virtual crazy gang, part II

[Varley]

Sir W. I take it Lambs doesn't work. I hope they get them out (before winter otherwise you won't be able to plant for a crop next year). Can't help with method if expert can't wrap the string around the offending articles then me knwing how the do the other end and slam the door is no eartly use.

Chief, what? Over a grand!

I have just made an appointment for a routine eyetesting due, as 'they' informed me in September.

So well prepared for the response to their reminder were they that I am offered one on the 20th October. It was made quite plain that I could have an earlier one of a paid for a barrage of additional tests which I declined (as I am already on the consultant's list and reckon he is the more to be followed).

A formerly private concern I have used for years it was taken over by a 'chain' three years or so ago and has gone rogue. No option is available without a side helping of tinting, toughening, polarisation or some other unnecessary titillation. I would have changed some tim ago but they have a frame of mine 'hostage' (I usually have a frame already chosen to use with a new prescription and then start the process of finding a suitable frame to be next spare (this is often the difficult bit as there is never one exactly the same, which I would prefer, and sometimes none suitable for a month or two's searching. A new prescription this time will see the end of that and I will take find somewhere that treats me as a patient and not a federal reserve.

[Engine Serang]

The bit I don't understand is when I choose two pairs for Euro 189 it costs about Euro 450 and a hard sell for a hearing aid.

[Varley]

It is because they are no longer made from brass-band offcuts by a trumpsmith with a peening hammer. They are sophisticated electronic minikit and as such I and my tribe are due a fair tithe.

EITHER THAT OR WE TREAT YOU AND TMAC THE SAME. JUST DANGLE A PIECE OF STRING ROUND YOUR EAR AND PUT THE OTHER END IN YOUR SHIRT POCKET. NO ELECKTRICKERY BUT EVERYONE WILL THINK YOU ARE WEARING YOUR FATHER'S AND SO, OF COURSE, SHOUT.

(Seriously, although all plumbers are deaf this is not always due to Plumbers Lug. My leader had a very-nasty, masked by what was assumed to be overexposure to noise. Fortunately it was discovered in time for us to stop the contract we had out on him - the accommodation he made for increasing deafness failed to be matched by that made by his troops! The cause should be fully 'probed').

[Tmac1720]

Extract two wisdom teeth, no harm will be done as I am already an idiot, plus one broken fang. Price includes drug to freeze the gub and "sanitation" I obviously had the mistaken impression that I was clean as I wash (occasionally) but apparently one needs sanitised due to the dreaded lurgy.

Alas after treatment by bark will be worse than my bite but nevertheless I can still administer a nasty suck when required

[Engine Serang]

As long as you can suck out of a pint glass you will be fine and don't forget there's eating and drinking in Guinness. Its quare stuff.

[Varley]

I say E-S!,

Our new pal is from the USA I understand. He could put in a good word for you in regards to a position on an SL-7, surely the steam man's dream?

I am not sure about their navigators though. I note that the US Geological survey were involved in a report on the class's continued longevity. I trust Sir W's team understand that Mrs. V would NOT like her little boy to be here if they know only how hard the solid geography may be rather than how to avoid it.

[billyboy]

gum gum lithsp. only free teef left lower front. Have to go for surgery soon. need a GA to get them out plus the broken root.
Juth thoup and mash for me pleath steward

[Varley]

Steward!

It might be a kindness if you took Sir W's slop to him in his dayroom same-same amateur Navy. Not so much a kindness to us but until the anaesthetic has worn off he will be dribbling prattie laden thoup down himself like one of my brethren with post nightcap munchies.

[Engine Serang]

Originally Posted by Varley

I say E-S!,

Our new pal is from the USA I understand. He could put in a good word for you in regards to a position on an SL-7, surely the steam man's dream?

I say E-S!,

Is this your impression of Terry Thomas. It's a bloody good one.

As you sit in Chez V surrounded by Meggers you appear to have formed the impression that I woyld delight in a trip on a steam ship. And you are not wrong but I am a Motor Man at heart. Greasy Beasts are Us.

[Varley]

In a family where my generation was greeted by the senior of last with a cheery "What ho?" which was equally cheerfully returned I suggest Mr. Thomas was something of a plagiarist.

Did you suffer some trauma in Texaco? Can one tangentially inject to improve the quality of those occasionally intermittent explosions so essential to Dr. Rudolph's magnum opus?

(They do not surround me but I must admit to a shortage of opportunities to display them all where my SiL would not be surprised or offended. I should have added that all bar one are in working order).

[Varley]

Are you sure you are not using a dockyard matey instead of a dentist Sir W? Why does everyone who has a claim to the portage account demand a GA. If it needs to be to scale you'll have to ask the office otherwise I'll ask Tmac to put steam on the photocopier.

(By the by. Have you ever been to Tombstone?)

[Engine Serang]

Originally Posted by Varley

I suggest Mr. Thomas was something of a plagiarist.

Did you suffer some trauma in Texaco? .

Mr Thomas a Plagiarist!!!!!! What an absolute rotter.

Did I suffer some trauma in Texaco? I did indeed suffer many trauma's during my time with Texaco, by far and away the worst was being relieved on the Texaco Frankfurt by a Maltese Junior. Oh the indignity of having one of Dom Mintoff's fitters relieving me; a graduate of Hull College of Technology and Southampton College of Technology . I had to go into Rehab.

[Varley]

Pleasant chaps. We had a slack handful on Spain or London (perhaps both) managed to get them to sign for their electricity bills (everyone got one for authenticity but the three part tariff penalised them harshly for a lousy power factor).

[billyboy]

Originally Posted by Varley

Are you sure you are not using a dockyard matey instead of a dentist Sir W? Why does everyone who has a claim to the portage account demand a GA. If it needs to be to scale you'll have to ask the office otherwise I'll ask Tmac to put steam on the photocopier.

(By the by. Have you ever been to Tombstone?)

Nay Sir not I, Once lived in a bungalow at "Bishopstone, Been to Stonehenge, but never tombstone.

[YM-Mundrabilla]

Never been to Bishopstone or Tombstone but tombstones generally are far more interesting and exciting than Stonehenge.

[Varley]

I think to describe another's laughing-gear as a henge would be veering from mild teasing towards pistols at dawn (or pithtols ad norn).

Bishopstone near Seaford?

And where, in the name of the great Navigator (Portuguese Harry) are we and when? Did the red lever get us to NOLA in time for 1971 or not?

[billyboy]

thwee days from docking in New Orleans Mr Varley.

Born and bred in Newhaven, Lived in Bishopstone and Seaford plus 35 years in Leamington Spa. Englands furthest point from salt water. Now retired in the southern Philippines)

[Varley]

But what year are we visiting? an ETA three days hence suggest the red lever works no better than the red button.

Uncle Bruv practiced at Shoreham's Southland Hospital for many years. I was at School in Seaford '58-'64.

[billyboy]

Good lord David we were near neighbours. 63 ish I was driving a maroon Humber hawk taxi around Seaford. Had a flat in what used to be Seaford house hotel in crouch lane. Perhaps you were an admirer of the Annecy convent girls.....LOL

[Engine Serang]

Near neighbours, what a coincidence. I sometimes wonder if Tmax ever lived in Belfast or East Antrim? I know the oul riveter has too much taste ever to have driven a Humber Hawk. Sound man.

[YM-Mundrabilla]

Used to drive a Humber Snipe many years ago when they were standard Oz Government VIP cars before they switched to Ford Customlines and Fairlanes over the years.

I don't know why me, but I was often tasked with driving senior officers here and there. I recall going sideways down Clarendon Street in South Melbourne in the wet one day in the Humber. I didn't hit anything but the Stores Branch finally recognised that it DID need new tyres.

[Engine Serang]

Oh calamity, Sunday Times tells me that the delightful Nigella Lawson says, "Up until fairly recently what makes Marmite such a compelling ingredient to cook with was the resonant depth that underpinned its brazen saltiness. I still get a hankering for it but over the past few years Marmite seems to have lost those deeper notes and its hard really to taste much beyond the high pitched saltiness. I have begun to prefer the malty, resonant savouriness of Vegemite".

I think the couple of slaps has unhinged her and she needs a few months complete rest. Could YM arrange a Billabong in the Nullabor for her complete with roos, didgeridoos and them wooden things that come back when thrown at a dingo.

[YM-Mundrabilla]

Clearly the woman is not unhinged in preferring Vegemite to Marmite. There is no comparison between the two products.

In fact, both the Vegemite Factory and the smell from the production of Vegemite in Port Melbourne have recently been proposed for recognition by some Heritage body or other. It is not clear how one records or preserves the smell.

Nigella would be welcome to cook at my restaurant at Mundrabilla on the Nullarbor Plain. I should point out, however, that there are few ingredients available nor are there, kangaroos, any of the indigenous artefacts that you mention or a billabong. In fact, there is no water but there was a (useless) 448 metre deep bore there in the old days. Our water was 'imported' in a water gin (tank wagon) when I was there.

I hope that the foregoing will dissuade Nigella from coming but Fiona Bruce would be most welcome instead.

Here is my restaurant at Mundrabilla as an enticement:

[Varley]

St.Wilfrid's (Sutton Avenue) young gentlemen were not aware of young ladies until the last day of their last term when Randall Darwall-Smith (one of our two headmasters) gave us 'the talk'.

I remember a contemporary at that lecture asking if 'it' was pleasant. "Of course it's pleasant you stupid boy! You don't think the good Lord would have made the wonderful making of a new life nasty?" (the place was rather big on superstitions "Fear God and honour the King" the motto, only half of which rubbed off on me.

Nonetheless Annecy rings a bell(e) and I am not pretending that some of us had not discovered the noble art of manually enjoying positive portuguese displacement activities (nothing queer about Jerry Bates who introduced me to the exercise just a kind chap who thought I should know what I was missing).

The only two hotels I remember were the Seaford Head Golf Club and the Esplanade. The latter being where a bomb had blown a lavatory door off when Mrs. Moon (the mother of our other headmaster) was ensconced therein. As prep. schools, stupidly (and to my eternal detriment), did not 'do' science I can only think this was a German one rather classroom made.

[Varley]

What a wonderful place those sidings of his train set - gin provided in tankers. Not even a pom would whinge at that.

Must be a bit rough, though, to have to throw things to keep the wildlife from eating babies.