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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

kesavaross said:
Where I park my van in the car park to the two towers blocks where I live, the entrance is via a short downhill road that bends to the left before getting into the car park proper.

There's only about a dozen or so vehicles that park there. Considering the car park is in the middle of an area of permit parking where drivers would kill for a parking space it seems at odd which the 50 odd empty parking spaces in the car park.

What's odd is potholes are starting to appear in the very short road that leads to the car park. Considering there's very few cars that drive in and out and at very slow speed it's strange how the potholes seemingly appeared almost over night. Stranger still is the potholes are in the middle of the road where car tyres don't make any contact with the road surface.

I reckon there's 'people' going around at night time who work for Gov Secret Operations who are paid to do this all over the country. MIO maybe? (Men in Overalls).
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So Gov Secret Operations are going round at night with pickaxes making potholes in your carpark and countrywide - for what reason?

Round my way many roads are frankly atrocious with unfixed potholes. I think it unlikely that secret Gov Operations are doing it under cover of darkness though. The Gov just don’t give a fuck about it, same as many other public services.
 
Floyd1 said:
Ours got a rabbit the other day and ate the lot. Of course, I got a rollicking for 'letting her do it' and a list of all the problems they can cause for dogs....
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Our late lamented boxer/Staffie Rocky once caught a huge rat and battered it to death against the ground right of front of me.
It squealed loudly, and when it stopped Rocky swallowed it whole like an anaconda.

After watching that I needed the vet, never mind the dog.
 
escargot said:
Our late lamented boxer/Staffie Rocky once caught a huge rat and battered it to death against the ground right of front of me.
It squealed loudly, and when it stopped Rocky swallowed it whole like an anaconda.

After watching that I needed the vet, never mind the dog.
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I had to kill a rat once. Hated doing it. I like rats. And crocodiles.
 
kesavaross said:
Where I park my van in the car park to the two towers blocks where I live, the entrance is via a short downhill road that bends to the left before getting into the car park proper.

There's only about a dozen or so vehicles that park there. Considering the car park is in the middle of an area of permit parking where drivers would kill for a parking space it seems at odd which the 50 odd empty parking spaces in the car park.

What's odd is potholes are starting to appear in the very short road that leads to the car park. Considering there's very few cars that drive in and out and at very slow speed it's strange how the potholes seemingly appeared almost over night. Stranger still is the potholes are in the middle of the road where car tyres don't make any contact with the road surface.

I reckon there's 'people' going around at night time who work for Gov Secret Operations who are paid to do this all over the country. MIO maybe? (Men in Overalls).
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I've noticed a couple of new ones here lately, both in the middle of the road. I think that cold spell we had the other week may have something to do with it.
 
Floyd1 said:
I've noticed a couple of new ones here lately, both in the middle of the road. I think that cold spell we had the other week may have something to do with it.
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Yes, frost shatter (or freeze and thaw) where rainwater gets into cracks in the surface and travels down then expands when it freezes, breaking off chunks of the material with it. The action accelerates as the sufrace becomes more and more cracked and broken, causing the potholes to grow in depth and size. This is also how scree slopes on mountains are formed.

The solution is to remove the entire pot-holed section and start again, but that costs money and the councils don’t have any of that.
 
Carse said:
Yes, frost shatter (or freeze and thaw) where rainwater gets into cracks in the surface and travels down then expands when it freezes, breaking off chunks of the material with it. The action accelerates as the sufrace becomes more and more cracked and broken, causing the potholes to grow in depth and size. This is also how scree slopes on mountains are formed.

The solution is to remove the entire pot-holed section and start again, but that costs money and the councils don’t have any of that.
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Yes. And also when they do do it, they often (always) don't dig down enough and square off the area properly and neatly- they just throw an inch or two of asphalt on it and roughly 'level' it, sometimes just with the back of a shovel so it's back up within a week.

Regarding the frost shatter- I look at these new type of bricks they seem to like so much around here- sort of made to look 'old' to fit in a bit better- that have cracks/slices in them and I wonder what will happen with the freeze/thaw mechanism there?

Oh and in case you missed it, here is Shropshire councils attempt at fixing a rough concrete path that has been down since the 1950s;
IMG_20230220_122003.jpg
 
escargot said:
Our late lamented boxer/Staffie Rocky once caught a huge rat and battered it to death against the ground right of front of me.
It squealed loudly, and when it stopped Rocky swallowed it whole like an anaconda.

After watching that I needed the vet, never mind the dog.
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Teal will catch and kill rabbits and when she does I let her eat them. Mostly because otherwise it's such a waste of a life. She won't eat rats though, which is odd. Those she just shakes to death and then rolls on.
 
catseye said:
It's fine. Honestly.
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Is that the window that mysteriously opens and closes itself when you're not looking?
kesavaross said:
the potholes are in the middle of the road where car tyres don't make any contact with the road surface
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Possible that there is some other 'old' bit of road underneath, and the middle of the surface you can see now is where the edge of the old road beneath it was. Movement of the surrounding soil etc in periods of bad weather can undermine the 'newer' surface laid over it.

Or as Hunck said.....the local council can't be arsed to mend it and don't have the money to anyway.
 
hunck said:
So Gov Secret Operations are going round at night with pickaxes making potholes in your carpark and countrywide - for what reason?

Round my way many roads are frankly atrocious with unfixed potholes. I think it unlikely that secret Gov Operations are doing it under cover of darkness though. The Gov just don’t give a fuck about it, same as many other public services.
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This road is a little used road. It'd just odd, that's all. Of course the Gov, any Gov, don't give a f**k. They only care about themselves. I was joking about Men in Overalls. I apologise if it seems I wasn't. I should have made it more obvious.
 
Trevp666 said:
Is that the window that mysteriously opens and closes itself when you're not looking?
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No, that's the one in my bedroom, which has been quiet of late.
kesavaross said:
This road is a little used road. It'd just odd, that's all. Of course the Gov, any Gov, don't give a f**k. They only care about themselves. I was joking about Men in Overalls. I apologise if it seems I wasn't. I should have made it more obvious.
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I wonder if they use the car park overnight for lorries? Our snowplough/gritter lorries are parked in a very 'out of the way' place overnight during winter and they are big heavy things which make a real mess of the roads. Not as much as the tractors fitted with snowploughs though! They absolutely destroy road edges.
 
Floyd1 said:
I just got a massive lecture for the rest of the walk on how rabbits can have worms and I should have taken it off her etc etc etc etc .........
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Yep, but everything and anything in the wild can have worms. They can get liver fluke by chewing grass. Best just to regularly worm the dog and not worry too much.
 
brownmane said:
Look up Nutty Putty Cave accident that MrBallen narrates. It's not true crime, but is true. It is the most harrowing story that I've ever heard. It bothered me for weeks.
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That was the first Mr Ballen episode I saw.
Watched on a laptop in bed. The duvet turned to stone around me. :omg:
kesavaross said:
Same here. Why do these people do these things in the first place?
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Potholers, they're mad.
I remember the 1967 Mossdale Caverns disaster, when six young cavers drowned deep underground. Made a big impression.:(
 
escargot said:
That was the first Mr Ballen episode I saw.
Watched on a laptop in bed. The duvet turned to stone around me. :omg:

Potholers, they're mad.
I remember the 1967 Mossdale Caverns disaster, when six young cavers drowned deep underground. Made a big impression.:(
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Mad or stupid? In the Nutty Putty cave accident he crawled into a space so small he couldn't get back out or go forwards. That to me is not an accident. It was plain madness driven by stupidity. I really felt for him and after watching the video and regardless of that his pain and suffering stayed with me for a long time. Then the rescue rope slipped off his legs and he slid deeper into the impossible hole until hours later, trapped and wedged, he died. Horrific, just horrific.

edit: Having said the above about stupidity, etc. When I was about 18/19 four of us went rock climbing in the Cairngorms (Scotland, UK) and climbed the Great Slab. We'd all done a few nights at night school learning about roped climbing etc and done a few controlled exercises at abseiling. We read books about it, talked about it down the pub, bought our equipment, tried it out in a few safe places and after, off we went to Scotland. Had anything gone seriously wrong, we'd have become statistics. It's only now at 65 I realise how completely stupid and dumb were some of the things I did late teens into my early 20's. Maybe we had a guardian angel.

I will have to read up on the Mossdale Caverns disaster although it seems to ring a bell.
 
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kesavaross said:
Mad or stupid? In the Nutty Putty cave accident he crawled into a space so small he couldn't get back out or go forwards. That to me is not an accident.
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He also though that he was in another part of the cave. Me, never would I ever go crawling into a dark hole, and definitely not go further into one that I have to exhale my breath in order to move. Horrible.
 
brownmane said:
He also though that he was in another part of the cave. Me, never would I ever go crawling into a dark hole, and definitely not go further into one that I have to exhale my breath in order to move. Horrible.
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I didn't know he thought he was in another part of the cave. I agree 100%. I would not go further into a dark hole where I have to exhale to try and go forwards. Surely common sense has to kick in before it becomes a life or death situation?

That he died of a heart attack. Jeepers. What must he have suffered in his mind before that. It's the stuff of nightmares.
 
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Kate In The Desert said:
I want to thank those of you who discussed the Nutty Putty cave accident with just enough detail to make absolutely certain that I never read or listen to anything more about "the stuff of nightmares."
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The MrBallen episode even goes into detail as to what happens in your body when the head is lower than the rest of you. Yep. I have watched many different yt vids of crazy accidents, true crime (of which I'm not a fan) etc, and his episode of this particular accident really does haunt you.
 
The idea of going caving, potholing, spelunking, whatever you want to call it, and being underground pressed hard up against the very rock of the earth itself is one of the few things* that gives me proper visceral primal fear. You couldn’t get me to go into a cave for a billion pounds.

*that and the thought of burning to death.
 
kesavaross said:
I didn't know he thought he was in another part of the cave. I agree 100%. I would not go further into a dark hole where I have to exhale to try and go forwards. Surely common sense has to kick in before it becomes a life or death situation?

That he died of a heart attack. Jeepers. What must he have suffered in his mind before that. It's the stuff of nightmares.
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He got into difficulties after taking a wrong turn and crawling into a tunnel that he couldn't get out of.
As he'd expected it to be snug he didn't catch on until it was too late.

On the Mr Ballen YouTube page about it someone commented that the cave owners should have put up a sign pointing the right way.
:rollingw:
 
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