Playing in the sand with Rosie         

        Some people just won't be told, they must find out for themselves. The type who would literally throw a turd to see what really happens when 'the sh*t hits the  fan'.

        So there I was, touring in the West Country (Devon & Cornwall, UK) with Rosie and sidecar. Snaking my way down 1 in 4 and 1 in 5 hills in the moonlight, dutifully changing down to first gear whenever the signs warned 'Steep Descent Ahead -  Engage Lowest Gear Now!'

        Deep tyre tracks in the sand traps designed to catch runaway vehicles reinforced the message.
 
        What - I wondered - did that sudden de-acceleration feel like? Bloody wonderful if you were heading over the edge of a cliff otherwise, I guessed. But what was the physical sensation like? Like a parachute opening? Like bouncing off a sturdy shield wall during a battle re- enactment?

        I stopped at the top of a long slope, sizing up the sand trap ahead. Like most it sloped upwards from the corner where normal people turned, and ended in a solid wall cut from the rock. Wide enough and long enough to catch a runaway lorry with room to spare.

        Dark and mysterious compared to the road, which - covered with light grey  chippings - gleamed almost-white in the moonlight. A gateway to forbidden knowledge. Daring me to find out.

        I waited until a labouring car had passed and nothing more could be heard or seen, except the waves dashing against the cliff far below. Then I surrendered to the mad impulse.

        The road dropped away beneath me, and within a few seconds I was in third gear,  throttle wide open and hitting the 'valve float point' at about 65mph. I was totally committed to that dark patch ahead, changing up to top just as I ploughed into the sand.

        Braced to hold the handlebars steady I slid halfway up the damned tank with the sudden de-acceleration as the tyres dug deep after just a few yards of semi-skimming across the top. The front wheel ploughed deeper still as I closed the throttle and hit the kill button to stop the motor ingesting unnecessary sand.

        It was like running on rails, and I was unable to turn the 'bars at all. All I could do was hang on and wait for the mad ride to end. Later I found the crosshatched pattern from the tank knee pads printed on the inside of both thighs, a deep blue latticework that spoke volumes about my frantic grip.

        I doubt if I covered more than a quarter of the available distance before I stopped completely, residual momentum nodding my head forwards over the front wheel which was buried more than spindle deep. A petrified bow-wave of sand was built up around the front of the box sidecar and wedging up from underneath, having tipped it half way to one side. Another few yards and I would have been unceremoniously flung off.

        I sat sideways, doubtless wearing an idiotic adrenaline grin, and waved as a car  passed by slowly and sensibly, the driver tooting his horn as the headlights played over my stranded machine.

        It was a truly memorable experience, one fully paid for in toil and sweat as I struggled to free Rosie and turn her back towards the road. It took at least an hour, and I was stripped down to a soaking Tee-shirt before - with a mixture of bare-handed digging, brute force, and judicious twists of the throttle - we clawed our way back to a  firmer surface. The 'sand' was more like a fine gravel - I'm not sure where the changeover comes in particle size.
 
        Even getting her started had been a problem, as I'd had to dig a deep enough hole to let the kickstart swing freely, and, as you all know, sand just loves to flow back into  the hole it's so recently vacated.

        Several passers-by tooted at me during my self-inflicted incarceration, and the contents of one ancient car bulging with youths stopped, wound down the windows, and gave me three cheers and a chorus of handclaps. Didn't offer to help though, little sods!

        I don't regret the experiment, but I never want to make that much unnecessary effort again. Nor did I appreciate the damage that sand did to my rear chain, the nasty graunching noises resulting in the purchase of a new one two days later. A big dent in my 'travelling fund' which took nearly two days off my holiday.

        Finally, speaking as a responsible (?) citizen, I have to say: "Don't try this at  home, kids!
       
        Gyppo  (Who is now much older, but not necessarily wiser.)

   OI have a loittle proibem woith my keyboirad.

   Whenever oi hoit the oi oir the oi they oinsoist oin marchoing hand oin hamd acroiss the page.

   Explanation follows, now I've fixed the problem.

   I managed to spill a drop of Super glue on my keyboard whilst doing a little quick fixing job whilst sat at my desk.  Didn't even  realise it had happened until later.

   It landed right between the i and o and stuck them together.  I had to lever them off as one unit and was immensely pleased to see it hadn't got behind them.  If they'd also been stuck to the tray part of the board behind it would probably have been new keyboard time.

   They were hard to separate, parting with a sharp crack.

   The glue had set rock hard by then so I had to trim it off with a knife, and now it's all working smoothly again.

   Could have been worse.  If I'd not been waiting for the original 'quick job' to dry properly I could have been straight back into typing again, and found myself inextricably glued to the two keys.

   I've said it before.  Things happen to me.

   Gyppo

Do you sometimes think that people who don't understand a language should just keep their trap shut until they've learned what the words mean?  And this time I'm not just bashing the Americans, there's far too many native speakers of UK English who make this particular mistake.

I've watched several motorcycle rebuild/restoration videos lately, many of them done by young chaps who weren't even a wriggle in their father's testicles when the bike was manufactured.  If they've only ever owned or ridden modern bikes they can be excused not recognising every part.

But why is every mystery component described as being 'very unique'.

Unique is unique.  (A genuine one-off.)  It doesn't need, or in any way benefit from the modifier.

On the other hand it is fun listening to their surprise when they realise some older bikes - with a magneto - don't need a battery to run, and that ignition and lighting are, usually, two completely different systems.

But, to be fair, they're no more bewildered than I'd be when faced with a series of little black box 'rider aids' and 'engine management' systems which are supposed to take care of everything.

None of this excuses 'very unique' though  ;-)

Gyppo

     I've just found a bloody vape in my jacket pocket.  A jacket I haven't worn for at least a week, probably two.   

     It's not mine.  I've never used one.

    I didn't put it there.  None of my small circle of friends is a vaper.

    Flavour, according to the small print, is Pineapple Ice.  Which sounds more like a damned rapper to me  ;-)

    This mystery is going to puzzle me for far longer than it should.

    The flap on the pocket was buttoned shut.  I only looked in there today because it felt a bit heavier than usual, a lopsided weight as I was putting it on, and I wondered what was causing this.

    Did someone get near enough to rummage in my pocket without me knowing?

    Fairly unlikely.  My best theory is that someone sat next to me on a crowded bus, where close proximity to strangers has to be accepted, mistook my pocket for theirs, and is probably still wondering where his/her vape went.

    And no, I'm not tempted to try it.

    Gyppo

         A memory from the late 60s.

   Delivery with Wild Bill, The ex-Bomber Pilot.

   About 620 words

   Meringues.

   Anyone can make them, given a bit of practice.  Even the humble 16 year old bakery apprentice.  But getting them home, intact, is in the realms of magic.

   Getting them from the bakery to the shop can be a nightmare as well sometimes, unless it's just carrying a tray through from the back or up a flight of stairs.  At one point we supplied a shop twenty-one miles away. Twenty-one miles of twisty old fashioned A-roads.  The new van had arrived and the old one been taken away, but the new one hadn't yet been 'racked out' for trays.  So I - as the humble apprentice - was nominated to ride in the back and stop the stacks of wooden baker's trays from falling over.

   "Do you feel like a change?"  The Scots foreman made it sound like a treat.  "I've a nice wee jobbie for you.  All you need to do is stand in the middle between the two stacks, wedge the bottom ones in place with the edges of your feet and use your hands to poke back any that slip out of line.  It'll make a nice wee break away from the real work."

   I had my doubts.  But I also had no real choice

   Bill, our van driver, was a huge shaggy-haired man-mountain of an American.  A former WW2 bomber pilot who treated other traffic pretty much as he must have treated flak and enemy aircraft whilst thundering through the skies over Europe in his Super Fortress.  He told me the journey would only take about twenty minutes.

   Once again I had my doubts, but in this case I was wrong.  Twenty minutes from door to door, meaning an average speed of 60 plus.  I saw eighty on the clock occasionally, although I rarely had time to look through to the front of the van.  I think Bill regarded 'running in' a new motor as a 'make or break' process.

   For me, semi-crouched in the back, it was like a martial arts workout.  I  needed hands, feet, knees, elbows, hips, thighs, and once or twice my arse or even head to control those two roof-high stacks of trays.  The stuff inside the trays was well packed, with no real sliding room, but the individual trays had a life of their own.

   Bill called out warnings to me, such as "Sharp left" or "Tight right', but I'm not sure they actually helped.

   But we arrived, unloaded, and then I was shunted upstairs to the café for a free burger and a coffee whilst Bill hurtled around Salisbury for a while 'Picking up a few things for The Wife'.

   Then we drove back.  I'm sure we went just as fast, but sat in the front, able to see properly, it didn't seem anywhere near as frantic as the outward journey.  Once the racks were fitted I no longer had to serve as Loadmaster for the mad bomber pilot.  I rode with him a few more times, but only as an extra hand for loading/unloading when the van was brimming at Easter and Christmas.

   Bill was one of the most amiable and laid back chaps you could ever wish to meet, with the patience of Job if he had to wait for something which was still in the oven or not quite ready.  He'd cheerfully fetch and carry stuff whilst he was waiting.

   But as soon as he got behind the wheel, said "Ignition!", and started the engine he became a completely different man.  Superbly capable, but crazy.

   ===

Found this morning on Freegle.

'An unknown/unresponsive tradesman has left a large, heavy petrol lawnmower on my property in ..... He has ignored all texts, phone calls, and emails and request on Nextdoor.com for over five weeks. The machine is heavily rusted, missing its rear grass collector and I cannot find a visible serial number on the outer casing. Due to the suspicious circumstances, the ghosting, and the lack of identification markings, I suspect he may have intentionally fly-tipped/abandoned it.   Please collect for FREE if you can use it.'

=====

Probably one of the more 'fly-by-night' casual gardeners/clearance chaps.  Bloody Pikeys  ;-)

He may have just dumped it, possibly after stealing a better replacement from a previous call  ;-(

Some of these chaps, especially the real 'chancers', cover a wider than normal area.  Perhaps it was a genuine mistake, but when he costed up the diesel to come back for it decided recovery would cost more than it was worth.  Especially if he hadn't paid for it to start with.  Or had recently 'liberated' a better one from a previous job and needed the space in his van.

Gyppo

I read recently that around 60-% - and rising - of all internet traffic is created by automated 'bots' indiscriminately trying to sell you something.  Or AI generated pseudo-social-commentary, (Fake News).  Think how much better the system could work without all this automated 'sludge' bunging up its veins.

I can tell you that so far just today 178 'new members' have 'signed up' to the forum, and we'll never see any of them on the 'hello' page.  The names show that most of them are links to gambling sites.  Which at least makes a change to the relentless barrage of penis or breast enlargement offers which cluttered the system several years back.

A few still get through the ad-block filters, such as the 'New Delhi Escorts' advert due to changing email addresses.

Gyppo

I logged onto the site today, 31/8/26.

initial attempt to log on told me there was an error.  But offered me an option to sign up.  So I clicked that, scrolled down to the bottom of the blurb where it once again offered me a box to 'log on', and this time it let me enter my usual password and I was in.

Gyppo

For fiction writers.

Empathy  for writers - The two edged sword

Written years ago for the late Skip Slocum at The Writers' Circle.

He was having a few problems getting into the head of his character, a fourteen year old warrior boy.  He was still writing a hell of a book though.  This is the advice I sent him.

======================================================

Hi Skip.

This is where it gets painful for we writers.

Have you ever been in situation yourself where you were completely overwhelmed by the hopelessness of your situation?  Even if you knew it was probably only temporary.  If so you need to revisit that dark time in your head and tune into the recall of how it felt.  It won't be easy, but the worse it was the better you'll be able to understand how Matt would be feeling, faced with imprisonment and no obvious way of escape.

Add in the bugger factor of him being young.  He may be a hardy little warrior, but he's not yet lived long enough to know that most bad things will pass, given time.  He's going to feel it even more so because he's not long since set up house with his Megan, so all those flowering emotions and plans are going to be cut off short as well.  Stir it all together and apply it thick and heavy.

If it doesn't make you weep or howl with frustration why should it make the readers feel that way?

This is not the sort of thing you can write in cold blood, like assembling a Lego tower from blocks.  It's more like digging a hole in sand and watching the sides keep falling in and refilling the bottom as you work.  You just have to keep digging.

As Wolfe said in another thread, make your character face your greatest fear(s), and survive.  It won't be easy writing, but the result will probably be pure gold.

=====

If you have reached the grand old age of nearly fifty without suffering any traumatic  and hopelessness inducing events - which some lucky souls have - then you'll need to take a slightly different route to get to that motherlode of feelings and raw emotions.  Think of someone else you know who went through hell, and how you felt when you had to watch it but couldn't help.  My guess is that you're quite big on empathy, so tune into how it felt, and what you felt for them at the time.

=====

Be warned that either of these methods may turn you into a grumpy irritable and thoroughly 'out of sorts' person for a while.  There's a good reason why our minds lay a protective callous over some memories, and you're about to rip off the scab and prod the still bleeding/festering wound.

Neither of these approaches need to exactly mirror Matt's situation, but there are common themes in all human suffering.

Desolation at the realisation you will never see a particular individual again.  (You know Matt will get home eventually and find Megan waiting, but he doesn't.  He's not been with her long enough to have the certainty which comes with the years of living together.  He'll wonder if she'll forget him and find another.  After all, he's already had mad moments of jealousy, hasn't he?)

Isolation:  This one will really get to him. Through his Keening he's always been able to tune into his Mother, Grandad etc, so he's never truly been alone.  If I recall one of your earlier drafts correctly he gets taken 'out of range'.

You can add an extra layer to his torture and beatings here.  He'll probably know in advance what they're planning to do to him.  He may be able to turn off this knowledge to some extent, but then he'd fear he was losing the gift which would otherwise give him an advantage if he ever thinks there's a chance to escape.  A real dilemma there, and one which he can only solve for himself, alone.

The physical beatings he'll probably be able to endure moderately well, being a hardy little soul, but it will still wear him down and make him easy prey for the mental torments of his own mind.  A couple of cracked ribs and bruised lungs from a thorough kicking may make him feel as if he's going to die.  Once he's lived though it the first time and survived he'll still dread the pain, but a little part of him will have toughened and know it's not necessarily the end. 

The dirt and vermin of imprisonment will also wear him down.  In many memoirs of trench warfare old soldiers say that the one thing which really got to them, which made them feel so far away from all they knew and loved, was the dirt and the perpetual lice.

Habit:  Once again, in an earlier draft you had him imprisoned in a pit, being forced to fight others and being used as a 'training aid'.  After a few months of this it will begin to become a habit, willing or otherwise.  He will look forward to these moments of violence with a wolf-like relish as relief from the otherwise crushing boredom of imprisonment.  His memories of his previous life will dim, and there will be times he doubts if they are real, wonders if it was all just a sweet fantasy.

Like others in this position he may decide it's best not to think too often about the past, that to live in the present, however brutal, is better than the mental torture of remembering.  This is how some soldiers survive the unspeakable, by totally immersing themselves in what they have to do.  The ones who can't get back out afterwards are the PTSD victims.

Summary:  It's not going to be easy for you.  Accept this.  Writing it is going to be the easiest part, compared to living the anguish alongside Matt.  The other snag is you really like your character, don't you?  He's become real to you.  But you're going to have to cross the line and think of him as his enemies would.  You're going to have to think evil.  Put yourself into that pit.  What is the worst thing they could do to you.  Apply it to Matt.

This is likely to be rough writing.  Don't even think about editing it until a), you've finished those parts, and b) you've calmed down enough to be Skip The Editor again.   When you've finished go out into the countryside or wherever with your Bunny and find yourself again before you edit.

If what you find on the page shocks, sickens, and angers you then you've got it right.  Don't be tempted to reject it as too horrible.  Remember it was Skip The Writer who wrote it, not gentle PawPaw who plays with his grandchildren ;-)

Welcome to the Gates Of Hell.  Arm yourself, and enter.

Best wishes,

Gyppo

My eldest has a blog post about these mystical sea creatures on her 'witchy' website.

I'm rather pleased how she writes.  This is the child who used to drag a blanket into my 'office' and fall asleep curled up by my chair listening to the patter of a typewriter.  Too young to read at that age she referred to it a 'Dad's music'.

If you're curious enough to have a look this link will take you straight there.

https://www.ajscottage.com/post/whispers-waves-the-folklore-of-sea-singers-ocean-winds

Gyppo

   Writers' Life Lessons

   Your pencil will only break if you don't have a sharpener or knife handy.  If you write notes in pencil you have a perfectly legitimate reason for carrying a small but sharp knife at all times.

   Your pen will only run out of ink if you don't have a spare.  Two is good, three is better.  More than three probably means you also have a slide rule and a pocket protector.   Geek ;-)

   Paper notebooks aren't inherently waterproof, you need to keep them in a bag or cover because writing on soggy paper with your unbroken pencil isn't easy.

   Its a good idea to have a permanent ink pen so that notes written on dry paper don't run and become illegible when you drop them in a puddle, or the bath, or leave them out in the rain after working in the garden on a sunny day.

   If  you have a wireless mouse or keyboard the spare batteries you have will inevitably be the wrong size.
   
   Licking the ends of  a dying battery to reduce the resistance before putting it back in may help the device to draw that last little bit of current and let you finish a sentence.  Do not do this with a 9 volt battery with both terminals on the same end.

   Tired batteries can be temporarily revived by warming them up on a low heat or a radiator.  Do not think of trying this with a microwave oven.  If you have a an old surplus microwave oven and an extension lead plug it in out in the garden and 'nuke' a battery to find out why ;-)

   Being able to touch type at 120 wpm doesn't necessarily make you a writer, just a fast typist.

   Learning shorthand won't, in itself, make you a journalist.  But it will really piss off ill-mannered people who try to read over your shoulder ;-)

   Develop a good short term memory.  It's probably best not to make notes at the time when people watching in a cafe.  Some people get upset  when they see you staring at them and writing things down.  Paranoid types like this can often turn abusive, and sometimes even violent.

   If interviewing someone don't rely on your hand-held recorder.  Jot down the salient points as well.  The wrong battery law mentioned earlier also applies to recording equipment.

   Sitting conspicuously in Costa or Starbucks with your laptop won't magically turn you into a writer.  Drinking overpriced coffee won't give you a career like J K Rowling unless you have the talent and the stickability.

         ===

There are indeed some evil old bags - and young ones for that matter - who really delight in telling the horror stories to innocent young Mums.  And the really hard core 'Spreaders Of Gloom' will start on the Dads if there's no cringing first time Mum to torture.

I was in the Dads room at Treliske Hospital, Cornwall, along with three other soon-to-be-Dads.  One of them was a hardened old veteran of four births, we other three were first-timers.

Enter one evil old hag who would have been at home sat knitting at the base of the Guillotine, "Knit one, Purl one..." and screaming out ecstatically "Drop one!" every time a head thudded into the basket.  I will spare you the horror stories, because they truly were but I'll swear it was a well-rehearsed routine.

Her grand-daughter was in to have a child and the prognosis wasn't good.  The hardened old father of four tried to divert her as the tales grew darker by pointing out that things weren't necessarily as dark as she painted them, that his missus had produced four children as easily as 'shelling peas'.

"Life's like that..." she pounced, "just when everything's going well, suddenly it all goes horribly wrong."

With one emergency caesarean (my missus), and another younger lad quietly cacking enough bricks to build a wall because his offspring was coming early at about 7 months and wouldn't be stopped, the last thing we needed was the Evil One.

She'd got to the "Course, it's all right for you men.  All you have to do is pop another one in there, it's us women who feel the loss when things go wrong." 

A nurse came in and bustled her away, looking apologetically back over her shoulder.  Ten minutes later the same nurse returned with a tray of much appreciated coffees and a few biscuits.  One of us asked how the old ladies grand-daughter was doing, and had that been why they whisked her away so quickly?

It turned out she was a crazy old woman with no children or grandchildren, who had gone a bit loopy years before, and was visiting a friend with a hernia.  But she had a habit of creeping up to the maternity wing just to share the gloom of her own long-ago disaster.  More to be pitied than reviled, but it was far easier to see that in retrospect.

In our little cluster the premature baby was fine, (unbelievably tiny, but fine), my Missus presented me with a huge baby girl, the Dad-of-five took Missus and latest home within a few short hours of the birth (She walked into the Dad's room to show him off, telling it was as easy as shelling peas.)  And the other one was pretty non-eventful too.

One of these days I might write an item about the Dad's room.  It's a funny place...

Gyppo

We used to have an 'answer a question with a question' game.

I found this little snippet when looking for something else.

=====

In the question game...

NOIZCHILD:  Why do we dream?

SPELLCHICK:  Is it because Shakespeare said we could?

FIREFLY:  Did we need his permission?

NOIZCHILD:  What if I said yes?

GYPPO:  We'd probably ignore you, wouldn't we?  Dost not know, Fair and Mysterious Maiden from a far distant shore, Shakespeare is long in his grave, (although probably a little shorter than he was in the full flower of his living manhood), and well out of copyright, so to parody or misquote the Immortal bard is well within our enfeebled modern grasp, and therefore no grasping lawyer upon this Celestial Globe we fondly refer to as home, no matter how pernicious, sly, and avariciously fond of unearned Shekels from his own creatively written Billable Hours, holds any dominion over our use or even misuse of the hallowed words?

I thought it was lost for good, on a disc of a different format from several computers ago.  I've been thinking about the characters...

Today, rooting through some old stuff I found a hefty taped up bundle in an old typing paper box.  The old quarto sized stuff.

There it was, 60,000 words of it, and when I looked at it I realised why I couldn't find a disc, or a thumb drive with it, or even a file copied from one computer to another.

From 1980.  It was pre-computer, done on a real typewriter.  The font looks strange.  Not weird strange, just unfamiliar after decades of Time New Roman in various sizes..

I shall look at it again tomorrow, in proper daylight.

It was my entry for - I believe I've got this right - The TSB Peninsula Prize.  Open to natives of Cornwall, or people living there.  Apart from a reasonable cash prize there was also a publication contract for the winner.  I didn't win it.

But the dream was there. And my wife was already learning that sometimes when the words called, she'd lose me for a few hours at a time.

Ah well...  I'm glad it's not truly lost.

Gyppo

PS:  It followed one of the golden rules for a thriller.  Body on the first page  ;-).   

Gyppo

Three days ago I checked at the right time and I realised the sun during the eclipse would be viewable from the front of my bungalow.  All I had to do was pray the drought wouldn't break (yet) so the sky wouldn't be full of clouds.

Between 6-30 and 7-30 we sat out there in camping chairs, and were joined by my neighbour and her grandson.  He was a bit shy about meeting a batch of strangers but we assured him he was welcome and found a stool for him to sit on.  He's autistic and although we didn't tell him we were all on the same wavelength, to varying degrees, I think he soon felt comfortable with us.

It was quiet fun and we had about 95% totality.

We all had the proper glasses to watch it safely.  My neighbour Linda had also made an old-school 'pinhole viewer' where you stand with your back to the sun, look through a different hole, and see the sun reflected on the inside of the box without all the glare. It looks like a very Heath-Robinson bodge, but it works.  Just as early 'pinhole' camera works.

Linda's daughter and her friends had also gone for the box bodge, seeing as they'd left it too late to get eclipse glasses and a group of them were stood on the common about six miles away.

There was some joking about the best kind and size of box.

Linda told her she could use a cat food box.

"We couldn't possibly do that, Mum.  We're Vegans."

It was a thoroughly enjoyable hour or so.  As I told my Grandaughter, "This is real science.  Not just a book or a video."

Seeing as I will be 130 years old when we next get to see a total eclipse in this part of the world the statistics are against me.  But, if I'm still around I'll turn out for it.

We also had fun seeing the birds get confused, fly up to roost, sing their evening song, and then come down again pecking away at the rock-hard ground looking for breakfast.

A 'darkish' kid from further up the road came along and politely asked what we were doing.  So we explained and invited him to have a look through the glasses, and the box, and he was fascinated.

"Wow!  That's really cool.  How often does this happen.?"  When we told him how long until the next one he was over the moon that he'd been willing to ask what we were doing.  We thought it was great that were still kids willing to ask questions.  That's what we used to do.

Gyppo

No Parking or Turning

As a kid I used to wonder
about those little signs,
'No parking or turning!'
some people had in their driveways.

I could understand the no parking,
but what harm was there if,
frustrated by a narrow lane,
someone briefly nosed in
to turn around.

Today, stood at the kitchen window,
I saw someone back into my space,
just to turn their car around,
and heard myself say out loud
"Piss off."

I guess it comes with age ;-)

Gyppo

When I finally treated myself to my rather expensive Fisher 'Space Pen' a few years back I tested all the claims made for it.

Yes, it writes underwater.
Yes it writes on various greasy surfaces.
Yes it writes upside down.
Yes, it writes on wet paper.  (Truly useful if your writer's notebook gets damp.)

I tried all these things and more, but I could never bring myself to deliberately put it through the washing machine.  I wondered if it could survive.  I said at the time this test would probably happen sooner or later in the natural order of things.

Yesterday it did, and I didn't even notice until I was pegging out the laundry and realised the tiny pen was securely in my shirt pocket.

No leaks, no problems, no damage.  And unasked for proof that the clip  holds well despite washing and spinning.

The only outstanding 'normal' question is would it survive a 90 degree 'boil wash'.  I think it would, but, once again, I can't bring myself to do it deliberately,  But if it happens, I'll let you know.

I must admit I'm tempted to fire it from a crossbow, just to see what happens.  Even the makers never tried that ;-)

Gyppo

    Student teacher loses the entire class in one wrong move.

    Some student teachers accept the fact that a new class is going to test them.  Some try to head it off at the pass before it happens.  Some succeed and some fail gloriously.

    One of the most successful was a science teacher called Mr Death.  He watched us all traipse in and sit down with varying degrees of enthusiasm and check out his tweed jacket and leather elbow patches.  First point in his favour, for looking like a proper science teacher.

    "Before I do the register, are you all here, or are we expecting anyone to come in late?"

    We looked around and agreed that we were all present.

    He turned his back and wrote on the blackboard, My name is Mister Death.

    That got our attention, and he turned and allowed us to settle.

    "It is pronounced De Ath."

     I wondered why it didn't have an apostrophe, like some French names,  or even a hyphen, but kept my thoughts to myself.  After all, this was a science class, not English.

    "Under the circumstances I'm perfectly happy just to be addressed as Sir."  A short pause followed and then, "You can have a few minutes to laugh or smirk if you want, and then I'll do the register and put faces to names."

    The approach worked well.

    =====

    The other example was a student teacher of English, who, despite not looking much older than most of us fifteen and sixteen year olds, which made us automatically suspicious of him, presented the persona of an older and irascible man..

    We were all in class before he arrived, throwing the door open, and strode in ordering us to be silent.

    "I've been warned about you lot."  I've since wondered if this was true, or if it was just a rehearsed opener.  "So let's establish the rules.  I expect discipline and respect.  Anyone who steps out of line will be sent straight to the Headmaster's office.

    "Do not expect kindness.  I am a sadist."

    Derek, who was normally quiet, but occasionally went where others feared to tread, asked, "What's a sadist, Sir?"

    "This is an English class, you've got a dictionary.  Look it up, Boy."

    Many dictionaries were consulted.  Many young faces cracked and then froze into the deliberate blank look which teachers must dread.

    "What does it say, Boy?"

    "I'd rather not say, Sir."

    "Nonsense.  Come here to the front and read it out to everyone, so they can all hear it."

    Derek came forward reluctantly, looking like a deer caught in a poachers lamp, then settled and read it with slow deliberate relish.  A clear case of 'if I'm going to be in trouble, let's make it worthwhile'.

    "Sadist.  One who derives sexual pleasure from inflicting pain upon another."  Pause.  "Sir."

    The student teacher raised his hand as if to strike Derek, then lowered it, clearly trapped.

    "That can't be right."

    Several other open school dictionaries were thrust toward him, fingers pointing at the entry.  After a few frozen seconds he slammed back out of the room and stomped down the corridor.  Derek went back to his desk.  Those who hadn't looked it up gathered around those who had and read the damning words.

    After about five minutes of giggles and noisy hysterical laughter the teacher from the next class along came in and shut us up, and asked what had happened.

    "Oh dear," he said, face twitching.  "Just read, or talk quietly amongst yourselves.  I expect something will be arranged soon."  His shoulders were heaving as he walked back to his own class.

    After about quarter of an hour another teacher came along, took over the class with the quiet kind of authority we expected, and got us settled down.

    We never saw the student teacher again, and for that term he wasn't replaced.  I bet he's never forgotten us either.

    Gyppo

    The snag with setting up a new household, as I did several years ago, is all the equipment starts to wear out at around the same time.  Eventually they'll get 'out of sync', but not just yet.  So a few days back I bought a new fridge.  More on that later.

    My stand mixer - which takes quite a beating making bread maybe three times week - is serving notice.  It's leaking black oil down  into the bowl, so I can safely assume a bearing is dying, or a seal is buggered. (If it was a truly expensive machine, like a Kenwood Chef or similar, it would be worth getting it repaired. ) I may have a look inside later before I throw it out.

    Perhaps it's a union appliance and it's 'coming out in sympathy' with the fridge  ;-)  It's the same make and model as the previous one and they've both lasted nearly three years. So they've cost me around 50 Pence a week.   (Can't really grumble at that.)  So I'm looking to replace it, hankering for one with a slightly bigger bowl and, in the adverts,  I'm finding all sorts of garbage 'features' on newer models which I truly don't need.

    Such as twelve speeds, or glass bowls.  Six speeds are more than ample, and even four would do just fine as long as one was really fast for mixing meringues or whipping the hell out of cream.  The advertising claims it gives 'greater control', especially when used with the' built in timer'.  Speaking as a real world baker I know that real control comes from;  a) knowing what you're doing, b) standing by the mixer to make sure your whipped cream doesn't suddenly turn into a bowl of butter, and just learning how long things take, (which can vary according to the weather),  and not mindlessly adhering to some 'one size fits all' timing in  a recipe book.

    Glass bowls:  Make no sense to me.  They are inherently fragile and much heavier than the equivalent size of time-tested stainless steel.

    They let you see when the beater hasn't picked up from the bottom or sides, but realistically you can always assume that anyway, unless the beater is scraping itself away against the inside of the bowl.  So just stop it and give a scrape around anyway.  That's what plastic bakery scrapers are for.  As well as cleaning frost off windscreens and quickly spreading buttercream on the sides of cakes.  (It feels more natural than a palette knife held vertically.)

    Apparently a glass bowl also lets you see if there are lumps in your buttercream.  There wouldn't be any if you ran the icing sugar through a sieve first, but that takes time.  (Important if you're going to be piping traditional Royal Icing through a fine nozzle. )   But people skip that step, save a  few minutes, and then lose them again later, and get pissed off,  having to bash the icing around more in the hope of breaking down the lumps.

    Like almost everything in life, if you do it properly right from the start it's quicker than 'saving time'.

    The other reason people use glass bowls is they can cover the top and then watch the dough rising.  If you've got time to watch it rising you're probably the sort of person who sets their washing machine for the fastest possible wash cycle, and then stands there mesmerised as the clothes and bubbles circle around behind the glass door.

    My digital kitchen scales had a 'funny five recently as well.   My bread dough was far stiffer than usual, and when I checked there was four extra ounces there.  I'll look into that later.  Maybe I just read the display incorrectly.  If not there's another thing which can no longer be trusted.

    =====

    Son in law helped me get the new freezer onto the stack, so all is well in that department.  Once it's settled overnight and come to working temperature I'll transfer everything from the old one , sling that out into the back garden using my sack truck, and have my kitchen back to normal again.  It'll be nice not to have to shimmy like a belly dancer - I know, it's a hideous vision - just to get to the sink and fill a kettle.  Fifty years ago I'd have described it as 'swerving like a bullfighter'  ;-)

    Gyppo

Written towards the end of the last century.  Doesn't seem that long ago, but...  About 1100 words.

Gyppo