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[zan]

Chemistry Set and Telescope

Any accidents? With the chemistry set that is!?!?!?

Bubbles x

None that were traceable . . . But in later years we had to evacuate a school because I got a class of thirty kids to synthesise Iodine on the bench (instead of fume cupboards) and one by one they started choking and bending over double. I thought they were being disruptive, my being a student, so I kept forcing them to go back to their benches until the real teacher came in and started choking too.

As a postdoc I contaminated our research labs with radioactivity because I thought the Geiger counter was not working as everything I checked seemed to be screaming hot, off the scale. I left for the evening to play skittles and returned next day to find yellow radioactive tape all round the building and my lab coat and espadrilles were confiscated for burial. To top it all, I was the Radioactive Safety Officer at the time

and then you got bitten by a spider and became spider-black-widow-woman thingy!!!

[webbo]

Catapults to the Americans are those humongous machines used to throw rocks at castles. The Americans call a boy's catapult a slinghsot. Over the years my English has become americani(z)ed.

Katalaveno dora!
B x

Bubbles mou ... you need more lessons for your Greek!

Yiati; Thought I was doing ok considering the hour!!!!!!!!!!!!

B x

[webbo]

and no, I did not use them on the British. We used to throw rocks by hand for that.

Again, confused!?!?! Must be the late hour!!

Bubbles x

[LENA]

Catapults to the Americans are those humongous machines used to throw rocks at castles. The Americans call a boy's catapult a slinghsot. Over the years my English has become americani(z)ed.

Katalaveno dora!
B x

Bubbles mou ... you need more lessons for your Greek!

Yiati; Thought I was doing ok considering the hour!!!!!!!!!!!!

B x

Ok forgiven because is late....but now is "τώρα" with t not d not that the rest is fine but that was something that could mean presents "δώρα".

By the way all the verbs that end with the sound of "o" is with ω!

[webbo]

Catapults to the Americans are those humongous machines used to throw rocks at castles. The Americans call a boy's catapult a slinghsot. Over the years my English has become americani(z)ed.

Katalaveno dora!
B x

Bubbles mou ... you need more lessons for your Greek!

Yiati; Thought I was doing ok considering the hour!!!!!!!!!!!!

B x

Ok forgiven because is late....but now is "τώρα" with t not d not that the rest is fine but that was something that could mean presents "δώρα".

By the way all the verbs that end with the sound of "o" is with ω!

I always get them confused as they sound the same to me!!!!! Cheers Lena mou.

I know about the verb endings but I was being phonetic - in English!!

Off to sleep on it and dream all about Greek verbs - nightmare more likely!!

Kala nixtasas fili mou

B x

[LENA]

Good night Bubbles mou and sweet dreams without Greek in it!

[iceman]

My bicycle with which I moved around Famagusta. The things I made myself, slingshots (catapults for the British), bows and arrows, a spear gun that never speared any fish. And there were the seasonal games and the toys that went with them- marbles, spinning tops and pen knives to play the game of "tchakoui" which is like a partition game on a drawn square on the soil. You throw the knife into the square and slice off a chunk along the entry line of the knife. You keep the biggest side. People take turns and the winner is the guy who ends up with the biggest piece of real estate.

Thinking back to that time, the stuff in my pockets would land me in jail if I were in England.

very interesting nikitas
we also played that game with pen knives..But that was a winter game cos the soil need to be wet to play it.
I suppose the name of the game came from "caki" which means "folding knive" in Turkish..does this word have a meaning in Greek?
I wonder what other street games we shared..we used to have loads of games in those days, (no games consoles ) some with no tools and some with simple tools like a pen knive or even a tennis ball...

We had this boys game we played with a tennis ball...lets say there was six boys playing the game.we would make six holes next to each other near a wall..everyone would pick a hole and we would start the game...The object of the game was to roll the ball towards the holes in the ground from lets say ten feet.we would do this in turns.
everytime the ball landed in a hole we would put a little stone in that hole to mark it....when there was 5 stones in a hole the "owner" of that hole would stand against the wall (usually covering his face with his hands) and the rest would take three shots at him with the tennis ball from 15-20 feet (pre determined before the game) pretty painfull but good fun..
we called this game "desmece"

[denizaksulu]

I didn’t have any toys so I just played with my Willie…

So you are a w.....?

[denizaksulu]

Catapults to the Americans are those humongous machines used to throw rocks at castles. The Americans call a boy's catapult a slinghsot. Over the years my English has become americani(z)ed.

Katalaveno dora!
B x

Bubbles mou ... you need more lessons for your Greek!

Lena, Phoenix is giving me French lessons, and I am bored with it. Would you give me some Greek lessons.

[denizaksulu]

My bicycle with which I moved around Famagusta. The things I made myself, slingshots (catapults for the British), bows and arrows, a spear gun that never speared any fish. And there were the seasonal games and the toys that went with them- marbles, spinning tops and pen knives to play the game of "tchakoui" which is like a partition game on a drawn square on the soil. You throw the knife into the square and slice off a chunk along the entry line of the knife. You keep the biggest side. People take turns and the winner is the guy who ends up with the biggest piece of real estate.

Thinking back to that time, the stuff in my pockets would land me in jail if I were in England.

Nikitas, where were you when you played 'tchakoui'? Ages 8/10 penknives were our constant companions too. Out in the firelds we used them for making 'flutes'/Kavali' from cane, and when in the village we used to play Chaki (caki-in Turkish) too. We used to play it with our GC neighbours. Funny that you say it like the 'Partition' game, which it was. Not so funny now. We also played 'Andres' a lot.

Is the word tchakoui' a Greek word? or is it derived from the Turkish word for knife bichak, chaki. Or is the Turkish word derived from Greek?

In 1958, I visited London and came back to Cyprus with Triang Train set.

In the village of Kophinou, our house (teachers house) was one of the few with electricity. On special occasions I would set it up and all the boys would come and watch the train go round and round in amazement.
Luckily, Ouzounian & Sultanian had a store in Ledra Street and I used to ave my pocket money for extra carriages. Whilst in that shop, I used to study the photographs on the walls, of the people who once lived in Anatolia. I used to ask them in Turkish. I was surprised there Turkish was better than mine. I am going off on a tangent again. Funny how one thing leads to another.

Afterwards, the set was left in Anglissidhes. I suspect that it brought a smile to its new 'illegal' owner.(together with my Accordion) Havent seen them since 1963. I still miss them.