I've been overhauling the Sturmey Archer 5 speed hub gear on my older Brompton.
Needed something to clean out the central bore in the spindle through which the toggle chain connects with the gear selector key. A pipe cleaner would have been ideal.
Asked at the tobacco counter in the supermarket but was told they 'might' have then around times x&y (for kids modelling) but not otherwise. Thought my best bet would be Hobbycraft.
What other once common place items have taken on a different use?
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Can't answer the question, but will a cotton bud do to clean out the spindle or is it too wide and or not strong enough?
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>>Can't answer your question
Same here, but how about attaching a thin piece of lint free cloth to a length of wire and pulling/pushing that through.
Not that I've ever overhauled a Sturmey Archer 5 speed gear, or any other gear come to that.
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Try a tobacconist if there is such a thing in your neck of the woods. Supermarkets are only interested in turning over fags and baccy, not the art or hobby of smoking a pipe.
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glue...it used to be for sticking things together... now its passed around like a joint these days
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>> the art or hobby of smoking a pipe.
Jock, my louche but agreeable Glaswegian next door neighbour in the Grove, once told me earnestly: 'Drinking is my hobby, AC.'
It was too. I wouldn't dream of trying to keep up with him.
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In a similar vein to pipe-cleaners:
Spills.
My grandfather kept them in a special pot by the fire. used for lighting the fire, and also for relighting his pipe.
Muratti's after-lunch cigarettes in a metal tin depicting a reclining Bertie Wooster character using a long cirarette holder ?
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The cable tie.
Used for every bodge under the sun from hanging exhausts to replacing hoseclips.
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Metal coat hangers.
Exaust supports. Slug collectors. Hooks for bird feeders.
How did we exist without them
Thank goodness they multiply well in dark wardrobes
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>> Metal coat hangers.
>>
>> Exaust supports. Slug collectors. Hooks for bird feeders.
Radio aerials too for a while.
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those modern iphones are everything but a phone these days
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>> those modern iphones are everything but a phone these days
>>
Very true! My Samsung phone seems to be able to do lots of things, but for making a phone call it is poorer in every way compared to my previous conventional Nokia phone.
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>> those modern iphones are everything but a phone these days
>>
Having had a little think, I reckon my little HTC spends more time in use as a torch then I do talking on it.
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Handkerchiefs. For almost any little cleaning job, one is usually all you need.
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Baby wipes. Invaluable in a car/lorry for cleaning steering wheels, gear levers and other touch points that don't want polishing. Also for removing fresh bird muck, as well as cleaning grubby hands after a roadside repair or wheel change. Quite handy for de-chocolating small faces too. I get through a pack a month, but haven't wiped an actual baby with one for several years.
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not wishing to sound man baggish or metro sexuall..... those face wipes the females use for taking off make up and cleaning the skin...brilliant for camping trips when you pitched too far from the block house...once around the pits and genits.. a quick splash of lynx... and its all good ... one for manpower me thinks?
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>> not wishing to sound man baggish or metro sexuall..... those face wipes the females use
>> for taking off make up and cleaning the skin...brilliant for camping trips when you pitched
>> too far from the block house...once around the pits and genits.. a quick splash of
>> lynx... and its all good ... one for manpower me thinks?
>>
>>
Any lorry driver would agree; office or factory workers would be outraged if they had no option but to go to bed without having showered or at least washed, but for some reason it's OK for us to park up in a god-forsaken lay-by, get ourselves clean as best we can with wet-wipes and if necessary use the hedge for "other needs".
Whatever the Europeans may do wrong, they at least provide decent (and usually free) facilities for long-distance drivers. Many MSA's over here charge getting on for £30 just to park, and often there's one (frequently broken or just filthy) shower for perhaps up to fifty drivers.
If this happened in HM's prisons there's be an outcry. }:-{
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>> Handkerchiefs. For almost any little cleaning job, one is usually all you need.
>>
Or all you have got. If you are caught short in a lavatory. You get the meaning...
As far as pipe-cleaners go, we have a very good local shop, which sells 'discount' cigarettes etc. They also stock rolling papers, hookah pipes, herbal smoking stuff, pipe cleaners, a variety of lighters, refill gas, and some really good lighter fluid which works wonders in my Zippo, and also does 1001 household tasks.
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not had to use a pipe cleaner re ' caught short' but im looking into it
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Fag packet to set points
IIRC a rubber glove or a plastic bag for a Mini distributor.
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Marigold and rubber bands FTW!
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One of the simple pleasures of my younger years was bending pipe cleaners to make all sorts of stuff.
I'm sure that 90% of pipe cleaners sold never saw the inside of a pipe.
In fact, I recall the last time I saw a chap smoking a pipe was about 2 years ago.*
I must invest in one, and some St Bruno's Flake (my maternal grandfather's brand) before the custom disappears.
* when was the last time YOU chaps saw a pipe smoker?
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>> * when was the last time YOU chaps saw a pipe smoker?
>>
>>
>>
Not for years.
In my early days as an ADI there was a Supervising Examiner who used to carry out the mandatory check test on instructors during a lesson. He used to sit in the back puffing away merrily on his pipe, engulfed in a cloud of smoke which filled the car. Back then you wouldn't even think of complaining, bit of a difference to these days when examiners have been instructed to refuse to conduct driving tests in cars where there is evidence that cigarettes have been smoked in the vehicle.
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>> I'm sure that 90% of pipe cleaners sold never saw the inside of a pipe.
>>
>> * when was the last time YOU chaps saw a pipe smoker?
>>
My old Dad dabbled with a pipe, I used to liberate his pipe cleaners for my mouthpieces - cornet and trumpet.
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>>I must invest in one, and some St Bruno's Flake (my maternal grandfather's brand) before the custom disappears.
>>
But will you be able find a pipe smoker penknife to add to the kit ?
I have a couple of them given to me by the widow of a wartime RAF navigator.
One is like this
www.smoke-king.co.uk/acatalog/Mitchell-Thomas-Smokers-Knife-599.html
The other is the same except instead of a blade there is a straight sided thick blade with no cutting edge.s
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>>One is like this
www.smoke-king.co.uk/acatalog/Mitchell-Thomas-Smokers-Knife-599.html
I've one of them that's been lurking in my toolbox since I gave up a pipe ten years ago. The anvil end's worn almost circular (I never did develop the asbestos thumb of other pipe smokers).
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I used store rolls of film for my camera in little plastic cannisters (with a pop-on lid). I keep one in the car nowadays to store small change for parking.
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>>
>> I must invest in one, and some St Bruno's Flake (my maternal grandfather's brand)
>>
Same here - I think it must have been a maternal gf thing. My father smoked Four-square yellow (Red on special occasions) and he was always arguing with his fil over the rival merits of St Bruno's and 4-Square.
Sometimes they would solemnly sit puffing away at each other's brand trying to understand the other's taste.
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My friend (now in his '70s) is a lifelong dedicated pipe smoker and really does make a hobby out of it. He has an amazing array of specialist tools for scraping, cleaning, etc. He's a retired nuclear scientist and the most laid-back, contented man I know (which may be to do with his UKAEA pension!). I've never smoked in my life but when we stay with him I actually quite enjoy the aroma and the ambiance.
Around here you can still buy things like hookahs quite easily. There's one shop near here that has a display of them in the window. I guess it must have something to do with the large minority of North Africans and Turks in the area.
When I was a junior printer's devil our company accountant used to send me to the tobacconist for his regular 'ounce of Parson's Pleasure'.
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One pipe tobacco I love the smell of is Clan, a sweet aromatic blend. Haven't seen anyone smoke it (or any pipe come to that) for years, but a quick Google shows it is still available.
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I think I may have told this tale before on here, but it bears re-telling.
Used to smoke a pipe, on and off back in the 80's. Started when I was in the Army, very useful on winter exercises as you could keep your fingers warm whilst having a crafty smoke. Usually had a non-descript small briar; favourite tobacco was Germain's Plum Cake.
The downside was if you had to hide it quick; more than one combat jacket pocket ended up with a hole burned in it. And there is nowhere on a Bedford dashboard to rest a pipe either.
After I left the Army (and before I got into Harleys) I spent a lot of my spare time working on preserved railways, where pipe smoking was quite common especially among the older ex-BR volunteers.
Sitting one winter lunchtime in the mess room (a 1913 Pullman coach, now restored I believe) at the Midland Railway Centre, Butterley, coal stove blazing, mug of tea in hand and pipe going nicely, I was joined by Ernie Lamb, the site electrician and a noted character. Seating himself opposite me, he pulled out a small briar pipe and tried to light it; after much poking with a matchstick, and gazing sorrowfully into the near-empty bowl, I took pity on Ernie and pushed my tobacco tin across the table for him to recharge his pipe.
In a sleight-of-hand worthy of Tommy Cooper himself, the tiny briar disappeared and in his hand sat something that looked like a beer keg with a broom handle stuck into it. He up-ended the contents of my tin into this massive bucket, tamped it down, lit it, nodded his thanks to me (still sitting with me jaw on the table) got up and walked out of the cabin.... whereupon the whole room erupted. I had been well and truly "had"..... as had every other pipe smoker who'd met Ernie for the first time.
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How come we all look back affectionally on memories and smells of smoking from the past...and yet now it is sooooo not accepted?
Pat
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>> How come we all look back affectionally on memories and smells of smoking from the past...and yet now it is sooooo not accepted?
>> Pat
All adults chainsmoked when I was a child during and after the second war. I hated the smoke and the smell of matches in particular but in those days we just had to lump it. Now people think you are abusing their children if you smoke in their presence.
In the fifties I attended a public school where those over 16 were allowed to smoke, in one room, about every other Sunday evening - any other place and time would get you flogged unless you were a school captain. Many of my classmates were enthusiastic smokers, but I wasn't.
In the sixties I worked in and for the tobacco industry in market research and got free snout, any amount, favourite brand, just ask the brand manager... sixty a day untipped, an addict. Cigarette addiction is potentially more deadly than and just as expensive as virtually all the illegal drugs I've tried... like the other legal drug alcohol come to think of it.
I tell the doctor I'm on ten a day but it's usually more than that. Bad stuff. The Beatles were right about Walter Raleigh...
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isnt niccotine one of the most poisonous substances know to man?
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>> isnt niccotine one of the most poisonous substances know to man?
>>
Not as poisonous as car exhaust fumes.
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>> How come we all look back affectionally on memories and smells of smoking from the
>> past...and yet now it is sooooo not accepted?
>>
>> Pat
Memories of smoking? Pubs with a haze of smoke in them, yellow walls, burning eyes, dogs ends down the urinal (yes I know it makes them hard to light) blocking up the drain with pee lapping round your shoes, cinemas so thick with smoke its a wonder the magic light rays got through to the dim flickering screen, train carriages where the condensation mixed with the nicotine would leave yellow streaks down the window, clothes stinking of fags, decorating the house every year because the walls were yellow.
It was disgusting then, its disgusting now.
Last edited by: Zero on Sun 3 Mar 13 at 17:29
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>> It was disgusting then, its disgusting now.
Oh quite, absolutely, no doubt of it.
But what's wrong with a bit of disgusting? Only a fantasist would imagine that a healthy measure of disgusting could possibly be eliminated from the human condition.
Heh heh...
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>> train carriages
>> where the condensation mixed with the nicotine would leave yellow streaks down the window
You'd get on the smoking carriage by mistake and the air would be thick with smog and your eyes would burn. The difference between that carriage and the non smoking ones, jeez. The smokers never looked very happy either. Cheer up it's supposed to be a pleasurable experience :)
I like the smell of pipe smoke and stuff like Old Holborn, but only outside. Inside it gets too overpowering.
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Smug mode on.
I stopped smoking - cold turkey - 40 years ago. Can't stand the smell now. Grateful for money saved.
Smug mode off.
Last edited by: Roger on Sun 3 Mar 13 at 20:10
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My old fourth year form Master and French teacher had the same trick, small pipe for the ounce of Gallaher's honeydew he smoked per day, and a huge pipe if the baccy was passed at the club.
Admired this guy for the way he tackled one problem. We used to smoke out of the class window at lunchtime, evidence of hundreds of nub ends in the bushes.
This teacher walked in, looked at the gathering ash etc in the bushes outside and without a word walked to the blackboard and wrote, 1oz xGallaher's honeydew = 7/6 x 7 days a week =
£2/12/6 x 52 weeks =£136/10s x forty years = £5,460 = Two E-Type Jaguars. This was 1969.
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when was the last time YOU chaps saw a pipe smoker?....
....about 2 seconds ago! Outside the warehouse door.
One of the guys who works in our warehouse smokes one and smells like an old ashtray... wheezes like anything and regularly coughs his lungs up .... then gets out his ventilator to help ease the coughing......
I asked him why he still smokes and he says its his only pleasure.......!!
I used to enjoy a decent cigar ( preferably a Cohiba ) with port or brandy but gave them up when the ban came into effect.....
I occasionally allow myself a sheesha ( hubbly bubbly ) pipe in the coffee shops of the Souks in Doha just watching the world go by......but can take it or leave it.
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>> when was the last time YOU chaps saw a pipe smoker?....
This morning. A bloke, about 40-ish I'd guess, smoking his pipe whilst driving a gold coloured Daewoo Matiz. Peculiar sight.
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>> >> when was the last time YOU chaps saw a pipe smoker?....
>>
>> This morning. A bloke, about 40-ish I'd guess, smoking his pipe whilst driving a gold
>> coloured Daewoo Matiz. Peculiar sight.
>>
Yes, I agree with you. A gold coloured Daewoo Matiz is a very strange sight indeed. ;-)
Last edited by: Londoner on Mon 4 Mar 13 at 14:39
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Pipe or sigar smoker don't see many now.I used to buy my late father in law a box of big Willem 2 sigars he used to love them puffing away like a Cuban king.
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>> Willem 2 sigars he used to love them puffing away like a Cuban king.
Schimmelpenninck...
To return to the theme of disgustingness (look away now Dutchie) I have seen in an old medical encyclopaedia a schematic drawing of the equipment needed to give a patient a tobacco clyster - enema to you and me. Just the smoke I believe... I wonder what doctors thought it was good for?
The country doctor who examined my middle daughter for the whooping cough she contracted in the cradle - a result of alarmist media stories about the dangers of the BCG (I think it was) multiple immunization for babies - was smoking a cigarette throughout. He could probably be struck off for it now. Snigger.
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Items That Have Changed Use - Slidingpillar
