OT: Nicknames?

[Mary Fisher]

The family name was Sparks for far longer than there had been electricians.

Mary

[mark]

Plasterer = plaisterer and slaisterer

Plumber = S***house mechanic (although quite often you leave out the mechanic bit)

[Lino expert]

Our maintenance guy at work is a Daniel - he is, therefore, Dan Dan the Maintenance Man.

[Phil L]

plasterer = spread

plumber = bender

[Bruce]

Pipey and smoothie.

[Bob Eager]

The new Lord Chief Justice has a surname of Judge. I expect they only promoted him so they could stop calling him Judge Judge.

[John Stumbles]

I thought another section of society had the dubious priviledge of having that nickname? :-)

[Dave]

In the aerospace industry, we called our equivalent 'pipe benders' so much so, that I can't remember their job title.

Dave

[Paul Herber]

kleptomaniacal robots?

[Andy Champ]

[Arthur2]

Robbing bastard?

Arthur

[Andy Hall]

Plumbers are usually called Wojciech.....

(pronounced Voytek)

[Adrian C]

Hmmm... Plumbumbers -> Bummers?

(Just make sure that they have put the spanner down....)

[John Stumbles]

maybe one day ;-)

[The Medway Handyman]

Hmmmm. GM food or world starvation? Tough choice.

We have all been eating GM maise for decades anyway.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The nice thing about a nuclear reactor, is that it uses natural materials to produce natural energy.

And if my labrador isn't a genetically modified wolf or wild dog..I'll eat his vomit.. ;-)

That's the trouble with bunnyhuggers: they have a narrow and very silly definition of natural.

Which seems to bd down to 'not modifed my mans intervention'

Whicjh of course excludes all forms of food cooking, and alcohol productin.

And, of course, there is nothing more 'natural' than dying of food poisoning.

[Andy Hall]

With a slobberador that's some commitment. They do seem to chuck regularly, don't they? As long as they clean it up though.....

Hadn't thought of that.

So really this is all an analogue thing?

[The Natural Philosopher]

You lost me there..you mean its not a question of modification per se, but how MUCH modification?

In which case computers must be the ultimate devils spawn, being about as far from a grain of sand as its possible to get and still have the silicon in common..

I must say it amuses me when vegans insist on personally inspecting the cooking pots to make sure there is not a grain of animal matter in them, and yet happily fondle the cats and dogs and then eat with bare hands..

Almost every food crop we can buy is genetically modified one way or the other to create a variety that matches our requirements..

I've pretty much decided that 'organic' produce just means overpriced and poor quality as well.

[Andy Hall]

Sorry I wasn't clear.

I think that your point was that pretty much everything is tinkered with to one degree or another.

The analogue point was really that there is a range in terms of that, but that different people see their dividing lines at different places, with one side being good, the other bad.

There do seem to be a lot of examples of that.

[John Stumbles]

If that were the choice. What gets me is the multinationals saying their GM product is going to produce higher yields for the poorest people in the world, as if they would give away their expensively-developed seed to people who haven't two beans to rub together. In most cases I think you'll find that very low-tech improvements in agricultural technology such as provision of more suitable naturally-occurring crop varieties, setting up means of producing fairly basic agricultural machinery and - politically/economically and therefore much harder to achieve - lifting the crippling debt burden from the world's poorest - can produce much better improvements in food production.

That and if us rich bastards stopped buying up the poor's food production to feed our cattle and cars.

Maize, and we haven't all been eating it.