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Posted: 04-09-2009 09:13 Post subject:

When I lived in Hungary I saw pet ferrets on leads. They always walked along the side of the pavement away from the road, weaving entertainingly around signposts and drainpipes, and in Hungarian they're called ferrets. Laughing

Posted: 28-09-2009 21:16 Post subject:

Most Forteans probably know how magicians use misdirection to work their tricks.

But it seems there's something else going on as well - our eyes flick around a scene we're observing, but while the eye means from one point to another we are blind!

This is demonstrated on the pop-science prog "Bang goes the Theory"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00n156q/Bang_Goes_the_Theory_Series_1_Episode_9/

(Watch from 19 minutes in.)

This was new to me!

Posted: 29-09-2009 05:50 Post subject:

Ive noticed when almost asleep sometimes I become aware of 3 sets of breathing. Ie, my own, my boyfriends and then an apparent 3rd set Shocked

Recently I had a bought of insomnia and as I lay in bed fully awake for 2 nights in a row I discovered that my boyfriend simply sometimes starts to breath in an odd manner.
Glad thats sorted though, it was freaking me out! Laughing

Posted: 15-11-2009 00:55 Post subject:

In the wee hours last night I was aroused by a sound of something clattering or falling. Maybe it had come from my next-door neighbour, or the flat above...

I looked out of my front door into the communal corridor, but all was quiet.

This was a real guilt-inducing scenario - I should do something in case one of my neighbours was in trouble. But what if it was just a mere domestic mishap? I'd probably wake someone from a previously undisturbed sleep if I knocked on the wrong door to ask.

Or if it was the right one, they might resent the fact that I appeared to be complaining about the noise!

But it might have been something outside, with the severe gales last night, so, hearing nothing more, I went back to bed.

Just as well!

In the morning, I discovered that an adhesive hook on the side of a cupboard in my kitchen had come unstuck, causing a plastic colander to fall and knock over a couple of empty cider bottles...

Doh!

Posted: 21-08-2010 12:21 Post subject:

Channel 'crocodile' turns out to be wood

Coastguards in Dover and France say a large crocodile sighted in the English Channel was actually a piece of wood.

Officials have said that the wood probably did look like a crocodile from a distance.

Bathing in the sea in and around Boulogne-sur-Mer in France was suspended on Friday as a precaution while a search was conducted

The claim of a crocodile sighting was made in a message which had been sent to a local newspaper, La Voix du Nord.

According to the newspaper, an animal rescue charity which had not been told directly of any sightings asked for the water to be cleared while a search took place.

A spokesman for Boulogne-sur-Mer town hall had previously said it was thought that the claim was "a joke".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11046562

Once when sailing in Harwich, to avoid unnecessary calls for the lifeboat, I reported a floating log to the harbour authority - it had a branch sticking up which from the shore would have resembled a person waving for help! The harbour launch came and removed it.

Posted: 16-10-2010 16:22 Post subject:

Today, sitting out in the sun reading, I heard the sound of an aircraft. Earlier a small plane had flown by towing a banner, and I thought that maybe it was coming round again. I watched the sky for it, thinking I might take a photo, but what I spotted was a silvery sphere.

Only this morning I'd read about the helium balloons accidentally released over Manhatten, so I assumed this was something similar. But as it moved across the sky the sun suddenly reflected off a tail, and I realised I was actually watching a small helicopter, much higher than I'd assumed the 'balloon' to be. It wasn't one of the usual Navy choppers we get round here, as they have a different outline.

I did try for a pic, but by then it was so far away it'll probably just look like a dot!

Posted: 02-07-2011 20:38 Post subject:

This afternoon I was reading a book in a quiet country pub - in fact I was the only customer at the time. Suddenly, two young girls (about 3 and 6) ran through the bar, and one of them shouted out "Lose weight!" Now I'll admit I could do with losing a few pounds, but I felt it was very bad manners for them to comment like that. "Kids today.." I thought.

It was only later that I realised that what I'd heard was actually "Louise, wait!" Embarassed

Posted: 03-07-2011 09:44 Post subject:

My 85 year old neighbour was commenting the other day about the abbeygators that keep going over.

Funnily enough, the misperception seems to have been mine for assuming he'd scrunged up 'helicopter', it clicked with me the other day that word is almost 'aviator'.

Either that or the wooden crocodile has got to the nearby abbey ruin. Laughing

Posted: 14-08-2011 17:07 Post subject:

When I lived in a flat in a coverted mansion in Clevedon, an elderly neighbour complained that his doctor had not been able to help him with the Tinnitus he was suffering. He felt as if he was 'going mad', he said. 'I'm not imagining it'.

much later I popped in about some photos he wished to show me and I heard a faint bleeping noise from high above me. There on the Victorian ceiling was a long forgotten smoke alarm with its near-dead battery giving off a faint regular bleep.

Posted: 23-08-2011 21:24 Post subject:

Today, on a bus, I spotted a sign on a lamp-post ahead. It seemed to say Xmas Trees!
I thought, "In August!"

But as we got closer, it morphed into "Xpress Tyres"... Embarassed

Posted: 01-09-2011 14:34 Post subject:

I have a condition that causes balance difficulties, and since Saturday night I've had several vertigo episodes. I also sometimes get strange visual effects - my ear doctor thinks these are migraine, but they've never been disruptive or consistent enough to send me through med-hell trying to get a diagnosis. I have bad astigmatism and wear reading and distance glasses, the prescriptions on both of which are a little outdated. It is really freaking hot here right now - the high yesterday was 101, and it felt comparatively cool! We only have window unit air conditioners, only in the study and in the bedroom. I am sensitive to caffeine, and had drunk a cup of fully caffeinated tea that morning in order to be able to function against the vertigo effect.

So yesterday, after the temperature dipped down into the 90s, I was watching TV, wearing my reading glasses, in an un-air-conditioned upstairs room with my husband and beginning to crash hard while still buzzing a little from the caffeine. I leaned my head against his shoulder, facing downward along his arm, and closed my eyes, but almost immediately my head started spinning, so I opened them in order to fix my eyes on one point and stop the spinning. The reason for the spinning illusion is that your eyes are dancing around in an uncontrolled fashion; consciously fixing them on one point ends the illusion, and the remaining vertigo symptoms are by comparison mild.

When I opened my eyes last night, however, I saw my husband's arm covered in white fabric spotted all over with small black dots, about like those on dotted swiss but in a more random pattern. This was disconcerting and made the eye-fixing trick difficult to do, but I managed it, all the time staring at this strange fabric, which I knew didn't exist. Gradually I got depth and color perception back, sorted out his bare arm from the background, and realized that the fabric was in fact my sundress, which has a pattern of red cherries on a white background. The cherries are much larger than the dots I saw and no part of the dress covered my husband's arm, but I saw one merge into the other and the arm emerge from the fabric. The entire effect was disagreeable and made me a little sick to my stomach, but once it was over I was able to go downstairs to close the house up and freshen my drink (I drink more than a gallon a day in this weather; have to, as one of the pills I take to treat my condition is a diuretic) without any bad balance moments.

Posted: 01-09-2011 23:03 Post subject:

PeniG you can get multifocal glasses and they are really good once you get used to them. I used to have vertigo and was told to keep off salt and stress. Stemetil gets rid of the symptoms pretty quickly.

Posted: 17-09-2011 11:31 Post subject:

This morning I went to the bathroom to take a shower. As I took off my dressing gown, I heard a metallic clatter. Thinking I'd knocked over a can of air freshener that stands on the floor nearby, I bent down to pick it up - only to find that it was quietly standing in its normal place! Shocked

Perhaps my dressing gown had flicked it against the wall, causing the sound, but it then toppled back into position without actually falling..?

Then I noticed I couldn't hear the extractor fan running, so I wondered if that had blown a fuse or something. My hearing is not reliable, however, so I got a rod and reached up to the extractor with it - the gentle vibration confirmed the fan was working as usual.

So was the sound a symptom of my hearing problems...?

Suddenly Idea

the penny dropped: I went to the front door, and sure enough there were two letters lying beneath the letter box, which has a metal flap... Embarassed

It was just a coincidence that I took my dressing gown off at the precise moment the postman delivered my mail! (rynner gets there in the end.. Rolling Eyes

)

Posted: 17-09-2011 11:58 Post subject:

I guess as you get older, directional hearing is one of the first things to get confuzzled.
My right ear is on the fritz, whereas my left ear has super-duper hearing - leading to a bit of an imbalance. This means my directional hearing isn't as good as it used to be.
Maybe that's what's happening to you, Rynner? Have you got better hearing in one ear than the other?

Posted: 17-09-2011 12:09 Post subject: