Gerraway!

Things to know

In the 1400's a law was set forth in England that a man was allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb.
Hence we have 'the rule of thumb'

Many years ago in Scotland , a new game was invented.
It was ruled 'Gentlemen Only...Ladies Forbidden'.. .
and thus, the word GOLF entered into the English language.

The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV was Fred and Wilma Flintstone

Coca-Cola was originally green.

It is impossible to lick your elbow. Suposedly true but I saw a lady do it in TV recently

The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: £ 10,120.00

The first novel ever written on a typewriter, Tom Sawyer.

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history:

Spades - King David
Hearts - Charlemagne
Clubs -Alexander, the Great
Diamonds - Julius Caesar

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle.
If the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died because of wounds received in battle.
If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died
of natural causes

Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers have in common?
A. All were invented by women.

Q. What is the only food that doesn't spoil?
A. Honey

In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes.
When you pulled on the ropes, the mattress tightened,
making the bed firmer to sleep on.
Hence the phrase...'Goodnight , sleep tight'

It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month, which we know today as the honeymoon.

In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts....
So in old England , when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them 'Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down. It's where we get the phrase: 'mind your P's and Q's'

Many years ago in England , pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim, or handle, of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. 'Wet your whistle'
is the phrase inspired by this practice.


....oh and mine's a pint!........

How interesting DaffyD!!

Thanks so much for that!

We use these phrases every day, but in the main we have no idea of their origin. Perhaps if I tell you the story of their origin, you may find them amusing, educational....but most of all, .....interesting!

Going round the Bend

The Victorians built hospitals to house the mentally unsound. At the time, stately homes were builtwith long straight driveways so that the house could be seen in all its grandeur from the main road.Mental homes however, were placed at the end of long curved drives so that they would remainunseen by passers by.To 'go round the bend' has meant to be confined in a mental home ever since.

Pay Through the Nose

When the Vikings invaded ninth century Britain, they brought with them their violent customs and imposed strict tax laws on the locals. (Aye, and you thought it was a scheme thought up by our current Government) Attention now, any citizen refusing to pay would either have his nostrils slit open or his nose cut off. Only when English king Eldred beat Viking leader Eric Bloodaxe (it's true, that was his name) in 954 at the battle of Stainmore did the practice stop. However the phrase remained to imply paying dearly for something through the nose.

To The Bitter End...........................

This phrase has come to mean the end of one's endurance.The "bitt" is a post at a ship's prow to which the end of an anchor's cable is fastened. If all the anchor cable has been let out, you have come to the bitter end.

Flogging a Dead Horse

A ceremony held by British crews when they had been at sea four weeks and had worked off their initial advance, usually one month's wages (and usually long gone). The term 'flogging a dead horse' alludes to the difficulty of getting any extra work from a crew during this period, since, to them, it felt as though they were working for nothing.


It's Raining Cats and Dogs

Houses had thatched roofs, thick straw pilede high. It was the only place for animals to get warm,so all the pets, dogs, cats and other small aminals, mice rats, bugs, lived in the roof. When it rained, it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof.

Burning a Candle at Both Ends

Once upon a time the only light in a house was provided by the taper. This was kept alight usually on a holder beside the fire.. It provided a small amount of light. If a special vistors came and more light was demanded then the taper was lit both ends.

That's a Turn Up for the Book.

"Turn up for the book" is when no one has backed the winner and the bookmaker has a clear book.

The Full NineYards

“The Full NineYards” which I believe (despite all sorts of alternatives) is the length of the ammunition belt used in the standard ammunition container of the machine gun but I don’t know if it was the Vickers or the Maxim. Hence going ‘The Full Nine Yards” means emptying a whole belt of ammunition at a target – giving as much as you possibly could.

The Full Monty

A breakfast at The Dobbins Inn in Carrickfergus that simply must get a 5 star rating from ‘Exit’
comprising of anything that wandered through the kitchen whilst the cook had the frying pan on the hob, the origin is believed to be from Montague Burton, a British tailor, and refers to when a customer would buy himself a new outfit from head to toe including everything seen and unseen.

Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey

Every sailing ship had to have cannon for protection. Cannon of the times used round iron cannonballs. The master wanted to store the cannon balls such that they could be of instant use when needed, yet not roll around the gun deck. The solution was to stack them up in a square-based pyramid next to the cannon. The top level of the stack had one ball, the next level down had four, the next had nine, the next had sixteen, and so on. Four levels
would provide a stack of 30 cannonballs.

The only real problem was how to keep the bottom level from sliding out from under the weight of the higher levels. To do this, they devised a small brass plate ("brass monkey") with one rounded indentation for each cannonball in the bottom layer. Brass was used because the cannonballs wouldn't rust to the "brass monkey", but would have rusted to an iron one.

When temperature falls, brass contracts in size faster than iron. As it got cold on the gundecks, the indentations in the brass monkey would get smaller than the iron cannonballs they were holding. If the temperature got cold enough, the bottom layer would pop out of the
indentations spilling the entire pyramid over the deck. Thus it was, quite literally, "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey."

The Clink

This word for a prison referes not to the sound of rattling chains, but to the name of a prison in an area of 13th century London known as, The Liberty of Clink.

Just south of the Thames, the prison lay outside London jurisdiction and so was notorious for brutal punishment ( unlike the namby-pamby sentences of today) Owned by the Bishop of Winchester ( note how the clergy are in there earning a fast buck) inmates at The Clink could expect to be burned with boiling oil, forced to stand in cold water until their feet rotted, or crushed under weights. ( Such was the quality of mercy shown by the religious bodies of the time.)

Payment to the church coffers could free you however, so those rich enough to buy favour
made the bishop rich, that is until rioters destroyed the prison in 1780. (Come to think of it, if it was financially rewarding to surpress the masses, the Church always led the way. )

Keep your nose to the grindstone

Concentrate on working hard. In Victorian England, there were many knife grinder's workshops. Workers lay flat on their fronts and held the blades against grindstones.

Keep your pecker up

Remain cheerful. This is the English pecker, i.e. mouth, as opposed to the American, i.e. penis.

Keep your powder dry

Be prepared. The allusion is to gunpowder which soldiers had to keep dry in order to be ready to fight when required.

Kick the bucket

Die. The wooden frame that slaughtered animals were hung from is known as a bucket.
The death spasms of the animals caused them to kick the bucket.

Know the ropes

To understand how an organisation works. Nautical origin, where sailors had to learn which rope raised which sail.

Interesting....innit?

........this is a story about Martians.....Wall-Mart(ians) who came to Earth to live among us. They adapted (to a certain extent, but could not get the dress code quite right) They longed for a signature tune of their own, so a kind earthling obliged and wrote them this......

Headed for Number One On all the charts!!



The Wal-Mart Song

I suppose it was just a matter of time before this was all set to music.

SO, here it is! Turn Up The Volume!

Wal-mart has finally got a theme song, and it sure is a good one.


Click Here... http://tinyurl.com/cho64wx

All very interesting.

Now this may require a tad more thought ifin y'all are going tuh keep up with mah pondering......

Ah woke up this morning,ah lifted mah arms, turned mah neck, bent mah knees.
Everything made the same noise...... Cccccrrrrraaaacccckkkk!
Ah came to the conclusion I'm not old...... I'm just crispy!

Ah reckon if we put our politicians on a minimum wage, we'd soon see how fast things change!

Ah have finally discovered what is wrong with the brains of our policticians....
On the left side there is nothing right...
On the right side there is nothing left

NOTICES

Mah neighbor who works in a factory was puzzling over a notice he had found in his wage packet, it said, 'Any member of staff who needs a day off to go to a funeral, must warn the foreman on the day of the match!'

Whilst taking a stroll down town ah saw a notice in a Dress shop window, 'Our bikinis are exciting. They are simply the tops!'

It would seem that it is the season for notices, my stroll took me past the cemetery wherein the following notice had been posted, 'Persons are prohibited from picking flowers from any but their own graves'

I'm retired now but ah called into my old office to say "Howdy" and yep, there was another notice. 'After tea break, staff should empty the teapot and stand upside down on the draining board'
Now that would be a sight worth watching!

An old nun who was living in a convent next to a construction site noticed the coarse language of the workers and decided to spend some time with them to correct their ways.

She decided she would take her lunch and sit with them, so she put her sandwich in a brown bag and walked over to the spot where the men were eating.

Sporting a big smile, she walked up to the group and asked:
"Any of you men know Jesus Christ?"

They shook their heads and looked at each other, very confused. Then one of the workers looked up into the steelworks and yelled out,
"Anybody up there know Jesus Christ?"

One of the steelworkers yelled back down,
"Why?"

The worker yelled back,
"’Cause his mum's here with his lunch."

Arcelor-Mittal Steel, feeling it was time for a shakeup,
hired a new CEO. The new boss was determined to rid the
company of all slackers.

On a tour of the facilities, the CEO noticed a guy leaning
against a wall. The room was full of workers and he wanted
to let them know that he meant business. He asked the guy,
"How much money do you make a week?"

A little surprised, the young man looked at him and said,
"I make $400 a week. Why?"

The CEO said, "Wait right here." He walked back to his
office, came back in two minutes, and handed the guy $1,600
in cash and said, "Here's four weeks' pay. Now GET OUT and
don't come back."

Feeling pretty good about himself the CEO looked around the
room and asked, "Does anyone want to tell me what that
goof-ball did here?"

From across the room a voice said, "Pizza delivery guy from
Domino's."

Ah, True romance.




A group of women were at a seminar on how to
live in a loving relationship with your husband. The women were
asked, "How many of you love your husband?" All the women raised
their hands. Then they were asked, "When was the last
time you told your husband you loved him?" Some women answered
today, some yesterday, some couldn't remember.
The women were then told
to take out their cell phones and text their husband: "I love
you, sweetheart."
The women were then told to exchange phones and
to read aloud the text message responses.
Here are some of the
replies:

1. Who is this?
2. Are you sick?
3. I love you too.
4. What now? Did you
crash the car again?
5. I don't understand what you
mean?
6. What did you do now?
7. Don't beat around the bush, just tell
me how much you need.
8. Am I dreaming?

9. If you don't tell me
who this message is actually for, someone will die.
10. I thought we agreed
we would not drink during the day.
11. Your mother is coming to
stay, isn't she?

Murphy, a furniture dealer from Dublin, decided to expand the line of furniture in his store, so he decided to go to Paris to see what he could find.

After arriving in Paris , he visited with some manufacturers and selected a line that he thought would sell well back home. To celebrate the new acquisition, he decided to visit a small bistro and have a glass of wine.


As he sat enjoying his wine, he noticed that the small place was quite crowded,and that the other chair at his table was the only vacant seat in the house.

Before long, a very beautiful young Parisian girl came to his table, asked him something in French (which Murphy could not understand), so he motioned to the vacant chair and invited her to sit down.


He tried to speak to her in English, but she did not speak his language. After a couple of minutes of trying to communicate with her, he took a napkin and drew a picture of a wine glass and showed it to her. She nodded, so he ordered a glass of wine for her.

After sitting together at the table for a while, he took another napkin, and drew a picture of a plate with food on it, and she nodded. They left the bistro and found a quiet cafe that featured a small group playing romantic music.


They ordered dinner, after which he took another napkin and drew
a picture of a couple dancing. She nodded, and they got up to dance. They danced until the cafe closed and the band was packing up.

Back at their table, the young lady took a napkin and drew a picture of a four-poster bed. To this day, Murphy has no idea how she figured out he was in the furniture business.

THE HISTORY OF 'APRONS'


I don't think our kids know what an apron is.
The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath because she only had a few. It was also because it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and aprons used less material. But along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.
It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.
From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.

When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids. And when the weather was cold Grandma wrapped it around her arms. Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow,
bent over the hot wood stove.
Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron. From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.
In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.

When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.
When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men folk knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.

REMEMBER:
Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.
BOY if that ain't the truth !!!!!!!!!!!!

They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.


I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron - but love...

An Impossible Dream


A man is walking along a beach when he comes across a lamp partially buried in the sand.
He picks up the lamp and gives it a rub. A genie appears and tells him he has been granted one wish.

The man thinks for a moment and says, "I want to live forever."

"Sorry," said the genie, "I'm not allowed to grant eternal life."

"OK, then, I don’t want to die until after a Labor government balances the budget and eliminates the debt.

"You crafty little immortal," said the genie. (or words to that effect)

Ah left here in August......2013 !!!! And only just found my way back.....

I don't have Alzheimers....... I have 'Some timers'

Some times I remember..... and some times I don't......

Tell me is reincaration on the way out? Life is like a mystery tour, except we all know the final destination!
So the best idea is to die young.......... as late as possible! My greatest fear about growing old is that I may one day wake up and find myself in bed with an old woman. If I had known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself!
Is there an afterlife? That is a question we are all dying to find out!

WARNING FOR ICY CONDITIONS
A government warning has said that anyone travelling in icy conditions should take:

Shovel;
Blankets or Sleeping Bag;
Extra clothing including scarf, hat and gloves;
24 hours supply of food and drink;
De-Icer;
5Kgs of Rock Salt;
Torch or lantern with spare batteries;
Road Flares and Reflective Triangles;
Tow rope;
5 gallon petrol can;
First Aid Kit
Jump Leads





I looked a complete twit on the bus this morning!!!!!

Nothing is impossible....... even the word itself says ......I'm possible!

TWO DIFFERENT DOCTORS' OFFICES ....

Two patients limp into two different medical clinics with the same complaint. Both have trouble walking and appear to require a hip replacement.

The FIRST patient is examined within the hour, is x-rayed the same day and has a time booked for surgery the following week.

The SECOND sees his family doctor after waiting 3 weeks for an appointment, then waits 8 weeks to see a specialist, then gets an x-ray, which isn't reviewed for another week and finally has his surgery scheduled for 6 months from then.

Why the different treatment for the two patients?

The FIRST is a Golden Retriever.
The SECOND is a Senior Citizen.

Next time I have an ailment take me to a vet!

Nice to see you again Daffyd!

By the way...I like your ice preparedness joke.

My grandson asked me what I did during the sexual revolution.

So I told him I was captured early and spent the duration in the kitchen, washing dishes!

Inquisitive as ever I wanted to learn how those 'dateline agencies' work so I popped into an establishment and asked, " Where can single men over the age of 60 find younger women who are interested in them?"
A smart young thing sat polishing her nails, chewing gum, looked up at me and said..............

"Try a bookstore under fiction!"

I stammered my thanks and left as I did so I ran into Ophelia Bottom, she asked "What are you doing in there?
We are old friends..... real old friends..... from waaaay back kind o' friends, so I knew I could..... ask her about that time in a lady's life.... I said straight out, "What can a man do while his wife is going through the menopause?"
She took my hand in hers and look into my eyes and as she patted the back of my hand she said, " Keep busy!
If you are handy with tools refurbish the basement. When you are done you will have a place to live."
Taken somewhat aback I said, " Someone told me menopause was mentioned in the bible. Is that true? Where can it be found?"
"Yes" she said, " Matthew 14:92 ..... "And Mary rode Joseph's ##### all the way to Egypt!"

Well......... tickle my tonsils and call me Pavarotti!

It would appear that some 'JACKASS' has done all the 'DONKEY' work in an effort to POLITICALLY CORRECT a biblical quotation referring to the transportation of Mary (which allegedly is almost two thousand years old!)
No mention was made of the two rounded prominences on the human torso that are posterior to the hips and formed by the gluteal muscles and underlying structures!

Valentine..... my Valentine.....
I wish for the days when you were mine
Now that I'm five, plus a mere four score
I shut the stairs and ran up the door
Put on my teeth and brushed my PJ's
Whiled away hours but counted the days
Turned off my bed and lept into the light
All because ,,,,,,,,you kissed me Good Night!

Democracy and Racism explained

A Muslim immigrant kid in any part of Australia asks his mother,
"Mama, what's the difference between Democracy and Racism?"

Mother (in Burkha)  - "Well, son, Democracy is when Australian tax payers
work hard every day so that we can get all our benefits..... you know,  
like free housing, free health care, free education and grants to build mosques  
and community centres, & so on & so forth, you know… that's a Democracy".

"But Mama, don't the Australian tax payers get angry about that?"


"Sure they do…. that's what we call Racism!"



Never more simply explained

If you don't read the newspaper, you are ill informed..............

But if you do read the newspaper are you often misinformed?

Wot ya fink?...

It is good to see that more of you are slowing down your life's pace and taking more time out to ponder .....


A commonly known fact is that three quarters of the Earth's surface is water, and one fourth is land.....

So do you suppose......

.... it follows quite clearly that the good Lord intended us to spend four time the amount of time fishing as
taking care of the lawn?