SILLY SIGNS. . . . .LET'S START A THREAD ?

[facthunter]

Over here on the big Island we have cracker shows and Live entertainment  things on the thing called the Tele. At home you don't HAVE to Kiss people that you don't know where they've been.  Nev 

[old man emu]

16 minutes ago, facthunter said:

cracker

That's a word that has been plucked from the book of "Words of Yesteryear".

I suppose you were the type who saved your money and spent it on bungers for Empire Night.

[facthunter]

I spent most of my small amounts of money on model aeroplane engines and balsa and motorbikes. The night was called "Cracker Night" and a few families pooled their resources. I wouldn't have known what an Empire was except from the war and we didn't like the German and Jap ones at all.. Australia wasn't one.  Nev

[old man emu]

Originally celebrated on 24 May (Queen Victoria's birthday), popular observance declined in the postwar period. Renamed (British) Commonwealth Day in the 1950s, and moved in 1966 to 11 June, It was more commonly known as Cracker Night and celebrated by bonfires and the lighting of fireworks until stricter government regulation reduced their availability.

[willedoo]

Speaking of older terms, I made a mistake the other day by asking a young bloke in Bunnings where the tarpaulins were. He had absolutely no idea what a tarpaulin was. It took several minutes of conversation before he figured out it's what he knows as a tarp. I very naively thought everyone knew what a tarpaulin was, but not so.

[red750]

Murgatroyd!       

 

 

Do you remember that word?  Would you believe the spell-checker did not recognize the word Murgatroyd? 

 

 

Heavens to Murgatroyd! 

 

 

The  other day a lady said something to her son about driving a   Jalopy;       and he looked at her quizzically and said, "What the heck is a Jalopy?"  He had never heard of the word jalopy!  She knew she was old ... but not that old.
Well, I hope you are  Hunky Dory, Right as rain and as Happy as Larry  after  you read this and chuckle.
About a month ago, we illuminated some old expressions that have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology.  These phrases included: Don't touch that dial, carbon copy, you sound like a broken record, and hung out to dry.
Back in the olden days we put on   our best bib and tucker or  bag of fruit, and dressed to the nines.
Heavens to Betsy!       Gee  whillikers!           Jumping  Jehoshaphat , 
Strike me pink,         Holy  Moley!
We were   in like Flynn   and   living the life of Riley ; and even a regular guy couldn't accuse us of being a  boofhead,  knucklehead, dickhead, a nincompoop or a pill.     Not for all the tea in China, or rice for that matter!
We wake up from a short nap, and before we can say,   "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!” or,   "This is a  fine kettle of fish!"     
Poof,  go the words of our youth, the words we've left behind. 
Where have all those great phrases gone?
Long gone: Pshaw,   The  milkman did it.   Don't  forget to pull the chain.   Knee high to a grasshopper. Fiddlesticks!     I'll see you in the funny farm.   Wake up  and smell the roses.
Leaves us to wonder where Superman will find a phone booth... 
See ya later, alligator!       Okidoki.

 

WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE FABULOUS 40’s and 50'S ... NO ONE WILL EVER HAVE THAT OPPORTUNITY AGAIN .. WE WERE GIVEN ONE OF OUR MOST PRECIOUS GIFTS:  LIVING  IN THE PEACEFUL  AND COMFORTABLE TIMES CREATED FOR US BY THE "GREATEST  GENERATION"!

[onetrack]

So ... I guess if I called an old bomb a "flivver", that'd really date me?  

 

I'm puzzled by this "Empire Night" cracker night? We on the Left Coast obviously had longer memories of Parliamentary treason and stronger British ties.

It was called "Guy Fawkes Night" here, and it was always held on 5th November - right in time for peak bushfire season, of course!

 

But as always, the killjoys eliminated it, after the regular number of missing digits, damaged eyes, and long list of burns - let alone the bushfires - followed the let-off of crackers, on the next day.

 

Edited December 12, 2023 by onetrack

[willedoo]

It was the same date here in Queensland, the date Guy Fawkes was arrested. It was also called Guy Fawkes Night here, but a lot of people called it cracker night. I have a vague memory of them moving the date to mid year at some stage because of the fire danger in November, especially being around harvest time. They banned crackers here in 1972.

[willedoo]

1 hour ago, red750 said:

Happy as Larry 

We've all mentioned Larry over the years, but does anyone know why he was so happy?

[Marty_d]

Cracker night went on a bit longer down here - I was born in 1972 and remember free reign on using fireworks as a kid.

Sometime in May I think.  We used to go to my parents friends house for a big bonfire. 

[ClintonB]

9 hours ago, willedoo said:

We've all mentioned Larry over the years, but does anyone know why he was so happy?

Maybe Larry was a clam, Happy as a clam.

[facthunter]

People CLAM up you know.  Nev

[old man emu]

A young lady would hate to be caught "in her ninon over none on."

 

Ninon is a lightweight, sheer fabric, material suitable for lingerie.

[spacesailor]

They band crackers in the UK .

Then the kids bbew their ' arms off ' , making their own from :  black gunpowder / dynamite/ lastly, 

' nitroglycerine ' we didn't have to ignite that one ! .

Just three Ingredients,  nitric & sulphuric acid , easily obtained,  but the third ingredient was much harder for ' children ' to get their grubby hands on , so resorted to using " match " heads .

Fulmate of mercury in boxed match's .

spacesailor

Edited December 12, 2023 by spacesailor
A I

[pmccarthy]

They put plastic points on rockets in one year, about 1961. A kid was killed when one landed on his head. Then they were banned.

[willedoo]

3 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

They put plastic points on rockets in one year, about 1961. A kid was killed when one landed on his head. Then they were banned.

The US military once did experiments firing projectiles straight up to measure any potential lethality if they came straight down on somebody's head. I can't remember the exact velocity coming back down, but it was somewhere around 300fps which they determined could cause death. Those would have been military hard jacketed pointy rounds. If they weren't tumbling and hit point first at that speed, they could penetrate the skull.

Edit: found a link that mentions the original experiments in the 1940's.

https://science.howstuffworks.com/question281.htm

Edited December 13, 2023 by willedoo

[Litespeed]

I remember as a kid doing cracker night in Goulburn in the 70's.. 

 

Lots of ACT sourced fireworks that are banned in NSW.

 

Aiming star shooters at brothers was standard, so was the nylon jacket you wore. The jackets burnt and melted to skin very easily.

 

Blowing your hand off with homemade composite fireworks was also a thing.

 

Fun but could easily get deadly dangerous.

 

When some would blow up wooden letterboxes, I would obliterate a solid brick one. Yes, I was a naughty young scientist.

 

I was young, dumb and fortunately full of IQ

[nomadpete]

7 hours ago, Litespeed said:

I remember as a kid doing cracker night in Goulburn in the 70's.. 

 

Lots of ACT sourced fireworks that are banned in NSW.

 

Aiming star shooters at brothers was standard, so was the nylon jacket you wore. The jackets burnt and melted to skin very easily.

 

Blowing your hand off with homemade composite fireworks was also a thing.

 

Fun but could easily get deadly dangerous.

 

When some would blow up wooden letterboxes, I would obliterate a solid brick one. Yes, I was a naughty young scientist.

 

I was young, dumb and fortunately full of IQ

Fortunately luck exceeded your behaviour

[spacesailor]

Same here . Half inch of glued paper,  to make a ' black-gunpowder ' bangers.

We didn't calculate the damage,  that a big ' home made banger ' could unleash .

It blew a " cast-iron cubicle " to smithereens. 

spacesailor

[onetrack]

I can recall when I first entered the world of the internet in the late 1990's, some American bloke had a great website, complete with gory photos, warning reckless youth about manufacturing home-made pipe bombs.

 

Apparently it was deemed great fun in the U.S. for bored youths to make pipe bombs and blow up letterboxes for fun. Black powder is easily acquired in the U.S.

However, many of the home-made pipe bombs exploded prematurely, blowing hands off and causing other grievous bodily injuries.

 

What it simply came back to, was a total lack of knowledge, training and understanding of explosives. What the stupid youths didn't know was that the during the action of screwing a threaded cap onto a piece of pipe, if any grains of black powder became trapped in the threads, the friction would ignite the black powder prematurely, and the bomb would blow up in their hands.

 

The site was taken down after a couple of years, I'm guessing the "Feds" had something to do with it, they didn't want any internet knowledge about anything to do with explosive devices left on the 'net.

[Litespeed]

15 hours ago, nomadpete said:

Fortunately luck exceeded your behaviour

Luck yes, but always very very very careful and never made in front of others in case they try and replicate the device.

 

I was very scientific about the whole deal when making bangers.

Silly yes, but you make your own luck, just like flying.

[nomadpete]

7 hours ago, Litespeed said:

Silly yes, but you make your own luck, just like flying.

So true.

 

Back in the days of my misspent youth I too had an interest in chemistry. Well it was more of an obsession with constrained rapid oxidation. (If it didn't  explode I wasn't interested). I was careless of risk at first but lucky for me my early mistakes were with small amounts and they taught me all about how best to avoid injury.

 

Luck played a big part in my early days.

[old man emu]

8 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

Back in the days of my misspent youth I too had an interest in chemistry. Well it was more of an obsession with constrained rapid oxidation. (If it didn't  explode I wasn't interested). 

The Day back then was a time when boys were being encourage to take up science, and the pervading image of a scientist was a lab-coated figure surrounded by glass witches' cauldrons filled with fuming liquids kept bubbling by the flame of bunsen burners. The scene was eventually destroyed by an explosion, leaving the scientist with a sooty face and smoking hair.

 

Is it any wonder that we took every opportunity to blow up things? And begged for a science-based kit for Christmas.

https://gajitz.com/3-ridiculously-dangerous-vintage-toys-of-the-20th-century/

[nomadpete]

56 minutes ago, old man emu said:

The Day back then was a time when boys were being encourage to take up science, and the pervading image of a scientist was a lab-coated figure surrounded by glass witches' cauldrons filled with fuming liquids kept bubbling by the flame of bunsen burners. The scene was eventually destroyed by an explosion, leaving the scientist with a sooty face and smoking hair.

 

Is it any wonder that we took every opportunity to blow up things? And begged for a science-based kit for Christmas.

https://gajitz.com/3-ridiculously-dangerous-vintage-toys-of-the-20th-century/

Oh WOW!

 

Even now I am green with envy!

[old man emu]

You reckon that chemistry set is the bee's knees. This one is the duck's guts. 

 

The Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab was a toy lab set designed to allow children to create and watch nuclear and chemical reactions using radioactive material. The set contained the following:

1. Four glass jars containing natural uranium-bearing (U-238) ore samples (autunite, torbernite, uraninite, and carnotite from the "Colorado plateau region")

2. Low-level radiation sources:

   beta-alpha (Pb-210)

   pure beta (possibly Ru-106)

   gamma (Zn-65)

3. The lab contained a cloud chamber allowing the viewer to watch alpha particles traveling at 12,000 miles per second (19,000,000 m/s), a spinthariscope showing the results of radioactive disintegration on a fluorescent screen, and an electroscope measuring the radioactivity of different substances in the set.