135

Robinson’s off on his travels again tomorrow - just for a day or two, though. I’m going to be spending some time with my old friend Kathy in Chesterfield; she’s the lass I went to Seville with last autumn and I haven’t really seen her since then.

But before I go, a quick but nevertheless heartfelt Hello to Kev. Most truckshunters will know that Kev was a stalwart of The Nightshift throughout its short bright rise into the radio firmament - as it were. Almost every programme was peppered with Kev’s puzzles, trivia, solutions, jokes, anecdotes.

Well, just to remind you of the sheer class of his contributions, here’s something he sent me a few days ago.

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES

The Children's Bible in a Nutshell

In the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, darkness, and some gas. The Bible says, 'The Lord thy God is one, but I think He must be a lot older than that.

Anyway, God said, 'Give me a light!' and someone did.

Then God made the world.

He split the Adam and made Eve. Adam and Eve were naked, but they weren't embarrassed because mirrors hadn't been invented yet.

Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Eden.....Not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn't have cars.

Adam and Eve had a son, Cain, who hated his brother as long as he was Abel.

Pretty soon all of the early people died off, except for Methuselah, who lived to be like a million or something.

One of the next important people was Noah, who was a good guy, but one of his kids was kind of a Ham. Noah built a large boat and put his family and some animals on it. He asked some other people to join him, but they said they would have to take a rain check.

After Noah came Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was more famous than his brother, Esau, because Esau sold Jacob his birthmark in exchange for some pot roast. Jacob had a son named Joseph who wore a really loud sports coat.

Another important Bible guy is Moses, whose real name was Charlton Heston. Moses led the Israel Lights out of Egypt and away from the evil Pharaoh after God sent ten plagues on Pharaoh's people. These plagues included frogs, mice, lice, bowels, and no cable.

God fed the Israel Lights every day with manicotti. Then he gave them His Top Ten Commandments. These include: don't lie, cheat, smoke, dance, or covet your neighbour's stuff.

Oh, yeah, I just thought of one more: Humour thy father and thy mother.

One of Moses' best helpers was Joshua who was the first Bible guy to use spies. Joshua fought the battle of Geritol and the fence fell over on the town.

After Joshua came David. He got to be king by killing a giant with a slingshot. He had a son named Solomon who had about 300 wives and 500 porcupines. My teacher says he was wise, but that doesn't sound very wise to me.

After Solomon there were a bunch of major league prophets. One of these was Jonah, who was swallowed by a big whale and then barfed up on the shore.

There were also some minor league prophets, but I guess we don't have to worry about them.

After the Old Testament came the New Testament. Jesus is the star of The New. He was born in Bethlehem in a barn. (I wish I had been born in a barn too, because my mom is always saying to me, 'Close the door! Were you born in a barn?' It would be nice to say, 'As a matter of fact, I was.')

During His life, Jesus had many arguments with sinners like the Pharisees and the Democrats.

Jesus also had twelve opossums.

The worst one was Judas Asparagus. Judas was so evil that they named a terrible vegetable after him.

Jesus was a great man. He healed many leopards and even preached to some Germans on the Mount.

But the Democrats and all those guys put Jesus on trial before Pontius the Pilot. Pilot didn't stick up for Jesus. He just washed his hands instead.

Kev’s ‘wit and wisdom of schoolkids’ doesn’t stop there, either. His next contribution featured a schoolteacher who gave the first parts of several proverbs to her class, inviting the kids to complete each proverb.

Try your hand at these.
What do you think the kids made of them?
* Don't change horses until...
* Strike while the...
* It's always darkest before...
* Never underestimate the power of...
* You can lead a horse to water but...
* Don't bite the hand that...
* No news is...
* A miss is as good as...
* You can't teach an old dog new...
* If you lie down with dogs, you'll...
* The pen is mightier than...
* Where there's smoke there's...
* A penny saved is...
* Two's company, three's...
* Don't put off till tomorrow what you...
* Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you...
* There are none so blind as...
* Children should be seen and not...
* If at first you don't succeed...
* A bird in the hand is...

The funniest completion wins nothing but the appreciation of fellow-truckshunters.

REMEMBER REMEMBER...
...that the next AGM will be at 1100 onwards on Wednesday 22 April at The Secret Garden and Birkheads Nursery, near Sunniside, Beamish and the Tanfield Railway.

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or email me: truckshunters@googlemail.com

21 comments:

Vivienne said...

Hi Ian,

I hope you have a lovely few days with Kathy. I'll give Kev's proverbs some thought. Now, about the barn, if I left the door open people would say, 'Were you born in a field?' I replied, 'Yes, in Danesfield Hospital, Jarrow.'

Hildie said...

Morning everyone.
you're right, Ian, it is so good to hear from Kev. I wonder if he can answer that question for us ... Why do we have a walrus in the Sunderland Winter Gardens? Why a walrus?! That's what we were laughing about on the AGM photo at the top of your last posting. You said that you didn't know why it was there .... I said, "Why am I just accepting it?! I should be asking questions!!" .... and you said, " "You should! And you - a TRUCKSHUNTER!!"
It was a good day that!
I'm trying, at the moment, to recover from an exciting few days
.... I've had visitors to stay with me because we had my nephew's wedding on Saturday. Everything went perfectly, except maybe the weather. But I'm SO tired now ... I have no idea how I used to be able to stay up listening to THE NIGHTSHIFT. HOW DID WE DO THAT?
Anyway, Ross and Rachel got married at Lanchester All Saints Parish Church, in the rain, on Saturday and then we went to Bowburn Hall for the reception. There were relatives from up and down the country - and from Ireland .... and lots of us stayed overnight at Bowburn Hall Hotel.We all had breakfast together before saying our goodbyes. Ian, you and Lawrence would have enjoyed that breakfast mind!
I'm going to leave you with a bit of poetry that was at the front of the 'Order of Service' .....


Today I marry my best friend,
The one I have laughed and cried with,
The one I have learned from and shared with,
The one I have chosen to support and encourage,
And give myself to,
Through all the days given to us to share,
Today I marry the one I love.


Now tell me you haven't got a little tear in your eye!

Hildie said...

p.s. I forgot to tell you that I was dancing to the Scissor Sisters on Saturday night .... just hope nobody caught it on camera!!

Kev said...

Hi
As it happens, Hildie,
"Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland often visited relatives in the city.

For many years it was believed that his famous poem The Walrus and the Carpenter was inspired by a stuffed walrus head he came across while visiting the Museum and Art Gallery – a legend which, while since disproved, lives on in the park’s glorious bronze walrus by artist Andrew Burton."

Isn't the Internet a mine of information?
Take care

Maureen said...

Can I add my twopenn'orth? It's also claimed that the idea of 'The Walrus and The Carpenter' came to Lewis as he walked along Whitburn beach near to where his relatives lived. They installed a lovely statue of Alice and friends in Whitburn park a few years ago, which I am ashamed to say was stolen, never to be seen again!
Pleased that you all had a good time Hildie.

Hildie said...

Thank you Kev and Maureen for your information .... it was all very enlightening .... but, now I'm left wondering why there isn't a carpenter at the Winter Gardens!!

Hildie said...

Hi everybody!
It's on my list of things to do today to tell you about the Wedding Trivia. It was a lovely surprise, at the Wedding Reception, to find on our placecards nice, little gems such as .........

The word 'bride' is old-English for 'cook'.

The veil dates back to ancient Rome, when it was flame-yellow, always worn over the face, and called a flammeum.

The reason the engagement ring and wedding band are worn on the fourth finger of the lefy hand is because the ancient Egyptians thought that "the vein of love" ran from this finger directly to the heart.

The tradition of bridesmaids dressing the same as eachother, and in a similar style to the bride, comes from ancient days when it was believed evil spirits would have had a more difficult time distinguishing which one was the bride - and putting a hex on her.

In the year 2000 the average age of a bride was 24 and the average age of a groom was 28.

Thrice a bridesmaid, never a bride is an old charm that can be broken by being a bridesmaid 7 times.

In Pennsylvania, Ministers are forbidden from performing marriages when either the bride or groom is drunk.

Hope you like them, I collected them especially for you Truckshunters. There were about another eighty guests whose trivia I never even got a sneaky peek at!

Vivienne said...

Well done Hildie!

Those wedding facts are really interesting. I've been looking in my 'Top 10 of Everything, 2009' bought half-price from Woolworths before they closed, and Barbados has the highest marriage rate per 1000 per annum at 13.1.
Vietnam is second at 12.1.
Ethiopia is third at 10.2. Uk is outside the Top Ten scale at 5.1.

Jordan, fifth a 9.7 following Seychelles at 9.9, offers group weddings (sometimes hundreds of couples) to enable cost sharing.

Imagine that! It took about 3 hours for photo taking at my nephew's wedding (first inside the church, then outside, then outside Lumley Castle, and lastly inside the castle). When I think about it I bet it was nearer 4 hours in total. It would take weeks for a hundred couples to have their own set of photos!

Strangely enough the letters for my word verification are 'spousizi.' I think that's a good word for a collection of married couples!

Kev said...

Hi
These are some childrens' thoughts on various subjects:
Q: What is one horsepower? A: One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second.

You can listen to thunder after lightening and tell how close you came to getting hit. If you don't hear it you got hit, so never mind.

When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms. But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions.

When people run around and around in circles we say they are crazy. When planets do it we say they are orbiting.

Most books now say our sun is a star. But it still knows how to change back into a sun in the daytime.

A vibration is a motion that cannot make up its mind which way it wants to go.

Many dead animals of the past changed to fossils, others preferred to be oil.

Vacuums are nothings. We only mention them to let them know we know they're there.

We say the cause of perfume disappearing is evaporation. Evaporation gets blamed for a lot of things people forget to put the top on.

I am not sure how clouds get formed. But the clouds know how to do it, and that is the important thing.

Rain is saved up in cloud banks.

Cyanide is so poisonous that one drop of it on a dog's tongue will kill the strongest man.

It is so hot in some parts of the world that the people there have to live other places.

There is a strange form of logic in all these comments.

Take care

Hildie said...

I liked the one about vacuums, Kev, that's my favourite.
Has anyone noticed that all our new Truckshunters are missing?!
Where HAVE they gone?? I think Ellie was last seen heading for Wales - and Mim, now it might have been Nottingham that she headed for - and Margaret, she was having her son visit from Germany, but I'm sure she was staying put in Blyth. If you spot them, let me know!


And we haven't heard from Inga in eons - and Loz, I expect he's likely at the speedway at Berwick, what's the betting?!

Sid said...

I haven't been to the speedway for years. Far to many to want to remember in fact. Ivan Mauger was riding for the 'Diamonds' at Brough Park.
I wonder if there is still that distinctive aroma as the bikes hurl their way around the track.
It used to come from a vegetable oil that used to be used in some of the engines, Castrol R40 was very popular.
I went to the expense of using it in a 500cc Norton motorcycle, just for the smell.
If I still had that machine it would be worth some money now...

Hildie said...

Morning Sid,
I don't know why it has taken me so long to remember to tell you this .... but (at the AGM) I asked Ian if he has a recording of "Secrets of the Sea" .... and he thinks he might have!

Sid said...

That's good news Hildie. I'm laughing already.

Hildie said...

I know you tried to record it , Sid, when it was broadcast. That was when there was a jinx on The Nightshift that turned it into Five Live on a regular basis.... well, about three times, if I'm honest!
I've been meaning to tell Ian that they've still got the wobbly chair at Radio Newcastle. A couple of weeks ago I heard that Michael Poulter was covering for the evening show so I tuned in. Bless him, he was having quite a lot to say about that chair!

IF ONLY WE STILL HAD THE NIGHTSHIFT NEWSREEL ...
Most British newspapers ran
April 1st. features t'other day -
THE GUARDIAN reported that it was to become the first newspaper in the world to abandon print and be published exclusively on Twitter,
THE SUN joked that England fans would have to stand through the world's longest national anthem (6 and a half minutes) before the World Cup qualifier against Ukraine,
THE TIMES featured a photograph of apparently tartan sheep,
THE DAILY MIRROR claimed to have had the first ever interview with the 'Deal or No Deal' banker,
THE DAILY EXPRESS claimed that a British Inventor had created an invisible car to allow motorists to beat speed cameras
and
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH claimed that harnessing the power of fish swimming through a river could hold the key to meeting Britain's future electricity needs.

It's sweet, isn't it, that they do it? Is it a British thing? Anyone know how April Fool's Day all started?

Sid said...

Let me hazzard a guess Hildie, I bet it had something to do with a politician or parliament. Trouble is it got out of hand, and we have April fools day every day now.

Sid said...

The answer to the question you pose Hildie is a lot more complicated than you would think. Many explanations are available, non are definitive.
April Fools day is 'celebrated' throughout Europe.

Hildie said...

Trust me to ask something unanswerable, Sid!
Did you hear about the Gateshead man who travelled all the way to New Zealand on air tickets paid for by people who use 'Twitter'?
He raised £5,000 for charity in doing so, but his main aim was to travel as far as he could from home as possible in 30days.
He made the 11,000 mile trip without having to pay a single air fare. He first crossed to the Netherlands, Germany and France. He then doubled back, after being given flights from Frankfurt to Amsterdam and on to New York. He then made his way to Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Chicargo and L.A., where a final flight saw him arrive in New Zealand with days to spare.
He wrote in his blog,
"The Twitchiker project showed that kindness is universal, that the whole can be infinitely greater than the sum of it's parts,
and that social media may begin on line but it will converge with the real world whenever and wherever you let it."

Sid said...

It sounds like a super duper version of hitchhiking Hildie.
Having said that I rarely see anyone thumbing a lift now. I assume it's seen as much too risky to do.
I'm looking forward to my first ever AGM on the 22nd. It's going to be quite a day, so many friends to meet for the very first time.

Ian Robinson said...

I'm back from my travels now and thought it was high time I wrote a new posting. But it's been a strange week, what with one thing or another, and I don't really know where to start...
I agree with you, Hildie, about the regulars. I guess the blog has lost some of the reflected sheen of BBC Radio Newcastle...
136 will appear tomorrow...

Sid said...

You are still with us Ian, that's the important thing.

Sid said...

I think we should tackle these proverbs before Ian changes the posting...
A bird in the hand is always smaller than the one in the bush.

Where there's smoke there's a blocked up chimney.

Don't put off till tomorrow something that doesn't need doing at all.

Don't bite the hand that holds the Dentists drill.

A penny saved is hardly worth the effort.

It's always darkest before the lights come on.