Remember these.? All our yesterdays

[Gibbo2286]

So now Jim's mentioned 'secret' I'll wander of subject a little further, for Neil,
My daughter back from the RAF in Berlin got a job at GCHQ, I bought in a white BMW 518, she "oh dad I like that." so I let her have it.
Barely five feet tall she was tucked away a bit, one day reading through signals received she got one saying "Observations to be made for a white driverless BMW travelling on the Golden Valley by-pass."

[bobins]

Presumably now at the irrecoverable stage

No, they're Creeds... They can be got going again All you need is a selection of hammers, screwdrivers, a pair of adjustables and a quart of oil after giving them a bath in paraffin

Might need one of them as a spares donor though....

I have this lovely mental image of a slightly broken teleprinter being careful delivered to the electrical engineering department by a slightly concerned head of a section expecting the bods wearing lab coats to carefully examine it and tinker at it with jeweller's screwdrivers.

"Nah, Mate. Drop it in that bucket of paraffin and we'll have at it with the hammers and adjustables in a couple of days"

[Hell Razor5543]

I heard that somebody dropped a teleprinter out of the twelfth floor of an office block, where it landed on a Volvo. The Volvo was written off, but the electrical engineering department got the teleprinter working within an hour (15 minutes of that was for making the tea).

[CitroJim]

It always used to amuse me when looking at classified documents with pages marked SECRET top and bottom and the only text on the page reading 'This page left intentionally blank'

Or as a mate used to write it 'This page left intentionally vague'

Reading through an insurance policy document in PDF format this morning I was delighted to see this

Presuably you've just committed an offence under the OSA by revealing the contents of a secret document

Happily, as of Tuesday morning I'm still a free man and have not felt the long arm of the law descend upon my shoulder - yet

[Peter.N.]

Try shining an ultraviolet light on it.

Peter

[bobins]

I thought you were supposed to use lemon juice and a candle. Is that where I've been going wrong ?

[MarcusMcGuinness]

One of the first grown-up books I read as a young boy in the late 60s, was On Her Majesty's Secret Service, by Ian Fleming.

"There are hundreds of secret inks, but there was only one available to Bond, the oldest one in the world, his own urine. He went into the bathroom (what must the televising eye think of his digestive tracts?) with his pen, a clean nib, and his passport. Then he sat down and proceeded to transcribe, from the flimsy pieces of paper in his pocket on to a blank page of his passport, the names and approximate locations by county of the girls. The page showed nothing. Held in front of a flame, the writing would come up brown."

[mickthemaverick]

I remember it well Marcus. Coincidentally the first grown up book I bought and read was Fleming's Live and Let Die. I bought it in the newsagent opposite our school gates, Luxton's, attracted by the bullet holes in the front cover.
As a result I was hooked on 007 and embarked on a lifetime of fanship. However I have only ever been a Fleming fan rather than a Bond fan so the more recent films not based on Fleming's work have not intrigued me at all.
Buying that book made a huge impact on the rest of my life but I wouldn't have believed it if someone had told me it would!!

[Gibbo2286]

I've tried to read one of John le Carr's 'Smiley' books, 'El honorable colegial.' but my Spanish isn't good enough. so it sits here on my shelf.

[MarcusMcGuinness]

I remember it well Marcus. Coincidentally the first grown up book I bought and read was Fleming's Live and Let Die. I bought it in the newsagent opposite our school gates, Luxton's, attracted by the bullet holes in the front cover.

That cover was something else! I remember we had quite a few of the Pan Books series at home, and none of the earlier ones from the 50's. Typographically, they were really emphasising the James Bond brand.

https://fontsinuse.com/uses/50074/james ... ks-1963-19

Mac

[mickthemaverick]

I still have the full set including some duplicates and the later Robert Markham/Kingsley Amiss ones:

MTMO

[MarcusMcGuinness]

Blimey!

[NewcastleFalcon]

One of the first grown-up books I read as a young boy in the late 60s, was On Her Majesty's Secret Service, by Ian Fleming.

"There are hundreds of secret inks, but there was only one available to Bond, the oldest one in the world, his own urine. He went into the bathroom (what must the televising eye think of his digestive tracts?) with his pen, a clean nib, and his passport. Then he sat down and proceeded to transcribe, from the flimsy pieces of paper in his pocket on to a blank page of his passport, the names and approximate locations by county of the girls. The page showed nothing. Held in front of a flame, the writing would come up brown."

Nice thread debut Marcus, hope you become a regular contributor to the quirky and enjoyable little world of the many threads in FCF Off Topic Chat Section. I like a nice font/typeface and a bit of graphic word art. Several examples are scattered through the pages of the threads.

viewtopic.php?p=427389#p427389

Neil

[MarcusMcGuinness]

Thank you, Neil,
Over the last few days I've binge-read All Our Yesterdays from the beginning. Very entertaining, very nostalgic.

Mac

[CitroJim]

Neil, we spotted these in the Cambridge Museum of Technology and thought of you