Symptoms

Carbide lamps (as in calcium carbide) surely. Unless 'Carbine' was a proprietary name for the lamps???

Yep, that was it ... "honkers". I'd forgotten the word.

HPW's note about crocked carcasses of old miners reminds me that you used to see loads of old fellas squatting on their haunches (usually with a snout cupped in the hand) maybe whilst waiting at a bus stop or hanging around waiting for the pubs to open. It was suggested to me that these old blokes had worked a lifetime underground generally in a squatting position (low headroom perhaps) and their bodies were used to the position so, what might have looked uncomfortable/unnatural to me was a preferred position for them.

Let's have some snaps ... for those of us who are exiled.

I was around (and politically aware) back then and do remember quite a lot of discussion within the Labour Party about EU membership and Ted's methods but I seriously can't recall very much at all in the wider media ... so maybe GGG's references to 'blind eye' are true. One night, during the 74 election (it had to be the Feb one not the Oct one 'cos it was a cold, dark night) I was with a bunch of mates drinking in a boozer in London when a convoy of Range Rovers pulled up outside. Ted piled out with a large entourage of blokes following him into the boozer ... what struck me at the time was there were no women in the party and many of the blokes were much younger than Grocer. What still sticks in my memory, even after all these years, is how beautifully tanned Ted was - he really did 'glow' and he did have a real presence in the room. He 'worked' the bar (electioneering) going around greeting all the punters (including me) ... however, however, however, he had a really limp handshake. The stories about mucky behaviour by top politicos was common knowledge in political circles even back then.

Canny wrote: "Coal mining chould be a science in it's own right!" It was (is). In the 60s Newcastle University had a Mining Engineering Faculty (I don't know if they still do) ... I had considered sticking it on my UCAS form back then but decided to go the London instead.

Hhe would have used rivets.

Just re-read this thread and Magg's photo in post 25 above of the farmer reminded me of the nickname he had ... Pugwash. Obviously, he was given it by us lads from the Captain Pugwash cartoon on the telly ... the Captain also had an eyepatch. He used to chase us off his land.

I watched a telly documentary donkeys years ago about the Frog onion sellers flogging their stuff around Blighty. They had depots dotted around the country containing piles and piles of onions and they would operate out of these places. I recall them sitting around the onion piles fashioning them into strings and loading them onto their bikes (which were shown being delivered from Frogland in the back of the onion truck along with the onions). The truck made regular trips back home to collect fresh supplies whilst the sellers dossed in the onion depots. I remember the knife grinders calling at our house - one guy had a pedal operated grinder - he stood on a baseplate with one foot and with the other foot 'pumped' a pedal which was connected to the grindstone via a cranked rod. The other knife grinder had a rig on his push bike - the grindstone was powered by the pedals.

Just shows how often PCs become gelded after time ... full of old crap/cookies/temp files and a whole host of other stuff building up and lurking there for years. 15 minutes set aside every month to do some basic maintenance is usually all that's required to keep things running well. CCleaner is a useful product (even the free version) to help with these tasks. I'm sure it used to be called Evidence Eliminator back in the early days when folks used to use it to remove viewed porn from their work computers before the bosses found out what they were doing.

HPW - I had no idea that there was that much 'planning' for access below ground; I always assumed that the shaft was sunk, then the seams were dug out creating all the passageways/roads, etc. - sort of all radiating out from the bottom of the shaft. I liked the description of the hanging bits of string used to navigate ... a variation of the Roman '3 stick' method of keeping their roads straight.

Stiffing Johnny Foreigner's cab fares in London is as old as the hills. Those with long memories will recall me mentioning whilst as a student I used to drive a minicab in London at night ... the earnings helped pay for my debauched lifestyle. Anyway, I once got a job to pick-up a fare from a pub in SE London; I parked up, went inside and asked the barman who the punter was who wanted a cab ... he pointed out four guys who turned out to be Vietnamese sailors off a ship docked nearby on the Thames. I asked where they wanted to go and in a mixture of very broken English, Pigeon, and sign language (a bit like out a scene from a Yankee Vietnam war movie ... you know, where the bar girl askes the GI, "Hey Joe, you wanna jigajig", and they said, "Soho, lorra lorra girls". So off we went and dropped them off in Beak Street, then part of the Red light district. The fare should have been £5 but I charged them £5 each, and I got a tip. Kept me in weed and booze for a week!

merc - my reference to "startup funding" was just shorthand for any type of funding, wherever it was obtained from, used to launch some of these ventures. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the 'business man' can just 'walk away' owing piles of dosh and startup another racket.

GGG, they're all at it, the EU shysters aren't alone at stiffing the punters. Reports in the press yesterday grassed-up the Westminster shysters much expanded expensive wine cellar ... free top plonko for MPs. Ditto, fine wine cellars for the Officer class in their messes at all army bases; ditto, for the Officer class in the Navy; ditto, for the Officer class in the RAF. Let's not stop there ... top beaks supping the free stuff in chambers; ditto, the top table at the Oxbridge dining clubs. Ought for nowt is their mantra ... cheating bastaards! Once these folks get anywhere near a pot of somebody else's dosh they spend, spend, spend. Take for example the 'small businessman' getting startup funding ... yep, he'll buy his raw materials and his plant and lease his premises but will often kit out his office with the finest furniture and ensure he drives one of Fritz's top motors. The wiff of all that money is just irresistable.

Yep Tony, that rotting hulk which sank without trace (HMS BNP) only to be dredged up from it's slimy grave for one last hurrah ... an apt description of the kipperparty. GGG's close to the truth about SS Labour and its headlong dash to the depths of oblivion. Perhaps in 100 years the majority of the population caught in new serfdom gazing up at their Lords and Masters will fondly think what a great endeavour it all was and what might have been had the great vessel been piloted by somebody with a 'blue water masters' ticket' rather than cabinboy milleeeeeeebean.

Merc - old habits die hard, I still double de-clutch in MrsSyms jalopy* (it's not old - just a manual) when approaching a junction/roundabout at speed ... can't in my car 'cos it's an auto. My Mum had an A40 ... I came across one a couple of weeks ago parked in a greenhouse at a garden nursery MrsSym took me to; it was in showroom condition. It was an exact colour match to my Mum's - pale blue - and when I looked inside it was like being transported back in time. It was shocking to see just how small a vehicle it was in comparison to modern motors (even the small ones) ... sometimes she used to collect us and our mates from school and cram us all in - she'd get lifted by the Peelers these days for overloading. My first car (my Dad got it for me at the Lion Garage on Front St in 1967ish) was an old Ford Popular 100e with a 3 speed crash gearbox ... I learnt to drive in it. I suppose these motors would be worth a bob or two these days. *I know I don't need to do this but it seems to be a natural reflex.

That wasn't a pint of ale they gave you but a draught of a special liquor designed to induce muscle sag before the 'probing' began. Via their deep, deep probling of merc's nether regions they discovered the whereabouts of Sismerc's farm and were suprised to learn it was adjacent to Blighty's first line of defence and home of the 'few'.

Nah, never trust a man who wears cufflinks and sports a $100 dollar haircut. My vote goes to Jeremy Corbyn ... one of the last dinosaurs.

Mags wrote: "Have you thought about a name change Symptoms!" I have but Jesus/Lucifer have already been taken, anyhow the West is likely to become a very, very 'unfriendly' place for those wishing to convert others.

Merc, I read the tome (the full fat version) when I was a student.

Mal - I've just re-read my meagre offerings above yet can't see how they could have been rendered by my numb left hand. They are points of fact and, apart from the "nob" reference, quite benign really. Yep, I could have gone off on one about grand estates bounded by stone walls inside which patrolled armed game keepers ... their function to manage the quarry species for their Lords and Masters to blast but also to bray in the heads of the poor peasants caught snaffling a bunny for the pot. Oh, and lets not forget these same keepers would march the poachers off to the pokey to be transported to OZ or topped by the magistrate (often the nob who owned the estate). Is that more like it?

Of course Auntie's biased. It's run by an elite spewed out from the Oxbridge sausage factory who are often the scion of the chinless wonders of wealthy and prominent families - yep, I know there might be a few who have regional accents (how many of these are affected?). Anyway, the choice is the telly licence, sponsorship/adverts, pay tv.

Oh dear Mal ... this isn't the start of GET SYM WEEK is it? What's poor old Sym done to deserve getting tuned like this? The next time folks drive past Alnwick on the A1 on that long bend up and out past the town, look left for the castle in the distance and then right to observe sculpted landscape (as described by me above) specifically layed-out for blasting game birds; it's typical of sites all over Blighty. Once you get your 'eye in' and know what to look for you'll observe this type of topography elsewhere.

Actually ..."Shooting is involved in the management of two-thirds of the UK's rural land area. Almost two million hectares are actively managed for conservation as a result of shooting." Just one snippet from the report The Value of Shooting – conducted by Cambridge-based Public and Corporate Economic Consultants (PACEC). More stuff here about blasters in Blighty: http://www.shootingfacts.co.uk/ http://www.shootingfacts.co.uk/press_release.html

pil ... I'm not sure why you attacked me in your post above. The main point I was attempting to make was about the 'manicured' bits of the countryside not actually being 'natural' but have been created for shooting. Perhaps you could explain what you meant by your hurtful phrases, "and your point is ??" and "... otherwise they would be extinct (now how does that reconcile with your views???)". Also, "I take it that from your views that the loons that want to reintroduce wild boar,lynx, and wolves, are damn decent types and not feckin loons??" ... that's a huge leap to glean from my post that I hold those views.