Rat/ Mouse poop

[Colin Lindsay]

14 hours ago, daverclasper said:

Maybe, though don't we need moths etc, as well?, as part of the whole thing?

What exactly do they do? Other than to kamikaze onto car headlights? They seem to have evolved over millions of years to camouflage themselves against trees etc then they go and stick themselves onto bright red paint.

[daverclasper]

11 minutes ago, Colin Lindsay said:

What exactly do they do? Other than to kamikaze onto car headlights? They seem to have evolved over millions of years to camouflage themselves against trees etc then they go and stick themselves onto bright red paint.

I'm not an expert by any means, though maybe they play a part in natures balance?.  They must be communist moths, with the paint bit.

[Ascalon]

The banning of mothballs by the EU reminds me of a similar story.   Two American friends of mine, one an Assistant District Attorney and one a Texas Ranger, both of Dallas, Texas, were astonished when I told them that aspirin could only be sold in very limited quantities, about sixteen tablets per sale,  I think, in the U.K. This was because of another EU ban. They both commiserated with me hugely, especially since all three of us consumed aspirin by the fistful after a night out on the town well lubricated by gallons of beer and pints of Jack Daniels.   A week or two after I got back to England a very large parcel arrived at my house from the USA.  I could barely lift it.  When I opened it it was full of small boxes of aspirin about fifty tabs per box.  I later learned that aspirin, when ground up finely, is used to cut cocaine to make it go further. My pals had “ borrowed “ a box from the evidence room of the main police station and sent it to me.   To this day I don’t know how it got through Gatwick with being stopped !

[JohnD]

If that's true, Ascalon, then why don't the States limit the size of purchases?     The  drug dealers would have to 'cut' their goods with something else.      You do have to take a LOT of aspirin to poison you!       Much, much more than paracetamol, but if your friends need so much, my advice would be like the GP to the patient who complained of pain, "When I do this".  Stop doing it.

[Ascalon]

2 hours ago, daverclasper said:

I'm not an expert by any means, though maybe they play a part in natures balance?.  They must be communist moths, with the paint bit.

Some years ago when the upmarket outfitter Simpson’s of Piccadilly was still around, ( who remembers that extraordinary curved glass shop front window ? ) I spent about £1000 quid one Saturday afternoon on delightfully fabulous and highly attractive cashmere sweaters.  The patterns and colours were just like a first class acid trip. Within a month every one of them had golf ball sized holes in them.   I don’t know what part moths play in nature’s balance, but they sure as s—t completely unbalanced my bank balance.

[Ascalon]

3 minutes ago, JohnD said:

If that's true, Ascalon, then why don't the States limit the size of purchases?     The  drug dealers would have to 'cut' their goods with something else.      You do have to take a LOT of aspirin to poison you!       Much, much more than paracetamol, but if your friends need so much, my advice would be like the GP to the patient who complained of pain, "When I do this".  Stop doing it.

The only part of my comment that’s not true is the location of my American chums.  Although this happened about twenty years ago, I still feel it necessary to protect my pals identities, although they did hold the jobs I stated.  For all I know the size of purchases in the US may now be limited.     The quantities I spoke of were a tiny fraction of the tons seized by the FBI as evidence.   Incidentally, Medecin sans Frontiers, were happy to take it all from me, they even sent a van to collect it.

[Ascalon]

Here’s another little story about the vagaries of American law enforcement agencies.  Having once worked in a Havana cigar factory, I won’t smoke anything else.  Of course one cannot import Cuban cigars into the US, but on one of my regular trips where I flew into Miami I was confident of being able to buy some there. Sure enough, the first cigar shop I tried produced some from under the counter, although the owner wanted to see my passport to check that I wasn’t an American undercover cop.  He would only sell me a box of twenty five, though. These lasted about a week, so I had no more until I went to San Francisco. Checking into my hotel I asked the concierge about getting some Cuban cigars there ( a good hotel concierge can get a guest ANYTHING. See below ). He wrote an address on a piece of paper and handed it to me.  Rocking up at the shop, the owner said he didn’t have my brand, but that he could get them in a few hours and that he’d have them delivered to my hotel at about six o/clock.    I was in my room at the appointed time and there was a knock on the door. I opened it only to find four armed and armoured Drug Enforcement Alcohol and Tobacco agents standing there. They burst into the room and zip locked me, before dragging me off to the local slammer.  I was allowed one phone call.  Five minutes later I was given a lift in a police car back to my hotel.

re hotel concierges.   On yet another visit to the USA I ordered a hire car at Los Angeles airport for my drive to Las Vegas.  I specified a Bentley Continental GTC which was on their list of available cars.  When I turned up at the hire desk no Bentley was available.  They gave me a Chrysler Sebring, possibly the worst car in the World.  Hours later when I checked in at the “Wynn” hotel in Vegas, I told the concierge about this story. “ Would you still like a Bentley, sir ? “ he asked.   I said yes.  “ Now or later ? “, he replied. I told him later. “ Oh, sir “ he called as I walked away, “ what colour would you like ?.

[Chris A]

33 minutes ago, Ascalon said:

 Having once worked in a Havana cigar factory, I won’t smoke anything else.

Ah, my preferred country of origin for cigars. Takes me back to when I spent a month there to celebrate my 50th birthday. Of course visits to factories was a must. The customs limit for cigars coming back into France was 75. There was no way that was going to happen. I brought back over 300 - my wife made sure they were all in my suitcase! There were no controls at all at Paris, just walked through.

Which factory did you work in and what did you do surely not rolling them. 

My humidor I had 'converted' from a wooden chest, fully lined with cedar.

I feel a smoke coming on . . .

[Colin Lindsay]

1 hour ago, JohnD said:

If that's true, Ascalon, then why don't the States limit the size of purchases?     The  drug dealers would have to 'cut' their goods with something else.      

They're not often so kind as to use aspirins. Chalk powder, plaster dust, any kind of powder that will bulk it out is used. I remember a few years back a lot of pale faces when it was confirmed that the purple colour of some drugs was due to ground-up slug pellets.

[daverclasper]

there was a program on coke production in Columbia. In the hills, they were mixing the leaves with cement powder in these big pits and trampling them as part of the process.

The customers, further down the line couldn't pick their noses.    

[Chris A]

Shouldn't mention this but some years ago my wife brought back some coca leaves, more probably from Peru than Columbia (you couldn't go there at that time). The miners put them into the side of their mouth and the effects helped them cope with the working conditions.

[PeteH]

3 hours ago, Chris A said:

Shouldn't mention this but some years ago my wife brought back some coca leaves, more probably from Peru than Columbia (you couldn't go there at that time). The miners put them into the side of their mouth and the effects helped them cope with the working conditions.

The stevedores working the ports of most South American Countries Do likewise. Especially Up the Lakes and the Upper Amazon.

Pete

[Colin Lindsay]

12 hours ago, PeteH said:

The stevedores working the ports of most South American Countries Do likewise. Especially Up the Lakes and the Upper Amazon.

Pete

I think a lot of Royal Mail does these days, too.... going by the number of my parcels which they've lost recently.

[Peter Truman]

AusPost too Colon but eBay usually pays up just no product!

[poppyman]

14 minutes ago, Peter Truman said:

AusPost too Colon but eBay usually pays up just no product!

Colon??   

Tony.

[Iain T]

14 minutes ago, poppyman said:

Colon??   

Don't go there.......

[Colin Lindsay]

23 minutes ago, poppyman said:

Colon??   

Tony.

I'm dieting heavily after Christmas excess and battering the running machine a lot; hopefully I'll soon be a semi-colon.

[Steve P]

On 23/04/2020 at 16:23, JohnD said:

So I have a "humane" trap.    It's a square tube of black plastic,  bent slightly in the middle     Empty, it sits on the floor with the front door wide open.    The mouse enters, goes to the far end where the bait is, it tips up and the door closes, click.   Caught.    But the thing is a mouse will see the dark opening and think it's somewhere to hide, where the cat can't go!    In it runs!     They do this even if I'm holding the trap, and the cat is nearby!

I used one of those when we moved in our bungalow,caught 20 odd,one of them i took down the bottom of the garden and released it,my other half said it would be back in the house before i was.

S

[poppyman]

43 minutes ago, Colin Lindsay said:

I'm dieting heavily after Christmas excess and battering the running machine a lot; hopefully I'll soon be a semi-colon.

I would put a full stop to that Colin.

Tony. 

[Peter Truman]

OK I can’t type “Colin”

[andybeau]

[mark powell]

Ah,  punctuation...

[Colin Lindsay]

For goodness sake put me out of my misery - I've got the top five.... what's the result??????

[poppyman]

1 hour ago, mark powell said:

Ah,  punctuation...

I use Morris Golden Film.

Tony.