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General Chat => Off Topic => Topic started by: Jared Katooie on 30 May, 2011, 07:58:38 PM

Title: String.
Post by: Jared Katooie on 30 May, 2011, 07:58:38 PM
I've been thinking about string lately. Bronw strign mainly.

I use to see a lot of it on the ground as a kid, when I was walking across the wasteland to the newsagents. There's always be little bits of it dotted here and there around the place.

Nowadays I hardly see it at all.

Has anyone got any theories as to where the string came from (people opening bundles of newspaper in a field)? And how come I don't see it anymore (Is it just because I'm further from the ground now, or has string become osolete)?
Title: Re: String.
Post by: Definitely Not Mister Pops on 30 May, 2011, 08:09:20 PM
I reckon it had something to do with postmen's bundles of letters.

Nowadays I keep seeing red rubber bands everywhere. I think that's also the postman. Any posties here to confirm that?

Also does anyone know where I can get some bailing twine? It looks like the brown string you're talking about except its blue
Title: Re: String.
Post by: I, Cosh on 30 May, 2011, 08:13:46 PM
Good question. I think there's certainly a difference in the lengths of pieces of string nowadays compared with when we were kids.
Title: Re: String.
Post by: The Enigmatic Dr X on 30 May, 2011, 08:15:35 PM
May I also mention white dog poo, before anyone else does.

And pages from porn mags in hedges (who put them there? why?)
Title: Re: String.
Post by: flip-r mk2 on 30 May, 2011, 08:19:03 PM
mmmmmmmmmmm hedge porn.



filip
Title: Re: String.
Post by: vzzbux on 30 May, 2011, 08:27:03 PM
Pallet/bundle strapping may have something to do with it.






V
Title: Re: String.
Post by: mogzilla on 30 May, 2011, 09:08:06 PM
i always had string in my pockets as a boy plus rubber bands ,paper clips and stones y'know just in case... also used to carry my cheapo penknife when such things where for carving twigs instead of others
Title: Re: String.
Post by: Van Dom on 30 May, 2011, 09:19:53 PM
I don't know where all the bits of string are gone. I miss them too. String! We need more of it!

As for that white dog poo, Dr. X, I've often wondered that myself. What's the deal with that? How did it come about in the first place (white poo?) and why don't you see it anymore (not that I want to, necessarily, but ya know what I mean!) Maybe it wasn't dog poo at all, maybe it was alien droppings, and now the aliens have all gone home.

With plenty of string.
Title: Re: String.
Post by: vzzbux on 30 May, 2011, 09:25:12 PM
White dog poo was the product of the calcium that was put into the dog food of yesteryear (Bone meal etc). A trait which isn't practised so much today.




V
Title: Re: String.
Post by: Van Dom on 30 May, 2011, 09:39:09 PM
Ah-hah! One of (my) life's great mysteries solved. Thank you kindly sir! :)
(would have been cooler if they were alien droppings though!!! ) :lol:
Title: Re: String.
Post by: mogzilla on 30 May, 2011, 11:29:42 PM
i think it may also be age of poo.when we finally cleared my poor departed dog's shed there was a bit of poo that had been missed in the grief,it was white.
Title: Re: String.
Post by: Peter Wolf on 31 May, 2011, 12:06:38 AM
Heres another:

Just who is it that vandalises bikes that are parked in public places ?

You always see parked bikes where the wheels have been stamped or bent out of shape by some invisible force because i have never ever seen anyone actually doing this.Another is bikes that have been stripped of parts.
Title: Re: String.
Post by: House of Usher on 31 May, 2011, 01:34:21 AM
The red rubber bands are indeed down to postmen. Royal Mail rubber bands come in two sizes, erm - large and small - and they cost Royal Mail millions every year. For one thing a lot of them break, especially the small ones, because they are frequently overstretched. They are only meant to go round a bundle of letters side-on, not lengthways (that's what the large bands are for), but you still see postmen trying to stretch the small ones to the length of a bundle of A5 or A4 correspondence because they are too lazy to search the depot for a handful of large size, which are like the proverbial gold dust. Then the small bands they used incorrectly snap anyway.

When I was delivering I used to finish the day with a satchel pocket absolutely stuffed with rubber bands for re-use the next day. It makes sense to keep them because you don't want to waste time in the morning searching around for replacements, especially the large size. However, red rubber bands get dropped all over the place because some postman are too lazy, careless or wasteful to pocket them for re-use, but the postmen aren't exclusively to blame: some of the delivery pouches are so worn out they have holes in, so you may scrupulously deposit every used rubber band in your satchel only to find at some point along your route that you've been losing a lot of them out of a hole in the compartment you put them in.


Re: string. We sell string in the supermarket where I work. It doesn't have a very great breaking strain. I know because I used some to tie a bundle of newspapers weighing no more than 10 kilos, and the string broke when I picked it up. Thenceforth I resolved to use garden twine instead or double up on lengths of string for greater resistance.
Title: Re: String.
Post by: TordelBack on 31 May, 2011, 07:03:27 AM
Quote from: mogzilla on 30 May, 2011, 11:29:42 PM
i think it may also be age of poo.when we finally cleared my poor departed dog's shed there was a bit of poo that had been missed in the grief,it was white.

Indeed.  AFAIK from my days volunteering in an animal shelter, the white stuff is a calcium residue resulting from eating bones/bonemeal, and when the delicious organic brown stuff has been had away with, it remains as a sort of poo-skeleton or stalacpoo (hence the white can be just a treacherous crust  overlying still-vibrant brown in younger models). Thus it's both diet and age that combine to create this once-ubiquitous marvel.
Title: Re: String.
Post by: zombemybabynow on 31 May, 2011, 12:01:15 PM
ha ha string-theory
Title: Re: String.
Post by: mogzilla on 31 May, 2011, 12:11:31 PM
my dad had a pet shop and we used to sell the green garden string hhich smelt weird ,i was never a fan of the blue nylon string which didnt make for good rope swings as you got some tremendous friction burns.
Title: Re: String.
Post by: Proudhuff on 31 May, 2011, 12:25:25 PM
Quote from: Jared Katooie on 30 May, 2011, 07:58:38 PM
Has anyone got any theories as to where the string came from (people opening bundles of newspaper in a field)? And how come I don't see it anymore (Is it just because I'm further from the ground now, or has string become osolete)?

Small lengths of string were also used by farmhands round the bottom of their breeks to keep the rats out, spare lengths were often carried,