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Curious Phobias & Irrational Fears

I was five and I got measles. My mum was baking bread on the first day, when I felt really wretched, and for YEARS I couldn't stand the smell of fresh baked bread! Supermarkets with bakeries made me cringe, and everyone would be telling me what a delicious smell it was - and there was me reliving the headache and burning eyes and feeling sick. It's largely worn off now.

But occasionally alcohol brings on an alcohol-induced migraine so severe that it paralyses me on the bathroom floor, being violently sick and unable to move for six or seven hours. It's not EVERY time I drink, but it's often enough that I now won't touch alcohol at all. Aversion therapy is very powerful.
 
But occasionally alcohol brings on an alcohol-induced migraine so severe that it paralyses me on the bathroom floor, being violently sick and unable to move for six or seven hours. It's not EVERY time I drink, but it's often enough that I now won't touch alcohol at all. Aversion therapy is very powerful.
All it takes is just the one glass. Just the one.

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:rollingw::rollingw:Go on then, get lost. :cool2:
Pleasure! :curt:

Part of the fun is staying calm when I have no idea where I am.

Especially in the company of a male whose masculinity and sense of self both depend upon his having TOTAL control over the excursion when we DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE WE (expletive) ARE and IT'S NOT (expletive) FUNNY!

Funny? Yes, yes it is. :chuckle:
 
On the West Coast railway line (WCML) in England and Scotland you never need to be lost: should a problem occur we can orientate ourselves by observing stanchion plates.

There's a stanchion to the left of the photo of the APT. Looks like a ladder arrangement over the track.
It supports the overhead electric cables or catenary.

Trains normally pass stanchions too fast to read the plates, but should the train slow down in the middle of nowhere a shrewd eye can spot them and infer the unexpected location.

Picture the scene: the train slows unexpectedly and comes to a graceful halt in a typically rural English setting; green fields as far as the eye can see, along with grazing cattle and perhaps a thatched cottage.

Passengers look around for reassurance, asking the obvious question: 'Where are we?'
Scargy notices a stanchion, upon which a white plate bears the stanchion's maintenance ID as per railway regulations.

The number consists of
- the designation of the line, which on the West Coast is G for Glasgow
- the number of miles form Euston
- the stanchion's individual number at the site

So if it goes (say)

G​

49​

11​

I might announce that we're near Milton Keynes.

Other lines are available of course, and at Preston the miles rudely turn to kilometres.

There are also wall-mounted mileage signs such as the rather splendid one at Chester station. One of my favourites. I make tourists photograph it.
The Welsh branch of the WCML was built to serve the sea link between Dublin and London, hence the mileage to the port of Holyhead.


 

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Endlessly Amazed- when did you loose your Moonroof/snake phobia?

I ask because in spring 1993 I was driving through Rural Ohio with my visiting Parent, when a big of Prey ( told her it was a golden eagle ) swooped down a and grabbed a snake, Mother turned to me and said should I close the moonroof in case the Eagle drops the snake on us? This particular hazard had never crossed my mind before.

Mum grew up on an Island without snakes, I am pretty certain she had never seen a snake in the wild so where that came from I don't know.

Yes., I closed the damn roof. Yes it still lurks at the back of my mind as a potential threat.
 
Indeed it's a small victory hopefully that's not the next in thing
I think this could be an upcomming thing. I came across two box hedge mini mazes in tiny front gardens in the village during lockdown. Not sure how long they've been there as I was walking on the opposite side of the road to our usual route. About 18" to two foot high.
 
My son has been telling me a bout a work mate who has a problem with bananas. The sight of banana like objects makes him very uneasy, real bananas induce a sensation of nausea and fear. Apparently this has got worse as he's got older:- He's in his late 30's
 
I've read this this whole thread to see if anyone shares my phobia but nope I have an irrational fear of Topiary even mentioning it has made the hair on the back of my neck stand up :omg::omg:
Not wishing to alarm you but I remember a shubbery-related IHTM letter in the FT years back which I would love to find and re-read.

A chap was waiting for a train at the station and a giant face appeared in the hedge alongside the platform - the eyes, nose and mouth made up from the foliage. The face looked left and right a few times and then just before the train arrived, the hedge gave a big shrug that sent the birds scattering, as the face dissolved back into normal leaves and twigs.
 
Not wishing to alarm you but I remember a shubbery-related IHTM letter in the FT years back which I would love to find and re-read.

A chap was waiting for a train at the station and a giant face appeared in the hedge alongside the platform - the eyes, nose and mouth made up from the foliage. The face looked left and right a few times and then just before the train arrived, the hedge gave a big shrug that sent the birds scattering, as the face dissolved back into normal leaves and twigs.
That was a story about the Green Man if I remember correctly.
 
Goodwin, Fred (Scottish banker, b. 1958). The man who brought the Royal Bank of Scotland crashing down displayed ‘a particular horror of any public use of Sellotape’. His other phobias included peanuts, carpets, false teeth, Christmas cards, violins, filing cabinets, and pink wafer biscuits. See Hauser, Kaspar

MR KEY’S Shorter Potted Brief, Brief Lives FRANK KEY
 
According to Wiki, Fred Goodwin's "hatred of mess and any form of disorder" led to the bank implementing sloping-top filing cabinets to prevent employees from placing items on top on them.
Our council offices had those on just about every horizontal surface that wasn't a desk.

Great idea. You want to file some papers put them on top of the cabinet while you open the drawer - and they end up on the floor. You want to photocopy something put them next to the copier and - well you get the picture. So everybody took one sheet of paper at a time to file or copy.

You also had to tell your pc which printer to send the printing to but no one seemed to know which number related to which printer or even which floor it was on. If someone else sent something at the same time the printer alternated between print jobs so you and whoever else spent half an hour sorting them out - on the floor of course as that didn't slope (much).

If you didn't have a phobia before you came to work you pretty soon would.
 
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