Dear Santa...for my PP Christmas, I would like....

[LadyArowana]

green electric poultry

Chris is going to be so cross with you Mr P.

 

[Penners]

It's not Chris that I'm trying to please. It's Lynne Truss.

 

[Zebra]

A few Christmases ago, when I lived in a flat, (warm and dry, oh I remember warm and dry!!) I asked my sister whether she thought that Santa would be able to get through the combi boiler flue, and whether I should take the cover off it and leave mince pies and carrots inside. She said I had better drain down the central heating system and fill it with sherry instead.

This year what I would like is for my woodburner to be in and to sit in front of it with a glass of something....

 

[robgil]

I would like a roof, some walls, floors, windows, doors, wiring, plumbing , painting, scrubbing, stairs , kitchen wares and some funny shaped pears.

 

[middi]

I would like a roof, some walls, floors, windows, doors, wiring, plumbing , painting, scrubbing, stairs , kitchen wares and some funny shaped pears.

Don't despair Rob, surely there must be a B & Q in your neck of the woods :wink:

Middi

 

[Penners]

Actually, Middi, I reckon Rob is about as far away from a B&Q as it's possible for anyone to get, in this country!

Which may be an inconvenience... or not, depending on your point-of-view!

 

[robgil]

What is this B&Q you speak of?

 

[Penners]

I rest my case!

 

[wobs]

On another forum I go on, the following was posted by someone regarding what to get a man for Birthday/Chrimbo, which amused me:

Does he do any sort of home repair, woodworking, garage-tinkering, robot-building, etc? If so, then he needs more clamps. Any guy who does stuff like this can always use more clamps. It doesn't matter how many he already has, he needs more. Even if they are the exact size of ones he already owns, he needs more. No man in all of recorded history has ever stood back, assessed his situation and said "I think I have too many clamps."

Buy him some clamps.

There's a truth in there of course.

 

[Penners]

A great truth indeed. Clamp paucity is akin to shed insufficiency. No matter how large your shed, it's always just that bit too small.

 

[AMc]

I think there is a geometric extension of Bistromathmatics which means no matter how large your shed or small your collection of tools, offcuts, half tins of paint and "things that might come in useful one day" may be, your shed/understairs cupboard, basement, loft, garage, coachhouse, servants wing will always look dangerously over stuffed.

I would like to conduct an experiment where I place a single paintbrush into an empty industrial workshop = I suspect it will be hard to find somewhere to put it down and even more difficult to find it again when it is needed. Problem is finding my paintbrush.

 

[Penners]

I would like to conduct an experiment where I place a single paintbrush into an empty industrial workshop = I suspect it will be hard to find somewhere to put it down and even more difficult to find it again when it is needed.

There's absolutely no need to conduct that experiment, AMc. Your theory has been proved empirically, many thousand of times.

Within about two weeks, your single paintbrush would have been joined by dozens more, in various stages of crustiness and unuseability. Then would come the skinned-over, quarter-full tins of paint and the old workboots - one brown one white (where the wearer had inadvertently put his foot in a tin of paint).

These would soon be joined by a sander with a burned-out motor, a battery drill whose battery will no longer hold a charge, three boxes of sundry blunt drill-bits and at least 15 coffee jars full of mixed screws (all labelled "for sorting later").

No more than a week later, all of the workshops' roof trusses would be home to an enormous variety of offcut CLS studs, dozens of bits of wood that are a few millimetres too short for anything, an old TV aerial and a mixed selection of conduit, guttering, plastic soil pipe and feather-edge board trimmings. The whole would be rounded off with a filthy old box containing dead Christmas decorations.

QED

 

[robgil]

I would like to conduct an experiment where I place a single paintbrush into an empty industrial workshop = I suspect it will be hard to find somewhere to put it down and even more difficult to find it again when it is needed.

There's absolutely no need to conduct that experiment, AMc. Your theory has been proved empirically, many thousand of times.

Within about two weeks, your single paintbrush would have been joined by dozens more, in various stages of crustiness and unuseability. Then would come the skinned-over, quarter-full tins of paint and the old workboots - one brown one white (where the wearer had inadvertently put his foot in a tin of paint).

These would soon be joined by a sander with a burned-out motor, a battery drill whose battery will no longer hold a charge, three boxes of sundry blunt drill-bits and at least 15 coffee jars full of mixed screws (all labelled "for sorting later").

No more than a week later, all of the workshops' roof trusses would be home to an enormous variety of offcut CLS studs, dozens of bits of wood that are a few millimetres too short for anything, an old TV aerial and a mixed selection of conduit, guttering, plastic soil pipe and feather-edge board trimmings. The whole would be rounded off with a filthy old box containing dead Christmas decorations.

QED

Have you been in my shed?

 

[Penners]

Nope. My own. And a fair few other male domains.

We chaps differ very little, you know!

 

[Zebra]

Shed? That's what my spare room's like.

 

[Penners]

:lol: :lol:

 

[Feltwell]

I've just cleared the spare room out. It's gone from being a room where it was difficult to find space to put things on the floor, let alone the shelves, to one where there is a clear floor and lots of room on the shelves. The wheelie bin is full, the charity shop has done very well out of it and I've made about £200 on Ebay.

Don't tell anyone but it actually feels quite good, this clear out lark - quite cleansing for the soul.

Good job I know it won't last!

Of course none of the above had anything to do with the kids getting a big Scalextric track for Christmas and me needing somewhere to set it up, or me wanting a Scalextric as a kid and never getting one :wink: :lol:

 

[Zebra]

Ah but one of these days, in the not too distant future, you'll want a particular sized grommet or washer, a thingy, an old bit of something, and you'll think "I had one of those that would do nicely. Now where is it? Aaaaaaaaugh!"

 

[Zebra]

I guess one cannot have both a shedful of potentially useful things and a clean soul. Sigh.

 

[Feltwell]

Aha, my stripey friend, it is only the spare room that has been cleared out, not the shed. Touring guides for Norway from 1988, A European Atlas from 1990 with a few pages missing, films for a long since gone camera, clothes for a child far younger than any of mine, hundreds of floppy discs when none of our computers have a disc drive any more, and other sundry items (many of which were in unopened boxes moved from the previous house 5 years ago) have all bitten the dust.

Get rid of grommets or washers? Never!