Check before cutting

well cats can climb trees, so why can't they climb wood doors???? :-)

So Derek was in a flap about it!

The best one I saw was about a mile from here. First floor flat with a catflap in the window pane. Small wooden ramp down to flat roof of garage, and presumably some hidden access to that at the back.

The cat is obviously no more (or very energetic); the flap is there but the ramp is gone.

I like the one about the night porter.

"Alasdair, Glasgow: I was asked by an elderly aunt a few years ago to measu re blinds for her windows. I was visiting a few weeks later and commented o n how well the blinds looked. She agreed but rather sharply said that they had to pay twice for the biggest one as it had been mis-measured. Surprised , I got the tape from the cupboard and checked again. She told me I shouldn 't have used that tape as it had fallen in the fire and her husband had rej oined it between the 34-inch and 40-inch segments."

Equally blessed & cursed....

Jim K

Unsuprisingly that is the basis of Alex Salmonds budget for Scotland.

We had a similar arrangement at the Flat my parents and I lived in when I was about 3, Gran owned the house so using the garden was ok. The cat would exit the window and the ramp took it on to Grans scullery roof from which another ramp led down to a fence. Another relative installed a cat flap in the right position on a door but put the actual flap upside down, one of his to cats developed a techinque invoving a sort of run and twist to get through it,the other couldn't be bothered and just assumed that the one cat getting through meant he would also require to be let in.

G.Harman

In message , JimK writes

Less serious, I have a ruler that starts at minus1cm - which caught me out when measuring (and then ordering) some computer fans.

I was visiting a few weeks later and commented on how well the blinds looked. She agreed but rather

sharply said that they had to pay twice for the biggest one as it had been mis-measured. Surprised,

I got the tape from the cupboard and checked again. She told me I shouldn't have used that tape as it

had fallen in the fire and her husband had rejoined it between the

We needed a new kitchen but couldn't figure out how to fit everything in. Several firms produced designs but none did everything we wanted. Then this firm came along and measured up and hey presto showed us a drawing in which everything fitted. We were on the point of ordering but somehow it didn't seem right. I woke in the night and measured up, and looked at their plans. They'd added 280mm to the length of the room! I told them to run up a shutter, then some time later got talking to the husband of one of Hil's pals. He was a self-employed kitchen fitter, his work mostly coming from the larger firms, including the relevant one. I started to tell him about the mismeasurement but he interrupted me to say that it was an old trick. Get the business, then pick up the pieces later. He said that often the fitter had to go through the charade of ringing the firm to say there'd been 'a mistake'.

Bill

In message , Bill Wright writes

That's an expression I haven't heard for at least 60 years. My grandmother was fond of using it. Although the North East expression seems to be "run up a shutter and play with the sneck", hers was "run up a shutter and play with a knob at the top".

So did he put a small window in perhaps? Brian

I grew up in the flat above a grocer's shop, and we had a cat to curb mice from the adjacent woods.

Its standard entry route into the flat was to climb the 6' pebble-dashed wa ll between the flat back yard and the shop back yard, leap across to the co ncrete line post and scramble to the top of that, then leap from there to t he pebble-dashed back wall of the building, scramble up to a window ledge a nd climb through the small opening at the top of that window.