HOUSEHOLD TIPS NOT FOUND IN WOMAN'S WEEKLY

[Stanley]

Never underestimate the nutritional properties of good sausages and meat pies (as well as the taste!). We are lucky in Barlick, we still have good people who understand these things.....

[Stanley]

It's not good when your eyes let you down but it isn't necessarily the end of the world as we know it. Persevere and look for ways round the problems.

[Stanley]

Today's tip. As you get older you'll realise that you can't have too many pairs of knickers in the drawer! Give yourself a treat and make sure you have good ones!

[Stanley]

A couple of drawers full of mutton in the freezer means peace of mind. You always have a fall back position!

[Big Kev]

Keep an eye on the display of wireless central heating programmers, they give you plenty of warning of the batteries running out. If you miss it and the batteries go flat the heating does fire up
Voice of experience speaking here...

[Stanley]

Mine are 27 years old Kev, do you think I'm safe?

[Big Kev]

Mine are 27 years old Kev, do you think I'm safe?

You have a hard wired controls, don't think you'll have any battery issues

[Stanley]

[Whyperion]

What is wrong with two sticks ?

Them Norwegian Walking poles seem a good idea.

[Big Kev]

What is wrong with two sticks ?

Them Norwegian Walking poles seem a good idea.

Highly recommended for up and down steep hills.

[PanBiker]

Recommended by neuro physio's as well for correct framing when learning to walk again. I went from zimmer to poles and it was a revelation.

[Stanley]

It's coming to the end of the heating season, just the time to check your stove is OK if you haven't lit it this winter.

[Stanley]

Footwear has changed beyond recognition in the last thirty years. The 'gym shoe' grew up and took over the market but there is still a place for a good pair of leather shoes or boots. I routinely wear a pair of shoes that are almost 50 years old and as good as the day they were made.

[Tizer]

`Gym shoe' - plimsolls, pumps - why those names?

[Stanley]

I went for a furtle Peter....
Plimsoll.... "This name arose, according to Nicholette Jones's book The Plimsoll Sensation, because the coloured horizontal band joining the upper to the sole resembled the Plimsoll line on a ship's hull, or because, just like the Plimsoll line on a ship, if water got above the line of the rubber sole, the wearer would get wet."

Pumps..."The word “pump,” as one would expect in a world where most of the water you’d like to drink is underground, is very old, first appearing in English in the 15th century with the basic meaning of “a mechanical device for raising water.” Almost all pumps consist of a cylinder of some sort, within which moves a tightly-fitted piston or plunger that draws the water or other fluid through the tube, and a valve that prevents the water from going right back out when the piston goes down again. There are, of course, types of pumps that don’t involve pistons, but for our purposes that piston is the part to remember.
The origins of the word “pump” are uncertain, but most authorities believe that “pump” was onomatopoeic (or “echoic”) in origin, simply formed as an imitation of the sound of a pump. “Pump” is, of course, also a verb, and apart from its literal uses, “to pump” has acquired an impressive array of figurative senses over the past few centuries. We “pump up,” strengthen and enlarge, our muscles at the gym, and we “pump” money or other things into places where they are thought to be needed (“The Fed is still pumping money into Wall Street”) or places where they are definitely not (“You never saw anybody that was deader. Must have had thirty pills pumped in him,” Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest, 1929). Reporters “pump” (intensively question) sources for information, a usage that dates back to the 17th century, and a good speaker can “pump up” (excite) a crowd using nothing more than florid adjectives. But even given the wide use to which “pump” as both a noun and verb has been put, it’s not easy to discern its connection to “pump” as a type of low-heeled, close-fitting women’s shoe, a usage that arose in the 16th century. It has been suggested that “pump” in this sense is derived from “pomp” meaning “display of splendor and magnificence,” although the “pump” is usually a pretty simple shoe. It seems more likely that the “pump” shoe owes its name to the humble mechanical “pump.” The classic “pump” shoe lacks straps or other fasteners, and the key to the shoe staying on one’s foot is its snug fit, rather like the piston of a pump. In fact, back in the 16th century, such pistons in pumps were known as “pump shoes” from their vaguely shoe-like shape. It’s likely that the “pump” shoe took its name, in a 16th century pun, from these close-fitting “pump shoe” pistons.

[Wendyf]

It took me a while to grasp that 'gutties' were pumps in Scotland. I've just read a novel based in the Bristol area where the kids were wearing daps.

[Stanley]

Wendy, 'gutties' I can understand as the old name for a rigid, naturally biologically inert, resilient, electrically non-conductive, thermoplastic latex very similar to rubber and tapped from trees was Gutta Percha. (LINK)
'Daps' is completely new to me and I have no idea of the origin.

[Tizer]

Thanks for that, Stanley. I thought about the Plimsoll line origin but discarded it as too fanciful! Pump coming from the shoe in a water pump is interesting. I've never heard of daps, Wendy.

[Stanley]

I had another look.... See THIS plausible explanation that even has a distribution map. DAP is said to be an acronym for 'Dunlop's Athletic Plimsoles'.

[Tizer]

That's like a map of Celts, Saxons and Vikings!

[Stanley]

I always check if there is actually something in the microwave before I start it. Yesterday I didn't! Today I think I have a fried microwave.....

[chinatyke]

Microwaves have a high voltage fuse inside, about 6000v. You might be lucky. I replaced the magnetron and fuse in my oven. Cost was 48rmb, just over a fiver.

[Stanley]

Knowing the cost of repairs here and the fact it has been well used it might be more sensible to chuck the money at a new one China. I shall take a view later.

[Stanley]

Today's tip China is "Don't be pessimistic!" The microwave seems to be OK . However I shall be keeping an eye on it!

[PanBiker]

You won't generally kill a microwave by running it with nothing in. We use ours all the time for warming plates etc with no detriment. 1 min on full power is about right.