Thread 18 - TalkLair: "That's no moon. It's a space station!"

[RasaSayangEh]

(Previous thread 17)

We've had our heatwave - is this it for the summer? All is lush and green in our LairGarden, flowers are blooming, berries are ripening...

In the TalkLair, all the windows are open, the Pimms is chilled, the MN massive salad is ready to serve. The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics. We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

Oh my, those cars sound awful! It makes you wonder how people can keep making the same mistake, time after time. It sounds like he was lucky he didn't get hurt!

Saying that the first car me and Mr Veg had, an ancient Ford Escort, was pretty bad. We got it from a scrap yard for £100. The gear stick sometimes used to fall off when you used it and one day a back window fell out as we were driving. Eventually it died, but right outside the entrance to a tube station, so we abandoned it and got the train, and of course got fined for blocking the road.

It was awful. I remember when I was about 5 or 6, we all had to walk home from church, probably 1.5 miles, with my dad carrying the car battery because it needed to be charged. They were massive and it was heavy. It occurred to me years later he would have had to carry it back to put in the car.

I have so many car breakdown memories too! We were poor and could only afford a series of old jalopies. Last summer when we were taking taxis around my home city, I kept annoying DC by pointing out fondly-remembered spots like "This is the roundabout we broke down on after school, me and little Bro had to push while Mother steered to get it out of the way!" "Here's the lay-by where Dad had to abandon the car when it caught fire, then had to walk through the tropical rain to collect me (very late, obvs) from my maths tutor!" etc.

I've only ever owned two cars, but the first was a 1962 Morris Minor called Horace. I remember when I first got him, my then boyfriend (who drove a Morgan!) was quite envious and would drive it at every opportunity, stopping at zebra crossings (even when they were deserted) because "Morris Minors always stop at zebra crossings". He also gave sound advice on breakdowns: "Just pull over, get out of the car and stare at it helplessly. A man will stop and insist on helping, because All Men Can Fix Morris Minors." This happened twice on the A3 Kingston Bypass and he was absolutely right. 😅

The floor eventually rotted away to the point that you could see the road, and I sold him for spare parts for more than I'd paid for him.

Love the idea of a Morgan driver being desperate to drive a Morris Minor. MaBint ditched her first serious relationship because he bought an E-type and she thought he should get a Morgan. If they'd compromised on a Morris Minor, I wouldn't be here.

My ghast is flabbered that men younger than, say, 55 ever bought E-Types or Morgans!

I have "fond" memories our Mini and Beetle. The Beetles were notorious for leaking battery fumes into the cabin, no cause of me being g car sick, oh no!

Both had orange box temporary floors, until a week before the MOT, when Alan down the road would weld some tin plate patches in.

@moto748e Ha! He must have been in his late 20s at the time, and a dentist - perhaps that makes a difference? A bit of a rubbish boyfriend, on the whole, and often grumpy. He blamed this on having to be nice to people all day, which is fair enough as I can see that would be exhausting. Years later I went to him professionally and he was absolutely lovely!

I had previously gone out with an astrophysicist from Imperial College who was a bit odd and, with hindsight, possibly autistic. If you told him a joke, he understood that it was a joke and laughed, but he generally didn't see the funny side of stuff that happens in everyday life. He would have been about 30 and drove (wait for it!) a red E-Type, rarely above 30mph.

The dad of my best friend at primary school drive an E-type. He’d have been in his 30s, I guess. He was a vet.

Our car at the time was a Hillman Minx that was literally held together with sticking plaster so friend’s dad’s E-type was the coolest thing ever!

My first two cars were Minis. The first was a Mini Clubman Estate with plastic woody bits down the sides in homage to its half timbered predecessors. I loved that car but it really wasn’t good at rain.

The first car I drove a lot was a Ford Cortina. Mr Veg had very briefly been in the police before I met him and he showed me how to break into them. All it took was a length of hard packing tape - tape isn't the right word but I can't think of the right one - which you doubled over and shoved between the door and the car body. Then you hooked it over the little sticky up locking thing next to the window and eased it unlocked. The keys for Cortinas often opened other Cortinas, as I found when a workmate locked his keys in the car, borrowed mine, and it worked. Another time a neighbour asked to use the key but it didn't work that time so I showed him how to break into his car instead. Those were the day, eh.

A friend who is senior in the BBC outside broadcasts team says that until a few years back, all their equipment vans unlocked with the same key. And that quite often they have hundreds of thousands of £-worth of equipment in each of them....

@SqueakyDinosaur that does seem astonishingly careless, but maybe not surprising given it's the BBC.

@Vegemiteandhoneyontoast The keys for Cortinas often opened other Cortinas

You've reminded me of the last car we had before I left home (after which I lost track of what car my parents had). It was ancient and rusted by the time it came into our hands, you could see the road through holes in the floor. You didn't have to push the clutch all the way down to change gears; conversely the biting point was an entirely random mystery - not good for me learning to drive! Indeed, everything about it was loose and wonky.

One weekend, we'd driven to the wet market for the weekly shop. When we came out of the market, the car was gone! We were obviously alarmed, but also deeply puzzled as to why anyone would steal such a pitiful rustbucket. Then, we spotted the car pootling slowly through the crowd of market-goers and my dad ran after it, managing to leap in front of the car before it could pull out into the main road. There was a confused elderly market-stall-holder at the wheel, who insisted it was his car because obviously he'd unlocked it and started the engine with his key. Imagine his surprise when my dad leaned in through the window and pulled the man's car key out of the ignition and the engine kept running Yep, it was definitely our car - the door could be "unlocked" with any key (or in fact with a flat head screwdriver) and the ignition ditto.

Lovely story, @RasaSayangEh ! I wonder where the elderly stall holder's car was if he thought your dad's car was his?

You didn't have to push the clutch all the way down to change gears

Our Cortina was the same. Maybe it was a thing with cars in those days, who knows.

IIRC the doppelgänger car had been parked just a couple of "lanes" further along the car park.

As we're approaching the end of the thread, I have a peculiar question that requires the hive mind, please, or suggestions from any resident teens. We were sitting down to an early lunch MrG's phone rang in the bedroom. Just as I got to it, it stopped but there was a number showing: 967356. Just that - no more. I idly thought WTF and returned to my meal. As I sat down, the landline started to ring ... displaying the same bloody number! It rang three times and again stopped just as I reached out to answer it.

AI (don't you just love it?) informs me that this is the second part of a mobile number belonging to a construction company near Chichester (about 200 miles away) and an appliance repairer in Cornwall and Devon - even further - so we can probably discount them, but that it's more likely to be a spoofed number from a scammer. That's fine, except ... what scammer would have both MrG's mobile and landline numbers, unless they nicked them from somewhere like the NHS?

Calls from the NHS and The Authorities generally have withheld numbers. The only other possibility I can think of is that one of his sons in Canada was calling via some sort of internet system. Would that produce a 6-figure number? But in that case why hang up after 3 rings on the landline? I suppose it might have been fear that I might answer. 😂

I have no helpful suggestions, I'm afraid, Gonners.

In music news, right now I am listening to Mazzy Star. Despite considering myself quite the music fan, I'd never heard of them until a couple of days ago, although they've been around for a long time. Pretty good, I think, and quite 'modern' in sound, some interesting influences showing through.

That sounds very strange @Gonners! Hopefully somebody on MN will have an idea? You might have to start a thread!

They're one of baby weasel's favourites, moto

I seem to recall my mum once having to ho back to my dad’s work to get the car key as he’d put it in his jacket pocket after getting his briefcase out of the boot and mum only realised when she got home and couldn’t turn the engine off!

My dad had a Cortina for a while as a company car. Almost every car was a cortina then either metallic grey or beige. I remember him opening the wrong car once when we were shopping. Ours was two cars up the street. I do wonder how many people accidentally swapped cars.

Years later a woman in a shopping centre car park asked mum if she drive a Ford because she’d locked her keys in the car. Sure enough the key to mum’s Escort opened her Fiesta.

And the phone number thing is very odd indeed.

I think Caller Line ID is spoofable, either by malice or badly configured telephone system. So, it was either a legit business calling you (e.g. your doctor) or it was a dodgy call centre disguising themselves as not being in North Korea.

As you had the same 'number' phone you on 2 methods (as a dodgy call centre is not usually going to hit both your landline and mobile), it's more likely to be a legit business, but clearly not urgent/important as they would have left a message. It's probably just British Gas wanting you to renew your service contract.

After a mere 10 years in this house, we've finally unpacked all the glassware.

And - as we rarely drink champagne and almost never have guests - I've decided 25 champagne flutes might be a tad excessive. It possible that 24 red wine glasses may also be more than strictly necessary, but one step at a time.

That's a lot of glasses, Binturong.

We had a similar thing a while back. Most of the tableware we use lives in a kitchen cupboard so I don't look in the sideboard that often. One day I opened the doors and asked myself why of earth we were keeping the ridiculous number of old plates, bowls and glasses in there. Just...why?! I carried out a harsh rationalisation and got rid of masses. Anything chipped went to the tip and was thrown forcefully into the relevant skip where it smashed to smithereens. The rest went to a charity shop. I was so glad to see the back of it all.

Ha @NoBinturongsHereMate ... a couple of Christmases ago I took a load of spare glasses to the charity shop, who were well pleased. Apparently people buy them at this time of year.

I've decided to forget about the phone nonsense. It could have been the GP's surgery, I suppose, though they generally don't hide their number. I can't think of anyone else who'd have both his landline and his mobile, so I think it was probably #2 Not-Technically-Stepson calling via VoIP. He had emailed both of us the day before with a one-liner and a short video of snow outside the house that he was, according to the audio, buying yesterday. I watched it but I don't think MrG did, because he responded with a one-liner not mentioning the house.

The last time we spoke things got somewhat heated - he wanted me to transfer a shitload of money from MrG's account in Canada to him, to pay for the house (he is 55 years old). When I asked (purely out of curiosity) how much he asked how much did his dad have. I assume his mother coughed up.