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Hello John,

Yes .. told you wrong order etc .. Ja nicht Ya .. o.k. yah? ... and young girl .. couldn`t think of anything else but Fraulein oder "little dame" .. Madchen (with the umlaut) spot on .. easy when someone else writes it .. not all of it is remembered very well, the genders used to get me .. der die das etc .. as well as the singular plural, first party second etc. You have probably also found out (on your travels around that country) that the "flavour" of German we were taught at School was Hanovarian of "Hoch Deutch", German equivalent of the dialectless "Queens English" so preferred by the B.B.C. at one time.

 

A one time co-director of mine who spent a lot of time (and whos` wife is Swiss) in the south of Germany, can speak several of the dialects fluently, as well as Dutch. Makes you sick doesn`t it?. Especially when I can`t even do English very well sometimes .. ha ha. I blame it on all the alcohol I consumed as a teenager. 

 

Still I keep trying, my mother always used to say I was trying, (most of the time) .. Regards.

Dunno about dead parrots. Heard this story about dead bees.

New zookeeper, see. Keen and didn't want to make mistakes. Told to go and feed the zoo's swarm of prize bees. So he does. Next morning he comes to work and finds the bees all dead. Doesn't want to remind the head keeper that he fed them in case he gets sacked, so he mashes down the bees into a pulp and feeds them to the fish. Next morning he comes to work and all the fish are dead. Poor new keeper. Doesn't want to own up to what he did with the bees so he has a bright idea. He feeds all the dead fish to the chimpanzees. Next morning he comes to work and all the chimpanzees are dead. No, not dead parrots. Dead chimpanzees. Pay attention. Anyway, said new zookeeper panics and feeds all the dead chimpanzees to the elephants. Guess what. Next morning all the elephants are dead. At this point the poor guy gives up. He'll never dispose of the elephants. So he goes to the head keeper and puts his hand up. "Please sir, all the elephants are dead and it was me wot fed 'em."

"What sort of food have you been giving the animals?" asks the head keeper.

"Oh, nothing special. Fish, chimps and mushy bees."

See, told you, No dead parrots.

Time to slink away.

Ha ha ha !! .. Wondered where it was all going, I thought it was going to be a Monty Python sketch for a minute David .. brilliant .. ... Ha Ha.Ha...

 

On another subject now, have you considered posting a few of your short stories for all to appreciate on here?

 

Oh, and have you listened to "Blaster Bates" after dinner speech yet?

 

Questions, questions .. all I know is questions .. sorry about this .. Regards.

Hi Bill and all.

Sorry about correcting your German, but thought it might help. I agree this gender thing is a bit of a sod! I could never get me head around the fact that Madchen was neuter, as in das Madchen (With an umlout). It's as though all females were neuter as long as they were virgins, p'raps the idea was that a virgin was some kind of mythical creature!!!!

Great story, David, provoked a real belly laugh. Keep up the good work.

Just heard a DJ on the radio say that a bloke had donated one million pounds to 'Children in need'  but the cheque would not clear until the neutron collider in Switzerland had sucked us all up. Or at least he thinks the man said 'Sucked'.  

Completed the tedious paperwork now. Much relieved! Shame the forcast for tomorrow not much better, could have got on with something more interesting.

Got to go now. Oh, and bi bi to Parrotty

Sticky.

Listened to both the "after dinner" tapes, Francis. They're brilliant even after several listenings. But I can't do short stories. Every time I try they end up as full length novels. I blame that English teacher at Bath Tech. Griffiths? Yes, I'm sure it was him. Left before we moved to Brougham Hayes and was replaced by Mrs Williams.

Hello David, John and all who sail these hyper-text pages, (any one who is hyper ..let me know what you`re on please)

 

David, the stories, could be novels .. don`t have to be short. The sound files .. I have a collection of the "Goon Shows", and loads from Benny Hill, Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Joyce Grenfell etc etc. I`ll post a collection on here for those moments when the world looks grey.

 

News flash :- Just found this on Roger Coombes web site (see "skydrive" - "Favourites" folder - "old boys websites") .. the link to this particular funny is  http://www.roleplaytime.co.uk/helpdesk01.wmv

 

John, I`m always open to learn stuff about anything .. please don`t apologise .. "Made Chen" could be the original spelling, woman made chin (full of stubble, perhaps), or just could have been a description for those unfortunates born with both sets of bits. (bits, I said, your minds..terrible really ..ha ha)

 

Well, the blustery is still here in darkest Somersetshire, and the precipitation is causing rivers on the drive, all manner of debris is accumulating on the roadway. But its mild, very mild..makes you wonder what`s coming to us this winter. Just told wife Carole the joke about the zoo keeper .. embelished it a bit (to mount the tension), she roared, .. I ran .. just in case she bit me!

What I didn't tell you, Francis, is that I first heard that story thirty odd years ago. Wet Sunday morning in Scotland (as usual) and two of us were sitting in this very old wartime building controlling aeroplanes. Only two of us 'cos it was Sunday morning and we worked a system called "band-boxing" at quiet times. We linked all the sector frequencies onto two control positions and freed up the rest of the watch to lounge around the staff rest room getting high on caffeine. Anyway, there we were, idly zinging aeroplanes round the sky, when the other guy said, "You heard the one about the zookeeper..." The building was so old the rain came in through the ceiling light fittings so the engineers turned the glass lampshades upside down to catch all the water. God knows how they didn't electrocute themselves. One day I'll tell you how I grew so many huge tomatoes in the control room at Tiree aerodrome I couldn't see out the window. Had to get the pilots to tell me where they were on the airfield. Or how I controlled a busy traffic flow from a radar console in my string vest (shades of Rab C Nesbitt) after a delightful lady assistant spilt coffee all over my clothes. What the travelling public never knew...! But I suppose your own careers were just as full of "don't tell anyone" stories. On the matter of reminiscing, I've been studying those pictures of Weymouth House on the photo section and I'm having problems orienting myself with where they were taken from. I remember the big school yard at the front of the building with the latrines at one side of it. And I remember the school gates alongside Fishy Evans shop around the back of Weymouth House. And I remember being able to see Manvers Hall as it appears in the 1957 photo. But the other photos just don't seem to fit with my (rather poor) memory. Any clues?

 

Hi David, Bill and all.

Keep up the good work, David, these reminiscenses of yours about your ATC days are fascinating.

Amazing the things that happened in those days isn't it?

Followed the link you mentioned, Bill, very funny, but humour limited to people with experience of Mr Gates I fancy.

None the less very good, why do you imagine, did this appear on the Coombs boy's web site?

Rough old day again today, what with the wind and intermittant rain, pretty miserable!

Not a lot done except indoor activities.

By the way this seems to have strayed a long way from Parrotty, should we start a new theme do you fancy?

Regards to all.

Sticky.

PS Yes, David, it was 'Taff' Griffiths for English before 1960. He taught us as well.

Hi All,

Just back from a short break.  I was glad that Sticky was able to back me up with the Brick Work and Masonery Classes.  It was after all a Tech School. Not quite the same as what they had at Bristol Tech where my brother-in-law attended. That was strictly a tech school.  However racking the old brain box, and talking about the curriculum at BT.  I did not get to do the Painting and Decorating although it was on.  We did Tech Drawing and then Engineering Drawing both in the huts at B. Hayes.  Also for the first couple of years we did General Science before spliting into Chem, Biology and Physics.  I assume this is because of the limit labs at Weymouth House.

Ken