Billhook

I was wondering if it was just a bit of clever anti communist propaganda put together by the US military as there were a couple of hardcore military types interviewed. But it seems as though the virus was active in November and the source was not the Wuhan seafood market which does not sell bats. So many different theories out there it is hard to form a firm opinion on what is the truth.

You are all probably Covid video fatigued by now, but this one is worth a watch.

Health and happiness is better than wealth with crappyness

Actually I am not giving you full marks as you have not completed the question. How much is it worth at two shillings and sixpence a cubic foot. As a punishment you can convert it into today's value. As another punishment you can give me an example of a noun in the nominative case being absolute!

You are a swot and risk being bullied by your classmates!

Baulk is what most people do when faced with these exam papers. Balk is what most people on this website deal with on a daily basis!

I always thought that I was well educated, in arithmetic, history and English Grammar until I found my Great Grandfather’s exam paper from 1865 when he was twelve years old Questions I liked were in Grammar. “When is a noun in the nominative case absolute?” in arithmetic ”Find the value of a balk of timber 39 foot six inches long and three foot seven inches thick each way at two shillings and sixpence a cubic foot” Geography “ you are going from London to Newcastle by sea, name all the counties, major towns, rivers, and estuaries that you would pass.” There is also an article about the 1893 paper This is your Lockdown exam folks!

You’ve started, so now you have to finish!

I keep trying to convince myself that it is a windup, but have concluded that nobody is that good an actress!

She has made the problem so much clearer to me!

Coming on nicely! 68DBFE8D-143D-42FF-B2A0-AA348ED27EAA.mp4

We had a flock of Bee Eaters around that time, again not seen one since. Rape was in flower so plenty of bees about. I happened to have my video camera on me at the time. The bird''s flight first caught my attention, slightly woodpeckery without the loops. A few wing beats then a short glide all in level flight accompanied by a sound like water dripping "Blip blop" Blip blop"

The Softer female version!

First swallow here in Lincolnshire yesterday, twittering and sounding happy to be back!

If you are referring to the Lidl one, it was brand new whereas the Stihl had been used for a year. On close examination it seems that the teeth on the Stihl are set a tiny bit wider at the tips allowing the blade to travel freely

Why would he not believe it if he saw it first hand?

I liked mine so much I bought another. I bought a similar looking one from Lidl for about £4 here is the comparison

Steve Winwood, Yeah!

Just remembered a couple of stories that father told me not long before he died. As many have said on here,people did not talk about their war and father had been no different up to the point in his old age that he decided to write down his memories. He then wanted me to put them on the computer, knowing full well that I would read them, but he still could not tell me these stories directly. When he was training doing circuits and bumps, he was going solo but under strict instruction when doing the final landing to pull off to the side and let any following aircraft land. It was a Court Martial offence to move once pulled off. This time the following aircraft lost control and the prop took away the whole tail section of father's plane. I think that as many pilots were lost due to accidents, either weather or pilot error, as to enemy action. The second story used to haunt him. He was called out in the Warwick to rescue the crew of a B17 that had ditched in the Channel. When he arrived he could see most of the crew of ten swimming near the wreckage. He was under instruction to not drop the large lifeboat too close, but he was a good judge of distance and dropped it less than fifty yards away. They circled and watched as one by one the crew slowed down until they all were floating lifeless. The combination of crash injuries, battle injuries, and the freezing cold sea all took their toll, and there was nothing that father or his crew could do to help.

My father went off to war in 1940 very much against the wishes of his father who had been seriously wounded at Arras in WW1 and had a leg amputated as a result. That was meant to be .the war to end all wars.. Father trained at Anstey with the RAF and received his Wings there and was then sent to Newfoundland, followed by Edmonton near Calgary followed by Pensacola where he trained on Catalinas under the Towers scheme. He was trained as a pilot, a navigator and a wireless operator and after a couple of years was sent back across Atlantic in 1943 in an unescorted ship with 1600 others who had been fully trained over the same period. imagine it might have changed the course of the War if that ship had been sunk by a U Boat..! He ended up at Davidstow in Cornwall in 280 Squadron on Coastal Command flying Wellingtons and later Warwicks dropping huge lifeboats and dingys to people in the Channel and Atlantic. I still have his log books, his bubble sextant and a large compass taken out of a Wellington at the end of the War. Mother was taken out of school at 17 in 1941 and joined the WRNS and was based at nearby Treligga near Port Isaac where they had a practice target field for rocket training for Typhoon pilots. The WRNS had to run out from behind a bunker and replace the target before the Typhoon came around again ( before the days of 'Elf an Safety!) They all went drinking at the King Arthur's Arms Hotel at Tintagel and that it where Ma and Pa met and they were married for 63 years. I was amazed to find not only all the records of father's operations but also photos of my mother driving an ambulance and fire tender, all at the Davidstow museum. In her last year in her nineties, she had dementia but the one story she kept repeating was the time when a B17 Fortress came around the airfield at Treligga in foggy conditions. The airstrip there was grass and only about six hundred yards long and was only meant as an emergency strip for the Hawker Typhoons to land in the event of their rockets throwing up debris and damaging the engine. The B17 circled with its wheels down and the leading officer fired a flare to warn it away, but it came in and landed quite easily being a tail dragger and a good pilot. The WRNS went out to greet it and they turned all the guns on them. They had no idea where they were and thought that they were still in France! The next day they had taken all the bombs , ammo and anything that could be taken off and lined the B17 up at the start of the runway. At Treligga there is quite a steep cliff going down to the sea. All the WRNS held their breath while the four engines roared and the machine headed off towards the cliff. It lumbered over the cliff and disappeared from sight and everyone held their breath waiting for the explosion but started to breathe again when the plane roared into sight again climbing fast! The extraordinary thing was exactly the same thing happened on the same date a year later! Jcarbor and Mike Hill talking of South Africa reminds me that my Mother's father, a Scotsman, was brought up in Bloemfontein and at the age of sixteen joined the Brand's Horse to put down the 1915 Boer rebellion there. He then went on with them to defeat the Germans in Namibia (Deutch Sud Vest). In 1916 he caught measles and was sick for most of the year so missed the carnage of the Somme but he joined the Royal Field Artillery in 1917 and went on to fight at Ypres. He had his horse shot from under him twice and gained an MC gazetted in 1918 and survived the war unscathed. Amazing I now have the time in this lock down to write all this!!

You remind me of a house not far from here which used to have a large white sort of calcareous stain down the brickwork below an upstairs window. I thought it was the remains of some old rendering but then someone told me that the bloke who lived there used to go down to the pub a lot and since they only had a downstairs loo.............

I know we run a fifteen year old Volvo XC70 , but it is bit unfair to refer to it as an old bus! She notices a spot of dirt on the kitchen worktop if I have not wiped it after using it, but she throws all sorts of rubbish on the floor of our car and never notices if I have vacuumed or washed the car!

Fair comment, but I feel slightly vindicated as my wife did not notice it for three days!

You have to really check out the web as the price for this seems to vary from under £50 to over £100. Mine was from Amazon Door Canopy 155 x 75cm Awning Gazebo 3 mm Soild Board GVH158 WWW.MANOMANO.CO.UK IN STOCK: best prices on Door Canopy 155 x 75cm Awning Gazebo 3 mm Soild... mine