Hi Everyone
In the 1950s when I started my working career at a timber and joinery factory, there were standard windows and doors but nothing resembling a production line or anything that helped with lifting, while robots were something you saw in a black and white science fiction movie. In the 1960s the idea emerged of making components for timber frame houses. We made one pair of houses for a national building exhibition in London. That resulted in an order for eight houses but with no further following orders, and despite the company now being part of a major national building company, we never got beyond those ten units. Obviously, production methods in the construction industry have moved on since then with much of the heavy lifting now done by machines and many more components made in factories than in the 1960s. Many attempts have been made to produce factory built houses but with little or no long term success. Now I always have a book that I am reading although I have to say that I am now more likely to use my Kindle reader tablet than hold a physical book in my hands. Now all this Rubbish is leading to this week's TV programme in the series "In the Factory" which I found astonishing. The programme centred on the production of 120,000 hardback copies of the book Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. The main printing machine in the factory was the size of eight double decker buses. It printed the 480 pages of the book at the rate of half a second per book - no you did not misread it - half a second per book. In total, the factory produces two million hardback and paperback books every week. Our order for 120,000 was then taken to a storage facility before 60,000 copies were distributed throughout the UK and 60,000 exported to America where there is still a demand for a book written over two hundred years ago. Compare that with a bricklayer still placing one brick on top of two in all weathers in modern Britain.
Now flatulence is something that we all suffer from at times but usually we
manage to hide the affiction from others. In English slang, the word "trump" is another word for flatulence and as small children it was a 'rude' word that made us giggle until tears ran down our faces or we were told to leave the room. One day when my granddaughter was three, I was sitting in a chair while she played with her toys on the floor. Suddenly the afflicion gripped me but I managed to be as quiet as possible. Down on the carpet my granddaughter continued playing with her toys and without even looking up she said "Grandpa trumped". It is in my little book of classic moments. Happy days.
The headquarters of the South Yorkshire police in Sheffield was built in the 1960s. Some years later a new road was built in front of the building to connect the nearby motorway with the centre of the city. Now I would not credit planners with much imagination and definitely with no sense of humour but, in this instance, I was wrong as the road was named Letsby Avenue. There are many strange and funny street names that go back centuries. As an example there is Nicky Naky Lane quite near to Sheffield and down on the south coast there is a Dumb Woman's Lane although what happened to the man who invented that name is unknown. No doubt there are similar strange names to places in America but following the same theme I thought that the road on front of the White House could be renamed Flatulence Avenue at least for the next nearly four years.
.
Just a Thought:
Fried and Prejudice - a chef's story.
My friend was given a new schedule when he worked at the chess piece factory. He is now on the Knight shift.
What do you call a factory that makes good products. A satisfactory. (Sorry must try better)
Brian
Comments