» Lies that went on too long

Vertisac?
In years gone by I was camping with friends in the lakes in summer. It was hot and the campsites we stopped at unannounced were all full. Driving away, again, I spotted a tent – about 2 feet square and 6 feet tall. I announced to my mates GF that it was the all new space saver tent. It’s the future, the story went. It will alleviate overcrowding. I explained that occupants slept vertically, hanging from the apex in a space age sleeping bag called a Vertisac. Developed by NASA for the conquerage of space and all that.

Sucked it all in, she did, and repeated the story for at least three years...... until we camped next to one and the owner put a sanilav in it.

I now know the meaning of ‘sullen.’
(Tue 13th Mar 2012, 20:13, More)

» The best thing I've built

Water and electricity......
As a young dad with a mate who demolished factories I received an old burglar alarm system which used ultra sonic detectors rather than the passive infra red ones you get now. The range and detection sensitivity could be adjusted on them so….what to do.

Using some old washing machine valves I fashioned the alarm system and valves into a garden sprinkler system.

All this I set up in the garden, with the sprinklers on each side and the detector pointing down the middle. My boys and their friends had a whale of a time trying to slowly crawl up the garden without getting detected and thus soaked. Worked a treat.

The one real flaw with the system was that the alarm and the valves were operated on 240volts, which was fully exposed (except for a couple of kiddies buckets to cover the connectors) and very likely to kill someone at any time. Got away with it though but I doubt Tomy et al will want the recipe.
(Sun 14th Oct 2012, 19:28, More)

» Home Science

Petrol - It's good enough as it is.
As a pyromaniac youth in the mid 70’s a friend (RGP) and I decided that the petrol we were using to blow up Dinky toys, drop in petrol bombs off bridges, use as lamps as we toured East Lancs sewer systems (washed clean by the copious rain) wasn’t ‘powerful enough’.

Over a short period of time between us we knicked from school everything required to distil petrol – conical flasks, tripods, bungs, rubber tube even a foot ish long spiral distilling condenser.

We set all this up on the garage floor, added petrol to the flask and placed under it a small meths Bunsen burner. Cooling water was run occasionally through the coil to condense the soon boiling petrol. Excitement was palpable as two 13 year olds chatted about blowing more stuff up. As expected the ‘more powerful’ petrol dripped from the end of the condenser into an open topped flask.

Unknown to us was the fact that the petrol fumes were climbing out of the open topped flask and were slowly spreading across the garage floor. Eventually, after I guess being wafted around the garage by our walking about the fumes reached the small Bunsen burner under a quarter full flask of petrol.

Whooooomph it firkin went!!

The pressure in the garage rose and our ears popped. My trousers were on fire, along with all the hairs around my ankles. The smell was appalling. The flasks remained in tact and the fire was quickly beaten out (thankfully) however in our panic to escape we found that the garage door was now the shape of a large dustbin lid and was off it’s hinges. I’m surprised we survived, 1. The explosion and 2, the bollocking for buggering up the garage door.

Petrol is quite powerful enough as it is. Leave it alone.
(Thu 16th Aug 2012, 12:51, More)

» Lego

Treddle
My mates mum had an old treddle sewing machine - without the sewing machine bit. That left a treddle, wheel (about 24 inch diameter) and table.
The size of a lego wheel is about 10mm therefore the gearing is about.. erm... twelvety to one...ish if you connect them with a bit of string.
We built and connected ever more elaborate windmills and rotating stuff from the treddle to the lego which, with energetic treddling, would spin at fckin HUGE revolutions.
Lego is tough. Tougher than the ceiling - pockmarked - and certainly my forehead which took the full force of an exploding 'thing' as the centrifugal forces beat the grippines of a flat 4 or 10 or whatever... it was a long time ago. I have scars.

Ah well... less painful than sticking it up yer arse.

Lego still has blood stains.
(Sat 26th Oct 2013, 0:56, More)

» Terrified!

Military Trucking
In years gone by I was in the Fleet Air Arm. A Junglie Squadron composed of a number of Sea King MkIV aircraft and associated support troops. The aircraft regularly romped around the country/europe and to support I drove/co piloted a rumpty Bedford MK truck full of spares. We had recently watched the Twighlight Zone. On the way back to Yeovilton, at night, from an arduous trip I was passenger in a rumpty truck and trailer doing 60 mph down a steep hill in somerset.. My driver said 'you wanna be scared?' I looked at him. He said,' you wanna be really scared????' I shrugged. Then he switched off the headlights and laughed like a cnt. I didn't know he knew the road. I totally lost the plot. Scared? Bloody right.
(Fri 6th Apr 2012, 0:57, More)