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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

Ghost In The Machine said:
I forgot to say but our street address is unusual but not unique. Just checked on Royal Mail website and there are 2 others of this name in this (large) county. (Annoyingly she didn't read out postcode). But this particular street only has 4 houses on it and we know all our neighbours so it's not a house number mess up. Son 3 is only one here with that first name and nobody else owns geckos.

Our other thought is son 3 is being weirdly doxxed.
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This could be part of a scam or someone scoping out your home. People show up to door and see if anyone answers.

If you really want to be creeped out, just watch "things caught on ring cameras" on YT. There is one where a person does the same thing, asking about the address etc. It turns out that he was doing this at several homes in the area. I can't remember if he was caught. Many are not.

Is your son's name fairly common?
 
escargot said:
Alcohol-based hand wash is possibly as acceptable as meths at a pinch. :nods:
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My Dad was in Egypt during WW2 and to numb themselves from the constant air attacks by Stuka divebombers they concocted a drink they named 'Stuka Juice'. Some of the ingredients were Meths and condensed milk with a few other things I have forgotten now. He said after a swig of that you didn't have a care in the world.
 
Ermintruder said:
A formal jacket of mine, which has unique buttons, has suddenly produced a spare matching cuff button, loose, inside one of the pockets.

None of the buttons are missing. It never had any extra ones attached as surplus extras.

The jacket is ancient and familiar, yet has begat a bewildering baby button.
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Dunno if I've already commented on this. If so, here I am again.
The spare button may have been sewn loosely enough into the pocket to eventually come adrift.
I do hope you kept it safe.

Last year my nice new tweedy jacket didn't button up high enough so I used the spare to put it right. Result. :bthumbup:
 
brownmane said:
This could be part of a scam or someone scoping out your home. People show up to door and see if anyone answers.

If you really want to be creeped out, just watch "things caught on ring cameras" on YT. There is one where a person does the same thing, asking about the address etc. It turns out that he was doing this at several homes in the area. I can't remember if he was caught. Many are not.

Is your son's name fairly common?
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Yes. All my kids have unusual names except for this one. His best mate at school even had the same name. So it's likely the geckos were meant to be picked up at one of the two other streets with the same name, in this county. (One is over an hour's drive away...) Son didn't have presence of mind to make her read the postcode. Just so surreal, having a really insistent person knock at the door and demand to be given your geckos! But not paranormal.
 
eziofan said:
Tonight I had another weird music related coincidence and I thought I had better get it down before I forget the details. This morning I was cooking breakfast for me and Mrs E and my mind started wandering (as it does). For some reason I was rhinking about the band The Sweet. I was thinking that they were actually a decent rock band ( I owned an album of theirs called Desolation Boulavade which was pretty good) but made their money out of shite. For some reason I started singing the lyrics to Wig Wam Bam! (sorry if this upsets the music lovers amongst you!).
This evening I had tickets for a Jam cover band and the support was a guy called Luke Gallagher (no relation) who was billed as a mod/60s artist. I couldn't believe it when, midway through his act he started playing Wig Wam Bam! I havent heard this song for years so for it to crop up twice in one day was amazing!
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Strange fact. Brian Connolly may well have shared a dad with his adoptive brother, Mark McManus (actor who played Taggart). The resemblance was definitely there...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Connolly
 
escargot said:
The spare button may have been sewn loosely enough into the pocket to eventually come adrift
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Is this a tailoring/coatmaking tradition, stitching spare buttons into pockets? If so that might explain it...but I don't remember having seen it there before (nor have I seen this before on any other jacket: but I'm willing to accept the solution).

escargot said:
I do hope you kept it safe.
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Ohyes!

escargot said:
Last year my nice new tweedy jacket didn't button up high enough so I used the spare to put it right.
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What, utilising a hitherto-buttonless buttonhole, or via the creation of a new hole for that nearly-new button?

One day I, too, may treat myself to a tweed jacket....but that will be for a future, slightly-richer me. Who will look back on the jacketless present-me with care & mild disdain.

ETA-
escargot said:
...didn't button up high enough
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Aha! Perhaps with the lapel unfolded to create a high-collar patrol-style or semi-Nehru look
 
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In rural Scotland just now, the fields are filled with thousands of molehills (and also on the road verges, in places).

The spacing between one molehill in a straight radiating line, and another, is strangely similar.

It seems like such an....advertised way of living.
 
Ermintruder said:
Is this a tailoring/coatmaking tradition, stitching spare buttons into pockets? If so that might explain it...but I don't remember having seen it there before (nor have I seen this before on any other jacket: but I'm willing to accept the solution).


Ohyes!


What, utilising a hitherto-buttonless buttonhole, or via the creation of a new hole for that nearly-new button?

One day I, too, may treat myself to a tweed jacket....but that will be for a future, slightly-richer me. Who will look back on the jacketless present-me with care & mild disdain.

ETA-

Aha! Perhaps with the lapel unfolded to create a high-collar patrol-style or semi-Nehru look
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My tweedy jacket had only two buttons where I'd've liked three. There was of course no buttonhole for a third so I had to create one.
I did a perfect job and it's lovely now. Reaches my unique scarf. :cool:

The spare button may have been stitched high up into the pocket where you couldn't feel it.
On mass-produced clothes, as you'll know the spare buttons are sewn onto a label or in a plastic envelope attached somehow.
 
ChrisBoardman said:
I think it is about time the mod posted that picture of a train falling into a ravine showing the the direction the thread is taking since its original purpose.
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Yes, but first:
Steev(still) said:
And imagine it's yesterday at about 5.50pm ish.
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Since I still work M-F and until 5 pm those days, I wish to imagine it's Friday (any Friday) at about 5:50 pm.

And now . . .
train undone.png
 
Minor dream strangeness experienced by a family member. She works in the beauty department of a large store and dreamt a few weeks ago that she had been asked to make up Fred Astaire as he was filming and his make up wasn't showing up on the film. She was very struck with dreaming about Fred Astaire and did some research which showed he had rented a house quite close to the store in the 1920s.

The minor strangeness occurred however when she was recently asked to model some make up for another one of the brands. One of the managers re-did my family member's make up, insisting that the way the make up artist had done it, it wouldn't show up on the photographs. I think my family member was hoping Fred's ghost might materialise but a pre-cognitive dream will do.
 
brownmane said:
This could be part of a scam or someone scoping out your home. People show up to door and see if anyone answers.
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I had a similar incident a few years ago when a character turned up at mine and demanded to know my name and what the address of the house was. Couldn't produce any id but said he was from Ordanence Survey and that it was important to provide this info so that emergency services could quickly find the address. I declined and said I would take my chances on the basis that such services would have a sat nav. Could have been legit but his attitude alone put me off.
 
Ghost In The Machine said:
Strange fact. Brian Connolly may well have shared a dad with his adoptive brother, Mark McManus (actor who played Taggart). The resemblance was definitely there...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Connolly
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They were half-brothers. The younger brother was abandoned at birth in the hospital by his mother and Dad collected and fostered/adopted him into his family. It's a fascinating story, might make a gritty fillum one day.
 
We've the ground floor flat of a house of two (see posts passim) - from the outside it looks like an old, rundown house. On the outside is our doorbell, a sign (wot I rote) indicating that the flat above is through the gate, and the 'dog warning' sign. We've our own post box and I 'donated' an external post box by the gate. From the pavement - of a fairly busy road - thanks to our hedges, you can only see our front door and post box.
I only describe this because one day, a young bloke rang on our door. From my study here, I can see anyone turning up. On answer the conversation ran thusly:
Him: "Is there a flat upstairs?"
Me: "Yup. You one of the builders?" (we're used to the nerks not understanding that our flats have separate doors).
Him: "No. So is it a flat upstairs or a holiday let?"
Me: "That depends on the owner - why?" (suspicion building)
Him: "D'you know if it's on the market yet?"
Me (abrupt): "Nope!"
He shrugged and left.
He couldn't have seen the side gate or any sign of the flat above.

Was it coincidence, however, that about two weeks after, the plasterer had his van nicked during the day from outside our place. Luckily, there were no tools etc. left in it - the plasterer was using them. I let him know but the 'suspect' was so unremarkable I was no help.
 
Dick Turpin said:
I posted on here some time last year, where the dials on both radiators in the living room had turned themselves off whilst I was out of the house.

Well, it’s been happening again this past 2 weeks. I’ll come down in the morning and see the boiler fired up when it shouldn’t be. I check each radiator and the one in the living room which is behind a large sofa has its dial turned to the highest setting, when I know it was turned to zero before I went to bed. Noone would have touched the dial, as the sofa is large and heavy and to get to the dial the sofa would need to have been pulled away from the wall.

It keeps happening and it’s freaking me out a bit :)

I have an engineer coming next week, so maybe he’ll / she'll be able to throw some light on the issue.
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The engineer is coming this afternoon, but things are getting even weirder with the radiators in this house. Since I posted the above the rad behind the sofa has decided to behave it's self, and has not turned itself on -. I’ve been checking it every day. However, the same thing is now happening to the radiator on the other side the room. And unlike the one behind the sofa there is nothing in front of that particular radiator.

I have literally just turned the setting from 5 to zero, even though it was on zero at 9.30am when I had a team’s meeting in the living room. There is no one else here - I've been home alone since 8am as kids at school / Uni and Mrs DT is at work.

I’ll speak to the engineer first, but if he says to me that he / she cant explain it, then I’m gonna mark it up as a very weird series of events.
 
Dick Turpin said:
The engineer is coming this afternoon, but things are getting even weirder with the radiators in this house. Since I posted the above the rad behind the sofa has decided to behave it's self, and has not turned itself on -. I’ve been checking it every day. However, the same thing is now happening to the radiator on the other side the room. And unlike the one behind the sofa there is nothing in front of that particular radiator.

I have literally just turned the setting from 5 to zero, even though it was on zero at 9.30am when I had a team’s meeting in the living room. There is no one else here - I've been home alone since 8am as kids at school / Uni and Mrs DT is at work.

I’ll speak to the engineer first, but if he says to me that he / she cant explain it, then I’m gonna mark it up as a very weird series of events.
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I meant to ask you Dick, why is the boiler coming on though?
That shouldn't happen unless the thermostat is turned. ?
 
OK, this is a weird one. Was asleep last night having a nightmare, which I abruptly woke from as some monster was biting off my finger.

Thing is, when I calmed down and looked, there was actually a cut on said finger, fresh and bleeding. Only a tiny cut.

But, what could have cut it? I was in bed, there's nothing sharp there. I checked the quilt and blankets.

At least the cut doesn't look much like a bite, which is a bit reassuring. More like what you get if rummaging a drawer and something sharp runs up your fingernail.
 
Cochise said:
OK, this is a weird one. Was asleep last night having a nightmare, which I abruptly woke from as some monster was biting off my finger.

Thing is, when I calmed down and looked, there was actually a cut on said finger, fresh and bleeding. Only a tiny cut.

But, what could have cut it? I was in bed, there's nothing sharp there. I checked the quilt and blankets.

At least the cut doesn't look like a bite, which is a bit reassuring. more like what you get if rummaging a drawer and something sharp runs up your fingernail.
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Spring(s) on mattress poking through somewhere?
 
Cochise said:
OK, this is a weird one. Was asleep last night having a nightmare, which I abruptly woke from as some monster was biting off my finger.

Thing is, when I calmed down and looked, there was actually a cut on said finger, fresh and bleeding. Only a tiny cut.

But, what could have cut it? I was in bed, there's nothing sharp there. I checked the quilt and blankets.

At least the cut doesn't look much like a bite, which is a bit reassuring. More like what you get if rummaging a drawer and something sharp runs up your fingernail.
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Dog? Cat?




Rat?
 
Mythopoeika said:
Dog? Cat?




Rat?
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No longer have any of them.

I did have a big rat problem a couple of years ago (maybe more than that, time flies whether or not you're having fun at my age) but they are long gone, and anyway you can hear them moving about -they aren't quiet like mice.

Mattress is a springless one, @Floyd1

My best guess is that one of the tiny staples that hold labels on to new clothes has somehow got into the top blanket - I'm pretty sure my arm was outside the bed.

That or it's vampire bats.
 
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