The Annexe of Irrelevancies

Stuff in this section has nothing to do with aerials. It’s a mixed bag of sense and nonsense. It’s up to you to decide which is which.

• The boomers are coming
  A personal view of the impact that the baby boom generation will make as they become elderly.
  
  
• Should I put the bin out? [PDF]
  A young persons’ guide. Those with teenagers at home might like to affix their own bin days to this and display it prominently.
  
  
• We have no cats
  How we came to have no cats. If you’ve never put a roof over a cat’s head you won’t like or understand this.
  
  
• The Fall
  A visit to A & E, and a stay in hospital. If you care ab out the NHS, you must read this
  
  
• The little arse nipper [PDF]
  In 2001 Carolyn, aged 26, was due to visit Singapore. Twenty years previously she had enjoyed ‘horror’ stories about a monster that lived in the sewers, and as an adult she’d mentioned how these stories had ‘traumatised’ her. She was slightly apprehensive about the trip to the Far East, so I sent her this ‘press cutting’. I’m a bad, bad person, I know.
  
  
• The Nurses
  This is for spaniel lovers
  
  
• Mobile vulgarity [PDF]
  I have a friend, David, who used to have a campervan which was based on a Transit parcel van. My friend is a dour person with puritan leanings. He hates anything American; he hates Sky Television; he hates CB radio; he hates anything that isn’t ‘tasteful’. Most of all he hates any sort of flamboyance. Oh, and we aren’t allowed to call him ‘Dave’ because it sounds common. His van was a dull brown colour. It had beige carpets and curtains, and no superfluous decoration whatsoever. I made this drawing of his van, suitable altered in ways that I thought might not please him. I was right. He wasn’t pleased. Not even slightly. Never mind, I know my natural flamboyance gets on his nerves anyway.
  Dave — err, I mean David — when you see this, please forgive me.
  
  
• The wagon shops
  Building railway wagons in the 1930s – a personal account.
  
  
• Trip to London
  How some Yorkshire innocents went to London and got out alive
  
  
• The MOT fail
  From a recent MOT fail notice, verbatim. The driver had been unaware of any defects
  
  
• An invitation [PDF]
  Each year we try to produce an interesting invitation to our bonfire party. One year we did it as if it had been sent out in 1665, for some reason
  
  
• Another invitation [PDF]
  This is another invitation to the bonfire party. This one was sort of late-19th-century-playbill-ish
  
  
• The dog carrier [PDF]
  Many years ago we produced a ‘magazine’ for a group of deranged motorbike enthusiasts. Here’s a sample page
  
  
• How to fly your own kite
  Boyhood in a 1920s mining village in the north of England
  
  
• A Rural Childhood [PDF]
  The life of a young girl in a Lincolnshire village at the time of the First World War.
  
  
• The British Journalist
  Here are two press items, from the Times and the Sunday Times on consecutive days.
  
  
• Paid by the word?
  Mark Twain apologised to a correspondent thus: "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead." He had a good point.

[PDF] PDF documents require Adobe Reader. This is free software which may already be installed on your computer, but if these documents don't open please click here to download it. Then, when it has downloaded, double-click on the file and follow the instructions on how to install it.