472

472

A tram in Graz...

In this blogposting...
* Le Blog à Pépère
* Intellijokes
* Doctor Malevolent's Puzzle Book

* * *
LE BLOG À PÉPÈRE
Serge’s posting 226 is yet another example of why I’ve found learning ‘street-French’ so rewarding - and so much fun.  It shows how different languages often choose to express sentiments and observations using very similar - or sometimes even identical - metaphors.

* Au royaume des aveugles, les borgnes sont rois....
In the kingdom of the blind, one-eyed people are kings

* A force d'aller mal, tout va bien.....
This seems to mean ‘by dint of going badly, all goes well’.  I’m not sure if this transmutes into an English equivalent or if it tells us something that’s uniquely French.

* A chaque jour suffit sa peine.....
As my Nana used to say…‘sufficient undo the day is the evil thereof.’  She really did used to say that.

* Il n'est pire sourd que celui qui ne veut pas entendre.....
There are none more deaf than those who will not hear.

* On ne peut avoir le beurre et l'argent du beurre…
You can’t have butter and the money for butter - ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it.’

This last is one of two stock phrases that have puzzled me since I was quite young because it doesn’t seem to make sense.  Surely you can have your cake and eat it; what you cannot do is eat your cake and (still) have it.

The other is ‘cheap at half the price’, which is no commendation of the price at all.  Surely it should be ‘cheap at twice the price’.
Or am I missing something?

* * *
INTELLIJOKES
Here are some more side-splitting and intellectually-challenging jokes.  I hope you’re sitting down.

* Why do Marx and Engels drink herbal tea?  Because proper tea is theft.
* How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?  One - but the light bulb has to want to change.
* A British one-two-three cat had a swimming race against a French un-deux-trois cat.  The one-two-three cat reached the finish but the un-deux-trois cat sank.
* Why did the quantum particle cross the road?  He was already on both sides.
* Schroedinger’s cat walks into a bar.  And it doesn’t.
* Why did the inverse function cross the road?  To get to the same side.
* A woman comes home to find her string-theorist husband in bed with another woman.  ‘But honey’ he says, ‘I can explain everything.’
* What did the proton say to the grumpy electron?  ‘Why do you have to be so negative all the time?’

* * *
DOCTOR MALEVOLENT’S PUZZLE BOOK
In posting 470, I invited you to try and solve The Game of Death.  Unsurprisingly, nobody at all has contacted me with the solution. 

So, for better or worse, here it is…

The problem is the presence of de Gaulle, who sometimes tells the truth and sometimes tells lies.  So you must use your first question to identify which of the phantoms he is, and eliminate him.

So this is what you do…

Let’s call the phantoms A, B and C.

Ask A ‘Is B more likely to tell me the truth than C?’

If the answer is Yes and A is Gandhi, then B is de Gaulle and C is Goebbels.

If the answer is Yes and A is Goebbels, then B is de Gaulle and C is Gandhi.

If the answer is Yes and A is de Gaulle, then B is either Gandhi or Goebbels and C is either Gandhi or Goebbels.

So if the answer is Yes, you know that C is not de Gaulle and you should address your second question to C.

(If A answers No, then the logic is the same, except it’s B who is not de Gaulle.)

Your second question is ‘If you were asked if the left-hand road leads to heaven, would you reply in the affirmative?’  If the left-hand road does lead to heaven, both Gandhi and Goebbels will answer Yes to this question; if it doesn’t, they will both answer No.

It’s as simple as that.

Now - here’s a much trickier one…

THE TWO AUSTRIANS
Two Austrians are waiting at a tram-stop in Graz.  One Austrian is the father of the other Austrian’s son.

How are they related?

(Note:  You should have got the answer to that one by the time you read this sentence.)

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

471

471

In this blogposting…

Wimbledon Postscript
Burnopfield Masonic Hall Workteam Advice Sheet

* * *
WIMBLEDON POSTSCRIPT
Everybody knows that, even amongst the Elysian Fields of life - those rarefied pastures of pleasures that occur far too seldom - there’s always a swatch of nettles waiting to sting your lower legs.  And they always do.

Take this year’s otherwise exemplary Wimbledon…

Throughout the tournament I was naturally in daily Skype contact with Serge, mostly in order to gloat about how terribly English it all was - strawberries and cream, pristine courts,  everything either white or green…

Somehow, though, Serge managed to derail my smugness at the first hurdle.  Who, he wanted to know, was The Man In The Hat?

A little to the left of the Centre Court’s main scoreboard is the box of seats reserved for the players’ families and friends.  And - every day, match in and match out - the seat on the right of this box was occupied by a distinguished-looking older gent in a dark blazer, striped tie, neat white shirt - and an enormous homburg - or is it a trilby or even a stetson?

Once seen, never forgotten.  After Serge had pointed his presence out to me, I consciously looked out for him every day, and every day - there he was.

But who was he?

Serge’s question - which he mischievously repeated each time we spoke - was a reasonable one; and one to which no research on my part could provide an answer.

Until the very end of the tournament, when the BBC decided to run a feature about ‘the unremarked heroes of Wimbledon’, of which he was one.

The Man In The Hat was David Spearing, no less.  This well-turned-out gent had somehow earned the right to be the tournament’s Honorary Steward.  It was his job to usher the families and friends into and out of their special box and to look after them while they were in it.

In return for his arduous duties, he got one of the best possible views of the action on Centre Court - and a gratifyingly large number of appearances on tv screens all over the world.

As it happens, Serge and I weren’t the only ones who were curious about this fine gentleman.  He has become an internet institution - as this interview with him shows…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T88dcWANP1Y

* * *
BURNOPFIELD MASONIC HALL WORKTEAM ADVICE SHEET
Eric and Jean sent me this last week.

I still haven’t stopped laughing….

DRILL PRESS
A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it  smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly-painted project which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.

WIRE WHEEL
Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light.  Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, 'Oh sh*t'.

SKIL SAW
A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.

PLIERS
Used to round off bolt heads.  Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters.

BELT SANDER
An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.

HACKSAW
One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle; it transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS
Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads.  If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH
Used almost entirely for igniting various inflammable objects in your shop.  Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub out of which you want to remove a bearing race.

TABLE SAW
A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK
Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.

BAND SAW
A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the outside edge.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST
A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER
Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.

FLAT SCREWDRIVER
A tool for opening paint cans.  Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws and butchering your palms.

CROWBAR
A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in  order to replace a 50p part.

HOSE CUTTER
A tool used to make hoses too short.

HAMMER
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent to the object we are trying to hit.

STANLEY KNIFE
Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund cheques, and rubber or plastic parts.  Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only while in use.

Thanks, Eric and Jean - keep ‘em coming…

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

470

470

 

 These clog-dancers were performing at the Monument last Saturday as I was passing through...

DOCTOR MALEVOLENT’S PUZZLE BOOK
Inspired by the recent regular inclusion of the Royal Oak Quiz which Ross has been sending me, a blogreader hitherto unknown to me has got in touch via email.

He calls himself Doctor Malevolent and you’re about to find out why…

‘Thanks to you and Ross for the quizzes, Ian’ he says, ‘but how about some really sadistic, mind-mangling puzzles to get truckshunters tearing their hair out over the summer.  Not just brain-teasers - brain annihilators!!!’

He says he has a bottomless pit of such migraine-inducing conundrums and - being a truckshunter and therefore a man of his word - some of them were attached to his email. 

I received them almost a week ago and, being something of a sadist, I undertook to do as he requested - namely, not to look at the answers until I had tried to solve the puzzles.

I have to be honest, though, and say that, after 3 sleepless nights, I gave up and peeked at the solutions.  The funny thing is - having read the answers, I’m none the wiser.

Try solving this first one of yourself, and you’ll see what I mean - they’re absolute stinkers!!

THE GAME OF DEATH (aka THE ROAD TO HEAVEN)
Doctor Malevolent tells me that, in ancient China, prisoners condemned to death were given this puzzle to solve at sunset on the night before their execution.  If they solved it by sunrise, they were allowed to live or, if the Emperor was feeling particularly generous, set free.

So no pressure, then.

Here goes….

'You are on the road of death.

You reach a place where the road divides - one to the left and one to the right.  You know that one road goes to heaven and one road goes to hell - but you do not know which is which.

Three ghostly phantoms are standing at the roadside to help you.

One of them - Gandhi - always tells the truth.

Another - Goebbels - never tells the truth.

The third - de Gaulle - sometimes tells the truth and sometimes does not.

You do not know which ghost is which.

Naturally, you want to take the road to heaven.  To determine which of the two roads that is, you are allowed to ask the phantoms two questions - of the kind that can be answered Yes or No.

You cannot ask all three of them at once, though.  You may only ask each question once and you may address only one phantom at a time.'

I found this puzzle so heartbreakingly difficult that I am prepared to offer a prize to the first person who contacts me with the right answer.

And - er - thanks, Doctor Malevolent.

* *
KNOCK KNOCK…
To make up for the damage he/she has probably done to our collective psyche, the good Doctor has also included some jokes which, he claims, scientists tell each other to prove that science (and philosophy and stuff like that) has a sense of humour.

* Pavlov is having a drink in the pub when his phone rings.  He jumps up and shouts ‘Hell! I forgot to feed the dogs!’
* How many surrealists does it take to change a light-bulb?  A fish.
* There are ten types of people in this world - those that know binary and those that don’t.
* A Buddhist monk approaches a hot-dog stand and says ‘Make me one with everything.’
* What do you call two crows on a branch?  An attempted murder.
* An Englishman, a Frenchman, a Spaniard and a German are walking down the street.  They see a juggler performing but there are so many people that the four men can’t get a good view of the juggler.  So the juggler gets up on a platform and asks ‘Can you see me now?’  The four men reply ‘Yes’ ‘Oui’ ‘Si’ ‘Ja’.
* A Roman walks into a bar, holds up two fingers and says ‘five beers, please’.
* A computer programmer’s wife tells him ‘Go to the supermarket for a loaf of bread and if they have eggs, get a dozen’.  He comes back with 12 loaves of bread.

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

469

469

In this blogposting...
* AGM XLI
* The Worm Turns...

AGM XLI
Our latest AGM has finally taken place, and at the appointed hour and place.

Naturally, I arrived before everybody else and was already on my second cup of coffee by the time other truckshunters turned up. 

Namely…

The indispensable Hildie, without whom truckshunterdom would simply fade away and retreat whence it came…

Brenda, the sound of whose dancing clogs were heard more than once in our old Radio Newcastle days - and who is still a fund of smiles and stories...

Dave Shannon, who has been an essential ingredient of the mix since he started emailing me on The Nightshift - and probably well before…

Neville, who is the only truckshunter who has ever actually shunted any trucks in anger and who therefore occupies a slightly-raised plinth in our Hall of Fame…

Mietek and Naomi, who, unless I am very much mistaken, are already positioning themselves to mount a takeover bid by filibuster, a well-known North American method of political debate…

And me.

It was quite a meeting, I must say.  I suppose I ought to have taken notes of the range of items we covered that weren’t on anyone’s agenda and that just plopped into the conversation from nowhere and plopped out again in due course.

There were several points during the convocation when I wasn’t sure who I should be listening to and whose story I should be following.  You know those confused gatherings when you half-wonder what’s been said that’s made the person next to you laugh so loudly?  Well, it was like that.

It was, as usual, quite exceptionally great fun.

Visual proof that this typically wayward and fascinating AGM took place at all will have to wait until Mietek emails me the photos he took.

My thanks to everyone who was there - including Keith Topping, who turned up to see Mietek at the end.

Don’t ask…

* * *
THE WORM TURNS…
After decades of my being deeply sarcastic about it, cynical about it, directing my nastiest invective at it, laughing at it or even just plain ignoring its very existence, Bishop Auckland has finally bestirred itself from its ungainly slumbers to bite my bum.

One of the most important archaeological finds of recent north-east history has just been unearthed there.  Let me explain who historians think the handsome fellow above might be…

As you leave Newcastle along the Old West Road, you are, of course, following exactly the route of Hadrian’s Wall.  Well, about 2 miles from the City Centre, just after you pass the Jobcentre on your left and begin the long slope down past the crematorium to Denton Burn, you will almost certainly not notice a very anonymous-looking estate of run-of-the-mill houses just beyond the Jobcentre.

And that’s a shame because, hidden deep amongst the forsythias and privet lie the scanty ruins of a little - and very ancient - temple.  It was built up against the south side of the Wall but now languishes, virtually ignored, in someone’s front garden.

There is a plaque, though, which explains that this is the Temple of Antenociticus. 

Who he?

None other than the god of fertility that was worshipped by the local ‘ancient Britons’ before the Romans even got here.  (I’ve seen him described as ‘the Geordie god’, which is infantile and fatuous journalism of the Jonathan Miles variety.)  (And No, Jonathan, nobody knows how big his penis was.)

Archaeologists have always strongly suspected that the existence of a temple dedicated to Antenociticus implies that the Romans tolerated his cult - or may even have encouraged it.

And now, thanks to Bishop Auckland, they probably have the proof they needed.  The fine sculpture above is thought be of Antenociticus himself, and its existence inside the ramparts of the Roman fort of Vinovia suggests that the soldiers may have been encouraged to follow his cult.

But, before the benighted folk of The Town That Dare Not Speak Its Name get too big for their boots, it’s worth pointing out that Vinovia’s ruins aren’t actually in Bishop Auckland at all but at Binchester, a couple of miles outside the town. 

Bad luck, Bishop Auckland - but a good try.

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

468

468

In posting 312, I drew your attention to a cat that looked like Hitler.

It's not just cats, though, that have the misfortune to resemble the most evil man who ever lived...

 

This kettle has, apprently, had to be withdrawn from sale by US department store JC Penney...

...and this house is in Cardiff (of all places)

In this blogposting…

* AGM XLI
* In Memoriam
* Jokes About Engineers

* * *
AGM XLI
This is your final reminder.  Well, your final reminder but one.

The next AGM will take place at 1100 this upcoming Thursday 4 July at Oliver’s Cafe on Grainger Market..

You know you want to be there and that there’s no point in not going.  So remind yourself to remember not to forget.

* *
IN MEMORIAM:  THE SOMME
We don't often feature Today in History items on the blog and I'm not sure why.  Thanks mainly to Peter in South Shields, they were a regular feature on The Nightshift and provided quite a few talking points as well.

Take today, for example...

On 1 July 1916 - two years into the First World War - the Battle of the Somme began.  100,000 British soldiers climbed out of their trenches and went 'over the top' into No Man's Land.

By day's end, 20,000 of them lay dead, with another 40,000 wounded or captured.

It was the worst one-day loss suffered by any army in the whole of human history.

The British line had advanced two miles.

The Battle of the Somme lasted until November.  When it ended, the death-toll was staggering.  420,000 British soldiers had died.  South of the river, another 195,000 French troops had lost their lives.  The Germans suffered an appalling loss of over 650,000 soldiers.

Well over 1¼m people dead - in five months.

As far as I know, nobody has ever been brought to justice for what many historians believe to have been a wilful crime against humanity.

* * *
JOKES ABOUT ENGINEERS (AND OTHER PEOPLE)
As engineering seems to have been June’s flavour of the month, and because one of my best friends and also one of my nephews are engineers, here are some jokes about engineers….
-----------------------
WHY ENGINEERS DON’T WRITE RECIPE BOOKS
Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients: 

1  532.35 cm3 gluten 

2  4.9 cm3 NaHCO3 

3  4.9 cm3 refined halite 

4  236.6 cm3 partially hydrogenated tallow triglyceride 

5  177.45 cm3 crystalline C12H22O11

6  177.45 cm3 unrefined C12H22O11 

7  4.9 cm3 methyl ether of protocatechuic aldehyde

8  Two calcium carbonate-encapsulated avian albumen-coated protein 

9  473.2 cm3 theobroma cacao 

10  236.6 cm3 de-encapsulated legume meats (sieve size #10)

Methodology:
To a 2lt jacketed round reactor vessel (reactor #1) with an overall heat transfer coefficient of about 100 Btu/F-ft2-hr, add ingredients one, two and three with constant agitation.

In a second 2lt reactor vessel with a radial flow impeller operating at 100rpm, add ingredients four, five, six, and seven until the mixture is homogenous.  To reactor #2, add ingredient eight, followed by three equal volumes of the homogenous mixture in reactor #1.  Additionally, add ingredient nine and ten slowly, with constant agitation.

Care must be taken at this point in the reaction to control any temperature rise that may be the result of an exothermic reaction.

Using a screw extrude attached to a #4 nodulizer, place the mixture piece-meal on a 316SS sheet (300 x 600 mm).  Heat in a 460K oven for a period of time that is in agreement with Frank & Johnston's first order rate expression (see JACOS, 21, 55), or until golden brown. Once the reaction is complete, place the sheet on a 25C heat-transfer table, allowing the product to come to equilibrium.

-------------------------------
Half Full or Half Empty?
To the optimist, the glass is half full. 

To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.

To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

------------------------------
This question was posed to university applicants in the USA…

IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO GET TO KNOW YOU BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION:  ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON? 



This was one of the essays written as a result…

'I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice.  I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. 

I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently.  Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.  I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes.  

I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru. 

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants.  

I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries.  When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard.  I enjoy urban hang gliding.  On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge. 



I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie.  Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear.  I don't perspire.  I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail.  Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration.  

My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles.  

Children trust me. 

 I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy.  I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening.  I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket.  

I have performed several covert operations for the CIA.  I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair.  While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery.  

The laws of physics do not apply to me.  

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid.  On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami.  Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down.  I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven.  

I breed prize winning clams.  I  have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin.  I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis. 



But I have not yet gone to college.'
They admitted him to New York University.

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