pmccarthy

At last, the paperless orifice.

I you have to keep the paperwork up to date.

The Melbourne Age has been called a lot of things but right wing isn't one of them.

Eu de Cologne reminds me of the bloke who was buying some deodorant. The shop girl asked "Do you want the ball type?" and he replied "No, just under the arms thanks.

I leave my iPhone in the car and check for messages when I get in, every couple of days. Best thing about being retired. My wife does the Facebook check ins and is the point of contact for family.

I like the idea of a high vis vest reaching up and strangling someone. Good basis for a horror movie. The Return of the vests.

Some people have built whole dynasties from a nut. Or a pair of nuts.

well done, that's what I need to do. Is there any particular trick that's worked for you?

For a while I worked in mine shafts thousands of feet deep, repairing guides, working with cap lamps only, using oxy gear. If you tied off to the shaft steelwork then you could forget and ring away while on the cage. And vice versa, you could be standing on a bearer and tied off to the cage. So we didn't tie off at all. I was the supervisor, and if someone had fallen I would have been crucified. But there was no other way to do the job, we just moved carefully and very thoughtfully.

Hi everyone thanks for the thoughts. Pulled the water pump this morning and discovered the PO (who rebuilt the engine) had mounted it onto the alloy timing case without a fibre backing plate. So the water had corroded through into the timing case. But it has taken 12 years to do so. Problem solved (I hope).

I could tell many stories about how PPE nearly did for me in 45 years of mining. Here is one - my safety glasses fogged up so I didn't see a backfill pipe discharging at head level as I walked into a cut and fill stope. I did two cartwheels to the right and had to be pulled out of the wet fill by two backfill guys. I spent the next drew hours in hospital having my eyes, nose etc flushed out of cement.

From then on, I decided whether to wear safety glasses or not, despite the blanket rule.

My usually reliable Fergy 135 has dumped its coolant into the sump. I pulled the head and had it tested and skimmed, then reassembled with new oil and filter. Ran it today and there is a lot of coolant in the sump again. It is a dry sleeve Perkins donk so can't be a sleeve corrosion problem. I cant think why it might have cracked the block. Nest step is to pull the water pump and check that the back plate hasn't corroded through. Then I am stumped. You blokes seem to have a lot of mechanical nouse - so any ideas? If you can make aeroplanes fly then a 3 cylinder diesel should be easy.

I think you are right and my memory is at fault. As it often is. Wasted ten minutes this morning looking for a spanner I had put down. - had been to the dunny and left it in the laundry. Then had to drive 20 minutes to town for a compression nut. I have a packet of the, somewhere, but do you think I could find it?

In mining company offices I am not allowed to plug in my phone charger because it has not been checked and tagged.

Last week I got up at 5am and drove for three hours. Got to roadworks and slowed down, but to 70 instead of the posted 40. The stop guy jumped out in front of me and when I had stopped he gave me a serve. He was right. I was half asleep and hadn't taken in what the sign said. He probably thought I was a real d..head but I was just zoned out. I reckon I was still driving safely, but on autopilot.

Brylcreem a little dab 'll do ya

Brylcreem you'll look so debonair

Brylcreem the girls will pursue ya

Use Brylcreem for loverly hair

Why wouldn't you?

Gives new meaning to the term blow job. He must have needed a franger really badly.

I've heard of a snake in he grass but not a snake in the a@se. Did the adder get madder?

Lost ten kilos this year, aiming for twenty next year. Fly a lot more. Finish writing a book.

My wife was struck three times on the boot last weekend by a tiger snake she had accidentally stepped on, on our front lawn. A big one. She often gets around in Indian slippers but luckily not that day. Snake is still at large.

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We have some large, cheeky birds.

An extract from The Great Book of Aeroplanes by GG Jackson Oxford University Press 1930.

During the more troublesome days in Irak, when it was necessary to maintain an airway between various military points in that rather desolate country, the native menace was a very real one, and it is not too much to claim that the gallant airmen took their lives in their hands in more ways than one each time they left the terminal of the airway. There was always the danger of engine trouble involving a forced descent, with, perhaps, a crash in the desert, while there was another danger in the possibility of being exposed in that waterless expanse of sand under the burning sun, supposing their water supplies had given out; and the greatest danger of all in the marauding tribes that looked upon white men and their machines as something which they must fight to the very last.

Had it not been that the natives were taught to respect aircraft, by the bombing of their villages when they did not behave themselves, the successful airways of the desert could never have been maintained. It is on record that along one airway the aeroplanes were repeatedly fired at by a tribe which could not be located because it was always on the move. It so happened, however, that the chief of the tribe met with a serious accident, and by good fortune he fell into the hands of the British. The airmen made no more to-do, but took the injured chief to the hospital at Bagdad. Here his leg was set, and he received every care and attention. This so impressed him that from being the greatest enemy of that desert airway, he became a firm and loyal friend to the airmen. No longer was it unsafe for the aeroplanes to fly over that part of the desert where his tribesmen were roving to and fro. He was a man of great force of character, and he insisted on his people treating the British aircraft with courtesy, and was often able to help the airmen when they were compelled to make a forced descent.

The number of troops which had to be maintained for the defence of Irak was enormous, and the cost very burdensome to the British Government. Transport was slow; troubles occurred with great frequency in all parts of a very large area, and it was difficult to move troops as quickly as was necessary because of the difficulty in providing for their supplies; but with the coming of the big troop-carriers these difficulties were largely surmounted. When news reached the commanding officer that trouble was threatened in an out-of-the-way part of the territory for which he was responsible, he would order out two or three troop-carriers, whose first duty would be to drop warning notes to those of the native chiefs who were creating trouble. In these notes it was intimated to them that unless they ceased their threats of war, and returned peacefully to their homes, the aeroplane would drop bombs on their villages. At first the warnings were disregarded, but when it was seen that the aircraft commanders were in deadly earnest, and did drop bombs, the natives began to understand that peace would have to be maintained.

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There is a photo in RAF museum Hendon of bombing Syria in about 1932 so they have had plenty of practice.

I think the RSL did not like:

Chokos (conscripts from WW2)

Definitely not ex Military Police of any era

Vietnam vets

Vietnam protestors (including all university students)

Hippies (long hair and beards)

Pacifists from any era (especially conshies)

Women (except in the Ladies Lounge)

Anyone under about 30 years old.

I'm sure that list is incomplete.

About 1970 a mate and I were refused entry to an RSL in country NSW because we had beards. Both had fathers who were members.