Did We Really Do That?

Tim and I went to a local 'night club' one Thursday night. This was quite a long time ago, before we met our current partners!

We went with a group of other people and ended up getting separated at one point. I was off getting a drink and thought I should find out where Tim had dissapeared. I got back to the dance floor area to find Tim dancing away with two pretty good looking young ladies. Upon seeing me Tim waves me over.

So over I go strutting some of my best moves. The ladies seem fairly interested which was a bit of a result. As a particular song finished and another one began one of the ladies asked me if I knew how to Salsa!?

The only answer my slightly (Read Totally) drunken brain could come up with was 'Salsa? Don't you dip tortillas in that?'.

The two young girls quickly disappeared and we didnt see them again!! I didn't tell Tim what I had said to them for a few days, probably because I couldn't remember!

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): Did we really do that?, Crazy, Stupid, disco, salsa]

About 20 years ago, my Father bought an ex-company car from his then Employer. It was a large Citroen CX estate car.(it looked like the car from Ghost-busters!)

This Citroen was amazing, and built like a tank! We had the car for a good 8 - 10 years in daily use, including using it as a tow car for our Caravan. The car was a real work horse, but as such it did, unfortunately, get a little neglected!.

The Car just kept on going! One day, however, it just stopped. This particular morning it just REFUSED to start. We checked everything, but couldn't find anything wrong. We ended up completely rebuilding the engine, and then it worked like new! (Ironically after a total rebuild it turned out to be only the injectors which were faulty!).

In the mean time, we had obtained a new car, and so the Citroen was surplus to requirements and sat on the driveway unused for some time.

One day, Matt needed a big vehicle to move something, and asked my dad if he could use the Citroen. The only problem was that the Citroen had sat un-run for about 6 months, and the Battery was totally dead.

We decided we could get round this, and the plan came together:

Matt would drive my 1.3 Metro, I would steer and bump start the Citroen.

We attached the metro to the citroen using a nice thick tow rope. Unfortunately the longest we had was only about 5 metres, but no problem!

Off we went! Matt got into the Metro, started it up and I gave him the thumbs - up. Loads of revs, and gently he took up the slack, then pulled me along.

One thing we forgot. Citroens of this era have everything driven by hydraulics. Like without engine, you get virtually NO steering, absolutely NO brakes, and NO suspension!.

Bouncing down our street now at about 25 MPH I decided to give it a go....
Turned on the ignition to bring up the dash lights, dip the clutch, second gear, DROP the clutch! BRRRRRRRRRRRUMMMMMMMM it roars into life!!

Matt Hears the engine start on the Citroen, so stops the Metro. UH OH!!!

Unfortunately the Citroen still hasn't had time to build up any hydraulic pressure, so I have little steering, and NO BRAKES! I had no choice, and hit the metro up the back side, shooting him down the road, and breaking the tow rope!

Luckily hardly any damage was done to either car, and we were fine!

The Citroen went on for another few months fine, before we sadly sold it to a collector for next to nothing. A truly great car though!

Tim

[Technorati tag(s): Did we really do that?, Crazy, Stupid, citroen, bump start]

As Matt has set the scene so well, i thought I'd continue the story.....

As Matt has already explained, we had a selection of "equipment" that we'd carefully manufactured and adapted to suit our mission. We arrived at the Site of the holiday home in Hythe, and literally within minutes we were itching to try out our gear. We un packed all our stuff, and made ourselves some healthy dinner(Think it was baked beans with fish fingers, followed by vodka-lemonade-icecream wasn't it Matt???). Straight after dinner (about 8 ish) we went off on our mission, carrying all our gear.

When we reached the top of the highest cliff we could get to, we set up our kit. Cleverly, we thought it would be a good idea to check if the ropes were long enough, so we held one end of our longest length, and threw the coil over the edge. It only made it about 2/3rds of the way!

Not a problem to ingenious persons such as ourselves. We pulled up the rope, and tied another length to it's end, using a Reef Knot. No worries!

now it reached about 3/4 of the way! Damn it!

Luckily we had another length of rope, so again, we tied it to the end. Now it reached the ground no problem at all. Brilliant!

It was beginning to get a little dark now, but we're totally dedicated, so in for a penny, as they say!

Next step - Find an anchor point. As luck would have it, there was a big concrete post where we were standing. Ideal we thought, so tied the rope to it, using a double granny knot. Better safe than sorry!

I think Matt went first. (Matt????) he put the harness (leather trouser belt) around his waist, threaded the rope through the Figure-of-8 and attached the harness to the figure-of-8 using the Karabeena.

Ready to go!

we were originally going to use the spare rope as a safety line, but had to join it to the long length. Not to worry, the rope was good and strong!

Over the edge Matt went, skillfully lowering himself and bouncing down the rock face. He had to stop a couple of times to negotiate the Knots in the rope, but it didn't phase him. All the way to the bottom!. Great run!

Next, Matt removed the gear, and tied it to the end of the rope. I pulled it to the top, and put on the "Harness", then threw back down the rope to Matt at the bottom.

Next I went over the edge, again, no problems. UNTILL, that is, i reached the second Knot. it was at this point i discovered that it had slipped somewhat, and so had to stop and re-tie it whilst hanging on the rope above! No problem though, and on I went.

All the way to the bottom. By now it was dark, and we decided to leave the rope and collect it in the morning.

When we got back to the caravan, we discovered that the belt wasn't as strong as Matt had originally thought. It had torn at least half way through, and the metal bit was really bent!

TO BE CONTINUED!!!

Tim

[Technorati tag(s): Did we really do that?, Crazy, Stupid]

One day during our summer holidays from school, we were at Matt's house, and decided we'd make ourselves a gourmet lunch.
We searched the cupboards and found two tins of Sainsburys beef curry.
Excellent!
Only problem is, we needed to add our own unique taste, as it was a little bland.
Matt found some HOT curry powder in another cupboard, and we decided it would be just the ticket.
He twisted the little sprinkler top to the small holes position, and shook the tub furiously over the saucepan.
OOOOOPS!
The big lid suddenly flew off, emptying the entire 50g (ish) tub into the sauce pan!
there was no way we were going to waste all that food, nor all the curry powder, so we decided to eat it anyway!

I recall how we drank the best part of 4 pints of milk between us to try to put out the 'flames' in our mouth.
It felt like our faces were melting!

There are many other culinary stories, but they'll have to wait for now!

Tim

[Technorati tag(s): Did we really do that?, Crazy, Stupid]

During out various "experiments" to develop something ground breaking and incredible in Matt's "workshop / Lab" (garden shed!) we discovered that those little "french banger" fireworks would give a quite significant explosive force, Especially if you contained the explosion or restricted it in some way.

Our experiments with these discovered that by plugging a 4 foot length of 40mm plastic waste pipe with mud at one end, dropping a lit banger in the open end and then quickly plugging the other end with mud too, the mud "bullet" would be fired quite some significant distance!
"Quality!" we both shouted!
You could see the look of genius on our faces, i'm sure, as we then realised that if the tube was of a much smaller diameter, the force would be much higher!

Next step: 15mm barrel!

We then got a length of 15mm copper plumbing pipe, and, instead of plugging one end with mud, we flattened it with a hammer, and folded it over to seal it. By experimenting, we found that you could omit the other plug, and the banger itself would become the projectile, or "bullet".
The distances you could achieve were really quite impressive!

One day, another friend of ours, A. (not the same A. as before!) came round to Matt's. He too was impressed by our experiment, and was eager to have a go. We took A. out to a remote field with our equipment to try it. He held the tube in his hand, and lit the banger, quickly dropping it into the tube as we told him to. BBBANG! it went, and fired the banger out. A. then let out a yell, and we realised he'd held the tube with the end (flattened) in the palm of his hand, Not as we'd told him! The recoil force of the blast has driven the sharp end into his palm! OUCH!

Not deterred by his injury, A. carried on "experimenting" with us for the rest of the day, but was very careful to hold the tube properly!

Tim

[Technorati tag(s): Did we really do that?, Crazy, Stupid]