Troosers Too

Jeez! Where do you live...Beirut?

Clint 1 - I'd imagine you've got evidence for your accusation rather than lazily passing on, as fact, a slightly wild and unlikely rumour that you've heard. As 39TDS says, why haul the corpse all the way to a road to dump it when there are loads of easier & more secure alternatives to a farmer. While the deep rural streets of Wolverhampton may not be overrun nightly with badgers, you can rest assured that in many areas of the countryside badgers are a very regular sight to drivers at night. I've only ever hit one with the car (dead badger - no damage to car) but regularly have to brake hard to miss the black and white lumps as they trundle round the lanes at night. No. I'm not a farmer either.

People who are good at maths are all sociopaths, possibly even borderline psychopaths and should really be segregated from normal society. If we need to get some sums done or need somone to invent some new, terribly clever, gizmo for us too goof around with, we could let them out briefly (supervised of course). What, you want proof? Hitler, Stalin, Tony Bliar - all good at maths! Of course its true, I just made it up! TT

Gimlet - you are my hero! Let's see...high speed through Paris with a drunk driver being harrassed by photographers on bikes & in cars, no seatbelt...what could possibly go wrong? TT

Absolutely correct. Who here knows where their money that they pay into their pensions or ISAs is going?

Great news Gerry! I was just about to comment that I've got a six year old springer bitch who has never ever been in the slightest bit interested in retrieving dummies or balls when out of the boring confines of the garden. In the garden she'll retrieve a ball or dummy a couple of times & then get bored. Game on the other hand, is a different story. She loves it and is my best picking up dog for when a gun tells me "Oh I've got a bird down in that wood - a long way back". When she was young, I was beating at a friend's shoot with her & while she was going well hunting & flushing, she'd never retrieved anything for me and one of the other beaters had asked me if i trialled her & I replied that she wouldn't retrieve, so no. Ten minutes later we asked to look for a wounded bird down in a little spinney so with little hope, I sent her in to look. needless to say my non retrieving springer made a fool of me by bringing said bird straight back out! I guess what I'm trying to say is don't panic - given the right circumstances and encouragement, the retrieving instinct will almost certainly switch on. Good luck with her TT

Your wife obviously dosen't drive your car then. TT

Years ago I was working offshore on a rig where some bright spark had managed to get hold of a tractor tyre inner tube. The tube would be folded under the victim's mattress, a hole was drilled through the bulkhead from the cabin next door and an airline attached. At some point during the victim's sleep, a valve would be cracked & the 120psi air supply would inflate the inner tube almost instantly, chucking the sleeper across his cabin. Deep joy! Another favourite was to place an empty 45 gallon drum in someone's shower & then fill it. As there was no room to get hold of the damn thing in the shower, the only way to get rid of the thing was to get a fire axe & beat a hole in it. TT

Wait a minute - I was supporting the camouflaged shopper! TT

Now then, I've just broken one of my life's rules and sought out an engineer (they're a funny lot aren't they?) who tells me that since the cannon would heat up from the bore outwards, the bore would actually get smaller to begin with as the outside of the gun is considerably cooler than the centre. I don't really know why I'm getting involved with this - it's a bit like a golfish getting involved in a discussion about hang gliding. Cheers TT

Of course not! I obviously had to do something to show why I was dressed like Little Lord Fontleroy so I whipped the gun out of the slip and carried it into the sevices over my arm. TT

The trouble is that "real people" would nowadays stand no chance of getting the top jobs. I'd imagine that all the party leaders have spent nearly their entire lives (from their teens on) working in politics, driven by the desire to suceed. Newspaper reporters will scrape & sniff through their past lives looking for dirt, meaning that the hopeful new politician will need to tread very carefully all through their lives and will have to be happy to know that every old flame, friend, colleague and drunken night out will be scrutinised. Would we work as a party activist for years in our own time? Would we work as a researcher for a politician for next to no pay? Would we want some scumbag reporter sniffing around every aspect of our lives looking for dirt? How many of us would have the sheer, cunning and ambition to get anywhere near the top job? I know I wouldn't! Strangely, I admire their dedication as much as I loathe them for having it. TT

Presumably the theory suggests that the steel the barrel is made of would expand in all directions, meaning that the bore would become smaller at the same time as the overall external dimensions of the barrel would become larger. I'm no engineer so I'll be the first to accept that the truth from one. TT

Good news unless you were horrible to your little sister when you were a kid. She's now trained to poison you & leave no trace! Just a thought TT

They make a rather fine sporran, would that be of any use?

To be fair to the cammo supermarket sweeper, I've had to stop for fuel on the motorway dressed in tie, tweed breeks, brogues, etc and got some very funny looks from the assembled high rollers that seem to inhabit motorway service stations at night. Yes I did feel like a bit of a lemon. The goons dressed top to toe in realtree at the gamefair, on the other hand!?!?! Last time I went to the Midland, it was like walking about in a hedge! Maybe someone should invent "Getrealtree" pattern that looks like jeans & t-shirt for them. TT

Wire cup brush on angle grinder. Keep going 'till you've removed all traces of ink...there that looks better! Ok, ok...I'll get my coat! TT

Zapp may be wrong about Mrs. Brown's boys but he is absolutely bang on right about Syria. TT

As someone has already said, I'd say the best thing you could do is use a professional trainer on an individual basis. A good professional trainer will be able to get the dog's basic manners sorted out in a fraction of the time you could do yourself. After that, regular sessions either with the trainer or in a club should allow you to keep things progressing nicely. Very few of us have the time, patience, techniques or the talent to train as well as a professional - especially with a dog that is 14 months old and has, before you got it, had little or no training or direction. Good luck with whatever you decide to do. Cheers TT

Ah, my classic with car keys came about years ago when I had a company car. I'd arrived back at the office car park with a pile of documents. In a huge rush, I leapt out of the car grabbing keys & and an armful of paperwork and shot into the office where I dumped it all on my desk. Busting for a pxss, I ran back out to the car to lock it. Back then, you could lock the door without the keys by pulling the door handle and pushing down the lock button at the same time and then closing the door. As I say, my bladder was telling me to get a move on so I did the keyless door lock routine at 100mph. Slamming the door shut I suddenly experienced a bolt of pain in my other hand's thumb, which I had managed to trap in the, by now, locked door. Now I'm stuck. My bladder and my thumb are having a competition to see which of them can cause me the most pain as I realise that bladder, thumb and I are going to have to wait until someon came to rescue me; no mobile phones in those days. At long last one of the other lads form the company arrived and I managed, in a hoarse whisper, to tell him to go to my desk and get my keys RIGHT NOW! Needless to say, the whole office then arrived to take the mick before the door was eventually opened and my bladder dragged me off to the toilet. I can still remember the pain and humiliation of standing there, legs crossed, trying to look casual about it all. My thumb has never really forgiven my bladder for causing the whole drama in the first place. Cheers TT

There, their and they're....

It has to be Big Ray. If it all goes Pete Tong, there would be so much more eating on him.

Kent, The dog had been let out into the garden early one morning & had escaped to chase rabbits. It jumped a dry stane dyke and landed in/on the car's radiator grill. The, very shaken, driver turned up at my door looking for help. The car mas a mess & undriveable. The poor dog, when I eventually found him a few yards away, was still alive but in a very bad way & had to be put down by the vet. I believe that the car insurer's bill to the dog owner was in excess of £2000. I'll give Sainsburys a try too. Cheers TT

Kent - I like your thinking on setting the cash aside each month. The only thing that wouln't cover is liability insurance. A neighour of mine had a labrador that was hit by a car. The dog died and she also got the bill for the extensive damage to the car. Bad do all round. I must admit though, that paying over £500 a year on the insurance on 2 dogs is plain daft! Cheers TT

Yikes! I just got a renewal quote for the lab's insurance from Esure. They want to increase it from £147 to £273 per year! Has anyone had any recent sensible quotes on mutt insurance? Cheers TT