Must be 18 years of age to buy ....EGGS!

[spudfan]

This is from a supermarket in Northern Ireland. 

Edited July 7, 2022 by spudfan

[Broithe]

Many places on the Big Island, too - for some time.

[jhb171achill]

Why? What percentage of alcohol do they have in them?

 

[Broithe]

35 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

Why? What percentage of alcohol do they have in them?

 

They get thrown at cars, houses and people - and statues of contentious figures....

36 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

Why? What percentage of alcohol do they have in them?

 

On that subject, although the formulas generally contain rather less now, there were mouthwashes on sale on the Big Island, without any age restrictions or licensing hours, some of which contained around 40% alcohol - essentially, it was blue crème de menthe. But the issue was glossed over, as few 'interested parties' ever spotted the potential.

[jhb171achill]

3 minutes ago, Broithe said:

They get thrown at cars, houses and people - and statues of contentious figures....

Ah, of course............  didn't think they'd rival buckfast, in all reality!

[Broithe]

1 minute ago, jhb171achill said:

Ah, of course............  didn't think they'd rival buckfast, in all reality!

Mmm, I'm now considering merging the alcohol mouthwash and the eggs to make a crème de menthe advocaat cocktail.

[Niles]

I worked in Argos many years ago and there was an 'Over 18s' shelf in the stockroom, the idea I think was to make us think twice about their age when picking such item for a customer... anyway, among the X-Rated games, DVDs, etc was the most sinister product of all: a Winnie the Pooh tea set.

(it had a knife).

[Horsetan]

If it's any consolation, some branches of W.H Smith seem to think that Model Railway Journal is a top-shelf publication

[jhb171achill]

On 8/7/2022 at 7:39 PM, Niles said:

I worked in Argos many years ago and there was an 'Over 18s' shelf in the stockroom, the idea I think was to make us think twice about their age when picking such item for a customer... anyway, among the X-Rated games, DVDs, etc was the most sinister product of all: a Winnie the Pooh tea set.

(it had a knife).

You obviously don't know about Eeyore's past..... and the strange business with the honeypot.

[Broithe]

2 hours ago, Horsetan said:

If it's any consolation, some branches of W.H Smith seem to think that Model Railway Journal is a top-shelf publication

Continental Modeller always looked a bit shady to the uninformed observer.

[Niles]

10 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

You obviously don't know about Eeyore's past..... and the strange business with the honeypot.

His depressive outlook is a manifestation of guilt for his past.

[jhb171achill]

1 hour ago, Niles said:

His depressive outlook is a manifestation of guilt for his past.

Thought so!

[Horsetan]

On 7/7/2022 at 5:54 PM, Broithe said:

They get thrown at cars, houses and people - and statues of contentious figures....

Food waste is such a terrible thing.

[leslie10646]

On 24/7/2022 at 9:59 PM, Horsetan said:

If it's any consolation, some branches of W.H Smith seem to think that Model Railway Journal is a top-shelf publication

Actually, Ivan, it's not having the railway mags on the top shelf that's the issue, it's when they are on the bottom one and I can't bend down enough to reach them!

[Broithe]

3 hours ago, leslie10646 said:

Actually, Ivan, it's not having the railway mags on the top shelf that's the issue, it's when they are on the bottom one and I can't bend down enough to reach them!

With a proper exercise programme, you should soon be able to bend down far enough to reach the bottom shelf.

However, before you get carried away with the success, you also need to work on the second stage, so that you can get back up again.

[WRENNEIRE]

Leslie, if you took that big fat wallet out of your arse pocket you would have no problem accessing the bottom shelf, talking from experience here man!

[Broithe]

On 8/7/2022 at 7:39 PM, Niles said:

I worked in Argos many years ago and there was an 'Over 18s' shelf in the stockroom, the idea I think was to make us think twice about their age when picking such item for a customer... anyway, among the X-Rated games, DVDs, etc was the most sinister product of all: a Winnie the Pooh tea set.

(it had a knife).

I'm glad to see that you were being proactive.

This sort of thing needs to be nipped in the bud.

https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2015/01/winnie-the-pooh-stabbing

[Horsetan]

23 hours ago, Broithe said:

....This sort of thing needs to be nipped in the bud.

https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2015/01/winnie-the-pooh-stabbing

I'm not sure if I had a sense of surreality or absurdity as I read that. Maybe both....

[Broithe]

I remember a story a while back, before the Y2K bug fixes got going, about a chap who was booked in for some significant dental work.

The system generated a letter, based on his birth date, which only had space for the last two digits of the year, as was normal practice in the last century, until the millennium was on the horizon.

The letter instructed him that he should be accompanied by at least one parent or guardian.

He was unable to comply with this requirement, as he had no 'guardian' and he wasn't 8 years old, as the system had assumed, but 108 years old, and both his parents were unfortunately unavailable.

[Lambeg man]

Right, let me throw my tuppence worth in on this...

When I was a wee lad we had 'Hallowen' in Ireland on the 31st October. We let off fireworks (until 1970 in the North when the security situation forced  ban), we dunked for apples and had sweets provided by our parents. We had apple pie with thrupenny and sixpence coins hidden in it. We did NOT go 'Trick or Treating'.

Meanwhile on the GB mainland they celebrated 'Guy Fawkes Night'on the 5th November, let off fireworks and did "Penny for the Guy" money collections. They did NOT do 'Trick or Treating'.

In circa 1978 along comes a fecking US movie 'Hallowen' and suddenly the 5th of November slides into the memory in GB and now the youth factor are all doing 'Hallowen'. F**k "Penny for the Guy". Let's now go 'Trick or Treating'. This is tantamount to demanding money (or good quality sweets) with menaces from some of the most vulnerable people in the district. EGGS are essential ammunition for this purpose. Having your front windows splattered with eggs may well be very upsetting for an elderly person, but it does not constitute 'Criminal Damage' in English law.

In the late 1980's the problem was escalating year on year. As a police officer, on 31st October, my colleagues and I would foot patrol and challenge all youths we met. "Have you got any eggs?" Reply - "No." "Good, because I 'm not going to formally search you, I will simply clap my hands on your jacket pockets. There, job done, Good night." I made no breach of the police codes in my action, but the individual soon left for home to clear the mess out of his jacket pockets!

In later years I secured a voluntary agreement from the local Retailers Association that they would not sell eggs on 30th/31st October to anyone under 16. Job done. LM     

   

Edited August 22, 2022 by Lambeg man

[Mayner]

4 hours ago, Lambeg man said:

Right, let me throw my tuppence worth in on this...

When I was a wee lad we had 'Hallowen' in Ireland on the 31st October. We let off fireworks (until 1970 in the North when the security situation forced  ban), we dunked for apples and had sweets provided by our parents. We had apple pie with thrupenny and sixpence coins hidden in it. We did NOT go 'Trick or Treating'.

 

   

Growing up in Dublin in the 1960s Halloween (really Samhain) was a major event as kids we went door to door in the neighbourhood calling "Help the Halloween Party" collecting sweets and fruit for the party

In practice we were trick or treating in Ireland before the term became common in mainland UK.

Fireworks (banned in the Republic) were available under the counter from the Dealers (stall holders) in Moore Street and other markets or smuggled in from the North.

"Bangers" seem to have been the most popular firework, older people used to stuff their letter boxes with newspaper to stop gougers/scumbags posting lighted banger through their letter box.

In a way the more things change the more they stay the same.

 

[Broithe]

The general lack of fireworks in the Republic is a great thing, from my point of view. The annual onslaught on the Big Island has dropped off over the last decade, from a peak in the early years of this century. In an urban area, you would get them daily from late September into the first week of January, with the obvious peak around late October, early November. That fortnight would sometimes be like the Somme - drawn out, if the "special days" weren't at the weekend, in particular.

I was once listening to a BBC dramatisation of Len Deighton's Bomber, on a dark, cold, autumn night, when I started to feel that the explosive soundtrack was a bit repetitive and out-of-sync with the narration - at that point, I also realised that the next day was bin day, so I decided to put it out before I forgot again. When I opened the front door, the noise got louder - it was actually a firework display that was four miles away in a straight line, and loud enough to be heard above the flak and bombs on the radio indoors, with all the doors and windows shut. Madness.

As a child on the Big Island in the 60s, Trick or Treat was something that was occasionally mentioned on US TV shows - nothing more, and we didn't really know what it was - and Hallowe'en, as a whole, was of virtually no consequence, it was hardly even mentioned.

[Galteemore]

1 hour ago, Broithe said:

 

I was once listening to a BBC dramatisation of Len Deighton's Bomber, on a dark, cold, autumn night, when I started to feel that the explosive soundtrack was a bit repetitive and out-of-sync with the narration - at that point, I also realised that the next day was bin day, so I decided to put it out before I forgot again. When I opened the front door, the noise got louder - it was actually a firework display that was four miles away in a straight line, and loud enough to be heard above the flak and bombs on the radio indoors, with all the doors and windows shut. 

Now that was a wireless programme. I still remember driving down the M4 listening to it. His shell by shell description of a cannon burst’s effect on a Lancaster was absolutely spellbinding 

[leslie10646]

Yes, I’ve got “Bomber” on tape - chilling to hear what a single cannon shell could do to a Lancaster. A brilliant book about the futility and nightmare waste that war is. 
 

Before the War the Germans had a superb railway system, electrification under way …… not that the GB railways were lagging. Without the war we might have found out how good the 800s were?

[Broithe]

I bought the double cassette in a charity shop - well, I thought I did, but only Tape 2 was in there when I got it home...

It was broadcast in 'real time' sections though the whole day, from the pre-flight stuff in the morning, to the raid itself and the return flight, if you were coming back...

Here we are - the first of four parts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6U0e5DUdNQ

[Galteemore]

28 minutes ago, leslie10646 said:

 

Before the War the Germans had a superb railway system, electrification under way …… not that the GB railways were lagging. Without the war we might have found out how good the 800s were?

The ‘Emergency’ of course Leslie ! One of my favourite wartime stories involves 2 Irishmen who signed up for Bomber Command and found themselves on the same crew. One was FF the other FG and they fought the bit out over the intercom. Until one night over the Ruhr or similar, with the Flak coming in, the FF man was so carried away by his oratory that he forgot himself and remarked ‘say what you like about DeV, but at least he’s kept us out of the war’…..

Edited August 23, 2022 by Galteemore

[Broithe]

I grew up on RAF bases and didn't really realise just how much of the past had lodged itself in my head, until 2005.

I'd never been anywhere outside France, 'on the continent', but a friend moved to Prague and we drove a van there overnight, across Germany on Easter weekend and the roads were really (even spookily) quiet.

We hadn't even got to Germany before the motorway signs started carrying "wartime place-names", the first was Venlo, a major night fighter base, then we cruised by Cologne and many other places in the Ruhr, which were regular targets. We went past Frankfurt airport, on the way to Nuremberg. For some reason, as we passed the retro-futuristic terminal building, there was a searchlight beam swinging around in the sky.

The lad was born in 1979, so none of this was of any concern to him, and when I said "If this engine starts missing, I'm turning south for Switzerland!", he really didn't know what I was getting at.

 

In the late 50s, the Chief of the Defence staff was Air Chief Marshall Sir Dermot Boyle - he had joined up in WW1 and worked his way to the very top. He was from a few miles away from here in Laois and my father was very indirectly acquainted with him, via his sons, I think. Anyway, he came out to visit the then Near East Air Force establishment at Luqa in Malta. At the time, my father was a new corporal and worked in the officers' mess. He was there in the background as all the top chaps were presented to the absolute top chap. Half way through the introductions, he spotted my father and said "Ah, I heard you were here - I'll see you when I've finished with this lot".

Utter silence and sideways glances followed, as people tried to remember what they might have said in my father's earshot...

They had a quick chat along the lines of "Come back here tonight and we'll pop out for a Guinness after the dinner".

My father went back, in t-shirt and shorts, to be asked by Boyle in full kit "Where's the best Guinness?" - "Well, it's in the sergeants' mess..." - "That's OK, you're with me" and they burst in on people who were not expecting that amount of brass at that time of night - the immediate panic was quelled by the order "He's with me and I'm not here! Carry on."

The association protected him well, even after Boyle had long retired.

He came out to Cyprus, when retired, and much the same thing happened again, but people were forewarned this time - but it was good to 'top up the shield'.

[Galteemore]

Lovely story! Boyle was the first ever person to follow Trenchard’s career road map from Cranwell cadet to Chief of the Air Staff. There have been some incredible Irish airmen. One of my favourites is this bloke, who amazingly survived both Dunkirk and Nagasaki.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aidan_MacCarthy 

Edited August 23, 2022 by Galteemore

[Lambeg man]

Can we please get back to EGGS!

[Galteemore]

If you insist….

[murrayec]

[Broithe]

At one time, if you'd requested "a couple of dozen eggs" in the RAF, this is what would arrive.

[Galteemore]

As indeed they are referred to in official documents in the War of Independence period - and after, when RAF aircraft painted in tricolours were prepared to drop some ‘good sized eggs’ on the Four Courts to aid Collins. Although the aircraft were armed and ready at RAF Sealand on Merseyside, thankfully this scheme never came off.

Edited August 28, 2022 by Galteemore

[Broithe]

Another potentially interesting RAF term is that the preferred description of the big fan thing on the front is 'propeller', and not 'airscrew'.

This is allegedly because of an incident where somebody misread, or mistyped, 'airscrews', missing the first 's', and a load of chaps arrived in two buses, rather than the required spares.

[Lambeg man]

 

21 hours ago, Galteemore said:

If you insist….

On second thoughts, bugger the eggs - stay with the RAF stories!