Monday 5 July 2010

PLAY IN A BRASS BAND AND YOU WONT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THE HOSEPIPE BAN...

As the country starts to boil under 5 straight days of searing intermittent sunshine.....Well, its time to look foreward to the hosepipe ban. Part of the reason for the hosepipe ban is, when the goverment announce that there's going to be a hosepipe ban if the reservoir levels fall and the north west of England doesnt have 8 straight weeks of monsoon rainfall in the next three hours or so. The kneejerk reaction to this shocking news is that every single person with a blade of grass or a plant or a flower in their back garden is suddenly dragging yards of rubber tubing connected to the stand pipe alongside the house. But when people jam these pipes onto the tap, only a fraction makes it to the buisness end of the pipe. Water is spurting and dribbling from where the pipe is roughly jammed to the tap. And then, the water spurts n' dribbles from the cracks and splits in the pipe itself. This is the gardening version of the water board or public utilities who let us have some very precious exspensive water through our taps, but obviously the cheap crappy water is allowed to flood streets and roads in the middle of towns and cities through burst mains, etc. Apparently the hosepipe ban doesnt apply to the millions of gallons of wasted water, funny that.
The reservoirs in the lake district are way down apparently. It is a little ironic as the towns all around are still being rebuilt after being totally flooded, bridges swept away, the works.... Now theres no water. Around the north of England theres lots of brass bands. Having 'The Lovely Lynne' and her family coming from a brass music background, i've a little experiance of brass instruments and i'm fascinated by the spit valve. The amount of fluid coming out of an average tuba being played constantly whilst walking/marching around the garden would water the grass and flowers. Even the smaller stuff like trumpets and cornets ,because they take heavy puffing and blowing to get a tune would keep a lawn green. The Lovely Lynne plays the trombone and with the varying length of the 'moving bit', she can sit on top of the shed and water the garden near and far depending upon what note she's playing. If the bands stood around a near empty reservoir they could damn near fill it after a performance.....Just remember to boil what comes out of your tap, if and when the goverment see the potential of the brass band for our water supplies.

11 comments:

monkey said...

i have just come in from watering the toms and grape vines in the green house, this such post reminds me of the fat band master of my old scout band, he would huff and puff on his trumpet untill red in the face and after every epic tune he would clear his spit valve all over the marching hall.

Thud said...

monkey was too young I think to figure out what was going on there.

Tim Leatherbarrow said...

As they say in fairy tales "He huffed n' he puffed n' hosed the house down!"...something like that, anyhow. What instrument did you use to water yourtoms n' grapes, and to what tune....If you say Handels 'Water music',Yer barred!
And Thud ,i'm still too young to figure out what went on there.Well for a few more days anyhow. 50(oooooooohhhh!)party on Friday (sob!)

Thud said...

Tim....sorry I can't be present at celebrations but I hope the unsullied monkey and I can treat you to a bottle of something decent at a date not far in the future.Enjoy 50, I shall follow into the next decade a few weeks later.

Cathy said...

50's great, Timbo, you give even less of a shit about things than you did when you were 49!

A few years ago we had a hosepipe ban. As it rained every single day for six weeks over that summer, and it was definitely the wettest drought on record, I cared not a jot for the hosepipe ban. I kept one, a nice bright yellow one, coiled up in my back garden even though they'd been banned.

That showed 'em!

Tim Leatherbarrow said...

Cathy n' her yellow coil, wasn't that an unpublished Roald Dahl story? But thank you for those kind encouraging remarks about the coming Five Ooooooooo(aaaarrgghh)ooohhhh!!!!!...If i survive i shall let you know.
Tim(age 49-just)xx

Cathy said...

No, Tim, you're getting confused. The book "Cathy n' her yellow coil" was one of an autobiographical series I wrote about different coloured contraceptive methods, back in the 1970's.

The Roald Dahl story you're thinking of is "James and the Giant Peach", which is more about fruit-farming (in more gentle colours than were generally available for intra-uterine devices).

Tim Leatherbarrow said...

Aaah my mistake....I did read your litary opus ,a bible in the field of inter uterine contraceptive devices, i've always had a thing about bright colours in dark damp places....Never read 'james and his giant peach', tho'...Just not my thing , i s'pose.
Well-read Tim xx( still 49 n' counting..)

Tootsie said...

der timmm

i hope yu hav a great party and i luv yoo!

xxxxxxx

Tootsie said...

I think yor mate monkey looks a bit like mee

xxx

Tim Leatherbarrow said...

Thanks Tootsie ,i did my best and am now paying the price..
Tim ,suffering for his sins xx