Old enough to remember

[bixaorellana]

Oh, I'd forgotten about the pattern on the ceiling ~ magical!

[onlyMark]

Years ago we lived in a relatively modern house that was built, along with many identical ones, by the National Coal Board in the UK to house mine workers. Each miner received a coal allowance, a ton or more each month. The houses, for some reason, were built with electric central heating. Theoretically, at night when there was a cheaper electric tariff, you heating up a large block of concrete in what was the old airing cupboard in most houses, so that during the day you blew air over it and via vents in the walls, heated the house.
It was a rubbish idea, was expensive to run and wasted the free coal allowance. We ended up with a series of paraffin heaters of the same kind mentioned for quite a few years. I was never sure how healthy they were.

[Deleted]

People never seemed to worry about the healthiness of heaters in the old day unless they filled the entire dwelling with visible smoke. I suspect that there weren't all that many deaths by carbon monoxide poisoning though, because most places were so draughty back then that probably enough fresh air got in.

[fumobici]

It should perhaps be noted that to us colonial bumpkins, paraffin is a petroleum based wax and what is called paraffin in old blighty we call kerosene.

[bixaorellana]

True. The first time I heard one of Those People refer to kerosene as paraffin, all I could think of was the hard white wax that is melted on top of jellies and jams.

Anyone old enough to remember hearing kerosene/paraffin called "coal oil"? My grandfather sold it in his general store. The pump lived in a narrow warehouse next to a wire mesh-covered door that was kept closed when the store was open for business. It looked something like this one, but was red:

[onlyMark]

That kind of pump is still in general usage in mechanics shops for engine, gearbox and axle oil. Used them many times.

[bixaorellana]

So you know the part not shown in the picture: how black, sticky, and smelly those pumps are.

But looking at the pump gave me a heavy shot of happy nostalgia. I can remember that warehouse so vividly. I can remember exactly how it smelled, and the light in it from the wire mesh doors at either end. It was full of coils of thick hair rope and different colored salt blocks, croker sacks of corn, rolls of tin siding and linoleum flooring, my grandfather's WWI helmet and gas mask hanging in labeled boxes from the ceiling. Also, rather oddly, a framed formal portrait of my grandfather in his doughboy uniform sitting in a chair with a young girl on either side of him -- his older brother's daughters.

[Deleted]

The thing that is referred to by the fancy name "jet fuel" in English is simply called kerosene in France.

[Deleted]

However, speaking of fuel, how many people remember the old petrol pumps with the glass dome at the top with the ball inside to prove that the pink petrol was flowing? If I dig back into my deepest memories, I do actually recall having seen them -- both in the United States and France -- but I have seen them much more in period movies over the years.

[onlyMark]

And why was it pink?

And why does natural gas smell?

And why is some diesel red and not all?

[bixaorellana]

I remember the ones in Spain with little propellers behind a glass window.

[Deleted]

Yes, the propellers were another version besides the floating ball.

[bixaorellana]

Nov 30, 2015 18:10:58 GMT onlyMark said:

And why was it pink?

And why does natural gas smell?

And why is some diesel red and not all?

The only answer I know is that the smell of natural gas is not natural, but is put there to alert people in case of a gas leak.

[bjd]

Bixa's answer is the same as what I learned. That natural gas is given a smell to warn of a leak.

Diesel fuel might have colour added so that the police can check if someone is using some truck fuel. It happened to us years ago when we had a diesel station wagon. We were stopped by the police who checked the colour of the diesel fuel.

[onlyMark]

Petrol was pink so you could also see it but mainly the same reason some diesel is red. Because of the different taxes. In the UK 'red diesel' is for agricultural use and is taxed far, far less than road diesel, in either in cars or trucks. If the authorities dip your tank, which is regularly done with trucks, and you have red diesel you are usually in for a big fine.

Coal gas smelled pretty bad. But you certainly knew if there was a leak. Natural gas didn't, so as said, they put a smell in it.

This is as far as I know. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[patricklondon]

Nov 30, 2015 19:30:14 GMT bjd said:

Diesel fuel might have colour added so that the police can check if someone is using some truck fuel. It happened to us years ago when we had a diesel station wagon. We were stopped by the police who checked the colour of the diesel fuel.

In this country, I think fuel that is supplied at a special rate for agricultural use is coloured, and woe betide anyone who's caught diverting it to their ordinary car.

(PS: Re the discussion above about health risks from paraffin/kerosene heaters, I seem to remember quite a bit of concern, not just about the risk of fire if one were knocked over, but also about the amount of water vapour they give off. A lot of system-built public housing was built with electric central heating that got more expensive, to the point that people turned it off and used paraffin heaters instead, and the increased condensation and damp created all sorts of health problems).

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[bjd]

You're right -- it may have been for agricultural use since we were stopped in the countryside.

[Deleted]

About 20 years ago there was a big scare in the Champs Elysées area due to the overwhelming odour of gas, particularly in the metro. They stopped the metro line for a few hours while an investigation was made -- and they discovered that there was no gas at all but instead someone had thrown a couple of bottles of the product added to gas make it smell.

[Deleted]

[mickthecactus]

Nov 30, 2015 7:05:13 GMT onlyMark said:

Years ago we lived in a relatively modern house that was built, along with many identical ones, by the National Coal Board in the UK to house mine workers. Each miner received a coal allowance, a ton or more each month. The houses, for some reason, were built with electric central heating. Theoretically, at night when there was a cheaper electric tariff, you heating up a large block of concrete in what was the old airing cupboard in most houses, so that during the day you blew air over it and via vents in the walls, heated the house.
It was a rubbish idea, was expensive to run and wasted the free coal allowance. We ended up with a series of paraffin heaters of the same kind mentioned for quite a few years. I was never sure how healthy they were.

We had a paraffin heater for our bathroom. I loved it as it made the room cosy and warm (albeit with a slight smell which I didn't mind) and the vent on the top had a sort of fretwork design which made the flame look very pretty.

[Deleted]

I've got two of those kerouac2 but not quite as old.

[Deleted]

I used a much small tin bath when I was a child. Bathing by the fire was bliss.

From time to time rice puddings would be cooked in the oven and there was always kindling in the upper compartment.

It was black though Nan would black lead it weekly.

[Deleted]

Decades before the World Wide Web was invented, I remember the magic of listening to the other side of the planet on shortwave radio.

[mickthecactus]

Getting Radio Luxembourg was a bit of an art.

[onlyMark]

I always took a shortwave radio with me whenever I spent a long time by myself in deserts.

[Deleted]

I have a nice portable shortwave that I took with me on trips when I was in isolated places like central Cambodia or Luang Prabang. But my pride and joy is my grandparents' radio that was on top of the kitchen buffet when I was young. Just looking at the possibilities on the dial used to totally captivate me.

imageshack.com/a/img924/3933/1zGLBC.jpg                     imageshack.com/a/img924/8144/SVfKb9.jpg

[Deleted]

That is a beautiful thing, K.

[whatagain]

Makes me think of the CB (free canals on the radio)
My grandmother had a period when she would use a radio with a huge antenna to talk to complete strangers all over the world.
We called them 'cibistes' and everybody I know was saying how dumb you must be to talk to complete strangers.

They had (have?) these codes that I put below... 51 for shaking hands in French at least ...
The most well konwn cibiste is to be found in this cartoon - for me the best of Siprou et Fantasio Series fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/QRN_sur_Bretzelburg

Wiki indicates that this album is TOP 10 of the most essential cartoons (we say BD) that anybody should have read.
You know what you have to do : read or re-read it.



That was a few years before internet...

ccbm.pagesperso-orange.fr/html/misc/codeq.html

[patricklondon]

Feb 17, 2016 16:10:54 GMT kerouac2 said:

But my pride and joy is my grandparents' radio that was on top of the kitchen buffet when I was young. Just looking at the possibilities on the dial used to totally captivate me.

Radio (sorry, wireless) sets used to have such presence, didn't they? I remember my parents' great big thing, wooden cabinet and romantic station names on the dial (not that we ever wandered around to try them out, although occasionally Albanian radio used to burst through on one of the BBC's frequencies). I suspect that I'm not the only one that vaguely imagines turning on one of those grand old sets will magic up the programmes of the era, too, Toytown, Listen With Mother, Palm Court (can you imagine, ballroom dancing on the radio), In Town Tonight, and all the rest of it?

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[Deleted]

Radio Tirana was always fascinating. The French service was actually quite good because Enver Hoxha had studied at the University of Montpellier and discovered communism there.