Light entertainments

Sorry folks but todays post because of its great length has been posted at http://rokstump.blogspot.com/ so if another long diatribe is your cup of tea go and check it out. Meanwhile for those interested only in short amusements, check this:

Oh I forgot to say that I had a Davy Crocket Hat, “What you say” never mind I shall never understand either. I also made no mention of my experiments with carbide bombs. Calcium carbide mixed with water which created acetylene a highly flammable gas. Unaided then as you are now by Google or more specifically Wickapedia who inform us that Calcium carbide is produced from lime and coke at about 2000 degrees C and when mixed with water ChC2+2H2OC2H2+CA(OH)2 forms acetylene, it was used by us mainly in our scare crow guns and by our neighbours as a ripening agent for bananas. My own experiments consisted in putting largely unmeasured amounts of calcium carbide and water in a golden syrup can and fitting the lid into which I had already made a nail hole. A bare flame applied to this nail hole usually produced a brilliant meter high flame though I remember once in the later stages, maybe the latest, of these experiments, when applying the bare flame, AKA match, the can exploded sending the lid high into the atmosphere and causing me to gaze at my hand in wonder that it was still there. I’m not sure that this is when the constant ringing in my ears began; unfortunately my scientific method was then far from ‘up to scratch’. I don’t think I was wearing the Davy Crocket hat during these experiments and had I been I don’t believe it would have provided any protection. It certainly didn’t provide any ear protection, sun shade or crash protection. It may have had some use in the polar regions but its lack of ear protection in that clime would have seen it overlooked and its ostentatious fox tail would have put most serious explorers off I’m sure. So as you can imagine it was just the thing for a northern rivers, adolescent, punk, apprentice, farmer