THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Wendyf]

It's wonderful isn't it? I haven't tried it, but if you have the app on your phone you can point it at a passing plane and get an identification.

[Stanley]

I've been popping in and out all morning. At the moment she's over the Black Sea about to make landfall and into Bulgaria.... Fascinating!

[Tripps]

. I'm glad I haven't lost my sense of wonder at this modern access and it strikes me that the young today cannot have any concept of this and can't share in my wonder at this miracle. To them it must be no more than they expect.
It's magic!

I share your 'sense of wonder' - and thanks WendyF for speaking of the app. I have it on my laptop, but never thought about my phone. It's on now, but it's raining so I'll wait for better weather to try it out. I can see all the aircraft from the desk though - that's amazing in itself.

Generation gap -
I heard on radio recently that someone (a 20 something) had to be convinced that there once was a time when plastic bottles full of water were not available in shops.

[PanBiker]

There should be a lot more public drinking fountains and bottled water should be banned. Everyone has access to a tap! Rome has thousands of public drinking spots, anywhere there is a water supply there is generally an accessible supply.

[Tripps]

Everyone has access to a tap!

Yes, but I wouldn't drink what comes out of it in France, Spain or Italy - or even London!

Maybe that's why [url=ttps://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b- ... =611&dpr=1]San Pellegrino[/url] is so popular in Italy despite all the drinking fountains.

PS Something misfired there but It won't allow me to delete.

[PanBiker]

Didn't harm us when we went to Rome.

[Stanley]

Apart from my wonder at being able to watch the progress of that flight yesterday, I always remember that daily miracle of turning the tap on at the sink and beautiful clear cold water runs out into my glass. One of the lasting effects of the war is that I love drinking cold clear water. I agree with David about London water, I particularly hated the scum that formed on top of tea when you brewed it in the pot. Our water here is just about perfect and if you're lucky enough to be getting Whitemoor water which we were at the farm, it's from deep in the rock and is seeing the light of day for the first time in thousands of years. I'll bet the background radiation is less than in many sources. That's the USP of a lot of bottled water and yet many buy bottled water which in many cases is more expensive than milk!

[Stanley]

Today the chemists or as we are persuaded these days, the pharmacist has shelves full of expensive remedies for almost everything. My mother was reared in the early part of the last century and one of the consequences of this was that she had home made remedies for almost everything. She made a particularly good cough and throat medicine, Lemon honey and glycerine which had the great advantage of tasting nice as well as easing your condition. She made soap and sugar poultices for boils and they worked well. She also made my dad's hair treatment which I remember had Gum tragacanth in it. It set like glue and had the advantage that your hair remained in place and didn't allow any dust in the air to penetrate. It was also good as a hand cream. Her mainstay was surgical spirits which I think she thought cured almost anything. She suffered all her life from chilblains in one leg caused by Infantile Paralysis when she was a child, she once told me that the only treatment her mother gave her for that was rubbing with Neat's Foot Oil and that was why she wouldn't have it in the house, she hated the smell.
Some proprietary medicines were tolerated. We always had Germolene Ointment in the house and Beecham's Pills. Fenning's Little Healers and Cecil Wood's Influenza Powders were favourites, the latter were gritty and horrible and I suspect had a lot of quinine in them.
Later when I went on the farm I was treated with a wide variety of cattle medicine. I remember having a bad cold and my boss Lionel gave me a dose of Day's Red Drink in milk and it was powerful stuff. I think it helped the cold but I found later that one of the main ingredients was strychnine. No wonder I felt peculiar!

[Stanley]

I was listening to a radio programme about water quality in our rivers and my mind went back to the River Mersey in Stockport when I was a lad.



The river in 1979. It is quite low in this image and could have much higher flows. The main thing I remember about it was the smell. In those days it was an open sewer and you couldn't but be aware of this.
In the days when I spent a lot of time waiting at docks to be unloaded I learned that both in Liverpool and London, if you fell into the river it was mandatory to have a tetanus injection. If you refused you were sacked, the water was that dangerous and in Liverpool's case largely due to the fact that slaughter houses upstream discharged effluent untreated straight into the river.
We see plenty of examples of sewage releases into water courses today and this is a serious matter but this is insignificant compared with how things were then. Harold Duxbury one told me that the lower stories of the workshops on Commercial Street were mostly used as slaughter houses or 'shambles'.



He said that it was handy being close to Butts Beck as all the waste was simply chucked into it and was washed away. It makes you wonder what the condition of the water was!

[Stanley]

I wanted some straight Epsom Salts yesterday, Laura has told me to get some as it is the best thing for foot baths and she is on a mission to get my feet in tip top condition. Fifty years ago this would have been a no-brainer, any chemist could sort you out. Nobody had any and I suspect the reason is that you can't make any money out of it, it is so cheap. In the end I bought some online, dirt cheap! I got some Radox salts as a backstop.
It make you wonder what the mark up on the things that modern pharmacies sell. I know that they charge the earth for things like generic aspirin etc. They would rather sell you the branded versions which cost the earth. The same thing applies to other things that used to be common like Methylated Spirits, always seen in the old days as a chemist's item of stock but now you go the Shambles in the Square.
Gone are the days when chemists made up their own medicines and made their own pills. I can't make up my mind whether this is a good or a bad thing, all I am sure of is that I am grateful for free prescriptions!

[Tizer]

In another topic Panbiker mentioned an old crisp packet with its price in old pence was found on a beach, showing how persistent plastics packaging is. Pre-decimalisation crisp bags were also found deep in soil that had to be removed by archaeologists prior to investigating the site of Easy Company's WW2 barracks in Wiltshire recently. (The top soil had been moved there from elsewhere.)

OGers will probably find this short version of the article in Current Archaeology magazine interesting (although it doesn't mention the crisp bags!). LINK

[Wendyf]

I was looking at a big tub of Epsom Salts somewhere recently and wondering whether to buy it, I think it was Lanlee in Colne, they sell poultry supplies.

[PanBiker]

I was at Lanlee yesterday getting a screw top / carry handle for the Camping Gas bottle. The half full bottle I had given didn't have one, helps to keep the dirt out of the top valve and makes it easier to carry.

[Wendyf]

I always enjoy a wander round Lanlee. My friend Vera was looking for a 10lb fence maul as hers was broken, she is small and in her 70's so needs something reasonably lightweight to bash her stobs with. No luck there though they only had heavier ones. I stocked up on electric fence posts whilst I was there.
Is stob for post just used in Scotland?

[Stanley]

That's the only place I have heard the word used Wendy and your use of it this morning is the first time I've seen it for ages..... That Lanlee sounds like an interesting place.....

[PanBiker]

They do a full range of fencing and timber products and lots of associated stuff. I got all my fencing, gate and the timber and fixings for our raised beds from them, they deliver as well.

Lanlee Supplies Ltd

[Stanley]

This topic is mainly about change and inventions that sank without trace but there are certain classics that were so well designed and conceived that they go on forever. The Ewbank Floor Sweeper springs to mind. Another area where this is true is tinned food. I can't think of anything available in tins in my childhood that isn't still available. (Apart from Snoek! And nobody could possibly regret its passing.)
I'm reading about medieval food at the moment and it's clear that then, dolphin and whale meat was quite common. Apart from an attempt to reintroduce whale meat during the latter stages of the war I haven't seen either of them. Whale meat is eaten in Japan but I don't think we ever discovered how to cook it. The one time I tried it (Mother must have been desperate) it was like a sold block of red rubber and as near inedible as made no difference. The only other time I was defeated like that was when Vera and I cooked what must have been the oldest goose in the world. Even though we were poor I ended up burying the remains in the orchard!

[Tizer]

We have a floor sweeper and it's better at cleaning the carpets than our current Dyson, and easier to use - the Dyson grabs the carpet and is difficult to move about.

[Stanley]

My Hoover does the same especially on the newer carpets, you have to pay for that savage suction!
Cathy reminded me yesterday that 50 years ago Olive Oil was something you bought in small bottles from the chemist and used as ear drops, nobody used it in the kitchen as food. This was reinforced further by the dire predictions of importers about the shortages of imported foods that are possible because of longer transit times affecting freshness. We may have to revert to another thing that was common 50 years ago and eat home grown produce seasonally. I can remember that the first salad of the year was an event and they tasted lovely after the winter dearth. In my book that could be a good thing..... (Apart from the price rise which will hit the poorest worse.)

[Tizer]

I hope you've stocked up on olive oil in case of a no-deal Brexit!

[Stanley]

Funny you should mention that, my stocks are at their lowest point for years. I have been considering that and Italian canned tomatoes..... In my case it isn't stocking for Brexit, I have always had well filled store cupboards. A hangover from the war and what my mother always did. It's always been a form of insurance for me.

[Tizer]

I've also ordered my repeat prescriptions early so that I don't have to ask for them at Brexit time. As a Remainer I feel entitled to stock up on goods because I know that a no deal Brexit will be a calamity. Leavers shouldn't be stocking up because they are sure that Brexit is a doddle, a walk in the park!

[Stanley]

I have the same policy Tiz but our surgery won't allow you to repeat early.
In other respects I am taking the normal precautions on stocks that I have pursued all my life. It's just common sense and a security blanket. If you are running a fleet of wagons you always keep a stock of the most common replacements like oil, filters etc. so why not do the same for the other essential areas of your life.
That's one of the major changes I have seen in the last 70 years, the rise of the terrible Just Eat/Deliveroo movement and the erosion of job and income security. It seems to me that more people are living hand to mouth today than ever. Even in the hardest times, Vera and I were secure and making steady progress towards home ownership. Our modern world has made that an impossible dream for the vast majority.
Is what we have to report Progress?

[Stanley]

One of the things that constantly surprises me is the survival of photographs which were made as early as the mid-nineteenth century. When you consider how difficult the process was then it's a testament to the power of the image, especially those which because of the process were regarded as Truth. At one time it was said that 'the camera cannot lie'. Over the years, techniques like re-touching and cunning editing damaged this concept. It's interesting to note that Cartier Bresson, one of the founders of Magnum insisted that there should be no manipulation to the extent that when he printed an image he allowed the area outside the image to bleed in giving a black border to the print. This guaranteed that there had been no cropping of the image. It isn't generally realised that this is one of the reasons why cameras like Leica and Nikon were made so that what you saw in the viewfinder was what you got on the negative.
Today all this has changed of course. Facilities like Photoshop and Gimp allow any degree of manipulation that is desired. I did hear once that forensic images had to be on film so that there was a guarantee of probity.
I wonder how modern digital images will be regarded? Will they be trusted as much as the old negative based pics were?

[Stanley]

Not sure if I am going off piste here....
Remember our mention of Olive Oil? I was getting low so I decided that I'd better get stock levels up. I noticed a 5ltr tin of 'Olive Oil' for £7.99 and thought it was cheap so I bought it. When I got home I put my reading glasses on and investigated it. I found that what I had bought was 'Olive Pomace Oil'. Not only that but it was blended with sunflower oil! I went and did some digging on Google and found that the olive oil component is recovered by solvent from the waste after pressing and that it is so suspect that at one point the Italian government banned the selling of it.
So, straight back to the shop and got my money back! I called in at the Cathedral of Choice on the way back and bought two .5ltr bottles of Il Casolare which I had previously rejected as they were £4.50 each.
Once upon a time we didn't have to look at the labels to see where 'British Staples' were manufactured but now that HP Sauce is made in Belgium and many Cadbury's products are also made abroad we are going to have to look very carefully in the run up to Brexit. Will HP Sauce get to be as expensive as Olive Oil? Brexit could be even worse than we thought!