BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature

Subject: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 07:39 AM

If you pick up a harmonica without looking at it and start to play, it will be upside-down every time.

If you put all your boxer shorts in the washing machine, every single pair will emerge at the end of the wash inside-out.

If you plan to have a barbecue on a nice summer's evening in Cornwall, it will cloud over the minute you put the burgers on.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 07:43 AM

I first learned to play the gob iron upside down! It was years later I discovered my error and had to spend ages relearning :-( Luckily I only knew about 4 tunes :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 07:58 AM

If you wash your duvet-cover without fastening the press-studs/buttons, it will come out of the washing machine with the rest of your bedding inside it.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Mr Red
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 08:12 AM

sock divorce. Some pairs just separate permanently.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 08:13 AM

Once you are over the age of 65, it is not possible to buy more than five items at a supermarket self-service checkout without having to call for the assistant.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 08:14 AM

If you decide to peg out on the washing line a beautiful load of snow-white laundry, an army of seagulls will immediately appear and crap all over it.
If Andy the window cleaner has just been, an army of seagulls will appear and crap all over the windows.

If one has just washed the car..... etc etc

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 08:17 AM

"If you decide to peg out on the washing line..."

Strikes me as being a rather odd location at which to shuffle off this mortal coil...

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 08:37 AM

Heh heh Steve. I expect if I did decide to peg out on the washing line, the blasted seagulls would crap all over me too.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 09:24 AM

If you change your duvet cover, it wii have a cat inside it, weather you have one or not.

Similarly if you puke when you are drunk, it will contain diced carrots, even if you never ate them in your life.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 09:42 AM

The bus in front of you wants to travel at 15MPH while the white van behind you wants to do 50.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Raedwulf
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 10:07 AM

Everything is always in the last place you look for it.*

* Technically, this is because you then stop looking because you found it, but you know what I mean!!

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: MikeL2
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 10:23 AM

hi

If i drop my marmalade toast on the carpet it always lands marmalade side down.

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 10:37 AM

If that is true, Mike, and it is also true that a cat always lands on its feet, we can create a perpetual motion machine by strapping a piece of marmalade toast to a cat's back and then throwing the cat out of the window:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: leeneia
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 10:50 AM

Brilliant, Dave!

There is a class of objects called Perverse Objects, which do not obey the laws of physics. Scissors, for example. If you are sewing a garment, scissors will slither into a hidden place while you are sewing. If you are knitting, scissors will tunnel deep into the couch or between two magazines.

Contact lenses are clearly perverse objects. How else could an almost-weightless object, dropped, not thrown, get 8 feet away and under a plumbing fixture? How else could it disappear in a human eyeball with a surface area of 2.5 square inches?

There are other perverse objects, but I can't think of them right now.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 10:55 AM

Hand-dryers in men's toilets are designed so as to blast droplets of incriminating-looking water down the front of your trousers. Except for those Dyson ones, which have a little trough of slime at the bottom containing at least one pubic hair and one bogey. Touch any part of that Dyson accidentally with your hand and you automatically die of a horrible infection, and always only breathe out when you're anywhere near one that's blowing. Hope this helps.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 11:20 AM

If I select the shortest supermarket checkout queue, I will automatically find myself behind one of the following :

(A) an irritated customer who cannot accept that their bloody vouchers are out of date;

(B) a customer who tries it on with several expired or maxed-out cards;

(C) a little old lady who, when she eventually locates her purse in one of her several bags, then pays the £37.62 bill in two pence pieces that the cashier has to count out for her. Twice.


Still, there's the compensation of extra people-watching time. Mostly the people in the much longer queues either side of you who get out of the shop ten minutes before you do.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: DMcG
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 12:36 PM

However many doors and windows are open, the cat will always demand you let it in or out through a closed one.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Jos
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 12:43 PM

My cat used to ask to be let out of the back door, see that it was raining in the back garden, and instead of going out, would ask to be let out of the front door in the hope it wouldn't be raining at the front. (He wasn't very bright.)

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 12:43 PM

If one needs the loo during the night, one will be...er...fully installed before one notices the gigantic SPIDER on the wall beside the lavatory.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 01:14 PM

What ever the long lost valuable item is, it will only be found after buying a new one.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 01:45 PM

Ah, and if you decide to throw something away or donate it to charity, a few weeks later you'll realise you need it urgently.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: DMcG
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 01:48 PM

I don't see why you restrict it to valuable items. I don't think I have been able to find a ruler in the house for years, however many I buy.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Raedwulf
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 01:49 PM

If you'd just got married instead, D, you'd always have a ruler close by! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: MikeL2
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 02:14 PM

Hi Dave

Hey you've got something there. We better patent it or others will pinch our important project.

Cheers

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: MikeL2
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 02:20 PM

Hi Sen

" If one needs the loo during the night, one will be...er...fully installed before one notices the gigantic SPIDER on the wall beside the lavatory. "

I know things a getting difficult but I didn't realise that you were sleeping in the street.

Regards

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: MikeL2
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 02:29 PM

Hi DMG

I havw plenty of rulers around the house due to not being able to find one when I needed it.

My wife is a crossword addict. She can never find pens when she wants one, despite there being dozens of them around the house. Where she puts the God only knows.

I have a couple on my desk but there are never any when I need them. I think she has set up a secret pen shop. She will soon be a millionaire.

Cheers

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Jos
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 02:33 PM

For years I could never find the scissors. Then the children left home, and miraculously, since then the scissors have been where I left them.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 03:26 PM

Talking of air hand driers (several posts up), why do people nearly always install them so low on the wall. I always have to bend down to get my hands under them (I am 6 foot tall).
Is it so that the top of the hand drier will be cleared of dust by the user's beard?

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 06:55 PM

Here's another law of nature. In some lavatoria the hand-dryers are calibrated to be deliberately capricious. It can be a real initiative test to find the exact positioning of the hands that will activate the thing, and the slightest wrong move will result in its immediate inactivation. In severe cases you have to waft your hands to and fro underneath the bloody thing like a lunatic to get it to come on at all. In extremis, you emerge from the little boys' room with two wet patches around your trouser pockets, having discerned that the "trouser-wipe manoeuvre" is the only means of emerging anything like dry-handed. Isn't life a ball.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 08:26 PM

hmm

If you have been to Paris recently Steve you may have noticed the open sidewalk urinals for men all over town. It beats the NYC subway solution. btw the colour of the sidewalk urinals is Trump orange that displays prominently even in the rain.


My lost phone solution/invention does not work if your phone went in the garbage and has already been collected or if you live near the dump which is already a hot spot.

I thought of a plan B solution for Trump to avoid criminal prosecution:
Declare himself a foreign agent.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 08:46 PM

I've seen the pics of those open-air urinals. I wouldn't hesitate to use them myself. After all, the "tackle" would still be discreetly sheltered from view, if not the act itself. The best thing about them is the little sign above each one that displays a lovely stick-man pelvic thrust. I thought only little boys peed like that.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: leeneia
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 09:10 PM

"Where she puts them God only knows." Don't blame your wife for the missing pens, Mikel2. Pens are perverse objects. See above.

Presumably you don't carry a purse. If you had ever tried to find a pen that you knew was in your purse, you would know what I mean.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 09:20 PM

If three ten-pound notes are placed on the shelf in the kitchen last thing at night, in readiness for tomorrow's shopping, by next morning there will be only two. My enquiries usually conclude that Mrs Steve is almost probably not quite the likely culprit...

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Joe_F
Date: 15 Aug 18 - 09:59 PM

Before you do anything, you have to do something else, usually piss.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: BobL
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 02:15 AM

Mathematical theory (I can't remember which one, it's over 50 years since I was at Uni) state that a closed system has an equal number of sources and sinks. This is certainly true of pens in an office: for every individual like me who can never find one, there is an opposite whose desk drawer is full of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 02:45 AM

If you decide to avoid the queues at the checkout in the supermarket by using the self-service one, the disembodied voice will inevitably pipe up that there's an unidentified item in the bagging area, and you'll need to press 'help'.
You can then be sure that an assistant will take about ten minutes to materialise, while the queues for the proper checkouts diminish rapidly as you stand there like a lemon.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 05:57 AM

A law of nature deriving from these checkout complaints is that even the most modern technology is utterly thick. I mean, just because the bar code on my bag of carrots is a bit scrunched up, I have to wait for a supervisor (if one can be located at all) to authorise the sale, often by going the half-mile back to the veg dept to get a bag that'll scan. I can't just say to the cashier "they're 85p, those," can I? Not allowed! The system can't cope with it!* And while I'm at it, why does a 67-year-old buying a bottle of wine at a self-service checkout have to wait for a supervisor to confirm that I'm over 18? Put a rudimentary camera in the bloody thing!

*Although there's one wizened old cynic at a supermarket near me who, after repeated failed efforts to scan something, hands it to me and says "Here, just put it in your bloody bag..." No names, no pack drill!

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 06:08 AM

Ha, I'm glad I'm not the only one Steve.
My husband adores using the self-checkout. He thinks it's so modern and clever. He talks to the Lady! (Have to say, he's much better at technology than I, but then I'm a complete nitwit)

Another law of nature about supermarkets is the Snuggling-Up Parker.
You park nicely in the middle of a space, then when you emerge, it's certain that some fool has parked right beside your car, so that the door will open only by about five centimetres.
If you've got just one Snuggler on the passenger side, it can be surmounted. But on the driver's side?
My poor husband has had to get in on the left, clamber over the transmission tunnel and finally arrive behind the wheel.

Tempted to key their car or let their tyres down, but there are surveillance cameras...

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 08:49 AM

BobL - the corollary to the drawer with or without pens is that Pens Migrate. One day I realize that they have moved from all around the house and office and are all in the bottom of my everyday backpack. I fish them out and spread them around the kitchen, the office, the bedroom, and months later I'll find them all back in the bottom of the backpack.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 08:59 AM

Just google "People who know how to f***ing park on brink of extinction" and you can revel in sheer sweary frustration at people who can't put their cars in the middle of spaces. I love the Daily Mash and this is one of their best!

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: MikeL2
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 09:29 AM

hi

My good lady and I won't use the self check- outs. Although I spent several years working in electronics and computing I now find all electronics an anathema.
Don't know why. My missus doesn't understand "modern contraptions"
So we always use the "human" checkouts. We have no problems and so prefer to do this.

One thing does bug us in that My wife, all 4'11" of her, finds many of the items she wants are on the top shelf. As I don't often accompany her she often has to ask any taller person to help her. They always do.

In the winter we were both laid up with flu so we decided to use the On Line order system. At first we struggled to navigate the web site easily but managed to complete a large order. We use Tesco because it is convenient for us.

The order was delivered right on time and the driver carried it all in and helped to put it away with us.

Since then we have ordered on line regularly. The service has all been fantastic now we have got used to the system.

No problem with parking and stupid beggers who block you in etc.etc.

And we tend to spend less!!

Cheers

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: leeneia
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 12:10 PM

Hi, Mikel2. What a nice thing to happen!

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 12:39 PM

We have once or twice ordered a Tesco shop online, and it was successful. But I like to natter (who knew?) and we now look on many of the checkout people almost as friends. So for many reasons the automatic thing is a no-no.

There are loads of Laws of Nature applicable to having cats:-

Trying a new type of (cheaper) cat food will be met with utter revulsion and disgust.
And one will have bought a whole box of the stuff.

Wearing a fairly smart pair of black trousers for going 'up the city', a cat will inevitably caress my legs affectionately and the trousers become mohair ones.

A pair of seemingly dim moggies will suddenly become adept and cunning when one goes out leaving some roasted beef defrosting on the counter top covered with a huge heavy plate. The cats will turn into Morgan the Mighty and the plate will be found on the floor and the meat gnawed.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: DMcG
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 12:48 PM

when one goes out leaving some roasted beef defrosting

If your cats are exceptionally well behaved and moral, they will restrict themselves to your meat in your house.

Most are not.

But one way of chatting with the neighbours, I suppose.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 01:53 PM

They don't go outside though DMcG, we shut the cat-flap most of the time. This was/is our own meat, ready-cooked and frozen, which we defrost while we're out. Silly of us really, we should have put it safely in the cold oven to defrost (which they haven't yet learned to open)
And the little blighters are very well-fed. It's not as if they're starving hungry.

I was looking up on Google the difference between Sod's Law and Murphy's Law. Apparently they are different. Didn't know that!

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: DMcG
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 02:12 PM

Ours pinched a neighbour's Christmas turkey on one occasion. All of it. Dragged it home ...

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 02:25 PM

Hahahahaaaa! I once had a cat (called Simon) who pinched things off the nieghbours' clothes lines. He once arrived through the cat flap with a very pretty lacy bra. Sadly it wasn't my size.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 02:36 PM

That should say neighbours'. I've given myself detention for bad spelling.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: MikeL2
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 02:49 PM

Hi Sen

" e have once or twice ordered a Tesco shop online, and it was successful. But I like to natter (who knew?)"

I know what you mean. We know all the regular staff well.   we have monthly orders. But we pop over to Tesco for anything that we need

Eg perish able, fruit etc. The staff are so helpful, some of them we have known for years. The only thing I criticise them for is they have not been able to sell us winning Lottery tickets which we ......well my wife buys each time we go in.

Regards

Mike

ps just heard from Healthier You. The delay has been that the Company that does it ( for the NHS) has changed. The new Company has contacted me to say that I have a placement and will be contacted shortly.

Trouble is we are going away for about a month or so.

Subject: RE: BS: Newly-discovered laws of nature
From: Raedwulf
Date: 16 Aug 18 - 07:05 PM

Although I spent several years working in electronics and computing I now find all electronics an anathema.

A Natural Law of IT - IT staff are 50% geeks, 50% technophobes. Half of them are there because they luuuuurve tech! And the other half hate technology cos they have to work with the blasted stuff to make a living...

I was always a technophobe, I might add.