"Are these the 23 dullest men in Great Britain?" Topic

The first one wins. Couldn't finish reading about him before falling alseep…

What is a trig and why would someone bag them?

Well the guy who collects toy soldiers is an actor so he can't be that dull, plus anyone with a WWI tank on their front drive can hardly be in the same league as people who love roundabouts and plaques.

Hey,vacuum cleaner,beer and milk bottle,and brick collecting are all major hobbies! Some people collect washing machines, and I read an article once about a fellow who collected tractor seats.He had them mounted on the walls of his den.

Traffic cones is a new one,though.

None of them match the golfer I was forced to listen to on a flight between Toronto and -- er, somewhere else. After a bit I just pretended to have died.

I might be wrong but a trig is a triangulation coordinate marker and we wouldn't have our maps without them. This may be somewhat out of date with the advent of GPS but when they were first used it meant that the Royal Artillery could range accurately and blow the hell out of Napoleon's expected invasion of our shores. They were what the Ordinance Survey maps were based upon.

Ordinance being the operative word.

Probably not the first, or last time, you have had to pretend you died, Mexican Jack!!

I'm pretty sure the dullest man in Great Britain sits on the couch, eating crisps and watching the telly.

These guys do something, even if I (and most people) cannot understand what they find interesting or compelling about it.

Well I don't think any of them are dull, a bit boring to some maybe. Dull people are the ones who do nothing with their lives, die and are remembered for absolutely nothing. Bit deep that.

Still cheaper than collecting wives…..

These people aren't dull, they're awesome. Building a sea wall, that's important in combating erosion. Visiting follies; Bob Wellings did that on Nationwide in the 1970s and that made prime time TV. Building your own WW1 tank? Well, that deserves praise. No one called Dave Gorman dull for going around meeting other people called Dave Gorman, after all. I say let's celebrate all these men.

…except for the roundabouts guy. You have to draw a line somewhere.

I've seen the book – and as mentioned above how can having a tank on your drive be dull ? There's also some guys who fix up WWII kit to running order – not my thing, but not really that dull.

Collecting bricks and beer cans – well I hate to point a finger, but that does strike me as a little dull. Not like the exciting world of out of print boardgame hunting. Did I ever tell you about the time I tracked a copy of "Siege of Minas Tirith" across the Serengeti? We were two weeks on the trail, and Davies had gone down with a fever but we kept finding traces – a counter here, a scrap of worn off rule book there…and then…oh, I say, come back – I hadn't finished….Well ! Some people!

Anthony Cook – you are my hero!

The majority of people lead empty lives … it is their jealous revenge to sneer at those of us with fuller lives …

But that's their problem

Phil

They could be spending their time lying in a gutter either drunk or on heroin,which is a much more worthwhile pursuit…..

How can the guy who visits "huge number of countries" be dull??

JohnG

The guy who collects vacuum cleaners sux…..sorry< I'm The Most Predictable Man on TMP.

I am sure the traffic cone bloke has been on TV. I think he runs a company that makes traffic cones so his collection sort of counts as R&D.

Number 6 has my vote for the coolest.

The guy with the tank isn't dull, he is (or should be) a hero to true guys everywhere.

The wife of a friend has visited about 140 countries so far. The ones she hasn't done are usually pretty serious war zones. She's been to the smallest fly speck of a nation in the middle of the pacific. She also lives near Windsor.

Anyone remember Ripping Yarns: The Testing of Eric Olthwaite?

You know Howard, Howard Molson.
Yes, dear.
He's got a new shovel.
Oh.
It's a lovely shovel.
- It's got a great big brass handle.
- Oh, good.
You know what he's going to do? He's going to put it next to his other one.

YouTube link

Kropotkin303,

Just for the record, and your explanation is otherwise correct, it's Ordnance Survey ( ordnancesurvey.co.uk ) .

Do I make Number 24?

22nd Foot I stand corrected. Thanks.

who collects toy soldiers is an actor

As was Peter Cushing. The guy that wins in a comparisons to Chuck Norris. ;->=

As for measuring hills/mountains, there was a movie. I thought THAT was a bit dull.

Doug

Ambrose Bierce wrote in his Devil's Dictionary that "An egotist is someone who is more interested in himself than he is in me."

People who don't have engrossing hobbies must often appear strange/odd/eccentric to those who don't have their own enthusiasms. They become dull if their hobby is their only topic of conversation.

Anthony Cook is my hero too!

In my experience most, people pour their hobby-time energy into college football, college basketball, and the pro versions of each. Nothing more boring than that.

Visited 2,500 follies?

OK, for us colonial types, what is a folly? Aside from the notion that I will win my next game…

Pre-wargaming, a folly is what you built when you had too much disposable income.

OK, for us colonial types, what is a folly? Aside from the notion that I will win my next game…

In architectural terms, a folly is something built principally for decoration, but whose appearance implies something else. It usually transcends a "garden ornament" – for example, in the 18th Century, many English and French landscape gardens would feature a Roman temple or similar structure.

(Definitely with you on the "winning the next game" thing……)

a folly is what you built when you had too much disposable income.

There has been analysis which suggests that a proportion of follies were job creation schemes during economic downturns – effectively the Gentry kept an otherwise unemployed rural population in work.

A form of benign trickle down economics in the absence of an effective welfare system.

Q:does this also include the contemporary fashion for building "ruins"?

Indeed, if the practise of visiting many countries is dull for this author, he has some serious problems with his values.

The author is completely wrong. I've met at least 23 duller men – all of them train-spotters.

I rarely malign another's interests – goodness knows those who push plastic and metal men around on a table for recreation have the foundations of their tower of criticism in a layer of sand (or, in our case, perhaps a sand table).

But.

If you think train spotters are dull – you are really not going to enjoy the company of bus spotters.

Several years ago I visited Duxford whilst it was also hosting a Bus Spotters Jamboree (Busfest or some such). During the day a Bristol Blenheim buzzed the airfield, passing quite low over some buses and then Hanger 1. And I swear I was the only person watching!

Everyone needs someone else to look down on and in any case, it's MY irrational bigotry… ;)

True enough though… However, not watching the Blenheim display is surely just cause for throwing them under said buses. Nevertheless, I don't have to deal with bus-spotters in my place of work… Unlike train-spotters… May imps of Satan urinate in their tartan thermos-flasks of weak lemon drink…

OK, for us colonial types, what is a folly?

Just wanted to pipe in that, follies figuring in a least one case each, my colonial ignorance was corrected by watching episodes of Poirot, Miss Marple, and Granada's Sherlock Holmes. ;->=

Don't think I ever succumbed to the other folly. I think you need some near wins for that.

In the US, we just use the 'silly git' form, though, after Alaska being purchased from the Russians was described as 'Seward's Folly', we consider adding the 'who's stupid now?'

Are we dull, yet?

Doug

I know a group of men who are so dull they go and visit places that a battle took place at, even though, at best, they are just empty fields, and often have been at least partially built over. Given the natural changes that take place anyway, the whole thing is incredibly pointless, and even worse they will even post messages online asking what indistinguishable bit of field they should visit next.

LH,

Indeed they do. I also know of some who groom children to do it as well, the pervs…