A few weeks ago, on a Friday, despite my cold and COPD I felt I really
had to get out. The Met Office website offered encouragement so I rung
an old geezer and told him I'd be along in a bit to stick a big aerial
on his roof. An hour later I arrived and ran to his door under my umbrella.

"You'd better have a cuppa." After a bit of encouragement he told me of
his time in the army. He'd been one of the youngest on the beaches of
Normandy on D Day, and he'd survived the whole thing except for a bit of
shrapnel in his neck near his spine, which I could see though his skin.
"They said it was best left alone. It don't 'urt or anything."

As I fixed the aerial together a fat old man with a bad leg and a small
mongrel dog and a white stick came along the pavement. This was actually
a paved area with a grass area to one side; a footpath through the
houses. I had my van on the grass and because of the wet I was using the
path as my working area. I saw him coming and was alarmed, but he walked
right up to the aerial and ran his stick along the elements.

"XG21?"

"What do you know about XG21s?"

I didn't ask, 'and how can you tell?'

"I used to be a rigger. Used a lot of XGs. Used to work out in
Derbyshire, pointing them over the hills at Emley or Sutton Coldfield.
never ****ing worked reight though!"

"Well look, it isn't an XG21, it's the Blake one, the 48 element
wideband thing. But...?"

"I can see a bit. I could see the length of it, and I can see your
ladders on your van."

We got talking. He'd been a rigger from 1960 to 1987, then his eyesight
had packed up, and since then he'd 'done nowt'. He was rude about the
various employment opportunities that the government had offered, or
coerced him into. "That sort of thing's alreight when you've been in a
****in' factory before, but it was no good for me. I like a bit of fresh
air. And they tell you what to ****in' do like as if your a kid. In the
end I told them to stuff it.'

He asked me about modern prices, and overheads, and when I told him
about my insurance bill be thought I was out by a factor of ten. We
discussed the 405-line days, trying to get ITV for people in south
Sheffield from Sutton Coldfield, ordering channel 8 aerials specially
from Beadles, the interference from the tracklesses and the diathermy
machines in the hospitals, and the negative long thin double pictures
from France every summer. He was intrigued by the switch to digital and
I could have been all day telling him about it, but by then I had long
ogo assembled the aerial and wished to get on.

But a woman appeared, with two nasty dogs. Hearing them the blind man
scurried off with his little black and white thing. The woman commenced
talking without preamble. She had a strong Welsh accent and called the
dogs 'Boyo' when he had to tell them off. At first I thought she was
mentally deficient but then realised she was probably drugged up.

"I paid £72 and he said it would take three days before it would settle
down and start to work. But it still don't work." With no encouragement
from me she explained how her landlord had organised the new aerial 'for
digital' but she'd had to pay for it and she'd had no telly for months.
She pointed to her upstairs flat and the very dodgy aerial above.

I expressed my sympathy and suggested the obvious things. She cleared off.

I was on the roof, having just finished, when the blind man came back
from the shops. I shouted down, "What do you think?" forgetting he
couldn't see.

He peered for ages then said, "Crosspool?"

"Yes," I said. "Emley's ****e."

"Yeah I know. Channel 10 used to ghost like buggery."

In the bungalow the customer said, "I saw that ****er from over the road
talking to you." He went on to explain that she was one of the two local
small-time dealers on the street. "The bobbys leave her alone. It suits
them to do that. She had a cat fight with the other lass last week just
outside here. It were ****in' hilarious. She went in for her dogs but
the other one had scarpered."

After he made the tea he continued. "Her boyfriend's locked up." The
telly was auto-tuning, via an 18dB attenuator. It was my hope that it
would only find the transmitter I had pointed the aerial at. It reached
115 channels and just sat there. "It always does that, for about five
minutes. Then it's all right. Yes, he went down to the chemists," (this
is the shop on the corner; the staff park outside the bungalows and
that's why I was on the grass) "and tried to make them give him drugs
and money and that, but two Pakis chased him out. He went into her flat
and came out with a knife and stabbed one. They council washed the
pavement but there's still blood, though most of it went onto my bit of
garden."

"Good for the roses. Iron."

He laughed. "Probably curry flavoured." The telly was displaying BBC 1.
I removed the attenuator and told him to keep it safe, and use it when
he re-tuned.

As I was tidying up outside, a car pulled up opposite. Seeing it the
woman (could have been 25; could have been 40) came back along the path.
She walked around the car giving it a wide berth and went into the flat
with the dogs. The upstairs sash window opened and the man in the car
shouted something. She answered. The man threw something up to her.
After a moment she dropped something down to him and the car drove away.

I couldn't get out of the road end for the queue of cars leaving the
industrial estate. How many of those people know what they're driving
past, I wonder?

Bill

There hundreds of stories in the naked city, this has been just one of them.

Brian

--
Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email.
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
Email:
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________


"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
A few weeks ago, on a Friday, despite my cold and COPD I felt I really had
to get out. The Met Office website offered encouragement so I rung an old
geezer and told him I'd be along in a bit to stick a big aerial on his
roof. An hour later I arrived and ran to his door under my umbrella.

"You'd better have a cuppa." After a bit of encouragement he told me of
his time in the army. He'd been one of the youngest on the beaches of
Normandy on D Day, and he'd survived the whole thing except for a bit of
shrapnel in his neck near his spine, which I could see though his skin.
"They said it was best left alone. It don't 'urt or anything."

As I fixed the aerial together a fat old man with a bad leg and a small
mongrel dog and a white stick came along the pavement. This was actually a
paved area with a grass area to one side; a footpath through the houses. I
had my van on the grass and because of the wet I was using the path as my
working area. I saw him coming and was alarmed, but he walked right up to
the aerial and ran his stick along the elements.

"XG21?"

"What do you know about XG21s?"

I didn't ask, 'and how can you tell?'

"I used to be a rigger. Used a lot of XGs. Used to work out in Derbyshire,
pointing them over the hills at Emley or Sutton Coldfield. never ****ing
worked reight though!"

"Well look, it isn't an XG21, it's the Blake one, the 48 element wideband
thing. But...?"

"I can see a bit. I could see the length of it, and I can see your ladders
on your van."

We got talking. He'd been a rigger from 1960 to 1987, then his eyesight
had packed up, and since then he'd 'done nowt'. He was rude about the
various employment opportunities that the government had offered, or
coerced him into. "That sort of thing's alreight when you've been in a
****in' factory before, but it was no good for me. I like a bit of fresh
air. And they tell you what to ****in' do like as if your a kid. In the
end I told them to stuff it.'

He asked me about modern prices, and overheads, and when I told him about
my insurance bill be thought I was out by a factor of ten. We discussed
the 405-line days, trying to get ITV for people in south Sheffield from
Sutton Coldfield, ordering channel 8 aerials specially from Beadles, the
interference from the tracklesses and the diathermy machines in the
hospitals, and the negative long thin double pictures from France every
summer. He was intrigued by the switch to digital and I could have been
all day telling him about it, but by then I had long ogo assembled the
aerial and wished to get on.

But a woman appeared, with two nasty dogs. Hearing them the blind man
scurried off with his little black and white thing. The woman commenced
talking without preamble. She had a strong Welsh accent and called the
dogs 'Boyo' when he had to tell them off. At first I thought she was
mentally deficient but then realised she was probably drugged up.

"I paid £72 and he said it would take three days before it would settle
down and start to work. But it still don't work." With no encouragement
from me she explained how her landlord had organised the new aerial 'for
digital' but she'd had to pay for it and she'd had no telly for months.
She pointed to her upstairs flat and the very dodgy aerial above.

I expressed my sympathy and suggested the obvious things. She cleared off.

I was on the roof, having just finished, when the blind man came back from
the shops. I shouted down, "What do you think?" forgetting he couldn't
see.

He peered for ages then said, "Crosspool?"

"Yes," I said. "Emley's ****e."

"Yeah I know. Channel 10 used to ghost like buggery."

In the bungalow the customer said, "I saw that ****er from over the road
talking to you." He went on to explain that she was one of the two local
small-time dealers on the street. "The bobbys leave her alone. It suits
them to do that. She had a cat fight with the other lass last week just
outside here. It were ****in' hilarious. She went in for her dogs but the
other one had scarpered."

After he made the tea he continued. "Her boyfriend's locked up." The telly
was auto-tuning, via an 18dB attenuator. It was my hope that it would only
find the transmitter I had pointed the aerial at. It reached 115 channels
and just sat there. "It always does that, for about five minutes. Then
it's all right. Yes, he went down to the chemists," (this is the shop on
the corner; the staff park outside the bungalows and that's why I was on
the grass) "and tried to make them give him drugs and money and that, but
two Pakis chased him out. He went into her flat and came out with a knife
and stabbed one. They council washed the pavement but there's still blood,
though most of it went onto my bit of garden."

"Good for the roses. Iron."

He laughed. "Probably curry flavoured." The telly was displaying BBC 1. I
removed the attenuator and told him to keep it safe, and use it when he
re-tuned.

As I was tidying up outside, a car pulled up opposite. Seeing it the woman
(could have been 25; could have been 40) came back along the path. She
walked around the car giving it a wide berth and went into the flat with
the dogs. The upstairs sash window opened and the man in the car shouted
something. She answered. The man threw something up to her. After a moment
she dropped something down to him and the car drove away.

I couldn't get out of the road end for the queue of cars leaving the
industrial estate. How many of those people know what they're driving
past, I wonder?

Bill

On 19/11/2011 06:25, Brian Gaff wrote:
There hundreds of stories in the naked city, this has been just one of them.

Brian

There was no nudity at all in that show. Very disappointing.

--

Graham.

%Profound_observation%

Hmm, well it was a bit early in the history of TV for that, come to think of
it, there were no TVs in it either clothed or not.

Brian

--
Brian Gaff -
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Graham." wrote in message
...
On 19/11/2011 06:25, Brian Gaff wrote:
There hundreds of stories in the naked city, this has been just one of
them.

Brian

There was no nudity at all in that show. Very disappointing.

--

Graham.

%Profound_observation%

I'm glad you take the trouble to tell us these things. I hope you keep
'em coming.

--
SteveT

In message ,
Graham. writes
On 19/11/2011 06:25, Brian Gaff wrote:
There hundreds of stories in the naked city, this has been just one of them.

Brian

There was no nudity at all in that show. Very disappointing.

I was a typo. Bill meant to write 'knackered city'.
--
Ian

Steve Thackery wrote:
I'm glad you take the trouble to tell us these things. I hope you keep
'em coming.

I tell Hil over tea, and she says, "That's one for the newsgroup!" so I
have to...

Bill

On 19/11/2011 01:36, Bill Wright wrote:

[...] We discussed the 405-line days, trying to get ITV for people in
south Sheffield from Sutton Coldfield, [...]

Difficult that, given that the transmission in question came from
Lichfield...

--
Andy

Andy Wade wrote:
On 19/11/2011 01:36, Bill Wright wrote:

[...] We discussed the 405-line days, trying to get ITV for people in
south Sheffield from Sutton Coldfield, [...]

Difficult that, given that the transmission in question came from
Lichfield...

Oh, so it did! Mind you me and my dad used Sutton Coldfield for BBC TV
in Holmesfield once. Holme Moss was very ghosty. That was at my uncle's
house. He was the blacksmith there.

Strange how things have come full circle and we now have problems with
receivers finding and storing Sutton Coldfield!

Bill