Absolutely Anything Else

there are jokes that you kinda only have to do the punchlines and everyone gets the joke so you don't have to tell the whole joke. "I was now heavier than the barrel...", "it"s not my ear mine had a pencil behind it", things like that.

Andrew Preview on Moercambe and WIse, was off by "about a yard", and you just cannot translate that into Hungarian. "About THAT much, I would say, about a yard". I would then have to translate that into metric, which won't work. Of course I can say "a metre" but it would not be the same. It  is not a question of translation but culture, EVERYONE knows Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise and so they are institutions that can get away with things, they do not need to be introduced as such. Their Christmas shows attracted 20 million viewers or something when we were still in black and white TV. Stars would turn up just to have the piss taken out of them, the great Burly Chassis sorry Shirley Bassey falling through a stair that wasn't there.- This wit, this humour, this taking the piss out of yourself, does not seem to exist in Hungary, that you are being self-deprecating or ironic. I miss it a lot, that you can't just play the clown and act the fool. I do actually know what i am doing but like to laugh and joke about. amnd that is difficult in Hungary

I was just in Roltex  a couple weeks ago and bought a zipper.
It's not a mail order store.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

There is a sewing shop on the large Blvd. between Rackoci and King.
Roltex is the name if my memory is right.
A small shop , easy to pass by if your not looking closely.
They sell zippers, thread needles , buttons etc.
I'm horrible at giving directions but if you walk on the left side of the blvd. going from Blaha Luza towards King, it will be on your left side of the st. Near a small flower shop.

Whiat is king, Kiraly? I know where Blaha Luiza tér is, do I then walk up towards Andrassy?

SimonTrew wrote:

No, tha'sd no good,  just want to go out and get a needle, I don't want to order it online, I  can see tat one coming, it willl arrive via the postie in bubble wrap, I will take of the wrap, and then have nine needles stuck into me. The missus will then burst all the bubbles in the bubble wrap, I don't know why people do that I keep it for the next parcel, and now I shall have no bubble wrap and nine needles stuck in me. If I wanted that I would go to an acupuncturist,.

Also I did not ask for a "showing shop", If you like a bit of acerbic wit I recommend Thurber, "Nine Needles".

Look again sans auto-correct.

Mrs Fluffy said to go here:  Mueller

They have lots of different stuff.  She said she's bought needles there recently.

SimonTrew wrote:

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

There is a sewing shop on the large Blvd. between Rackoci and King.
Roltex is the name if my memory is right.
A small shop , easy to pass by if your not looking closely.
They sell zippers, thread needles , buttons etc.
I'm horrible at giving directions but if you walk on the left side of the blvd. going from Blaha Luza towards King, it will be on your left side of the st. Near a small flower shop.

Whiat is king, Kiraly? I know where Blaha Luiza tér is, do I then walk up towards Andrassy?

Kiraly st. is correct, yes towards Andrassy Ut.
Sorry my husband is out and I can't read Hungarian, maybe the address can be found online.
So if you walk down The Elizabeth Korut( Large blvd,} on the left hand side of the st. from Blaha Lusza towards Kiraly cross st. you'll run into the shop. It is small with a blue crown sign and large blue letters saying Roltex. You'll pass a Cream thrift shop and I think you'll cross one cross st..

My old friend who had major spine surgery a couple weeks back is back now again in the ICU.
She was moved to a rehab center and was hoping to go home in 2 or 3 weeks.
Her wounds have gotten infected and now she is having another surgery!
Just when things were looking up this happened.
I know she is getting the best possible care in N.Ca. but still, it's a worry.
You never know how fast things in life can change on you.

This Oct. 23 rd is a national holiday in Hungary.
Saturday we noticed the parking meter man giving out tickets.
We asked why since we thought it was free to park on Saturdays on our st.
He said all the news and media has told people that because they are off on the 23rd that this past Sat. counted as a work day.
If people didn't watch the news I guess they got themselves a "sucker" ticket. He was giving one out to a nice new Mazda and had those red pockets ready to go in his hand.
Oh well, they think of everything to collect from the public.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

There is a sewing shop on the large Blvd. between Rackoci and King.
Roltex is the name if my memory is right.
A small shop , easy to pass by if your not looking closely.
They sell zippers, thread needles , buttons etc.
I'm horrible at giving directions but if you walk on the left side of the blvd. going from Blaha Luza towards King, it will be on your left side of the st. Near a small flower shop.

Whiat is king, Kiraly? I know where Blaha Luiza tér is, do I then walk up towards Andrassy?

Kiraly st. is correct, yes towards Andrassy Ut.
Sorry my husband is out and I can't read Hungarian, maybe the address can be found online.
So if you walk down The Elizabeth Korut( Large blvd,} on the left hand side of the st. from Blaha Lusza towards Kiraly cross st. you'll run into the shop. It is small with a blue crown sign and large blue letters saying Roltex. You'll pass a Cream thrift shop and I think you'll cross one cross st..

Erzebet Korut...re,mber I don't drive here so have a completely different mental map fromő what a car driver does, I have to work out now where Ersyeb éet lorut is, is that the one where the No- 1 tram goes: No that is Robert Karoly. whoever HE was, I have no idea where I am now. I live on as street that is in Swedish, with a surname that can't be translated intoő Hungarian, I am not really doing quite welll today.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

My old friend who had major spine surgery a couple weeks back is back now again in the ICU.
She was moved to a rehab center and was hoping to go home in 2 or 3 weeks.
Her wounds have gotten infected and now she is having another surgery!

I am very sorry to hear that Marilyn. i can bitch and grumble about whatever I want, and I do, but I am luicky, I have two eyes even though I need glasses, and am a bit deaf from work with heavy machinery but can still hear a good tune, I can walk, I can walk around and see the pretty trees in Autumn.-- I am not going to win the Olympics, but I can do these things. I jusdt don't believe my luck sometimes, that I am such an arsehole I should have been killed by a car or thrown into prison,not that I commit any offence but I just seem somehow indestructible and one day I will come a cropper. God bless her and look after her. I don't know how else to say it written. I light a candle in the Church for her. I don't know what good it does, but it does no harm.

She got pregnant at age 17 by a Iranian guy, they married moved to Iran and he is no. 110 to the throne there.
Had another really sweet friend who also got PG at 17 and was a single mom living on the Navy base with her 2 A hole bro's and her >"I told you so" mom.
This old friend's husband is so devoted to her it isn't funny, she isn't exactly the sort of women who most men would even look twice at, just spoiled and innocent in nature. Never had to work a day in her life unless she wanted to for ,"fun". She is built like a linebacker, more women then most men could handle or wish to handle.
When we were 11 -12 years old my mom used to always feel sorry for her, said who the heck wants a wife that is bigger then they are?
Seems cruel but she was huge for her age.
Now it seems her easy breezy life isn't so great after all.
Of course when she goes home to her 120 acres of land and farm which her husband converted from nothing 5 years ago she will once again be in her element.
It's so nice the way they turned that land into a working farm with sheep, goats and a small dairy so fast. Her daughter and SIL live on the land and so does her 86 year old father.
They own a slate mine called, Chilli Bar Slate" up in N. Ca.
Her husband is a serious guy who takes care of everyone, his children -in-laws etc.
Not too many men are able to actually do all of that for others, she got lucky finding him for sure.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

....There is a sewing shop on the large Blvd. between Rackoci and King.
Roltex is the name if my memory is right.
A small shop , easy to pass by if your not looking closely.
They sell zippers, thread needles , buttons etc.....

If that doesn't work out, I was in Allee Shopping Mall this morning and there's a sowing shop cum arts and craft shop that has needles and threads.  Allee is on Metro 4 so relatively easy to get to on public transport.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Killing for animals is in their blood.
In Hilo our spoiled Doberman who never missed a meal decided to start hunting field mice.
We lived next to a huge field that had belonged to C&H sugar.
Were on the land for their very last harvest, sad to see that industry leave Hilo.
On several mornings when we walked outside to say good morning to him ( he was not allowed on the lease to enter the house) he would greet us with a big white mouse in his mouth, it was gross...
he did look so proud of himself however.
Never knew Dobbies were hunters thought they were for guarding.
He tried to catch himself a mongoose once, his poor nose was all bloody and cut, not sure about the mongoose, looks like it had won that round.

All doggies are hunters and mice are easy to catch relatively speaking.   I've got a humane mouse trap here - doesn't kill the mouse.  We capture any mice we might have (we've had one so far) and we put them outside.  We don't know where they go - hopefully to our not very friendly neighbours.

Ca

SimonTrew wrote:

...
Ca

California? Calcium? Canada?  It en Francais?

fluffy2560 wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

...
Ca

California? Calcium? Canada?  It en Francais?

Je ne sais pas, je parle francais comme une vache espanol....

I am just annoyed right now at Hungarian littering. I come home each day, and this is just from walking around the block, with half a dozen tin cans, some paper tissues since nobody seems able to use a handkerchief, a few plastic bags and maybe some hairbands or whatever. This is just on a tipikus day, on a tipikus walk. Althogh I smoke, I put my cigarette butts either in an ashtray or in my pocket and dispose of them at home. I do not recommend smoking it is a disgusting, filthy habit but I happen to be addicted to it, and it is very hard to give up I recommend you strongly never to start because it is easy to start, hard to stop. But what I do NOT do is throw my rubbish on the street, it goes in my pocket and into my own bin/trashcan, or it goes into the public bin which is not hard to find, there is one at every bus stop, I didn't make a meticulous count but about ten at Hubay Jeno tér the local park near us, must be at least four outside the gymnasium/local school at the end of my street, and about six more in the kiddie park opposite, or rather outside the kiddie park. I have absolutely NO idea why people need to drop litter. I live on a street that doesn't have any buses going down it, but EVERY bus route, every bus stop, has a litter bin, that you can put your litter in. I just cannot understand why this Hungarian habit of chucking rubbish... the amount of little coffee cups and McDonald's wrappers, and the nearest McDonald's is five kilometres from here, so are they coming here especially to dump them in my frontage? I doubt it.... they are just, oh, I had a McDonald's, whack out my car window and who gives a s-. Well I tell you who gives a s- I do because my neighbours and myself look after our street and keep it tidy. That is who gives a s- , my neighbours and me.

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

...
Ca

California? Calcium? Canada?  It en Francais?

Je ne sais pas, je parle francais comme un vache espanol....

Tu aussi? Mon Dieu, zut alors.....Mooo.....plus ça change..et comme ça.

fluffy2560 wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

...
Ca

California? Calcium? Canada?  It en Francais?

I have no idea even what I was intending to type there. Just choose any word that starts with "Ca" you have a pretty even gamble. it was probably about cars or cats or calcium or californication, or could be anything really, no idea. I tend to keep my good ideas in my hat,  me titfer, and my bad ideas in my head. So it was probably a bad idea whatever I was starting to say, unless my hat has started to touch type...

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

...
Ca

California? Calcium? Canada?  It en Francais?

I have no idea even what I was intending to type there. Just choose any word that starts with "Ca" you have a pretty even gamble. it was probably about cars or cats or calcium or californication, or could be anything really, no idea. I tend to keep my good ideas in my hat,  me titfer, and my bad ideas in my head. So it was probably a bad idea whatever I was starting to say, unless my hat has started to touch type...

Well you could treat it like word Scrabble and just see what you can make out of it?   

I was going to say Californium which is as a good  a name for an element as any other but that's not Ca but Cf in the periodic table.

Never saw the TV show Californication so don't know what that's about other than that bloke from the X-files was in it.  Gillian Anderson (Scully) is of course, very popular and a regular on British TV - what with her almost flawless British accent (brought up in the UK).  She has a quirk of doing US interviews in an American accent and British ones in an English accent.

SimonTrew wrote:

...... the amount of little coffee cups and McDonald's wrappers, and the nearest McDonald's is five kilometres from here, so are they coming here especially to dump them in my frontage? I doubt it.... they are just, oh, I had a McDonald's, whack out my car window and who gives a s-. Well I tell you who gives a s- I do because my neighbours and myself look after our street and keep it tidy. That is who gives a s- , my neighbours and me.

McDs have a lot to answer for with their wasteful practices.  I was in Costa Coffee today and I had a proper cup I left there for them to wash out and use again.

I don't know if you've been in a British McDs recently - they are almost all self-selection ordering machines now with card payments but they are still wedded to an awful lot of packaging.  Very wasteful. The worst one is the Happy Meal - crappy toy in a plastic bag and in a box.  Tut-Tut.

fluffy2560 wrote:

I don't know if you've been in a British McDs recently - they are almost all self-selection ordering machines now with card payments but they are still wedded to an awful lot of packaging.  Very wasteful. The worst one is the Happy Meal - crappy toy in a plastic bag and in a box.  Tut-Tut.

I haven't been to UK for ages, but there is that self selection ordering in the one at, not quite Mexikoi ut but on Robert Karoly ut very close by, that we used to use occasionally (actually I think the tram stop, for pongracs is closer) and had that. The problem with that, apart from the fact I am absolutely rubbish with machines, is if you need a special order - if you are diabetic, or don't like ketchup, or whatever - there seems no way to be able to do it. I actually DID used to get the Happy Meals, for myself, as four nuggets and a little bag of fries and a coke is all I want for my lunch, then would give the toy to a child in the restaurant to make her day, or just put it in my pocket and give it to my landlady's child. It was just that a Happy Meal, for my lunch, was plenty - I didn't want a huge meal at lunchtime. But yes, the packaging is atrocious.

It is not just McD though. We went to OBI the other day to get a couple of hooks to put in the bathroom. The hooks came in a HUGE plastic box, and inside the box, was a plastic er ziplok bag with some screws and plugs in, which we didn't want or need, and a huge set of cardboard instructions, as if it is impossible to work out how to stick a hook in. This is just ENTIRELY WASTEFUL. We took the packaging all apart and put it in the bin before we even got the bus back home, but WHY GIVE IT TO US IN THE FIRST PLACE? This is the kinda hypocrisy with recycling; we are all told to recycle, but you keep giving us packaging we never asked for, never wanted, and now it is OUR responsibility somehow to dispose of it. I can perfectly undertand packaging things for safety, so that they don't get damaged, etc, but it ends now in a moral er dilemma I think would be the right word, you are in a cleft stick. I want the hook, I don't want the packaging. I can't buy the hook without the packaging, which I didn't want in the first place...

I used to live above a McDonalds in the middle of Cambridge, England, literally above it in a little block of flats, and I was familiar with the franchisees who chucked all the rubbish out each night. One thing that is excellent is McFries boxes, when you are moving. They are kinda exactly the right size, not too big or small, you can easily lift them but you can fit a lot in them, and of course when you have about sixty, they all stack nice and square on the back of the van, as they are, er, all the same size.... McFries boxes are excellent.

Unfortunately of course they then somehow get "borrowed" because someone else who can't be bothered and doesn't want to buy boxes from the removers (understandable, what a con that is) "borrows" them and you never get them back.... must have moved I imagine now six times in five years, not because I am being evicted etc by choice and never bought a box in my life. Last time, went to our local Spar, again we were friendly with the security man there, said is it OK if we just go round the back and take the boxes out of the crate thing? Sure fine, keep it tidy won't you, of course we will. So just all the boxes the stuff comes to the supermarket, thanks very much, about ten a day don't overdo it, thank you.

That is REAL recycling, to reuse something. Not to stick it in some bin, where it magically goes to a "recycling plant" in a diesel van and gets mashed up and whatever, take something, that is already manufactured, and REUSE it. It makes you look like a pillock, especially in Hungary, coming home with a load of cardboard boxes under your arm. So what, I look like a pillock anyway...

fluffy2560 wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

California? Calcium? Canada?  It en Francais?

I have no idea even what I was intending to type there. Just choose any word that starts with "Ca" you have a pretty even gamble. it was probably about cars or cats or calcium or californication, or could be anything really, no idea. I tend to keep my good ideas in my hat,  me titfer, and my bad ideas in my head. So it was probably a bad idea whatever I was starting to say, unless my hat has started to touch type...

Well you could treat it like word Scrabble and just see what you can make out of it?   

I was going to say Californium which is as a good  a name for an element as any other but that's not Ca but Cf in the periodic table.

Never saw the TV show Californication so don't know what that's about other than that bloke from the X-files was in it.  Gillian Anderson (Scully) is of course, very popular and a regular on British TV - what with her almost flawless British accent (brought up in the UK).  She has a quirk of doing US interviews in an American accent and British ones in an English accent.

I remember now, I was after "calcification", but that is a nuisance to do in scrabble what with the three C's, there are only two in the pack so you need a blank, and someone has already usually blocked your treble... also you are only supposed to have seven letters so you need someone to put down, say, "cation" (an ion with a negative charge, instead of an anion, which of course is not an onion) and that actually only ever happens in textbooks. My wife and I play Scrabble quite a lot, but play for fun and so we tend to put out "nice" words instead of always doing the fiddly bits, I mean, just a word that you look at and go, oh that is a nice word, something quirky, indeed "Quirky" itself is a "nice" word... rather than just the way professional scrabblers do it that are always going for the nips and tucks, well that is fine if you are playing for money but it is just me and the missus over the dining table, doesn't really matter who wins. I think we have a missing O and a missing I but who cares, it is kinda we both have the same disadvantage, doesn't matter.

I would have a fair bet on this that my wife is also probably the only Hungarian, at least in Hungary, who plays cribbage. Sometimes she even wins, although I am ahead at the moment. We keep a little book for both scrabble and cribbage and, as I say, just play for fun. If you have children, I suppose you read them bedtime stories and then are so exhausted just collapse in front of the telly, but I don't have children and don't always want to sit in front of the gogglebox so we just have a game of crib or scrabble, we play properly, there is no cheating, but just to finish the evening off. "And so to bed" as Pepys put it at the end of his daily diary entries. (I have just looked it up, and of course Google rather than giving me the expression, gives me a company called https://www.andsotobed.co.uk/ which do "Luxury beds")

Oh yes I am probably committing an offence by not practicing my archery for two hours every Sunday morning... I THINK that one is still on the statute, but the last Labour government did get around to abolishing a lot of these obscure laws that were of course never enforced.... certainly "Arson in His/Her Majesty's Naval Dockyard" is still an offence, but no longer a hanging crime, which it was until the Human Rights Act came in. Keeping sheep by moonlight... the last Labour government had a "one in, one out" policy, i.e. if you introduce a new law then abolish an old one, which seems perfectly practical to me, but then they never stuck to it, so almost ANYTHING is criminal in the UK if you put your mind to it, the thing is Officer Dibble rarely comes round and actually enforces all these laws that are technically crimes, well WHY HAVE THEM THEN?

I am very much a libertarian, as long as you don't hurt me, and I don't hurt you, do whatever you like. But there are stacks of laws for all kinds of things. Some are sensible, but, say, why put the age of consent DOWN for homosexuals but UP for heterosexuals? Obviously they should be the same, but let's face it, children or rather young adults get interested in sexual intercourse at the age they get interested in it, when they reach puberty, setting the thing on the statute is NOT going to change human nature. Romeo and Juliet were twelve when they first met, although admittedly they did not have a particularly successful relationship, what with her chucking herself off a balcony... but again it was all down to family interference, what with the Catapults no Capulets and the Ford Mondeos.... no Montagues... that's the fellows

SimonTrew wrote:

....
The problem with that, apart from the fact I am absolutely rubbish with machines, is if you need a special order - if you are diabetic, or don't like ketchup, or whatever - there seems no way to be able to do it. I actually DID used to get the Happy Meals, for myself, as four nuggets and a little bag of fries and a coke is all I want for my lunch, then would give the toy to a child in the restaurant to make her day, or just put it in my pocket and give it to my landlady's child. It was just that a Happy Meal, for my lunch, was plenty - I didn't want a huge meal at lunchtime. But yes, the packaging is atrocious.

The ones I used in the UK were quite good.  You could specify no ketchup (that's a no-no for diabetics as it's basically sugar).  It was pretty good overall because that tuning of your food is visibly possible and you don't get that at the counter (or know it's possible).   The toys are just awful.  These cost extra money and clog up landfill so if you have the opportunity, don't take the toy.  I notice in some places you can get the Happy Meal without the box now.   But I'm of the opinion Mickey D's has had it's day.  We had a McDonalds here but it closed down which is highly unusual. Now it's a Euro Family discount store.  I met the marketing director McDs here in Hungary once and he said they (McDs) would never allow a store to go bust visibly, they'd take it over beforehand (as about 1/2 are franchisees).   But imagine being the franchisee holder for McDs on the autopalya to Austria (60km marker) or the ones downtown. License to print money as no competition!

SimonTrew wrote:

....
It is not just McD though. We went to OBI the other day to get a couple of hooks to put in the bathroom. The hooks came in a HUGE plastic box, and inside the box, was a plastic er ziplok bag with some screws and plugs in, which we didn't want or need, and a huge set of cardboard instructions, as if it is impossible to work out how to stick a hook in. This is just ENTIRELY WASTEFUL. We took the packaging all apart and put it in the bin before we even got the bus back home, but WHY GIVE IT TO US IN THE FIRST PLACE? This is the kinda hypocrisy with recycling; we are all told to recycle, but you keep giving us packaging we never asked for, never wanted, and now it is OUR responsibility somehow to dispose of it........

In Austria and elsewhere, you can ask the Supplier to take away the materials.  But overall in Eastern Europe, they are still using polystyrene packaging which is really hard to get rid of and polluting - the little bits break off and get stuck in the environment.   I've seen recycled cardboard inserts recently which are obviously the way to go but again, what do you do with it as well?   

At the moment, it's burn garden rubbish time - thing to do is burn it if you can (not the polystyrene or plastic) in your wood burner or stick it in with the leaves to help the fire get going.   We use our free advertising newspapers as fire materials.  Good enough!

SimonTrew wrote:

I would have a fair bet on this that my wife is also probably the only Hungarian, at least in Hungary, who plays cribbage. Sometimes she even wins, although I am ahead at the moment. We keep a little book for both scrabble and cribbage and, as I say, just play for fun. If you have children, I suppose you read them bedtime stories and then are so exhausted just collapse in front of the telly, but I don't have children and don't always want to sit in front of the gogglebox so we just have a game of crib or scrabble, we play properly, there is no cheating, but just to finish the evening off. "And so to bed" as Pepys put it at the end of his daily diary entries. (I have just looked it up, and of course Google rather than giving me the expression, gives me a company called https://www.andsotobed.co.uk/ which do "Luxury beds")

You fall asleep reading the story and wake up at 3am on the floor next to them wondering where you are.   I regularly used to drive a 500+ miles a week to jobs and when I got home in the evening the kids would like to jump on me while I was laying on the floor.  Half the time, I'd fall asleep while we would be playing and they'd wander off.  My Missus of the time used to let me sleep which could have been anywhere between 30 minutes and 6h.

When your kids are like 8-9, they aren't interested much in the story as they want to play Minecraft.  When they are older (teens), they might just want a chat about something or if annoyed (often), say nothing.  Have to take it as it comes day by day - I think perhaps it lasts between say late-12s to around maybe 16 or so? Maybe? 

Teenagers are terrible at self-management.  It's brain development - they have limited abilities to see the consequences of their actions as the frontal lobe needs time. So if you say, "go to bed as it's school tomorrow", they'll complain like hell even though they are utterly exhausted.  They simply cannot work it out.  But if there is a complaint one might have about their situation is that school is really intense here.  Much more intense than the UK.

The thread was too long ago for me to reply directly but Marilyn was spot on with her guess about the Derby being called that because of the old racetrack which is now the Arena Plaza. It is just one of those really odd things that had never occurred to me before, it is obvious when you think about it... my Hungarian wife said how it is pronounced in Hungarian, which is somewhere between how we would pronounce it in British English and how it is pronounced in Kentucky, but that is Hungarian vowels for you, it doesn't have an é but she pronounces it that way. Maybe it does, I don't think it does though, I think just a straight e. I find Hungarian vowels very difficult to pronounce at the best of times. Új always gets me, every time. And I live in Újpalota on a street that is named in Swedish, so I have a hell of a struggle with it all, I know what a szamitogép is, and that is all very simple, then you go to a computer shop that is called a KOMPUTER for some reason rather than szamitogépbolt like it should be. I have this constant struggle switching languages, because we speak English at home, but as soon as I go out on the street am speaking Hungarian or Roma or sometimes German, for some reason everyone seems to think I am German, or understand German, which I don't... so my brain is constantly switching languages and it is hard work sometimes. I got an English copy of The Economist from the newsstand at Kéleti Pályaúdvar the other day, which I haven't read yet, so I might go down the pub and just sit outside and read that. I only had half a pint of Guinness at the pub yesterday, but it was nice to sit outside and watch the world go by (of course I sit outside as I have to have a gasper in my gob). I should really go to get a new telly and a new laptop, but I am not sure I can be bothered today, it has been quite a busy weekend. I should actually be on holiday, as if THAT is ever going to happen.

SimonTrew wrote:

..... for some reason everyone seems to think I am German, or understand German, which I don't... so my brain is constantly switching languages and it is hard work sometimes. I got an English copy of The Economist from the newsstand .....

I think they think because you're a foreigner you must be German because that's the only other language THEY might know.   

Here, I try them in English and if that doesn't work, I try German and if that's no good, it's half-assed Hungarian and the last resort Mime.

BTW, my school French is useless but I notice more French people driving their cars around here recently - the French school is not that far away and then there's the Auchan crew.  Oo..la-la...

Get the electronic version of the Economist - you can read it then on your smartphone to save carrying the paper.  I stopped with the paper version and now get it automatically updated.  They also do Economist Espresso which are short paragraphs of stories of the day. I find that really useful.

fluffy2560 wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

....
The problem with that, apart from the fact I am absolutely rubbish with machines, is if you need a special order - if you are diabetic, or don't like ketchup, or whatever - there seems no way to be able to do it. I actually DID used to get the Happy Meals, for myself, as four nuggets and a little bag of fries and a coke is all I want for my lunch, then would give the toy to a child in the restaurant to make her day, or just put it in my pocket and give it to my landlady's child. It was just that a Happy Meal, for my lunch, was plenty - I didn't want a huge meal at lunchtime. But yes, the packaging is atrocious.

The ones I used in the UK were quite good.  You could specify no ketchup (that's a no-no for diabetics as it's basically sugar).  It was pretty good overall because that tuning of your food is visibly possible and you don't get that at the counter (or know it's possible).   The toys are just awful.  These cost extra money and clog up landfill so if you have the opportunity, don't take the toy.  I notice in some places you can get the Happy Meal without the box now.   But I'm of the opinion Mickey D's has had it's day.  We had a McDonalds here but it closed down which is highly unusual. Now it's a Euro Family discount store.  I met the marketing director McDs here in Hungary once and he said they (McDs) would never allow a store to go bust visibly, they'd take it over beforehand (as about 1/2 are franchisees).   But imagine being the franchisee holder for McDs on the autopalya to Austria (60km marker) or the ones downtown. License to print money as no competition!

SimonTrew wrote:

....
It is not just McD though. We went to OBI the other day to get a couple of hooks to put in the bathroom. The hooks came in a HUGE plastic box, and inside the box, was a plastic er ziplok bag with some screws and plugs in, which we didn't want or need, and a huge set of cardboard instructions, as if it is impossible to work out how to stick a hook in. This is just ENTIRELY WASTEFUL. We took the packaging all apart and put it in the bin before we even got the bus back home, but WHY GIVE IT TO US IN THE FIRST PLACE? This is the kinda hypocrisy with recycling; we are all told to recycle, but you keep giving us packaging we never asked for, never wanted, and now it is OUR responsibility somehow to dispose of it........

In Austria and elsewhere, you can ask the Supplier to take away the materials.  But overall in Eastern Europe, they are still using polystyrene packaging which is really hard to get rid of and polluting - the little bits break off and get stuck in the environment.   I've seen recycled cardboard inserts recently which are obviously the way to go but again, what do you do with it as well?   

At the moment, it's burn garden rubbish time - thing to do is burn it if you can (not the polystyrene or plastic) in your wood burner or stick it in with the leaves to help the fire get going.   We use our free advertising newspapers as fire materials.  Good enough!

Yeah, we are not allowed to burn anything around here so I just end up with stacks of the stuff.... you are quite right saying don't burn polystyrene, well what CAN you do with it? I mean, you can use it to insulate something if you are that way inclined, but everything is already insulated, it is EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE as Fluffy implies so please do NOT go around just sticking it anywhere, you have a fire, that will knock you out, kill you, and probably set your whole house on fire. Perhaps I am a bit cautious about this but I know people who work for the Fire Brigade, and I have also had a house fire myself that fortunately was put out quite quickly, but the smoke damage lasted for years... especially with polystyrene, you still get these, er, can't think of the word the bits that go around the top of your rooms, if they are made of polystyrene, do NOT paint them with gloss paint, the two will react and self-ignite. Better to get wood, like I do. Yeah, you can burn a bit of wood, like Fluffster does in his woodburner, but it takes a long time to get going. Polystyrene will go up like s- off a shovel if you put a match anywhere near it, and then you have quite a lot of trouble on your hands. I advise you not to.

Safety lecture over.

The UK Micky D's wasting paper and it is illegal to give out plastic straw in Ca. Think if you ask for one they will still give them out but not automatically.
Haven't eaten in a fast food joint in a long-long time, never crave that stuff.
Will indulge in a Taco Bell burrito when possible but after one of those I'm usually sorry later...
Trying hard to cut down on white flour sugar and chemicals in our food. Bad enough that the veggies are grown  in over used depleted soil and they spray everything.
Sugar is dangerous.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Here, I try them in English and if that doesn't work, I try German and if that's no good, it's half-assed Hungarian and the last resort Mime.

I can speak French very well, so perhaps we should switch houses There is a blind school, if that is the right word, somewhere down on near where I live and in a tranche in the mornings you get lots of blind people, so I finger touch that way, but don't know the Hungarian for it, so I am kinda doing it in English. At the pub, the last couple of days, have been two deaf people signing, I am not interested in what they are saying, I am not a gossip, but I only know British Sign and not Hungarian Sign so it is entirely meaningless to me. (just to say hello, I am Simon, nice to meet you). It is a noisy street so actually being deaf there, they have the advantage of not hearing the traffic I really should learn some Hungarian Sign but I would not know where to start. The basic signs for please and thankyou seem to be the same, certainly thankyou is, that you just take right hand put it on your bottom lip and sort of flick it, that seems to be the same. Of course if I do something in British Sign, nobody has a clue what I am saying.

I learned a lot of British Sign off the television, off of See Hear as it used to be called and now the Sign Zone on the BBC overnight. It is not the best way to learn, but as I am watching the programme, I watch the signer and try to pick up the signs and symbols they are signing. So I know my letters and numbers in British Sign and know quite a few words, but it is not very helpful here in Hungary, because of course it is British Sign, people would assume I think that if you want a deaf sign language it is all going to be the same worldwide, well of course it is not, because you have idioms and expressions and different grammar etc. So now I have, in a sense, a completely useless language, that I might as well have learned nemetul or Slovakian or Czech or something instead, but I like watching it, on the Sign Zone, it is a bit of a compilation of BBC programmes overnight (as I am rather a night owl) and I just watch the signer on the right hand side and pick up some sign. I don't get a chance to practice, of course. But I have learned quite a lot.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

I was just in Roltex  a couple weeks ago and bought a zipper.
It's not a mail order store.

I am just trying to think, in British English, whether we would call it a zipper... I think we would just call it a zip... yeah we would. First named, if I remember correctly, from a brand of boots, it is a back-formation and someone made a set of boots that instead of having shoelaces had these newfangled zip fasteners on them, and they branded them as "zippers", if I remember correctly.

Again it is one of those words that you think, now what is that going to be in Hungarian? It COULD be zip, or zipper, or you could have somehow translated it, as the Hungarian Academy likes to translate things, then you have the trial of are you going to call it a zip or whatever you back-translated it into... fütyelés or süvites apparently according to my translating dictionary... but then how are you going to translate ZIP code? You can't do it that way, it would make no sense... in British English we call it a postal code... you can't just translate ZIP in that way, can you? So you have this kinda struggle or at least I do all the time, pace Wittgenstein, of going I know what it IS, I just don't know what it is CALLED.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

The UK Micky D's wasting paper and it is illegal to give out plastic straw in Ca. Think if you ask for one they will still give them out but not automatically.
Haven't eaten in a fast food joint in a long-long time, never crave that stuff.
Will indulge in a Taco Bell burrito when possible but after one of those I'm usually sorry later...
Trying hard to cut down on white flour sugar and chemicals in our food. Bad enough that the veggies are grown  in over used depleted soil and they spray everything.
Sugar is dangerous.

Sugar is not dangerous. I don't eat in fast food restaurants much, I cook at home, that is why I have a cooker, but every now and again when you are in a hurry and at the shopping centre/mall it is just take the weight off your boots and have a McDonalds or whatever, that is what they are there for. I hate going around malls and they are designed for cars so I have to walk, and I am not kidding, a mile to get from the bus stop to where I want to go in the shopping centre for my little letters to stick on my clock, from the art store. I HATE the things.

Yes, wholemeal flour is better for you, but all sugar, sucrose, will do, is make you fat, it won't hurt you. You're right about pesticides, then all the veggies get pesticides over them which doesn't really need to be done, if you farm organically.

That is usually going to be some kind of phosphorate which is easy to kill every insect in the world. Then we get no bees or wasps to pollinate our flowers, because all been killed off. I will grow my own veg in my own back garden but cannot change this house around everything at the same time, but then I am not going to be using phosphorate insect killers. Most insects are pretty nice. The missus said she saw an ant the other day, well ants won't do you any harm, they will get in any gap you have, but won't do you any harm, what is the problem with an ant? She will spray it with VAPE or whatever and well just leave it alone, if you have a bee or wasp on your window, catch it in a glass and put it outside, it is trying to get out and doesn't understand windows, it is 200 million years old and hasn't worked out how windows work, yet. Now it can go and pollinate some flowers or something, no need to kill it.

I'm bad, I just ask my husband to translate everything, I have no interest in being in Hungary without him so there's that.
Lazy maybe but if I don't remember a Hungarian word I just ask my man for help.
I know allot more hUngarian then I think I do, sometimes I think I know 10% of a conversation, sometimes I actually understood 15% and other times not even a fraction of a percentage.
It's too late to learn enough to make a difference at this point.
Know just enough Hungarian to get myself into trouble, best to not even try.
I put myself in the other person's shoes, it must be a drag to listen to a fumbling idiot trying to say something in Hungarian who has no clue what they are doing.
People are too busy these days to even speak to each other in their native language, why would they want to waste time with a flumbling fool? It's all good, I'm not all that interested in hearing about this or that in Hungarian either these days.

SimonTrew wrote:

....At the pub, the last couple of days, have been two deaf people signing, I am not interested in what they are saying, I am not a gossip, but I only know British Sign and not Hungarian Sign so it is entirely meaningless to me. (just to say hello, I am Simon, nice to meet you). It is a noisy street so actually being deaf there, they have the advantage of not hearing the traffic I really should learn some Hungarian Sign but I would not know where to start. The basic signs for please and thankyou seem to be the same, certainly thankyou is, that you just take right hand put it on your bottom lip and sort of flick it, that seems to be the same. Of course if I do something in British Sign, nobody has a clue what I am saying.

Youtube is a good place for finding how to sign. 

And I've said before here in these forums, it's good fun to play it with kids. 

It's like playing charades. 

You'd think signing would be universal but nope.  Could have been a peacemaker of a language.

For afternoon TV, try The Miracle Worker.  I saw this as a kid and it made a lasting impression on me then.  Should be on YouTube with a search.

I've no time ATM to look up sources about white sugar and how bad it is for you.
It is horrible in so many ways , making you fat is the least of it.
I know it causes damage to organs etc. Thyroid issues, high blood pressure and many other aliments can be reversed by cutting out sugar.
even too much fruit isn't great.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

I've no time ATM to look up sources about white sugar and how bad it is for you.
It is horrible in so many ways , making you fat is the least of it.
I know it causes damage to organs etc. Thyroid issues, high blood pressure and many other aliments can be reversed by cutting out sugar.
even too much fruit isn't great.

The Beverley Sisters, "It's illegal it's immoral or it makes you fat" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuDo2DrLPYA

we can sing it together one day, although I am not sure who can make the third Beverly Sister... Fluffster maybe....

SimonTrew wrote:

....
Sugar is not dangerous. I don't eat in fast food restaurants much, I cook at home, that is why I have a cooker, but every now and again when you are in a hurry and at the shopping centre/mall it is just take the weight off your boots and have a McDonalds or whatever, that is what they are there for. I hate going around malls and they are designed for cars so I have to walk, and I am not kidding, a mile to get from the bus stop to where I want to go in the shopping centre for my little letters to stick on my clock, from the art store. I HATE the things.

Yes, wholemeal flour is better for you, but all sugar, sucrose, will do, is make you fat, it won't hurt you. You're right about pesticides, then all the veggies get pesticides over them which doesn't really need to be done, if you farm organically.
...

Unfortunately I know about sugary things.

Background - the thing about sugar in shops is that it's refined sugar (which in most cases is really glucose and a carbohydrate).  So if you have it, it's more or less straight into your bloodstream and if you are a diabetic, it's going to cause a spike and it's the spikes that damage you by hardening your arteries.   In non-diabetics, the control system is that the pancreas releases insulin in response to keep the levels correct.  That mechanism doesn't work in diabetics  (type 2 - insulin resistance, type 1 - no insulin producing cells).   Other sugars like fructose do indeed turn into fat so they get you in another way.   

So  it's not just wholemeal flour, it's the glycaemic index (GI)which is important.   That's the rate at which the flour - for example - is turned into carbohydrates.   So it's not wholemeal in all types, but specifically which one?  The lower the GI, the better.

Many diabetics "low carb" which means <100g of carbs per day.   The medical wisdom is that's not a good thing due to the loss of other important ingredients or aspects (like roughage/fibre) for health but it works for many and they feel better for it.  So no pasta, bread etc.  Energy you can get from protein and fat as alternatives which some view as counterintuitive as "healthy".

If I had a daily whinge, it's places like Aldi and Lidl.  Nearly all of their packaged food contains huge amounts of sugar.  Cheap food is often sugary food. Best thing is fresh stuff and forget any sauces or dressings they offer.  The most  stupid thing is reading the food labels "low-fat" also tends to mean "high sugar".   In other words, it's a con!  I'd almost call it a crime.

SimonTrew wrote:

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

I've no time ATM to look up sources about white sugar and how bad it is for you.
It is horrible in so many ways , making you fat is the least of it.
I know it causes damage to organs etc. Thyroid issues, high blood pressure and many other aliments can be reversed by cutting out sugar.
even too much fruit isn't great.

The Beverley Sisters, "It's illegal it's immoral or it makes you fat" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuDo2DrLPYA

we can sing it together one day, although I am not sure who can make the third Beverly Sister... Fluffster maybe....

I've not got the legs and I sing like a howlin' wolf on a full moon night.

So much so, I'm thinking of joining a pack and starting by getting this T-shirt
(such great reviews).