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This is a question Amazing displays of ignorance

Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic tells us: "My dad's friend told us there's no such thing as gravity - it's just the weight of air holding us down". Tell us of times you've been floored by abject stupidity. "Whenever I read the Daily Express" is not a valid answer.

(, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 16:48)
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Another ex one.
She completely refused, to the point of stamping her feet and visibly boaking, to drink water if it came from the bathroom tap. Water from the kitchen was fine, but bathroom water was dirty.

She also thought it was "minging" to put a spot of water into your tomato sauce to loosen up the last wee drop so you could get it out of the bottle.

Why she thought "council water" was ok from one tap but not another, or ok in tea or jelly but not mixed with sauce boggles my mind. I thought things like that were kind of cute, in a clinically insane kind of way.

She also used to call any television channel that wasn't sky (or freeview in those days) "council telly".
(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 18:54, 22 replies)
because usually
bath tap water is from the header tank, so can be contaminated with all manner of impurities. often for plumbing simplicity, the bathroom cold tap is fed from the same pipe

you can check by putting your finger over the end while the tap is on.
if you can stop the cold water flowing without it pissing all over you, it's from the tank and shouldn't be drunk
(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 18:56, closed)
In her mind
it was toilet water that came out the tap :P

Ours does come out with the force of 50 elephants though, I used to have hours of fun drenching the bathroom as a kid by using my thumb to spray water everywhere :D
(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 18:59, closed)
^^ Also, I'm pretty sure it's a legal requirement or British Standard that the kitchen tap is mains fed

(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 19:19, closed)
I used to drink from the header tank at my parents house.
Seeing as i did it for as long as i can remember before i fucked off to university I guess it just strengthened the immune system.

I occasionally use the tap in the bog here to get water, but judging by the volume I'd guess it's mains fed. Although it is a downstairs bathroom, so there would be more back-pressure.

That said, I am fully aware of everything you said, and was aware of it for most of the time i was doing it. I was also too lazy to go to the kitchen.
(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 23:14, closed)
Having said this
I always get a glass of water from the kitchen these days, but this isn't because of some weird idea about the bathroom tap dispensing toilet water. It's because one night, while getting some water from the bathroom, I noticed a massive glob of gelatinous ooze hanging out the tap. I cleaned it all with a toothbrush and bleach, but it gives me the boak thinking about it.
(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 18:57, closed)

Used to hear 'boaking' from Irvine Welsh use that a lot. Is it a Scots thing? Is it like puking? Apologies for cross border ignorance. I love the Scots, sorry we fucked you off over the years! :)
(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 18:57, closed)
Yup
it's the same as "retching" I think, and can mean puking too. The "dry boak" is a good term for something that makes you feel sick, like "that lassie's face is giving me the dry boak" :D
(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 19:01, closed)
Thanks
And 'ken' means life?
(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 19:04, closed)
no...
...it means 'know'. Yah ken?
Apologies if that question was meant to be ironic. I'm pure giving mahself the dry boak today with the seeming collapse of my sarcdar.
(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 19:13, closed)
Nope
ken usually means know. I don't really understand why that is lol, the weirdest one I know of is for eyes, we say "een". Strange when I think about it.
(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 19:14, closed)
cos
it's from the Norse. Same with the lovely Dundonian/Fife substitution of 'jamp' for 'jumped.'
(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 19:14, closed)
Norse, but also maybe Friesk or some other such Germanic language
I'm learning Dutch at the moment (don't ask...) and "kennen" means "to understand" and there are a number of other similarities.

My girlfriend was listening to two blokes speaking some heavily colloquial form of scots English, almost bordering on Scots itself, and for a moment she swore they were speaking Dutch - she could even understand what they were saying.

English's closest relative is Scots, then it's Friesk (and then I think Dutch), it just so happens that even after 1000 years the English north of the border has less French than that south of it.
(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 19:22, closed)
the english cognate of
ken/kennen/kunnen/koennen etc is can

makes sense when you think "I know how to do something" is the same as "I can do something".
(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 22:52, closed)
I was thinking of 'puff'....?

(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 20:46, closed)
You have to agree,
'ken' and 'puff' ARE pretty similar words? Ye Ken? Fucksocks. I'm a twunt.
(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 20:48, closed)
I've got to agree
Drinking from the bathroom tap is bad. In a flat I once lived in, the water in the shower started to smell a little odd whilst washing. Upon investigation I found a decomposing mouse floating in the header tank. When I tried to fish it out with one of those small aquarium nets, it disintigrated. Then I had to clear out the mouse, my own vom and several ground beetles which were floating at the bottom.
(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 19:17, closed)
huuurgh!

(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 20:06, closed)
Water?
Like, from the toilet? I prefer Brawndo, the thirst mutilator. It's got electrolytes!

Joking aside, I'd agree with the concensus: It *isn't* the same thing from every tap. Have you ever noticed (perhaps in hotels, workplaces, public buildings) small signs notifying you that the water is "not drinking water" or "unsafe from human consumption"?

Those are because it's any of the following: Raw water (unprocessed, maybe rainwater from the roof); tank fed; or it's at the end of mains piping that's so long / poorly maintained / seldom used that Legionella (growing in standing water) is a risk.

(disclaimer: I am not a plumber)
(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 20:14, closed)
I agree..
.. but you have 'plumbed' new depths. Sorry. I'll be here all week. Try the veal. Badoom.
(, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 20:56, closed)
WTF is a header tank?
Over here all water comes from the same source- from the water main if you're in the city, or from the well if you're not. The water that feeds the toilet is identical to the water that feeds the kitchen tap.

I've seen non-potable water lines at car washes and the like where they recycle the water, but never in a home setting!
(, Tue 23 Mar 2010, 0:13, closed)
a header tank
is a water tank, usually located higher than any tap in the house (in the loft or attic space). It is usually kept topped up with cold water from the ordinary water supply, and in normal conditions it never gets fully emptied.

I'm not really sure why / if we need them; but there are several advantages:
# Bathroom tap water pressure is reduced from the standard mains blast.
# In the event of a Mains water failure, you have a small backup supply.
# In the event of a Mains water failure, your boiler is less likely to run dry / explode.

There are some (water quality) drawbacks:
# The tank is never fully emptied, meaning the chlorine in the water will evaporate, meaning the water will have higher algae/bacteria levels.
# Unless the tank is well sealed, dust (or worse) fall in; as Big Smurf can attest.

Being realistic, it's unlikely to kill you. It's more of an "ick"-factor.
(, Tue 23 Mar 2010, 1:37, closed)
Header tanks have to be sealed to Byelaw 30 spec
With the outlet in the base not the side, so stagnation can't occur. You only find indirect cold water systems in remote houses high up in the hills where the mains water pressure is below 1 bar (about 9 litres/minute flow rate), otherwise all your cold taps will be fed directly from the main.

Different rules apply to commercial/industrial premises, including schools, which is where a lot of misconception arises.

You can tell what I'm doing at college, can't you?
(, Thu 25 Mar 2010, 1:28, closed)

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