Leisurely Scribbles (part 5) (Part 1)

Hobbies & Pastimes Hobbies & Pastimes: Chat / Discussions
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“I have never been a fan of Halloween”…there I have said it.:smiley:

I dont think my generation were too keen on it either and if we were we kept quiet about it as it was a tad scary. All that dead soul stuff along with ghosts fair gave you the willies and kept most of us close to our Mothers skirts…and going to the dark outside loo was definitely out that night. Chambers pots were a lot safer :shock:

If you were brave enough to venture out and risk a clip round the ear for tricking and treating you wore an old cut down sheet with eye holes carefully snipped out. Non of this store bought stuff that looks as though it came out of some eccentric film stars wardrobe and cost the earth.:wink:

Mind you that Thriller song with Michael Jackson is now very doable to dance to for us oldies as the moves are how we move anyway these days. What goes around comes around… Thrilling innit .:mrgreen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/xs4vImd2Hds

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One thing our parents got right about Halloween, even though they probably didn’t know it at the time, the tight household finances dictated it, it was to give out fruit to the kids who knocked on the door, nuts, apples. pears, oranges, grapes, and maybe a coconut to the VIP kids. like the three the local councillor had, they were important kids because their dad could fix up jobs for the fathers in the council. Nobody had sweets or chocolate for themselves never mind callers at the door, just good wholesome fruit.;-):slight_smile:
Halloween used to be known to the fruit sellers in Moore Street as the “Dealers Christmas” not anymore it’s not, sad that.:frowning:
If you gave a kid fruit today they’d probably hit you with it, sweets, crisps and chocolate bars are the order of today, is it any wonder we have relays of Billy and Betty Bunters knocking at our doors on Halloween night.;-):smiley:
At our school homework was called “Exercise” or ekker for short, to be done in our exercise book, and on Halloween day all the class would sign their names to a page for the teacher, I still remember what it said in block letters on top of the page.
“Apples are nice, nuts are better
Please Mr. Kenny, give us no ekker”
Not exactly Shakespeare but it did the trick.

Phyllis loves Halloween and she’s busy as I type making up bags of junky fattening stuff for the callers, she always gets a good crowd of kids much to her delight, I just stand by and let her do her thing.
She went one better than those seniors in the video, here she is dancing with the real thing. Feel free to slag all you like about her partner, I can take it.;-):smiley:
“Take these chains from my heart and set me free…”

https://i.postimg.cc/X7jGbZZk/vlcsnap-2013-10-10-15h45m50s249-copy.jpg

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Great photo and thank you for sharing…but I have to say you have definitely lost weight and are looking a bit pale there Jem :wink:

Now I am no doubt going to hell on a handcart for posting this clip but the thought of all those greedy kids eating all those bags of junky fattening stuff is worth going to hell for… wot about us oldies who like sweets :-D:-D:-D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/IJvRDU6X1k8

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As everyone over 60 knows Solo, sweets are good for giving oldies more energy, Toblerone is my favourite energy boost, so is Guinness, but not together.:smiley:
Ah children, I love them, ever since I was one myself, they are so funny at times, and when they grow up they remember everything, especially if you nick any of their sweets. :slight_smile:
We only had the two, wish we had more, now even the grandkids are adults, except for little Patrizio who’ll be seven in March.

Speaking of the little fella, and this is a true story believe it or not, it’s no skin off my nose. I may have posted this tale before, if so I apologise for that.
About six years ago my son was out in a house in Skerries Co. Dublin, he was there to fix a Romanian woman’s computer, the woman lived in the house with her elderly mother, her husband was dead I believe. She worked at home and the computer was essential to her work.
They were talking as he was working on the machine and he mentioned that his father (me) made jewellery, with that she went over to a sideboard and took a large red glass ball from a drawer and asked the son to ask me to mount it as a pendant in silver and make a long 22” heavy chain to go with it. (see finished article below, I seldom photograph my work but this one was special) she said it had been in her family for at least two centuries. He fixed her machine and took the ball home with him.
I examined the ball then estimated my time and the cost of the metals to give her a price, she accepted and I made it up. I noticed while holding the ball in my hand that it was fairly hot, even in the cool shed, something strange about it that is hard to put into words, more of a feeling inside me when I held it, weird I thought.
When I called out to her house to deliver the pendant she was very pleased with it, she paid me in cash, then told me to hold the ball in the palm of my left hand, next she placed her hand over mine and told me to make a wish.
As it happens I was badly in need of a good wish, my son had been married for ten years and they were trying hard to have a child but no luck. I wished that they would be blessed with either a boy or girl, wasn’t fussy which. Then I went home and forgot all about it. Two weeks later we got a phone call from the daughter in law to say she was definitely pregnant, and the following March the little lad was born as fit as a fiddle.
Strange eh? :confused:

https://i.postimg.cc/Gm4j2Wst/DSCF1795.jpg

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What a fascinating stone that is with it’s unusual markings…thought it was maybe a Red Jasper orb.

Stones seem to have so many meanings attached to them…some lucky…some healing although I doubt Virginia Woolf had that in mind when she filled her pockets with them and then went for a walk inthe river Ouse. Sank like a stone she did.:confused:

Nice to think though that a loving wish made miles away was responsible for little Patrizi.:smiley:

Now I am not suggesting that anyone should copy the below clip but it would save you sharing those sweets…wouldn’t it :mrgreen:

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I can see that fella with the dummy getting a hiding before the night is out. :smiley:

Some stones are really strange Solo.
One of the old neighbours called to the door last week, she wanted me to repair a gold opal ring, I always hoped that I would never see an opal again. I had to lie to her and say my polishing motor was out of action.
I wouldn’t touch an Opal with a barge pole, they are highly unlucky in my experience.
I was suspended from work because I wouldn’t make up a diamond and opal engagement ring for a special client of the boss, he got another goldsmith to make it for him and a wonderful job he made of it too, later that year the same young goldsmith went on a holiday to Greece and was drowned in a water skiing accident, I also heard that the engaged couple broke up two months before the wedding.
I have at least three more bad luck events where opals were involved, uncanny true events, maybe some day I’ll jot them down, better not, it would make depressing reading, even the thoughts of them gives me a shudder, there is something very weird about opals, you can keep ‘em, I’d rather be out of work and starve sooner than work with opals. I’ll bet the workers in the Australian opal mines have some tales to tell, if they were allowed that is, the Australian government has spent millions down the years to dispel peoples fear of the opal being an unlucky stone, well they would wouldn’t they, the White Star Line spent quite a few quid on publicity telling folks the Titanic was unsinkable too.;-):slight_smile:
Anyway people are free to believe what they like and if you want to wear an opal necklace with matching earrings, an opal nose hook and lip clip that’s fine with me.
But don’t say you haven’t been warned.:wink:

15528

I ain’t buying no more Opal Fruits.

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Always gone with the ‘If a thing makes you feel uncomfortable, leave well alone’ so you do best to follow your instincts be it with gem stones…and sweets of course, after all you could choke on one of them and deads dead no matter what the opal looked or tasted like.

There were loads of famous curse stories at one time. The Hope diamond, The Black Orlov and so on were all doom and gloom to those who risked owning them…let alone daring to push their luck and actually wear it…before their luck ran out and they croaked in one horrible way or another :shock:

You would have thought that if a stone was worth murdering for it’s going to have some sort of power…bit like one of those once fashionable Mood Rings that turned different shades depending on how you were feeling…and if it turned Black you worried for the rest of the day. :confused:

Makes me glad I have never been much of a jewellery wearer :smiley:

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“I ain’t buying no more Opal Fruits”:smiley:
Jaysus Spitty, did you have to say that! I used to like them, now I’ll never sleep in the same house as an opal fruit. Good job I don’t drive, there is a car of that name too I believe.
Saying that word to me is like saying “Macbeth” to an old theatre actor, they refer to it as “The Scottish Play” and when someone says it they have to go outside and turn around three times then come back in.:slight_smile:

I remember when those “Mood Stones” came out first Solo, all a big con based on the old red for anger, green for envy, blue for sad, etc. I don’t need any aids to detect moods in people, just one glance at the missus and I know whether to say something or keep me mouth shut.:lol:

An interesting tit bit about the Orloff Diamond.

“Over the years, the blueish diamond found its way to Amsterdam where Grigori Orloff, a Russian Count, was residing. He was the ex-lover of Empress Catherine the Great. He bought the stone for 90,000 pounds and brought it to Russia for Catherine. Orloff named the stone after himself. Catherine mounted the stone in the Imperial Sceptre. In exchange for the Orloff, she gave a marble palace to her friend Grigori. Unfortunately, the stone could not help Grigori to win Catherine’s love. Heartbroken, he died in 1783. In 1812, the Russian people hid The Orloff diamond in a priest’s tomb. They feared Napoleon was about to enter Moscow.*Supposedly, Napoleon found the Orloff and was about to claim it when a priest’s ghost appeared and cursed his army. And Napoleon scampered away without the Orloff.”

Here today, gon tomorrow.

Watching a western this afternoon, Robert Mitchum is playing a Mexican revolutionary, wonderful dialogue too.

“Where are de gons?”
“What gons?”
“De 12 repeating Gons”
“Oh them gons, 11 are in de wagon, the other gon eez gone”

Wonderful ain’t it! Mitchum’s Mexican accent was very funny.:smiley:

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Hello Guys.

15533

Hello Sweetie, where U Bin.:slight_smile:

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Taking the mick out of the oz accent could be a dodgy thing to do Jem so watch out for low flying bomerangs coming your way;-)

Used to love going to the cinema even though being petite meant I often viewed films through someones lug holes or hairdo but what with this all round realistic sound being so unrealistically loud and not being able to hear an unrealistic Aussie let alone what an unrealistic Geordie was saying I gave up but have you noticed…

Its just as bad at home with the TV. With some channels even with the remote turned full up you have to sit on top of it to hear what they are saying and then they mumble…the actually mumble in accent. I am paying to listen to an actor accently mumbling…and whats worse is he is getting paid to mumble.:shock:

Keep muttering “Quiet dignity and grace” :mrgreen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/O7x8V6NyLh0

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Traveling the net. lol

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And hello to you too Sweetie.;-):slight_smile:

Love that film, and Marty Feldman singing “I ain’t got no body” Wasn’t Teri Garr just gorgeously sexy in her role, well l’m sure she would be even more sexy without her role-on. :wink:

“Mumble in accent” how very observant of you Solo ;-), my cranky old paternal grandfather used to do that in his Mullingar accent, I thought that was impossible, my ears are playing tricks on me, but no, there he was mumbling away, he could even grunt in his native accent, yes he was a very cranky old lad indeed and I vowed I’d never turn out like him, I honestly can say that I never saw him smile, it’s not fair to be cranky with the ones who love you and have to live with you, a few kind words and a smile never harmed anyone.:wink:

There’s a thought, could you tell where a person was from by their laugh? a lot of Kerry folk have a high pitched laugh. I also noticed that most women have a tiny compact sneeze (tish!) while most males have loud sneezes (Ahhhhhhhh-tissssshhhh-uuuuu), is that the reason for man sized tissues and smaller women’s tissues?:confused:

“One day a spark will fly out from a dying fire, this one spark will light up and inspire a whole new generation” (Chief Sitting Bull)
Wonder who it will be?

Doesn’t Teri look great in this shot, oh to be Gene Wilder for a day.:smiley:

https://i.postimg.cc/tRFzRvYP/Teri-Garr.jpg

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She has Spangly Boobs, I’ll give her that.

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Oh to be a film star for the day and who would not want to be when you see a lovely photo like that. :smiley:

Those old black and white photographs had far more impact than coloured ones or maybe it’s because our generation were more influenced by b/w.

Of all the stark photos you see and remember of events like WW 1/2, Hiroshima, Vietnam etc its the b/w ones that stick in your mind. Colour may show the gore but that isn’t always necessary to leave an impression on you. The burnt baby shaking in Hiroshima and the little girl running in Vietnam needed no more than B/W to stay with you forever.

Seeing Marty Feldman reminded me… I have followed a story about the Staffordshire 3 million war hoard find back in 2009. You can just picture Marty lurking in some long forgotten field grasping a spade and a bagfull of gold things trying to keep an eye out for the baddies so he can bury the gold. Anyway the find caused a bit of bitter bother as it usually does between the finder and the field owner. ,:wink:

As a jeweller Jem you will appreciate the workmanship that made these beautiful objects. And spitty you can admire the spangly bits :smiley:

The Find
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7641913/Anglo-Saxon-artefacts-hoard-hailed-one-greatest-finds-British-archaeology.html

The Feud
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1368325/Pair-vicious-feud-sharing-3m-payout-finding-historic-Staffordshire-hoard.html

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I am going on a cruise next week.
I will do a photo thread.
I wonder what the entertainment will be like.

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We are used to the black and white photography Solo, some of the old films that are digitally remastered are as crisp and clear as the day they were shot, I enjoy watching them and there are so many to choose from, easier on me old eyes too. :wink:
Recently I tried to watch a “coloured in” version of Laurel and Hardy but it was terrible, I had to turn it off and get the black and white version to get to the end of it, ah well, that’s the way we enjoyed our films.

I read about that gold find, what a great discovery for present and future generations to enjoy, gold masterpieces made with great skill and patience with only basic tools, none of your electric drills, ready rolled precious metal sheets or polishing motors, all done by hand, melted and hammered out, old works like that never fail to impress and amaze me.

Sad about the feud arising between old friends, but that’s what greed is famous for, people falling out with each other, even killing each other.:frowning:

I particularly love the chasing on the helmet, very fine and accurate, which brings me back to hammers again.
I have a good selection of hammers, my favourite being a French chasing hammer, I used to do most of my chasing using this which was given to me as a memento by a great French chaser by the name of Herbert Le Bas when he was returning to his native Paris in 1972. Now deceased rest his kind soul.
Chasing is as old as gold, probably the most famous chaser of them all is Italy’s Giacomo Girolamo Casanova, well him and Ankle the Irish chaser who won three Cheltenham gold cups and proudly stands as my avatar.:smiley:
I once chased three Russian milkmaids and a cow around a silver urn, (never caught one, I slipped in the cow shit and they got away :-D) commissioned to hold the ashes of a well known racehorse trainer, that was back in 1974. Ah the thrill of the chase, happy days.:slight_smile:

Here is a fine example of a chaser at work on a bigger scale, note how relaxed he is, it’s most enjoyable work, the piece he’s working on is resting on a huge blob of wax cement so as not to distort the basic bowl shape during the hammering, and he’s using the blowtorch to heat the bowl up so it will sink into the wax, also to get it out again when he’s finished.
The hammering might give you a headache so it’s best to keep the sound down or off, it’s not needed anyway as you can see exactly what he’s doing.
His hammer is almost the exact same French chasing hammer I used to use.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/1YAIwQzmn7E

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Jem, did you hammer in the Morning?