Timbo

Take a look at the notice board on Paddy's Lane and you will see that it displays a telephone number for the Ood!

There are houses in Lincoln built like this too...on a floodplain of course.

ooh not an invasive species Poppy...just taking a break from this green and sceptic Isle for, well, several hundred years, 1416 last recorded breeding pair. Talking of breeding the stork is often associated with babies. This is just in the modern UK where we got it a bit wrong. Traditionally the stork nesting on top of your house is a sign of 'adultery'. This might explain why there aren't any of the little breeders about these days...the medieval equivalent of the Sun tapping your phone & publishing your antics. Apparently there is a scheme afoot to reintroduce them to Norfolk...probably supported by those councils who stopped collecting rubbish as the stork feeds on frogs, fishes and rubbish dumps. If spotted the Royal Society for the Proliferation of Spuggies and Donations from Landed Widows on Deathbeds would like you to contact them...probably so they can concoct some idiotic nonsense to support some half cocked notion of what constitutes sustainable land management and tap your old Granny for some land, screw you out of your inheritance, which they can then sell for housing. (Hope my dislike of the RSPB is not too obvious).

For years now the boats toilet has not been referred to as the 'head' but a 'jobby wheaker'!

I couldn't find the original thread on weird kids names but I have managed to collect a fine specimen just recently. I collected this little gem from a friend last week. An acquaintance of hers works in a book store. One of the sales assistants had returned to the bookshop to show off her new baby after the christening. "Ooh what did you name her?" asked my friend's friend." "Wivanee." said the sales assistant. "What with an 'e'?" "Wivanee!" the sales assistant repeated. "Yes we know it's got an 'e' but what's her name?" "Wivanee! We got it from that book wiv all them baby names in wot you give us! Wivanee!" "No, still none the wiser. Spell it for us." "Y V O N N E. Wivanee!" Surely, surely at some point the grandparents, registrar or even the vicar must have asked the question?

Aye up ah kid, welcome t' forum from me an all! You do know Griff has written a joke book. You can purchase it on www.ebygum.co.uk!

Its not so much selective hearing Gracie...we've just nodded off! It's conversations like this that do it... "You know that bloke on the corner? The one whose wife wears those skin tight striped leggings and she really shouldn't. You know the one whose sister married the brother of that woman that works in the Coop with the dodgy eyebrow. Mind, he was a wrong 'un always in trouble. He used to pal about with that bloke that worked in the post office, mind he was a laugh. He was a friend of wotsit, you know the bloke who drives that white van that lives by the football ground. You know the bloke, his wife ran off with his best friend. Mind you could see that coming a mile off, she was no better than she ought to be. Anyway he's working at the golf club now, but he says he's enjoying himself. It's nice up there, apart from where they've built all those houses. So how much do you think it will cost?" "What?" "The repairs to your car where that bloke reversed into it!" You see Gracie it's the order of information. Tell us about the shoes first and we fall asleep. Tell us about how much you are spending and I assure you the reply will be instantaneous!

Look I appreciate the fact that blokes interests differ from those of women. I discovered this a long while ago when I stopped wearing my hearing aid. If I wear the hearing aid my Mrs seems to talk about things like perfume, handbags, shoes and what's happening in the lives of friends and relations in exquisite detail. The 'ins and outs of the cats wotsit' as my Nan would put it. If I take my hearing aid out...for some reason she seems to be talking boats, woodwork, football and fishing. Honestly I really appreciate the depth and range of her knowledge. I just wish...once in awhile...that the pertinent information was given priority. For example, for several years we have been visiting in laws and not once...not ever...was there a mention that we have a family member that made boat canopies for a living, has all of the industrial grade machinery at home to do so, and would be more than happy to help make the new canopy for my boat! Ladies, this is a heartfelt plea...I will be more attentive to the problems 'Our Ermintrude' has with her varicose veins or irritable bowel, or be amazed at the price 'our 'enry' paid for his conservatory...I'll even wax lyrical about the puce dress 'our Rodney' wore to 'Aunt Beulah's' wedding to 'our Rupert'...but please, please, please tell me if any of them were/are boat builders or any associated trades first! I have it on good authority that Great Aunt Dorcas was a docker...well I'm sure Uncle Albert mentioned something about dockers thumbs.

"You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Don't take the big purply blue one...that's a cheap lava lamp we picked up in Ikea...or did we?"

Iain? Why are paracetamols are small white and smooth? Well...if they was big grey and wrinkly they would be elephants! Hang on a minute...I think I'm an elephant!

But only for medicinal purposes and as long as you don't inhale...

Yow see, 'o avoid 'hese kind f calami'ies ois qui'e easy. Waa yow do ois tairke thur big flappy 'hin' orff thur 'op f thur boo. Upcycle tha' usin' a needle and 'hread 'oornin' tha' in'o usable under gaarmen's for thur wife. 'hen ins'all one f 'hem 'here engine 'hin's which will allow yow 'o goo up and down thur river and save all tha messin' abou' gorn side 'o side and ge'tin' all 'angled up.

Excuse me for being a bit dense...but...What does Spirit of Breydon actually 'do'? I've seen the odd photo of some beardy bloke in a bush hat posing for photo's with her but other than that 'diddly squat'.

Cheaper Alternatives to Lightroom ACDSee Ultimate Capture One Pro Lightzone (open source) My favourite NikonCaptureNX2

So it's not just me then...but while I was down last week I thought 'hello it's a bit quiet'. Well to be honest in Lathems it was more like 'HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO! it's a bit quiet quiet quiet quiet quiet!' as it was empty and there was a bit of an echo. I swear there was tumbleweed rolling through Wroxham. At one point I thought I saw an 'Merkin wearing a ten gallon hat, until I realised I was staring at my own reflection and my two pint head in Roy's window. Surely it can't just be a result of the lack of anything resembling summer? In times past I've seen folk from Goole sat in the precinct by the Rhond nursing their fish and chips in torrential rain until their mushy peas resembled soup and it did not stop their holiday. I also noticed on my early morning rambles before breakfast a distinct paucity of the bobble hatted binoculared hedge tremblers and spuggie worriers we were promised would arrive in droves sans name change.

Gimp gimp gimpity gimp gimp! I ditched all Adobe and Microsoft products quite a few years ago when I found out just how good open source software had become...not to mention free. I used to swear by Photoshop, but then I started to swear at Photoshop. With Gimp we could write our own scripts for functions far superior to Photoshop. The only Microsoft product I won't ditch at the minute is Windows 7...

I was about to recommend the very same book MM. It's what I leaned from & my copy, although dog eared is much treasured. I would also recommend adding a small pair of long nosed electricians pliers to the list for unhooking...sometimes easier than a disgorger. Hooks. No bigger than a size 16, I'd recommend an 18. Match the size of the hook to the fish you are going to catch.

More often than not Vaughan images in reference books come from image libraries such as this one www.maryevans.com . If it's an obscure branch of historical interest you will often find that that the author of the book is often happy to share images etc from their personal collection to a fellow devotee. I would fire off an email and ask...you never know!

Ooh Sir! Suits you Sir! Ahem. Yes...well...blame Janet Anne for making a request to see blow ups of peoples avatars. Anyway. Here's mine. A life belt featuring Hunsett Mill which Royal Tudor passes from her moorings, Swallowtail Butterflies, the heron one of my favourite birds...after the Great Crested Grebe and the original yard pennant for Royall's Boats when they were based in Norwich which Nigel Royall kindly gave us permission to fly from the bow of Royal Tudor. Made up from various pastel sketches I make while we are out and about on Royal Tudor along with some devilment in GIMP.

There's a reason the Ant is so narrow...and it involves a saily...and I saw it happen. What happened was...I was pootling down the Ant through Irstead on the way for a pump out at the bridge and possibly a pump in at the Dog...when I spies a saily type coming upstream, tacking every three yards but at the end of each turn he ran straight into the bank and then took several minutes to extricate himself from trees, bushes, reeds...other boats etc. Tack, wham, bank...faff. Tack, wham, bank...faff. The problem was there was no way of getting round him as you never knew when he was going to manouver and he didn't give any indication...and the tacks he was taking were so small you couldn't get a boat length past him before he'd ram into the opposite bank again. After three quarters of an hour of this I was slowly backing up towards Barton Broad. I had tried to hail the saily several times but no reply. Eventually I addressed him formally... making reference to a male chicken and Elisabeth Beresford's literary characters of SW19. Finally he stopped faffing about long enough to let me pass. However it was not to be full steam ahead because Orinoco had been trailing a rope which now stretched from bank to bank. Never mind tacking, he'd stitched the Ant together...quite literally. The Hebrides is somewhere I've always wanted to visit Q. Royal Tudor is in Norfolk...as will I be on Saturday!

Oh there's nothing in life as pleasant as a good yarn with friends...however I'm serious about the sailing. I did check out the 'sailing for disabled' a while back at North Hykeham. I have quite a few build your own sailing dinghy plans favorited on my browser...steady Doug I can picture you banging your head against the wall shouting 'no no get your cruiser finished and back in the water first you muppet'. Once RT is back in the water I will be needing a dinghy of some sort so it might as well be a sailing dinghy.

I'm unsure whether to put this post here...or in the BOG section...but I've always wanted to learn to sail, not just sail but take part in a regatta but...for the life of me I can't work out whats going on. I've sat and watched the Horning Regatta with Uncle Albert (RN sailing champion so he tells me...yeah right) and was still non the wiser. At one regatta, can't remember where, I thought I'd sussed it! All these 'dingies' (as in dark and dingy...family malaprop) flapped about in front of the quay, while their crews shouted and screamed at each other, in what seemed a desperate attempt to escape from something. Then a bloke came out of the clubhouse on the quay with a little cannon...and shot at them! No wonder they were in such a rush to get away! Uncle Albert told me it meant the race was over. It certainly was for the poor bugger hit by the cannon ball! I am however in training in the event my sailing ambitions come true or I ever get caught in the middle of a regatta with Royal Tudor. Three or four times a week I venture down to Tesco and try to get my car in and out of the car park without running over one of the trolley pushing maniacs intent on walking behind my car. Just to spice things up a bit I sometimes drive into town to test my reflexes against jaywalkers and pram danglers. Of course should I realise my sailing ambitions and enter the Horning Regatta I will of course win, as I fully intend opening fire on the feller with the cannon before he manages to get a shot off. Besides which I have been practising my 'boarding techniques' at the dinner table by grasping a steak knife between my teeth while I wait for lunch. If nothing else this has seriously impressed my Mrs who only the other day told me I was 'special'.

That stupid vote just pulled the wheels off the wagon JM. All of the European houses waited to see which way the vote was going to go before allowing tenders because the industry is oft times dependant on EU grants and we work to an exact deadline usually three years in the future.Once the die was cast no more work. I wish we had the semi luxury of Grendel's position to wait to see how the markets go but as your son will tell you in our line of work three seconds might take six weeks but decisions often need to be taken instantly. I thought long and hard over this decision, my health is not great and to be honest I'm so very tired. I suppose I'm just not prepared to put in all the hard work and due diligence, not to mention money, into a project subject to the antics of the cartoons in Westminster or the vagaries of the graduates from the University of What Some Bloke Reckons Down the Pub. Besides which I have a boat in much need of some of my time...and that is far more rewarding!

I ran across a design for the new muted mucus coloured cartons that the rafia knickered, Zan Izal using, Wheat Intolerant Blandistas will be insisting the tobacco for my rollups will be sold in. It's bad enough that my cigar merchant has to black out his windows like some sex shop without having to wander around with a state enforced puke coloured 'naughty bag'. So I set to with some mahogany I had scrounged from my local timber yard, some 8mm cork tile and 2mm cork matting I had left over from my wargames figures, some 6mm ply I had loafing about and a sheet of myrtle burl veneer and made more suitable accommodation for my baccy! There's something cathartic about making boxes. My next door neighbour saw my new Baccy Box and has ordered two! No snot green packets in my vicinity.

You are correct Polly Windows 10 is incredibly slow at any task other than browsing the interweb.I have found a way of speeding it up though. Wipe the computer, purchase Windows 7 and install it on your machine. Then download one of the many programs available that removes all reference to Windows 10 from your machine to stop all of those annoying 'upgrade to Windows 10 Millions of people can't be wrong'...yeah right mutters Brexit and resulting loss of my business...and you will find that your system will now be blisteringly fast. My recording studio was..still muttering Brexit and loss of my business I'm not bitter in any way though...all PC based. We used to use Cuebase but found building our own proprietary software a better way for us...that and top of the range mics and soundcards.