Today
is misty, the leaves are coming off the trees after a better than usual season
of autumn colours, the berries are being consumed a a great rate, and the birds
are fattening themselves up for winter – including the goose! Time to start
buying the presents.
The
body is beginning to behave itself. I am walking round the house with only one
crutch, and I can climb the stairs again with little problem. I have been
discharged by the consultant, and I am now in the hands of the physios. I think
they will have a certain amount of success, but the inherent underlying problem
of my back still remains, and I do not expect to be running for the bus any
time soon. But, with crutches, I can walk for a good quarter of a mile, which is
further than I have been able to do for some years. I just need to graduate to
a walking stick. I’m working on it.
It
has not been a bad month, all told. It started with a friend of Sonia’s staying
for a couple of days. She is always good value, being a member of the Desert
Travellers’ Club, having been married to a prince of Mauretania before it
became a republic. He developed incurable cancer very early in life, and when
he died, she became a highly respected member of Mauritanian society, and still
probably is. But she returned to the UK, and has now retired. But is a fund of
stories, and a valued friend.
Then
the decorators arrived, and we are still camping, having had the main bedroom
re-plastered, repainted, and are waiting for a fitted wardrobe to arrive next
week. Half way through the months we went to Margate for the weekend with
Rotary. The President-elect had found us a very interesting hotel to stay at –
half hotel and half museum. Not as bad as it sounds, and highly entertaining.
Must be doing well as the owner drives a Maserati, and his son has a
Rolls-Royce. Both are parked permanently outside the hotel on the sea-front, so
they will not last long as the salt will penetrate very quickly.
Then
two trips – one to Derbyshire to see No. 1 son and family, and then another to Bradford-on-Avon
to see old friends from Cayman who have bought a river-front apartment there,
to stay in on the odd occasion when they are in the country. We then cut down
to Sherborne, and then to the coast to explore the Jurassic Coast before a
four-and-a-half-hour journey back home through some of the worst traffic I have
seen for some time. If that is the future of motoring, we are all in trouble. I
noticed last night that the M25 had slow-moving traffic between junctions 5 and
31, which means that clockwise there was a traffic jam between Sevenoaks, past Gatwick
and Heathrow, and the M! junction until
you get eventually to the Dartford Crossing!
And
on to this month’s offerings. Click on the links - sometimes right-clicks - , or cut and paste them on to
your browser if the links have broken on being transferred to the Blogger site.
This
creative Pom could be a politician!
+++
Talk about Engineering and
Technology!!!!!!
Just in case you think
you’ve seen everything ! Note the size of the machine when compared to the size
of the workmen.
+++
The Goldberg Brothers - The Inventors of the Automobile Air Conditioner
Here's a little fact for automotive buffs, or just to dazzle your friends.
The four Goldberg brothers, Lowell, Norman, Hiram, and Max, invented and developed the
first automobile air-conditioner. On July
17, 1946 , the temperature in Detroit was 97 degrees.
The four brothers walked into old
man Henry Ford's office and sweet-talked his secretary into telling him that four gentlemen were
there with the most exciting innovation in the auto industry since the electric
starter.
Henry was curious and invited them into
his office.
They refused and instead asked that
he come out to the parking lot to their car.
They persuaded him to get into the
car, which was about 130 degrees, turned on the air conditioner, and cooled the car off immediately.
The old man got very excited and
invited them back to the office, where he offered them $3 million for the patent.
The brothers refused, saying they
would settle for $2 million, but they wanted the recognition by having a label, 'The Goldberg Air-Conditioner,' on
the dashboard of each car in which it was
installed.
Now old man Ford was more than just
a little anti-Jewish, and there was no way he was going to put the Goldberg's name on two million Fords.
They haggled back and forth for about
two hours and finally agreed on $4 million and that just their first names would be shown.
And so to this day, all Ford air conditioners
show --
Lo, Norm, Hi, and Max -- on the controls.
Note: the first car air-conditioning system was actually installed in a
Packard!
+++
After making love to Kylie Minogue yesterday I think
there are 2 things you all need to know. She really is as sexy as
hell; secondly the staff at Madam Tussauds are miserable bastards with no
sense of humour!!
Took the other half to a Disco last
night. There was a bloke on the dance floor giving it large,
break dancing back flips, moonwalking, the works. The other
half says, "That guy proposed to me 20 years ago and I turned him down."
I replied, “Looks like he’s still celebrating." That's when the
fight started.
A visiting foreigner has been shot in the head with a
starting pistol; police say it's definitely race related...
Paddy thought his new girlfriend might be the one, but
after looking through her knickers drawer and finding a nurse's outfit, a
French maid’s outfit, and a police woman’s uniform, he finally decided if she
can't hold down a job, she's not the one for him.
Paddy is doing some roofing work for Murphy. He
nears the top of the ladder and starts shaking and going dizzy. He calls
down to Murphy and says, "I tink I will have to go home, I've come all
over giddy and feel sick." Murphy asks, "Ave yer got
vertigo?" Paddy replies, "No, I only live round the corner."
After 100 years lying on the
sea bed, Irish divers were amazed to find that the Titanic’s swimming pool was
still full.
+++
And finally…
A motorcycle police
officer stops a driver for shooting through a red light. The driver is a real jerk, steps out of his
car and comes striding toward the officer, demanding to know why he is being
harassed by the Gestapo!
So the officer
calmly tells him of the red light violation. The motorist instantly goes on a
tirade, questioning the officer's ancestry, sexual orientation, etc., in rather
explicit offensive terms.
The tirade goes on
without the officer saying anything.
When the officer
finishes writing the ticket he puts an "AH" in the lower right corner
of the narrative portion of the ticket. He then hands it to The 'violator' for
his signature. The guy signs the ticket angrily, and when presented with his
copy points to the "AH" and demands to know what it stands for.
The officer says, "That's
so when we go to court, I'll remember that you're an asshole!"
Two months later
they're in court. The 'violator' has a bad driving record with a high number of
points and is in danger of losing his license, so he hired a lawyer to
represent him.
On the stand the
officer testifies to seeing the man run through the red light.
Under cross
examination the defense attorney asks; "Officer is this a reasonable
facsimile of the ticket that you issued to my client?"
Officer responds, "Yes,
sir, that is the defendant's copy, his signature and mine, same number at the
top."
Lawyer: "Officer,
is there any particular marking or notation on this ticket you don't normally
make?"
"Yes, sir, in
the lower right corner of the narrative there is an "AH,"
underlined."
"What does the
"AH" stand for, officer?"
"Aggressive
and hostile, Sir."
"Aggressive
and hostile?"
"Yes, Sir.
"Officer, are
you sure it doesn't stand for asshole?"
“Well, sir, you
know your client better than I do.”
How often can one get an attorney to convict his own client?
Have a good November and keep the e-mails coming!
