chrisp65

aye, lived on the island. Out the front window a fairground and the sea. Out the back window, steam trains and docks. freekin' awesome Hours of fun on the non-tourist beach around the corner playing aerosol roulette. Wait for night to fall, light a fire, chuck in an aerosol can and stand around it in a circle. Eventually the can explodes, blowing out the fire leaving everyone in pitch black darkness staring into the dark trying to work out who's missing as they took the aerosol missile to the legs. We didn't need computer games, we made our own fun.

I see yourchildhood Basingstoke miniature railway and raise you my childhood Chertsey miniature railway I had the real thing as my playground, unattended rusting steam trains as far as the eye could see, just left for us to run along the tops of, or methodically work from train to train smashing the glass in the dials. Another great game was to take all the white stuff out of the boilers and fashion it into all year round snowmen, or, mould it into ramps and come back the next day with your bike once it had set. Turns out later, the papier mache was actually asbestos. Apparently I can't be cremated without paying extra.

Close VT winningest post has been posted loved my long summers at RAF Saarbruchen so quite envious of that Laarbruch lifestyle

that's easy for you to say

Bit to far North for my liking Victorian nobs from your neck of the woods found the destination quite acceptable. I use the M4 as my guide on the north / south debate. I'm always surprised the people of Malvern aren't wandering the streets stripped to the waist drinking beer and smoking tabs.

we were the first family in our street to have the coin meter removed from our tv kids today wouldn't even know tv's had a box with a coin slot and a crank handle, pah

yeah it's not everything, it's just spoons. I do the classic 'clothes dumped quite close to the linen basket' and anyone in the house that gets stressed by that sort of thing needs to chill out

I do do dat. Whilst tutting loud enough for people in another room watching Casualty to hear.

and whilst we're on kitchen etiquette, I'm a fairly relaxed chap, but surely people can see that you need to lay a spoon convex side up when you've washed up. Laying a spoon concave up leaves a little drizzle of water to leave a water mark.

ha ha, lapal! army men vs indians / cowboys! aw man, I took all my soldiers up my mates house, we built forts either end of the upstairs landing and across the stairs and threw little toy cars at each others soldiers as cannon or bombardment or something. It all got quite heated with more and more ordnance being thrown back and fore. Then, I'm not sure what happened exactly, but it escalated to the point where we were squirting squeezey bottles of paint at each others troops. Awesome hedonistic pure fun. Then you sort of calm down, breath, recalibrate and think the 9 year old equivalent of 'oh fuuuuuurq'. I picked up my troops and made a sharp exit. Happy days. This later evolved into climbing the local cliffs, placing your action man, climbing back down and then lobbing stones at the opposition action man. Mad bloody dangerous but felt like fun aged 11.

now you mention it, my memory of childhood is slightly vague...... Nah, mine was fine, one of those cliches really, we were proper piss poor but it was fine, because so was everyone else around us. What can I say, my bedroom overlooked the beach, behind us was the steam train graveyard. In the winter we could climb into the fairground and explore the inner working of the big dipper. It was a docker community, some people were quite hard, some people drank quite a lot. School was bad. At 14, my old man made me get a weekend job to earn my own money. I wasn't very keen on the idea. At the end of the first weekend I got paid cash out of the cash box. I got home, my old man announced I'd earned it so it was mine to do whatever with. There'd be no expectation of 'housekeeping' but equally from then on there would be no pocket money. It was a revelation, my own money!

the whole regular panel would benefit from a ride around Dallas in a convertible

at some point in the race, they have to get out and squeeze through a ladder, then stand in a hoop and get it over their head

That's the badger. Although if ever there was a night I could should have got totally wasted, it was this one. Just the one bottle of Bishop's Finger, but hell, I feel GOOOOOOD. Also, I'm pacing myself for the next few days. Baggies fan due tomorrow. Just trying to raise him on the phone, but for some reason he's not responding. Funny, that. Raise him on the phone? What is that some kind of ye olde phone sex? OI ! shouldn't you be off the net and meditating and getting your feet rubbed?

well this is pleasant

we score ever time I wander off, so I'm off to rack up some dubious internet history

a card with 'all the breast' written on it about 23 times and a DAB alarm clock now he doesn't have to get up in the morning

right about now Mrs Mooney is being phoned by Mr Mooney's work bro's to come and collect him from under the table at some girly dance club he's laying on sticky carpet with blim burns in his suit trousers, off his tits on Baileys, Chardonnay, Lager and Guiness

totally agree it's just usually when i hear the words "sir" it's followed by "you've had too much to drink and we'd like you to leave " I find in day to day life that ( and without trying to stereotype) , Women are the worst , in that they have zero courtesy on the road , always block junctions , never give way when cars are parked on their side of the road , never acknowledge you when you do it for them and also think its acceptable to stand in front of doors having a conversation so that everyone has to limbo dance around them to get in the door or block isles in supermarkets whilst they carry out their important conversations yeah I'm exaggerating a point ... help me out here, I've read it three times and I'm struggling to see the bit you exaggerated

I can vouch that the local Waitrose does on an ad hoc basis occassionally phone charities and offer food. Most notably they recently massively over estimated the local appetite for sprouts and satsumas. They just somehow managed to be massively overstocked (by that, I mean they would only give it to someone that could organise their own van!) so the food was fresh and in date and clearly going to be rubbish within a few days. The sad truth was, there's not a lot anyone could do with sprouts - they require forward planning, a cooker and a basic knowledge of cookery and were not a great hit.

was there anything on it that made it worth while? I always think with any freebie or cd stuck on the front of a magazine that it only needs one track to take you off down an interesting road and it was all worthwhile

I think Col is on to something there, now he's mentioned that I'm sure I've seen it quoted as a reason by a shop previously.

grade inflation strikes again

get yourself to a Billy Bragg or Martyn Joseph gig and you'll hear some Seeger in fact, I'd suspect they'll be planning a tribute thing as we speak........saw them together playing Guthrie stuff a little while back, supergood

wahey! I was coming along to change my meh to a yes I'm working away at the mo, but that'll just give me a day or two to get thinking up a listing in my head!