HOUSEHOLD TIPS NOT FOUND IN WOMAN'S WEEKLY

[Stanley]

Biggest problem with drains is people putting too much fat down them. Your mixture would work Cathy but little chance of you having problems because you have actually thought about your drains and look after them. I can remember the narrow lead pipes used for waste water and they were very prone to grease blockage. Not a bad idea to lift the nearest manhole every now and again and check on how clean it is.

[Stanley]

Red wine on a carpet. Wash with white wine as soon as possible!

[Cathy]

When you want to take a page out of a magazine, score with scissor tip as close as you can get down the binding edge first then gently remove.
I'm really good at this

[Stanley]

So nice to see you popping in each day Cathy. I'm glad the connection problems are sorted!

[Stanley]

If you want to keep stone paths and wall tops clean there is nothing to beat frequent thin sprinkling of Blue Daz just before it rains.

[Tizer]

When you want to take a page out of a magazine, score with scissor tip as close as you can get down the binding edge first then gently remove.
I'm really good at this

I've now got a mental picture of you scoring away happily, surrounded by magazine pages that you don't need but get great satisfaction from cutting out!

[Stanley]

The scrap book is still alive and well in Oz!
You can still get old-fashioned Jeyes Fluid if you look for it. A very powerful disinfectant for outside use, leaves a lovely clean smell. A weak solution will kill moss on stone flags but keep it off the garden!

[Tizer]

Lots of it in my garage - very good for cleaning out wheelie bins, drains etc.

If you need to get rid of the smell of fish, e.g. from pans or waste packaging, rinse with diluted vinegar (preferably spirit vinegar because malt vinegar has its own smell). The fishy smell is due to amine compounds from the fish which are volatile and therefore smelly in alkaline conditions. Make it acid and the amines are no longer volatile and can't be detected. The appliance of science!

[Cathy]

Its probably the same over there, but here if we have prawn shells or any fish rubbish we wrap it securely and put it in the freezer until bin-night. Oh and cracked eggs too.

[Stanley]

The most common long lasting smell I ever came across was milk spilt on the carpet in a car. The worst was the smell left by Greaves, the residue after the first rendering of meat for fat. It was left to rot and then rendered again. Most insidious smell I ever came across. I burned my overalls!

[Julie in Norfolk]

The scrap book is still alive and well in Oz!
You can still get old-fashioned Jeyes Fluid if you look for it. A very powerful disinfectant for outside use, leaves a lovely clean smell. A weak solution will kill moss on stone flags but keep it off the garden!

One of the worst jobs I ever had was filling Jeyes fluid. An evening shift job and low tech, I came home night after night reeking of the stuff! On an up side, I always got a place at the bar

[Julie in Norfolk]

Red wine on a carpet. Wash with white wine as soon as possible!

I did once, it stung!

Thanks for the terrific opening gambit!

[Stanley]

I'll bet you did! When I went for my army medical in 1954 the doctor told me I should bathe more often. I told him that what he could smell wasn't me but the residual odour of arable silage, it had a powerful smell all of its own! I don't know if he believed me.

[Tizer]

When I worked at Boots Chemists in the 1960s we still sometimes got prescriptions to make up that contained oil of valerian. That could empty the shop in a flash! (Cats are said to be attracted by the smell of valerian but that's due to a different chemical to the one that send humans heading for the door.)

[Stanley]

Just out of curiosity Tiz, did they still stock Armenian Boll? I ask because it was a popular remedy, I was dosed with it in the farm just above Wendy's by a lady whose name I forget. I had a carbuncle at the time and she said it was good for 'cleansing the blood'.

[Tizer]

I've never heard of it, Stanley. I looked on Goggle and could find only one mention of it, in a book, which said "...a cure-all sold by mountebanks," but it didn't say what it consisted of. Perhaps it could be anything and the name was the selling point!

[Stanley]

Interesting. The lady swore by it. It was a bitter white powder and you took enough to cover a sixpence on a slice of buttered bread.... It didn't do me any good! Another old lady finally cured it with horse medicine, Diatherm, a horse poultice applied hot!

[Tizer]

It was probably a Beecham's powder in disguise!

[Wendyf]

Armenian Bole - wiki

Also can be used for the transmutation of matter

[Stanley]

Thanks for that Wendy....
Another remedy was a bit more efficient, a knob of yeast dissolved on the tongue. Tiz will tell us what was in that!

[Tizer]

Thanks for that Wendy. It's surprising what a difference it makes looking for bole instead of boll. Usually Google offers up different spellings but not in this case - I guess Armenian bole/boll was too exotic! I'm always willing to consider that clays can have interesting and useful properties. Besides their common use in pottery and brickmaking etc they are much used as catalysts and to absorb chemicals of various types. I'll bet they played an important part too in the origin of life on Earth.

[Stanley]

Flowers of Sulphur used to be a great household standby. Mixed with treacle and given to kids in Spring to 'purify their blood'. Blown down the throat as a cure for a sore throat. Burned in a room to fumigate it after illness. Friar's Balsam on a sugar lump cured everything!

[Stanley]

A sweaty sock round the neck was a sure cure for a sore throat.

[Stanley]

I've had a bad back all my life, too much heavy lifting... I have come across all sorts of 'remedies' and most of them are useless, however, here's one that does seem to work. Fred Smith, my milkman told me about it. Get hold of the thickest and roughest knitting wool you can find and tie a double or treble length of it round the waist. Don't take it off, wear it until it falls to pieces. I asked Arthur Morrison about this and he said there might some science behind it. He reckoned it was possible that the constant irritation of the rough wool on the skin could perhaps promote blood circulation in the area.

[David Whipp]

Or the irritation could distract from the pain of the bad back?