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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

Trevp666 said:
Fake sign. Clearly some local wag has decided to erect a 'flying cows' warning sign.
No such sign exists in the UK Highways signage.
There is a sign to warn of 'livestock ahead' which is a cow, but facing in the opposite direction.
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The original sign was totally official. I imagine it was amended for fun. The same post has a new sign on it now, nothing to do with cattle.
 
escargot said:
Years ago I saw this sign outside my home town on way to work -

View attachment 29876

Winged cattle. A bit weird.
The sign was eventually replaced with a 'Slippery Road' version or summat which was a shame.
Today we saw it again, about 10 miles from its original site -

View attachment 29877

Looks the same to me.
But why?
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I see the profile of an alien head. It's working on a cattle mutilation, while sitting on the cow.
 
PeteS said:
Skeptic away:D. Not suggesting it was his ghost at all. ( freed of his somewhat faltering body I'm sure he would have better things to do than traipse down the stairs in his old home! ) Merely that I "heard" something which sounded very much like my mate coming down the stairs, which I have heard literally hundreds of times. It wasn't recall - only yesterday after all. I expected to hear him and my mind filled in what obviously were the gaps. Just slightly weird that's all.
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It's like a reverse Vardoger. Sorry for your loss - good friends are rare the older you get.
 
EnolaGaia said:
I think I have an explanation for how there came to be 2 similar signs years and miles apart. It goes like this ...

Some rural would-be street artist (let's call him Back Road Banksy) decided to prank on an existing hazard sign depicting a cow silhouette.

NOTE: If you inspect both images cloesly (see below) you'll see that the shape / placement of the two 'wings' aren't the same. The two signs may have been done at different times by different Back Road Banksies.

In both cases BRB used the same technique. He made a stencil of a 'wing' (e.g., a sheet of cardboard with the wing's silhouette cut out of the middle). The differences in the 'wing' shape imply two different stencils were used.

All that's required to prank the sign is to reach it (e.g., via a ladder) with the stencil and a can of black spray paint.

See my annotated version of the second / later sign. There are 3 telltale clues suggesting the 'wing' was spray-painted onto an existing sign.

It would appear BRB wasn't as careful when executing the second / later sign. The smudge and the blob of dripping paint suggest sloppiness.

NOTE: It would appear Techy (I presume ... ) might be stowing something in a handlebar pouch ... Tell him to take more care next time ... :evillaugh:

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Excellent work there!

The 'wing' is, on this cow as on the first one, in the wrong place. You'd think it would be further forward on the body, maybe springing from the shoulders like you see on pictures of Pegasus.

The smeary blobs are a different colour. They are green, unlike the 'wing' which is black like the cow outline. I suspect the smearing to be from some passing over-enthusiastic muck-spreader. A lot of muck is spread locally. A LOT.

The location is near Oulton Park in Cheshire. I'll work out where I took it and look on Google Street View!

Edit - Park Road, Tarporley, Cheshire. Right next to Oulton Park. The sign is visible, complete with wing and splatter!
 
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Trevp666 said:
Fake sign. Clearly some local wag has decided to erect a 'flying cows' warning sign.
No such sign exists in the UK Highways signage.
There is a sign to warn of 'livestock ahead' which is a cow, but facing in the opposite direction.
Click to expand...
Not so. Both signs are genuine, if amended.
 
Y’know, I’ve been looking at the photos and I don’t think the one on the blog is mine. It’s the same sign in the right location - the surroundings match - but it’s taken from a slightly different angle. How weird is that?
 
They should cross more quickly.
1600721693120.png
 
Thought this was a bit strange.
Yesterday my friend who has a yappy little terrier rang.
She said that she hadn't heard him for awhile so called him but they couldn't hear or find him when they looked through the house and garden.
They looked out in the street and asked the neighbours to look but he was nowhere to be found.
As they live on a main road they thought that someone must have picked him up over the fence so rang the police.
Of course they said they couldn't help, and next door couldn't see anything on their cctv.
Anyway my friend went out the back and for some reason went to the corner of the house where the air conditioner is next to the wall.
It's a very small space but she saw these little eyes looking back at her. so she moved some crates and he ran out.
What she can't work out is why he never barked and how he got in there as the end is blocked by a pipe and he would have had to have backed in to get where he was.
 
I'm overthinking this now, aren't I ?

Here are both photos of the original winged cattle photos together.

The first is from the blog. Second is my photo of the same sign. They are taken from slightly different angles.
.flying cow sign from blog spot.jpgWinged cattle again.jpg

The sign was replaced after the road was remodeled further along.

Edit - here's the location on Google. Cross Lane
 
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Every so often I get a grey scum on the top of my pond which has been puzzling me until yesterday >

Pond Scum.jpg


It is from a Wood Pigeon's feathers - the dumbest klutzs of the avian world try to stand on the lily pads and end up getting a bath
 
escargot said:
The smeary blobs are a different colour. They are green, unlike the 'wing' which is black like the cow outline. I suspect the smearing to be from some passing over-enthusiastic muck-spreader. A lot of muck is spread locally. A LOT.

The location is near Oulton Park in Cheshire. I'll work out where I took it and look on Google Street View!

Edit - Park Road, Tarporley, Cheshire. Right next to Oulton Park. The sign is visible, complete with wing and splatter!
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A friend of mine is married to a farmer in Tarporley. Shall I ask her to tell him to spread a little less?
 
Iris said:
Thought this was a bit strange.
Yesterday my friend who has a yappy little terrier rang.
She said that she hadn't heard him for awhile so called him but they couldn't hear or find him when they looked through the house and garden.
They looked out in the street and asked the neighbours to look but he was nowhere to be found.
As they live on a main road they thought that someone must have picked him up over the fence so rang the police.
Of course they said they couldn't help, and next door couldn't see anything on their cctv.
Anyway my friend went out the back and for some reason went to the corner of the house where the air conditioner is next to the wall.
It's a very small space but she saw these little eyes looking back at her. so she moved some crates and he ran out.
What she can't work out is why he never barked and how he got in there as the end is blocked by a pipe and he would have had to have backed in to get where he was.
Click to expand...
It is amazing how animals can get into very small spaces and can turn round in them. I suppose he could have been scared by something and ran into the spot to hide and then kept quiet.
 
PeteS said:
It is amazing how animals can get into very small spaces and can turn round in them. I suppose he could have been scared by something and ran into the spot to hide and then kept quiet.
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Yup, we had a Jack Russell who'd charge down rabbit holes. She once disappeared down one completely and became jammed. Escet and I could still hear her. We had to track down where she was by putting our ears to about 20 different tunnel openings and listening for her increasingly panicked whimpering.

I was distraught and about to ring the Fire Brigade to dig her out when Escet suddenly lay down flat beside a hole, listened a bit, reached down, gripped her by the back legs and dragged her out. She was filthy with mud but unhurt. Escet was our hero!

Anyway, back to the dog @Iris told us about. Could the AC unit be humming or summat, having an effect on the dog? Humans are sometimes bamboozled by low-frequency vibrations that make us think we're seeing ghosts an' all sort.
 
I'll ask her whether there could be vibrations affecting the dog.
She's a bit worried herself as for the last few nights at 2.30am she's been woken by noises in her kitchen but can't find anything when she gets up to look. She's been wondering if it's anything to do with her daughter's friend who died at that time.
Her daughter has been smelling cigarettes at her house although noone there smokes but her friend did.
 
escargot said:
Y’know, I’ve been looking at the photos and I don’t think the one on the blog is mine. It’s the same sign in the right location - the surroundings match - but it’s taken from a slightly different angle. How weird is that?
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One of them denotes a road with centre markings, and one doesn't! Therefore, different places?
 
Sid said:
One of them denotes a road with centre markings, and one doesn't! Therefore, different places?
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It's the same place. The road markings are on both photos.
 
Sid said:
"Ah!" Enlightenment!
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I was going to post all three photos together but thought it might be too confusing!

Currently on my phone so can't easily do that.

Someone else could manage it though, hint hint.
 
Had a weird experience this morning.

I was sitting in my living room listening to a webinar from my companies CEO, when I heard the familiar sound of the postman putting letters through the letterbox.

I even heard the letters hit the tiled floor of my hallway, but when I went to check, there was nothing. I opened the front door and I couldn’t see the postman, and there was no letters stuck in the letterbox and no packages outside.

20 minutes later, I heard the exact same noise, and when I checked there were four letters laying on the hallway floor.

Bizarre
 
Dick Turpin said:
Had a weird experience this morning.

I was sitting in my living room listening to a webinar from my companies CEO, when I heard the familiar sound of the postman putting letters through the letterbox.

I even heard the letters hit the tiled floor of my hallway, but when I went to check, there was nothing. I opened the front door and I couldn’t see the postman, and there was no letters stuck in the letterbox and no packages outside.

20 minutes later, I heard the exact same noise, and when I checked there were four letters laying on the hallway floor.

Bizarre
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Congrats! You've experienced a VARDOGER.
 
Here are all three pictures. The first two are of the same sign, the last is a different one a few miles away.

My original photo of the sign, taken 10 years ago or more -

Winged cattle again.jpg

The photo found on a blog; the same sign seen at a slightly different angle -

flying cow sign from blog spot.jpg

The similar sign a few miles away, which I thought might be the old sign repositioned but wasn't -

Winged cattle now.jpg

So there we go. Doesn't Techy look smart?
 
escargot said:
Here are all three pictures. The first two are of the same sign, the last is a different one a few miles away.

My original photo of the sign, taken 10 years ago or more -

View attachment 30032

The photo found on a blog; the same sign seen at a slightly different angle -

View attachment 30033

The similar sign a few miles away, which I thought might be the old sign repositioned but wasn't -

View attachment 30035

So there we go. Doesn't Techy look smart?
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Have we cracked the answer to this - if so, wtf is it?
 
I saw a tiny little moth, smaller than a house fly, come in through the ac hose. I thought great, now I have to remember to check the tea pot and fruit, etc before I use it.

I just poured myself a cup of tea and there was the moth tits up on the counter. It hadn't been more than 2 hours.
 
hunck said:
Have we cracked the answer to this - if so, wtf is it?
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Haha no, all I know is -

1. There was a Flying Cow sign, which I photographed.
2. Someone else photographed the same sign and their picture was posted on a couple of blogs.
3. The Flying Cow sign was taken down and replaced with a 'Road Narrows' sign.
4. Another Flying Cow sign currently stands a few miles away. It is not the original Flying Cow sign which I photographed.

My guess is that someone doctored the first sign as a joke. The second sign might have been altered at the same time, 10 years ago or more, I don't know as I only spotted it last week. The style is similar.

I bet if @bugmum asked the Tarporley farmer's missis about it we'd hear that it was a stag night stunt or some local private joke or prank contest. Or, OR, there really are flying cows in Cheshire.

Have to mention that the sign amused me back in the day because Escet had been drawing nonsensical road signs for fun and one was 'Wingèd Cattle'.
(Note the grave accent. It's part of the rather obscure joke.)
Others I remember were 'Paradox Ahead' with the famous square/round pillars drawing and 'Pi (recurring)'.
So when I saw an actual 'Wingèd Cattle' sign I had to snap it to show to him. It was a coincidence as he was away at university and hadn't seen the road sign. He may have thought I'd altered the photo to pull his leg.
 
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