does the central heating get you down

3 bar electric fire in the living room. No heating anywhere else in the house, and single glazing. I used to wake up on winter mornings with ice on the inside of my bedroom window.

You two don't know you are born - the only way we had any heat in winter was after Grandma had made onion soup.

It was worse in the summer when there was a slight breeze. We lived 200 yards from a slaughterhouse and meat processing plant. It facking stank, had to keep the windows closed.

In the weinters of the late 60s and early 70s my betting shop had more pensioners in it than the post office on Mondays, they all came in to keep warm.

It was a council maisonette in east London. We moved in when I was 5 (1956) when it was brand new. I moved out in 1969. The slaughterhouse was closed down and moved in the mid to late 70s. My dad died in 1977 and my mum fecked off to Elm Park, Essex, soon after. The whole block, 16 maisionettes and 2 flats, is inhabited by blacks and asians now. It backs on to the bookies I used to run.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - the advent of CH being a 'norm' in this country has without doubt contributed to the obesity problem in this country.

In the '60s and '70s - even '80s, it was a rareity in working class areas.
Hence, you needed all the calories you could get down you to stay warm, especially if you were fit and active.

I always remember the first bit of a sentence I learned in biology: "Respiration is the oxidisation of food to produce energy: heat."

The lard @rses of today don't need the calories. Simple as that.

No salad dodgers on Chit Chat, the whole place is awash with athletic types.

Roaring open fire here.

Ready supply of hardwood offcuts from a woodyard.

Just picked up 2 tonnes (Toasty but not stuffy smiley).

Sounds good EGG your set up, very earthy. No central heating here, no gas supply but have the air con units that do hot and cold but no need to have them on warm as it is still very pleasant here.

Why does evertyone long for the bad old days. It was freezing when I was a kid, usual no heating etc and i vowed when I 'grew up' I would not be cold again...................and I never am :) (said in Homer voice)

can i bore you with a central heating racing story

used to have park ray solid fuel central heating , wife hated it as i never kept it going long enough, lol , leave it ,the central heating im on about, anyway she was saving up to get gas central heating early 90s this is, she had 375 quid in a tin, we had been quoted 1500 quid, anyway a 2 year old I had been following was running at newmarket, tumbledown ridge had won its 1st 2 races, anyway youve guessed it i thought ,bingo all on the nose central heating paid for, the horse was leading at the bushes , going up the riseing ground a horse coming along side, I swear to god the race went into slow motion that last 1/2 furlong even commentators voice was slurred, then it all went back to normal speed youve guessed it beat 1/2 a length, I felt sick omg what am i gonna do, looked round bookies everyone was smiling ,laughing at me so it seemed ,lets face it lots of people like to see a big lumpy bet lose, in retrospect no one was, i was just so not with it, staggered outside hardly any fuel in car, managed to drive home dont know how, 5. 30 came wife home from work, bag of shopping in hand, for some reason she looks at me, my face must have given it away, " oh no you havent", runs to check tin, runs back in , swearing " you bar steward" " how could u", next thing a full tin of cat food hit me side of head( this is when i realised she should have been a pitcher for new york yankees), steady on love i says food costs money, oh dear bad choice of words " you feffing what " she goes , 4 pinter milk bang into my chest milk every where, time to do one, could here her being sick as i left( least i didnt have to clean all that up), went to my mums , 4 weeks later , she had me back, thank god , i always hated scrabble
anyway tumbledown won 2 more races, form figures as a 2 year old 11211, lol, just my luck, next year horse who beat him won guineas,mr baileys if i remember rightly, told wife least we didnt lose our central heating money to any old nag, but she wasnt impressed
ok move on 8 years , i am at ponty races gone to pre parade,horse in handicap walking round , thought i recognise that name, its only blummin tumbledown, now a long forgotten 10 year old handicapper, you should have seen everyones face ,a grown man remonstraighting with a horse about " why didnt you just , hold on, you dont know the bother you caused me", lol, he looked as though he had seen a few cold winters the same as me, gambling hey , who says its a mugs game

Good tale Yorky, I think you posted it a few years ago.

Boooooo! What a swizz.

Heating doesn't get me down - the feckin gas bill does :(

i'd have made her onion sap

oh dear did big charlies mum run a mot service station in the house too

I used to live in a paper bag in the middle of the road........

No need for central heaing where Flatliner lives ;)

I'm over for the games in Santa town against Barca (Jan) & Madrid (Feb).

Stay lucky.

u at the north pole rink rat ?

where exactly ?...i may be close ish...