a wrist watch or a lion or even our nearest relatives chimps and apes - no their lives exist equally as ours do with no time. I wake each morning at approximately the same “time” but it is a natural event not a clock event.
The Aborigines of Australia who still live out bush have no clocks or watches they live by natural events and if you book an appointment with them for tomorrow morning they may turn up at any moment which may not be your morning!
Deep responses from Jem & Gumbud. I am in the company of giant thinkers, thank you gents
Ah linking arms 
Took me a while to reealise what was being talked about.
I definitely like it and think it’s ‘normal’ as is holding hands.
When I see couples walking together, seemingly avoiding physical contact, I wonder if they have a problem.
Crossing the road, for example, is one time when you should look out for each other and take the hand of your partener.
Rachel I can remember the old dance halls, the girls would be dancing with each other for the first part of the night, others would be standing around the dance hall walls waiting for the young men to come in filled with Dutch courage to ask them to dance, I think that’s how the name “Wallflowers” originated. Don’t know what they called the young men though, but the bouncers usually referred to them as “Drunken Bowsies”
Here’s a thing that gets on my wick, it’s when a couple are called an “Item” “Oh I believe Tom and Mary are an item now” As far as I know an “Item” is a thing, one thing = one item, so how can two things be an item?, I might as well say to the wife “Darling, we’ve been a thing together for a very long time now, isn’t that nice” Having said that I’m happy to say I never asked a “Thing” out on a date, although I came near to it once or twice while under the influence.
Isn’t an item also an “Article”? As a child I saw my grandmother looking out her window at the young one Molly Burke and her fella Cyril (the squirrel) Ryan walking down the street arm in arm, she chuckled and said “There’s a right pair of articles goin’ to the pictures”
“i do believe they’re going out”
“i do believe they’re courtin”
“i think they’re shackled now”
and just for robert!
genesis 2 v 22
" Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man
the man said "this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called ‘woman’ for she was taken out of man
for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh
the man and his wife were both naked an they felt no shame [NIV]
sublime!!
Ah the old Bible a great read, everything is there, adventure, tragedy, murder, sex, violence etc. Even if you don’t believe in anything it is a great book of historical reference and probably the most quoted book ever.
Back in biblical times they seemed to have no problems begetting, begatting, begotten or whatever and it went on long after retirement, and them that’s begotten are soon forgotten.
“As had been prophesied in Mamre the previous year (Genesis 17:21), Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham, on the first anniversary of the covenant of circumcision. Abraham was “an hundred years old”, when his son whom he named Isaac was born; and he circumcised him when he was eight days old”
Over here the last child of a big family used to be jokingly referred to as “The shakings of the bag”
Abraham was 100 when he sired a son and that was about 3,000 years before viagra!, there are ads on TV today asking men of 50 to get treatment for erectile disfunction, what went wrong?:shock:
I only went to a few of those, with Mum and a best friend, when Dad was playing drums in the band.
Early teens for me and I felt horribly awkward.
All the sophisticated women (probably 16 or even older !) wore stilletto heels and seemed to be out of control.
The Okey Cokey was dreadful and we were liable to be stomped on by an enthusiastic stilletto heeled ‘beauty’
Sorry, a lot of this stuff shot, straight over my head, that maybe a Bone of Contention.
OMG we’ve got midget on the site!! sorry spittie we’ll try to aim lower next time just didn’t want to hit ya three piece suite?:shock:
No need to apologise, minisculism, if self inflicted is beyond apologism, spose, it is incumbent for an individual to ride a recumbent Bike, before commenting on it’s ergonomic functionality.
Kids doing wheelies on Bicycles everywhere, in the days of the Racing Bicycle, and the Chopper, Wheelies were for a special occasion, and when actioned, created a sense of impending doom within the perpetrator, then there was those kids who spent all their time doing “Handstands”, small wonder there are so many inverted egotists, wandering around.
Oh goody! egoists on bikes, two spring to mind, Boris Johnson and Norman(on your bike)Tebbit.
He proudly held his head on high
Singing as he cycled by
And when he finally got to town
He really let his hair down
Hands on handlebars and feet in the air
Defying any requested dare
Then raising the front wheel and shunning all danger
It’s a Hi ho silver silver away, just like the Lone Ranger.