Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

GDB2222

PasturesNew wrote: »

Have to see how it works out in time. Technically I maintain the boundary fence. The boundary fence ended by being butted up against a brick pier, belonging to next door. That's now gone.

In the builders' plans they'll be building a brick wall, but I don't know if it's intended to go up to that point, or if their plans saw there was something in place, so stopped short of that bit. So, there's now a length of shabby old fence and a missing pier total length 10', that will, no doubt, be the subject of discussions yet to be had....

Is that safe? 10 feet of fence, secured at one end?

chris_m

PasturesNew wrote: »

I just read this article about finding a submarine that'd sunk 100 years ago in WW1. It had just disappeared, nobody ever knew what happened to it. And you think of all those people left behind that never knew what happened to their son/brother/husband/father/neighbour/friend .... but in this case one of them had a daughter, who is still alive!! She's 104 and living in the US.

At least it was still there, unlike seven (3 British, 3 Dutch, 1 American) in the Java Sea which appear to have vanished over the last 14 years.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-37997640

ivyleaf

PasturesNew wrote: »

In a pub where I used to drink, there was a local chap everybody called "Black Cat". The reason was because anything anybody had got/done he'd got a better one/done it better. "If you had a black cat his cat'd be blacker" they used to say. Black Cat John

I used to know someone like that years ago. I remember making my mother laugh when I explained "She's actually very nice, but whatever you've got, she's got a better one. Or if hers is the same as yours, she got hers cheaper."

PasturesNew

GDB2222 wrote: »

Is that safe? 10 feet of fence, secured at one end?

Dunno really - far too windy to go out and contemplate that... but, it's tucked entirely behind the shed, so if it did do anything unexpected it'd not go anywhere.

PasturesNew

Just found an odd/sad story in old newspapers.

I started by watching Flog It in Grimsby and got lead astray after there was a ship's bell and I googled that and ended up looking at an unassociated story from the same town.

1939 Starvation:

A man found his brother dead in bed. There were 3 brothers who lived together. One found dead in bed, another was taken to Hospital and died a few days later. Both died of starvation, aged 52 and 60.

When the story came out at the inquest they didn't have much money. One had an 8 shillings/week pension and they got under £2/year for being freemen of the borough, or something ....

The 3rd man was only living with the two dead brothers because he was worried about them living alone as they had no income.

One'd gone to try to get benefits 3 years before and was told "sell your house" - so they'd put it up for auction but only got offered £75 so they decided they'd be better off not selling it, but living in it.

Their sister would send occasional food parcels. The 3rd brother had pawned his suit just 3 weeks before - but, prior to that, when any of them left the house they always made sure they looked respectable.

Having been turned down for assistance 3 years before, they'd just assumed they couldn't ever get anything as they'd not sold the house, so they just soldiered on, being proud and trying to make it work.

But they didn't have enough money to eat, so died.

Pyxis

ivyleaf wrote: »

I used to know someone like that years ago. I remember making my mother laugh when I explained "She's actually very nice, but whatever you've got, she's got a better one. Or if hers is the same as yours, she got hers cheaper."

I know a better story than that.

ivyleaf

Pyxis :rotfl:

I didn't get that just for a moment!

Pyxis

ivyleaf wrote: »

Pyxis :rotfl:

I didn't get that just for a moment!

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

vivatifosi

What happened with all of the new houses near where I live, is that the new wall or fence (depending on what they put up) was put up on their side of the boundary. Over time, those who had been there longer took down their fences and just left the walls or new fences to be maintained by those who had bought on the estate, or the estate management company.

I am not sure what the plans say in terms of upkeep though, but either way, if you didn't put the fence/wall up and they put it next to yours, they can't expect you to keep it. If they offered to take mine down, I'd say I'm happy with it the way it is thanks, and let them put theirs up on the boundary. That way someone else gets the boundary to maintain, and I'd get an extra few inches of garden.

vivatifosi

ivyleaf wrote: »

I used to know someone like that years ago. I remember making my mother laugh when I explained "She's actually very nice, but whatever you've got, she's got a better one. Or if hers is the same as yours, she got hers cheaper."

About 20 years ago, I went on a coach tour of the western states of the USA. Everywhere we went, this pair of older women who were travel companions, would compare it to somewhere else they'd been. We had:

Las Vegas "ooh, it's just like Blackpool"
Disneyland "just like Alton Towers"
Santa Barbara "lovely long beach, just like (I think) Morecombe"
Yosemite "just like the Peak District"
and my personal favourite:
Grand Canyon "it's just like the Cheddar Gorge"