Does anyone agree with me that the greatest invention in human history...

[Venusian Broon]

Soreen?

Tea cake king (of at least the Edinburgh area around about my house) was the Lyle Golden Syrup cake. Sticky, sweet and up to you how to slice. Spread with butter to get that wonderful flutter of your heart begging for you to stop eating it.

 

[Boneman]

Soreen?

Tea cake king (of at least the Edinburgh area around about my house) was the Lyle Golden Syrup cake. Sticky, sweet and up to you how to slice. Spread with butter to get that wonderful flutter of your heart begging for you to stop eating it.

Yeah, that was coronary artery occlusion in the early stages, wasn't it? Along those lines, I'd bring in bread and dripping with loads of salt...

 

[Venusian Broon]

Of course that was the healthy way to eat it - if we had guests round we would cover the buttered slices in batter then fry them.

I'd bring in bread and dripping with loads of salt...

Do you know, I don't think I've ever had bread and dripping in my life. We obviously fried our chips in some sort of similar animal fat - before we discovered the convenience of oven chips - so I can't claim to be totally ignorant of its charms.

 

[Parson]

Bread and dripping? --- As a child we had what we called "bread & fat & syrup" (from my Dutch forebears I think) --- You would fry side pork (possibly bacon) and then you fry bread in the remaining fat and pour Karol syrup (thick black syrup a cousin to molasses) on it. --- Of course that was back in the days when a well marbled steak was considered preferable for it's taste and not questionable for its cholesterol. (sigh!)

 

[althea]

If you are talking about the most important innovation it would have to be writing. If you limit the idea to invention, I'd go with the wheel, or more precisely the the wheel on an axle.

(I'd call writing an innovation because homo sapiens were using representative symbols far longer than anything which we would call actual writing.)

Surely it was the inventor of the second wheel.

 

[Mouse]

Soreen?

Tea cake king (of at least the Edinburgh area around about my house) was the Lyle Golden Syrup cake. Sticky, sweet and up to you how to slice. Spread with butter to get that wonderful flutter of your heart begging for you to stop eating it.

I love golden syrup cake too! Yum. Although, I wouldn't ruin it with butter, you loon! I don't put butter on Soreen either.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I love golden syrup cake too! Yum. Although, I wouldn't ruin it with butter, you loon! I don't put butter on Soreen either.

I did that during my 'food experimental phase' (when I played about with food that my parents bought with their hard earned money.)

Other notable experiments were: bread dipped in coffee, ice cream sandwiches (with chocolate 'magic' topping), Baked beans with <everything> and various charcoal curiosities invented when I'd left things too long under the grill.

 

[Mouse]

Now I really some some ice cream with that magic chocolate stuff! I used to love that.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Now I really some some ice cream with that magic chocolate stuff! I used to love that.

Actually bringing it back OT, yes that chocolate stuff that hardened when you poured it on ice cream was indeed magic. I'd argue it beats the wheel in terms greatest invention

EDIT

Crivens, I knew it had magic in the product title:

 

[JunkMonkey]

The mousetrap! The humane kind, not the poison gas or nasty snapping type. Without it, we would have a very hard time catching the cute little beggars.

I have never seen the point of humane mouse traps. Ideally a mouse trap should decapitate the little buggers and then post the heads round to their relatives' houses as a warning.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I've used a 'humane' rat trap as it's the only thing that worked. Of course it catches birds too, who usually scold a lot. Doesn't do them any harm. I've wondered what I might catch with a larger size. Probably cats.

 

[Mouse]

I don't see why (some) humans think they're more important than any other animal on the planet.

I'm quite shocked that Parson "likes" something so barbaric too. But then, I detest all animal cruelty.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

(some) humans think they're more important than any other animal

But you're a mouse, of course you'd say that
Actually it's not simple.
Rats or dogs that want to eat your animal friends.
The plates, pots and work surfaces getting piddled on.
Spoiling and eating of food, clothes.
Disease.

I'm against all animal cruelty. And all Human Cruelty and pointless death and destruction of anything.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Don't get me wrong I like mice. I'm not a cruel or sadistic person. Mice are fine in their place - when they're out there (points out of window) doing all that Beatrix Potter, Brambley Hedge stuff they're fine. When they come in the house and start chewing the wiring and peeing in my food however....

 

[Alex The G and T]

I'm with ya, Junk Monkey.

When the dog or the cat hear a rat trap snap; they come looking for a yummy, fresh snack. Thus the corpse is not wasted.

Circle of Life.

 

[Parson]

I don't see why (some) humans think they're more important than any other animal on the planet.

I'm quite shocked that Parson "likes" something so barbaric too. But then, I detest all animal cruelty.

I liked the post. I thought it was humorous. But I also do not like mice and rats, they are vermin in my book. I've killed more than my share of them. We had a farm once that was overrun with rats. It was almost literally, them or us. It was an easy choice.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I'm the kind of person who, when she sees a spider in the house, gets a cup and a piece of paper to urge the spider into the cup, and escorts the arachnid outside. But, though I feel horribly guilty, I do spray ants whenever a large party of them invades the kitchen, because it's just too much trouble to carry them out of the house one-by-one.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I'm the kind of person who, when she sees a spider in the house, gets a cup and a piece of paper to urge the spider into the cup, and escorts the arachnid outside. But, though I feel horribly guilty, I do spray ants whenever a large party of them invades the kitchen, because it's just too much trouble to carry them out of the house one-by-one.

Ants of course, because before you know it you have a massive party in your kitchen, millions of little feet everywhere (parties always end up in the kitchen don't they?), so you have to get rid the invitations and destroy the chemical trails, unfortunately that means a few ant deaths, but they come from a colony where the queen will make up the difference soon enough and if they were out in the natural world their life span would probably be similar as they get predated on by lots of different things (I tell myself)...

but spiders - I like them. They eat some flies and things that I don't like buzzing around the house - those pests putting their feet and mouth parts into dirty places and spreading it about. So as long as they don't clog my flat up with too many cobwebs spiders are welcome guests!

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Spiders poo over everything in my workshop. Looks like white to dark brown speckles from roller painting a wall. No solution. I have to cover anything valuable. I get dead woodlice in component drawers, 100s of them. Strange.

 

[Mouse]

Erm... aren't Christians supposed to believe that "God" created all living creatures? Do you think "God" is happy for you to murder one of "His" creatures, Parson? (I am genuinely interested in the answer, btw, so maybe PM me, please? Cos I don't want an argument!)

I won't even kill the snails in the garden that eat all my plants, because what gives me the right to do that? The snails are just doing what snails do, they don't know they're trespassing and shouldn't eat those particular plants because they belong to an Almighty Human.

I'm very much of the eco not ego stance.