Leisurely Scribbles (part 5) (Part 1)

My little grandson was over with us today, he’s eight now, he was playing football out in our side garden with some of the neighbours kids.
When they were finished he came indoors complaining of a slight headache, the wife was all over him like a rash, hugging and mollying him like a baby, she was embarrassing him, I could see that in the boy.
Too much sun I told him and sure enough when he cooled down and had his dinner he was as right as rain again.:slight_smile:

It brought me back to my own childhood, the older brother and me were mostly raised by my fathers mother, we were very happy with that, she was a tough old bird, but fair, she had been through a lot of hardship and poverty in her own childhood so it wasn’t easy to shock her, you could say she instilled confidence in both of us, making us aware at a young age that the world was no bed of roses for most folks.

Anytime the brother or me complained of pains and aches she used to say “Stop moaning, it’s only growing pains”. To this day I still don’t know what growing pains are or if you can get something to ease the growing pains. Any pains I get now I just think of them as growing old pains.:slight_smile:

If you asked her what the best thing for a cold in the head she’d say “Keep it till it gets better”.
Another thing she’d say if you got a minor bruise or cut on your arms or legs was “Don’t worry about it Jem, it’s far from your arse so yeh won’t sit on it. The old bottle of iodine was the cure all back then, and boy did it sting.
She was a funny old dear with a charming smile, she liked a bit of harmless devilment and we loved her, I still think about her regularly.

Yes your head would have to be hanging off yeh by a sinew before you got any sympathy when I was a kid.:lol:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/CZHc1_blhWU

Well Jem, prepare to be edumacated. Growing pains are a real phenomenon, caused I think when parts of a young-un’s body grow at a different rate to other parts.
I don’t recall having them myself, but I do remember the grown-ups talking about them.

I had a touch of heat stroke when I was a teenager. I fell asleep in the back of our dad’s car one summer whilst we were visiting Falmouth.
I had weird dreams and vomited that night, but after topping up with plenty of fluids, and a proper Cornish farmhouse cooked brekkers, I was as right as rain.

Cuts were treated with TCP or Germaline, and bruises were ignored. Now I’m on blood thinners though, everything takes a lot longer to heal these days. :frowning:

Thanks for enlightening me Fruity, I always thought we were being palmed off by the all knowing adults.:smiley:
Sorry to hear about the thinners, that’s to thin out the blood I believe, prevent clotting, yes I’d imagine it’s bound to have an effect on the healing process, but one carries on as best one can and you’re always at your sharpest and best on the forum my friend, that’s to be admired.:wink:

I see there’s a thread called “The Triple Lock” I thought it was a jail break thriller so I looked in, I love jail break thrillers, sadly I was disappointed, it’s something to do with old age pensions and inflation in Britain, nothing like that here, we usually get a fiver rise every year, although they skipped last year on account of the covid thing nearly bankrupting the country, they’ll be a lot more cuts coming up methinks.:frowning:

87 year old Cecil up in the local was telling us today that he only has four natural teeth left in his head, he wanted to take out his dentures to show them, but after a unanimous no he spared us the sight. :slight_smile:

He’s hoping the four existing teeth (three spaced out on top and one on the bottom) fall out soon so he can get a new set of full dentures, in the meantime he’s trying to figure out how much toothpaste to squeeze out of the tube to brush four already knackered teeth, says he can’t stand the taste of toothpaste, God he’s lucky if that’s all he has to worry about.

He was saying that toothpaste is bad for you, it helps kill of the good bacteria that fights off the bad bacteria therefore leaving the mouth prone to all types of oral infections, and as he was always a vigorous tooth brusher as per all the government health ads about oral hygiene, he blames toothpaste and the government for his now almost vacant gob.

Of course nobody believed his theory, nobody ever does, but then my mind flashed back to the days of DDT and how it was acclaimed as a ‘miracle powder’ for eliminating all types of bugs, only for them to become resistant to the stuff and mutate into the healthier and stronger bugs we have today, what a cock up that turned out to be, mess with nature at your peril I say.

Then Cecil says with a heavy sigh
“Had I the good sense to follow my grandfather’s advice and used only salt and luke warm water I would have a set of gnashes that would outshine the Bailey Lighthouse”

I wonder was Barry thinking about his teeth falling out in this song?, maybe he ought to follow Jimmy Durante’s example and write a song about his nose, Durante was a true showman and proud of his conk, he made a lot of money from the song “Its My Nose’s Birthday, Not Mine”:smiley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/3V_7-7myPxM

Maybe Barry and Jimmy should have sorted it out, with a game of Conkers.:wink:

Conkers at Dawn.:slight_smile:

:smiley: You’re on the ball there Spitty.:wink:

Just watched a 1940’s Charlie Chan film about a film actress who was engaged to marry a wealthy “Globe Trotter”.
A question for you, what happened to all the Globe trotters?, ner a word about them anymore. .:confused:

Another murder in Dublin today, 30 year old man accused of murdering his 60 year old father, God preserve us all, it’s bad enough with the gangland murders here without having family ones.

I recall the missionary priests annual visits to the parish years ago, they were real fire and brimstone experts that would have you shaking in yer boots listening to them, all that bawling and shouting and thumping the pulpet must have been very effective as there was far less crime about, the fear of going to hell was very real in the Irish population back in the 50’s.

One other important factor was the huge coppers we had in Dublin then, you had to be 6’ or over to join the force, I was always amazed every time I visited London to see how tiny the coppers were compared to our peelers.

I remember there was the murder of a man outside a local public house back in 1954 and people were talking of nothing else for weeks (barring Mrs Dales Diary on the radio, and the price of eggs of course), it was such a huge thing back then, murder was practically unheard of, even in a big city like Dublin, I wonder was it the fear of God, the fear of the Rambo missionaries, or the fear of the huge fist happy coppers.

“Lugs Brannigan” springs to mind here, he ran a squad of trouble shooting coppers in the city who were notorious for giving hidings to young potential baddies, didn’t bother arresting them and going to court, waste of time he used to say, just gave them a hiding they’d remember for the rest of their lives, tough, but it worked back then. :-):wink:
Lugs was a boxer before he joined the force, were he boxing the ears off young lads today he’s be locked up for life, my oh my, how times change if you live long enough. :slight_smile:

Murder is an everyday occurrence in the city today.:frowning:

As that 1954 case turned out it wasn’t murder at all but manslaughter, two men had an argument about football in the bar and went outside to sort it out with their fists, one hit the other a powerful box on the jaw knocking him off balance and his head struck a lamppost as he fell, he died in the ambulance on his way to hospital, tragic really as they were two great pals.:frowning:

I just remembered this old chestnut.

Two old ladies coming from the church after the missionary priest delivered his sermon.

Rosey: “That new preacher can certainly shout Mary, he roars like a Tiger”

Mary: “Yes Rosey, and bawls like a Lion”

Rosey: “How do you know that Mary!?” :smiley:

Sermons and semen, I dunno, sommat strange as usual!!!

I figured out what happened to all the wealthy globe trotters, they turned into wealthy “Jet setters” in the 60’s, and from then on they acquired other titles we know today, such as “Magnates”, “Tycoons”, “Nabobs”, “Plutocrats”, and “Fat Cats”;-):slight_smile:

I was travelling into town on the bus today and I couldn’t help hearing the two American students two seats ahead of me chatting away, I knew they were students because they came out the gate of Trinity College with folio cases under their arms and got on the bus I was on, Trinity gets students from all over the World.

Their voices were very loud and fast, as far as I could gather the conversation was about good wholesome food versus junk food and this is what my ears picked up, I’m useless at the American accent but it’ll give you an idea of what was said.
I’m sorry if it looks rude but they actually said this, I’m just relaying it on.

“Yeah man, ya just can’t beat the homemade shit”

“So true man, and the shit they put into the burgers and dogs these day is the cheapest kinda shit they can get”

“My mom’s a great cook, and she won’t have us eat junky shit”

“So’s mine, some of her recipes are a hundred years old, like her fried chicken in corn oil”

“Yeah some of my mom’s shit is last century too”

“Yeah, you just can’t beat eating you own mom’s wholesome shit can ya” :shock:

Then the pair of them got off the bus in Thomas St. and went into McDonalds.

I mean hows an old lad like me supposed to interpret that conversation, but then it was none of my business who’s shit they ate was it? :slight_smile:

The Flying Dog.

Our dog Rocky got out the other day, he was gone for about 2 hours before he came back safe and sound.

It was a mystery to the wife and me how he managed to get out, we had left him in the glass porch looking out as the two of us were working on the front garden, the hall door was open but the porch door was closed, he’s so nimble that he can squeeze through the hedge, that’s why we made a small fence all around it to block any escape routes at the bottom, but he has got through it once or twice before, hence leaving him in the porch looking out.

We then went around to the back garden for about 15 minutes and when we come around front again he was gone!

How he managed it was annoying Phyllis all day, she even suggested that he went up to the front bedroom, where the two windows were open, and jumped out, I’d reckon it’s a 16 feet drop!

I told her not to be so ridiculous, if he did that the little fella would be dead, and as she could clearly see there was neither bother nor bruise on him, besides says I, he’s 11 years old now, that’s 77 in our years, no way was it possible.

Well to cut to the chase the mystery was solved when she was speaking to a neighbour who lived facing us, the neighbour was out at work at the time of the great escape, but she had cctv security cameras recording and they might just have captured the upper part of our house, she said she would check it out.

She phoned a few hours later, and sure enough she had the little bugger on tape, he was gawking out the top window with a ‘will I or won’t I’ look on him just like someone attempting suicide, then low and behold he took a leap, landed perfectly on all fours and went galloping up the road, amazing how he wasn’t badly injured or even killed.:shock:

The upstairs windows and doors will be kept shut from now on when there’s no one around to watch him, no matter how hot it gets, he’ll never be as lucky again.:slight_smile:

I can’t get the short version of the video up here, so I took two ’stills’ of the action, not the best quality I’m afraid, been enlarged and it loses clarity, but you can still spot him in full flight in the last shot, he’s like one of those flying squirrels.:smiley:

https://i.postimg.cc/26Kd7BMh/vlcsnap-2021-06-25-17h55m31s682.png

https://i.postimg.cc/yx3mQ8C5/vlcsnap-2021-06-25-17h57m44s323.png

Blimey, what a crazy dog!

Crazy is right Fruity.:slight_smile:

I’ve had a lot of dogs since I was a boy, but this little fella is the craziest I’ve ever had, thank God there’s not a bother on him after that leap.:wink:

He’s a lovable fella, but he has no sense, we got him from the dogs home about 8 or nine years ago, he was in a very frightened condition, must have had a bad time of it with whoever had him first, he was on death row out there, the wife fell in love with him and we took him home, she’d be devastated if anything bad happened to him.

He sleeps with his four legs stuck up in the air like cricket stumps, mad as a hatter, but he’s in good company in our house.;-):smiley:

He’s great with children and a bit too friendly with strangers, that’s the worrying thing about him getting out on his own, he’d just ramble off with anyone who wanted to take him, I’ve never once seen him snarl or growl at anyone he didn’t know, he just keeps walking around them and wagging his tail, if he could smile I’d imagine he’d be smiling all the time if you know what I mean, a happy old dog like me.;-):slight_smile:

I was just reading today that landlords here are about to charge “pet rent” on tenants living in their apartments, indeed some already have, how greedy can they get, the rents in Dublin are astronomical as it is and accommodation is hard to find.

“Letting firm Havitat, which rents a number of apartment buildings in Dublin, also charges pet rent of €50 a month and adds two weeks to a tenant’s refundable deposit. The charges only apply to “roaming pets”, such as cats and dogs, and not animals in cages or reptile boxes.”RTE news

I wonder does that mean you can have an alligator in your apartment if you have a box big enough to keep it in? well it is a reptile.:lol:
I can foresee some law nit picking cases coming before the courts about this in the near future.

I grew up with cats. My Lovely Cousin grew up with dogs.
When we got married we compromised, and got a dog.

We are on our fifth dog now, and he will be our last. My Lovely had always been surrounded by Boxer dogs, and she persuaded my uncle to let her have one a few months after I met her.

The Kennel Club in their infinite wisdom didn’t allow white Boxer dogs to be shown, and many were killed as pups in an attempt to wipe the white genes out of the breed.
A few people sold them off cheap as long as the buyer promised not to breed from them, so my uncle got a white dog with a brown patch over half of his face for fifteen quid. He was of course called Patch.

He grew up to be absolutely huge and after a couple of years he was so big that my cousin couldn’t handle him any more. He was just too strong, and weighed more than she did at the time.
Apart from her dad, I was about the only other person who could manage him. When my uncle was taken ill, my cousin and my aunt had to put two leads on him and walked him together.

Oh I could write a book about Patch and his adventures.

He once knocked a mug of cocoa over my lap, ruining my best white flared corduroy trouserings.

I had to rugby tackle him once when he escaped and went for another relative’s dog that my uncle was walking at the time. Scrap another pair of trolleys.

He once ate a five pound note. Cue much screaming and chasing him around the house. Oh what a game he had that day.

On another occasion, he stole a pair of tights. He enjoyed that game of chase as well.

He was devoted to my uncle, so when I married my Lovely Cousin, she left him behind with her dad. We then got a Boxer dog of our own. We got her from a farm and she was covered in fleas. The breeder covered her eyes, then sprayed her will flea killer.
As we drove to a nearby pub garden, my Lovely was picking dead fleas off the puppy and flicking them out the window.

Over the years, another three Boxers have shared our home, but now due to age and illness, we have got a little dog, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.
He is a bundle of energy, but is much easier to take for a walk.

Wonderful doggy stuff Fruity, and well told as usual, I enjoyed it and thanks for posting it.:wink:

Heard a nice little story today up in the pub as told to me by the girl in questions Uncle.
I’ll make it as short as I can and skip a lot of needless details.:slight_smile:

It’s about a couple of young lovers down in county Cork, the girl got into trouble with the law, she was (unknown to herself) working for a gang of drug dealers as a courier on her motorbike, the gang had set up premises as legit medical suppliers at the beginning of the pandemic, anyway when the place was raided everyone was arrested and remanded in custody, her bail was set at €15,000.

There was no way she or her fella could raise that type of cash so her young man advertised for sale his beloved vintage Harley Davison motor bike willed to him by his late father.

A businessman builder from Donegal called to his house to look the bike over, when he heard the lads story and saw how upset he was he hadn’t the heart to part him from the machine, he asked could he take it for a short spin and when he came back he said he enjoyed the ride and he could keep his bike, he would put up the bail for his girlfriend.:slight_smile:

Eventually the girl was found to be completely innocent and released, and I hope they live happily ever after.:slight_smile:

I had a motorbike once, a miserable Honda 50, I used to say to the girls, “Would you like a ride on my motorbike, it’s Hardly a Davison. :blush:

”Oh God, get him off!!:lol:

There was a young lad from Kinsale
Who’s girlfriend was locked up in jail
He had to raise money, to bail out his honey
So he put up his Harley for sale.

True love indeed.

Looking at Spity’s bike thread there, everythings coming along swimmingly, God bless your hands and your patience young fella. ;-):slight_smile:

Every time I see or hear anything to do with a MOT test I always think of something completely different.
A ‘Mot’ is an old Dublin word for a fella’s girlfriend. I never hear it used now except by folks me own age and slightly younger.
My eldest grandson hadn’t a clue what I was on about when I asked him to say hello to his Mot for me.

I’m waiting for me Mot
I was told to be right on the dot
She said she’d be here at half seven without fail
Jaysus I’m freezing in the wind and the hail.

I’m still waiting for me Mot
Now me temper is gettin’ hot
Me hands are numb and me ears are like icicles
And I’ve just been slagged off by two whores on bicycles

I’m browned off waiting for me Mot
A happy lad I’m certainly not
I’m at the kerb under Nelson’s Pillar
And when I get me hands on her I’ll bleedin’ kill her.

I’ve given up waiting for me Mot
So I’m off to the pub for a rum tot
Then just as I look at the dial
She gets off the bus with her beautiful smile.

Yes it was worth waiting for me Mot.

(Jem 1964)

Well Mot is no longed used as an affectionate term for a chaps girlfriend, and Nelson’s Pillar in O’Connell St. was blown up on the 8th day of March 1966, as a line from the later song “Up went Nelson” goes “Old Nelson took a powder and he blew” :smiley:

https://i.postimg.cc/Hs0Qyw1v/Pillar.jpg

The cinema on the left was the ‘Metropole’, where the pair of us went regularly.
I think everyone in Dublin grabbed a piece of the pillar as keepsakes, his granite head is now in the Civic Museum in South William Street.
You could pay sixpence and climb to the top of the pillar, visitors used to climb the stone stairs inside it.

Like most natives I never went up the pillar, I was once asked what was the difference between Marilyn Monroe and Nelson’s Pillar, I gave a truthful answer
“I haven’t a clue, I was never up either of them”:slight_smile:

All the good old days, happy memories.;-):smiley:

The Old Days were a dichotomy, nothing more, nothing less, that’s the extent of the memory.:lol::lol::wink:

:smiley: I thought a dichotomy was an operation to have a manhandle removed, how wrong can one be eh.:lol:

Every time I go to delete my junk emails a little pop up sign says “You are deleting this email, tell us why”
How bloody stupid can they get?, the same why everyone else deletes them, because it’s junk, that’s why!!!

God almighty what kind of idiots have we got intruding into our personal lives these days.:twisted:

That is a Dickotomy.

Any word on the Higgs Boson particle Spitty?, have they cracked it yet?:wink:

Or Higgs Bottom as the missus calls it, a bottomless pit for consuming public money, a ‘black Hole ‘ on Earth.
She was a great fan of Alex Higgins and she would be mesmerised watching his wee particle of a bottom whizzing around the snooker table, two eggs in a handkerchief, rest his soul, seems women love fellas with small bottoms, but what would I know about the female mind.:confused:

It’s always refreshing to hear a scientist tell the truth about the origin of the universe, as I watched the other night on TV.
When asked the straight question “How did it all begin?” he simply replied “The fact is we don’t know how it all began and probably never will, everything we know now is only theory”

Thank you for your honestly Professor Fagan, and don’t be surprised if you get the sack after the holidays, they don’t like their employees letting the cat out of the bag, too many cushy jobs at stake.:slight_smile:

On the whole (not that black one) my take has never changed from my sphere theory.

There was no beginning and there will be no end of the universe, it’s really that simple because there is no such thing as time out there, we created time to help us understand our surroundings here on earth, and now we’re trying to calculate space by using our time in a feeble attempt to understand what’s happening and what happened out there, forget it, we just haven’t got the brain tools yet, maybe someday.

They’ll tell you this star is 50 billion years old and that star is 150 billion years old, using man made time to try to understand nature, the arrogance of mankind is terrifying and dangerous.

I think of the whole shebang as one enormous ball with everything contained within, a sphere has no beginning and no end, but if we put a mark on the ball it would make the sphere measurable, but don’t forget that we have made the mark and not nature.

So the next time some egghead tells you that it’s 700 billion years since the big bang tell him/her they are talking through their arse, there was no big bang because everything was already there.

Ask them what caused the big bang and they will tell you ‘gasses’, ask them where did the gasses come from and they will tell you they were always there, yet when you say the universe was always there they say you’re crazy.

Nothing made the universe, it’s the other way round, the universe made everything.

That’s the trouble with us humans, we have to have a beginning and an end to everything, we cannot and probably never will be able to understand perpetuity, I get dizzy just trying to think about it.:lol:

Ah I remember well the space race, it’s still going on only now it has more competitors, when they reach 8 runners we will be able to have an each-way bet on it, the smart money will be on the Chinese to land the first man on Mars.;-):smiley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/ryrEPzsx1gQ?t=17

I’m just Dazed and Confused, the more the Days get Less, the more confused I get.:lol::lol::wink:

Apologies for my absence. One funeral and another one yet to come following the death of a friend and former colleague have upset my routine a little.

Lovely story about the chap with the Harley and his benefactor Mr Jem. It shows there are good people out there. We just need to hope they outnumber the bad people.

I remember the demolition of Nelson’s Column. We had a demolition expert over here called Blaster Bates who used to do after dinner speeches about his demolition exploits, and several of them were recorded on records.
He told of knocking down chimleys of 235ft with a big ornamental top in a narrow gap between two buildings, or of the pub that changed colour after he “exhumed” a cesspit with gelignite, but stated on (vinyl) record that he did not blow up Nelson’s column, so that’s one suspect off the list at least.

Pert bottoms is it? Well when my Lovely Cousin was fourteen, she decided that I had one. I was twenty four at the time so thankfully I didn’t find out until about twenty five years later, else it would have been yet another occasion when she made my cheeks (on my face) turn crimson.

If you want my opinion on the universe, it is this. We have planets whizzing around suns, and we have electrons and protons whizzing around nucleuseses.
For all we know, our electrons etcetera circling a bigger core could be minutely microscopic planets, and our planets could be electrons and so on circling a nucleus, and they could be the atoms of a gigantic civilisation, and so on ad infinitum.

I challenge Mr Higgs and Missus Bosun to prove me wrong.

Searching for the Bosun is a Petty affair.