Do folks notice or not?

[skirtingtoday]

And the name ASDA was when Walmart bought over an established UK company ASsociated DAiries.

(Comes under the list of useless information I know)

[STEVIE]

I buy my pipe tobacco at my local ASDA and Morrisons (U.K. supermarket) skirt or trousers ,no problem, no comment.
Regular occurrence, they're just not bothered. That's all good.
Steve.

[crfriend]

For non-British folk, ASDA is the British version of Wal*Mart (or as I usually say, Mall*Wart), wholly owned by Mall*Wart.

I see the cancer is metastasizing. Lovely, just lovely.

[STEVIE]

Carl,
Those two I mentioned are my only choices for my favourite tobacco.
I probably purchase on a 50/50 basis, ASDA is close to home, Morrisons is close to my office.
There is only one independant tobacconist in Aberdeen. The proprietor is so unhelpful that I'm surprised the business still exists.
You are right though, and it's pernicious, sadly.
Steve.
On thread, I've never been aware of being "noticed" by staff or customers at either of them.

[crfriend]

Carl,
Those two I mentioned are my only choices for my favourite tobacco.

My comment wasn't to your tobacco use, as that's a personal issue and the risks associated with it are well understood by any competent and attentive adult. By all means, rock it if you wish!

My comment was aimed at the WalMart ("Mall*Wart" -- I love it) empire which is slowly shutting out many fine places here in the US by undercutting on price, and by not fully admitting the ethics that they employ to make that low price possible.

There is only one independant tobacconist in Aberdeen. The proprietor is so unhelpful that I'm surprised the business still exists.

Now that's sad.

Taking up smoking is not something I'm about to do again -- having smoked cigars for a few years in secondary school and as a defense-mechanism from an ex-girlfriend who was a smoker. I figure I haven't lit up in 30+ years; my vice lies with the hop. I still have fond memories of the smoke from my old computer teacher's pipe; I just wished he wouldn't smoke in the computer room!

On thread, I've never been aware of being "noticed" by staff or customers at either of them.

It turns out I do get noticed from time to time. I swept into my friend's bar just north of here last weekend wearing my green plaid mini, plopped my backside into a chair, and even before my beer showed up had one of the women regulars mention that she liked my skirt and that it looked good. I'll take that. (It's a great place to make a grand entrance at, and the fact that the first anybody is going to see of me I'll be mostly filling a doorway, then turning left around the corner of the bar in a slightly confined space, followed by passing under a ceiling beam that I only clear by a few millimeters. I have seen eyes widen when I do that -- and it's not the skirt they're looking at.)

[STEVIE]

Hi Carl,
I mentioned the Tobacconist because Aberdeen is a reasonably sized city by Scottish standards anyway. The population is just shy of a quarter million yet that shop is unique in our area ,possibly the whole north east.
It's not just Asda/Walmart, the chainstores are killing the character of our cities. Step insida a mall and you could be anywhere in the country, no particular flavour and worse, less choice.
Steve.

[Tor]

It's a great place to make a grand entrance at, and the fact that the first anybody is going to see of me I'll be mostly filling a doorway, then turning left around the corner of the bar in a slightly confined space, followed by passing under a ceiling beam that I only clear by a few millimeters. I have seen eyes widen when I do that -- and it's not the skirt they're looking at.

That does sound like a grand entrance. Confidently striding under a beam that one only just clears is apt to make people who see pay attention, if only for the momentary fear that you will hit your head. I'm about at that place with standard doors, where if I step on the threshold I'll hit my head, but under normal circumstances I can walk right under. I am of the opinion that tall people hit their heads less often for the number of obstacles encountered than short people by virtue of having their head bonker detection circuitry generally at a higher sensitivity level.

[Kirbstone]

England is a great place for head-bonkers. Lots of old pubs have at least one 'Cranium Cracker' and frequently there is the illustration of two birds....Duck or Grouse!

We had a (1550) Tudor house in Hampshire for 20 years and I quickly learnt to duck my head under the doorways. Only when one had just entered a room and remembering that I had forgotten something and spun round did I repeatedly knock my head! When we extended it we were required by planning to allow 7'6" headroom in all new habitable rooms and standard height doorways.

Tom K.

[DonaldG]

Did some shopping today in Sainsbury and Aldi, wearing a black leather midi skirt, but received little attention and no comments re the skirt. But more friendliness from the women I encountered.

[Tor]

Tom, I got a chuckle out of the two birds. Much more interesting than an ugly yellow or orange sign.

In some ways a shame to tamper with the character of such an old house, and yet changing and designing things is human nature. To be honest, that you had no useful choice in the matter of height bothers me rather more than that you would choose to make the extension a comfortable height for yourself.

[Kirbstone]

Tor,
When we bought the cottage there were just the two of us and a couple of small dogs. That was in 1969 and we were married in January of that year.

By 1979 there were 6 of us with our eldest aged 8 , the youngest aged 3. The decision was....do we move, or extend. That was decided one windy night when a near neighbour's old wooden barn blew down and he agreed to sell me the timber.....mostly elm, but quite a lot of good oak. We then bought a few extra selected oak beams and designed a 'period' queen-post and main rafter gables & elevation for an extension that would be 'in keeping' with the original. I got a retired surveyor to do the calculations on loading strengths of oak beams and the Council approved the design.

I was still in my 30s and very fit and strong, so I built it myself with help from a few selected professionals. It took a whole year and we lived in one end of the house while the work was going on. My wife is very stoic. We ended up with lots of room and 6 bedrooms, so it was a sort of DIY Olympics.

I won the Gold Medal when 7 years later an architect fell in love with it and bought it off us for enough money to pay 4 sets of school fees for several years. We moved West and bought an old Vicarage for half the price.

Tom

[crfriend]

When we bought the cottage there were just the two of us and a couple of small dogs. That was in 1969 and we were married in January of that year.

I'd not really call that beautiful domicile a "cottage" -- especially in its original form -- as it was likely larger than the place that Sapphire and I call "Home" and cannot keep up with the housework on.

The transformation was magical, and it looks like the "cross-piece" was done at one end of the original structure with an architectural reminiscence of the original grafted on beyond. In any event, the result was magnificent.

[Kirbstone]

I remember a colleague remarking that the most powerful contraceptive he could think of was the thought of school fees! Having decided to educate our four privately it became apparent with the increasing pressure that my work wasn't going to pay for this out of taxed income and we didn't have 'old Family money' to draw on.

In the UK, profit on the sale of one's private home after a minimum of 2 years residency there is free of tax, so over a period of about fifteen years we only managed the fees by moving house....twice. 4 years further on we sold the refurbished Old Vicarage in Herefordshire for enough to see the offsprings through. That's when we moved domicile to Ireland.
I just maintained a tiny flat in Germany and commuted back & forth every third w/end while I was there.

Tom

[Tor]

That outside looks very nice, and certainly very much in keeping with the rest. Well done on that, and it sounds like taking the trouble to do so paid off well to boot. I wouldn't have thought someone as tall as you would want to do anything other than make the new living spaces tall enough to stay out of the way of your head. Though I am sure I would have done the same, having bureaurats telling me I had to do so would have perversely annoyed me to no end. When I look at old places I sometimes miss that there are no buildings that old around here, but there is the benefit that I'm not sure I've seen anything shorter than a standard door around here.

By the sounds of it, you actually completed the work in a relatively short time. Good job. Our house is now a decade old, and still is arguably incomplete, though the functional parts are complete. "A builder's house is never done," sometimes extended with, "until it's sold."

[crfriend]

"A builder's house is never done," sometimes extended with, "until it's sold."

But what happens if it becomes the builder's dream so that the only way he'll leave is feet first? For all its faults, that's how I feel about the place I dwell now.