As said already, the use of the word flake in this way is a novelty for some of us. Every day is a school day.
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Yup. To flake. What us yotties or any others who regularly use cordage do to make a rope run out without tangles or knots. It looks totally counter-intuitive. What you see of a rope thatās been flaked is a great heap of seemingly impossible tangles.
Weāve all seen film of great ships being launched down slipways with hundreds of tons of chain running out behind the ship. Those chains have been flaked by cranes into piles which run without snagging on itself, just like the rope in the vid.
This vid shows how.
flaking out rope - Google Suche
Having said that, it is a certainty which, like The Law of The Medes and The Persians, cannot be undone, that if there is any possibilty of a rope snagging, it will.
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So, there seem to be 2 methods of flaking the cord ā as in the first video above where the cable can be hung up neatly on a hook, which I shall now adopt, or, as in the second video above (Google Suche), leaving the cable in a heap.
Now weāre getting somewhere.
Everything you described happen to me most days.
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I feel like Monsieur Jourdain (le bourgeois gentilhomme) who talked prose without realising, I have been flaking extension leads since a zillion years ago when someone showed me it works better, but had no idea it was called that 
so nice to learn a new word.
Is the figure of eight method the same as shown in the video above - A āFlakyā Approach to Coiling Cords?
Is it the same with a hosepipe? Mine is very wilful. It starts by allowing me to form a nice circular coil, say clockwise, on the ground, but at some point it refuses to carry on coiling in that direction and will only go anticlock. Itās a good hose, quite heavy, and itās not possible to wrestle it back into a clockwise coil. It ends with an untidy heap of hose. (It is better behaved in warm weather.)
I would guess itās possible, but when warmer weather comes along, and my hosepipe softens out of its current rigid state, Iāll have a go, and see what happens.
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Here are 3 pics of Julesā long line.
First the anchored clip which leads to the bottom of the pile:
then leading to the pile:
finally the way it stays, an apparently hopelessly tangled heap but which 99 times out of 100 pays out without snagging.
In fact the only problem I have to guard against is it getting it wrapped around the tow bar, but I manage to avoid that by pulling it to the side while it races through my hand.
There is a similar blue one flaked on the ground by the forest gate for when we go out that way. 
Little Opie, who doesnāt need a lead, sits on top of the pile quite happily and gets out without getting caught in it. She is already in the car when I am re-loading the line, and doesnāt mind a bit with this thing whizzing alongside her.
Is it the same with a hosepipe?
It is with mine, but that is flaked over a distance of about 4 metres.
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I donāt know how you manage your long lines when going through woodland??? We have only 8m leads and even so our two would manage to entangle themselves round bushes and tree trunks and weād have to unwind them. Itās bliss these days because Bertie is on his own now and off the lead when weāre heading through the woods.
Easier than you think. He drags it in and out of the trees and bushes but as long as it can run free does not often snag. If it does, getting jammed in a cleft root for instance, I have to walk back and free it but generally it is not a problem.
I donāt hold onto it all of the time, as long as I am close enough to jump on it if necessary. As he snakes backwards and forwards I donāt have to follow exactly, I can go round the other side of awkward bits and cut him off at the pass, so to speak. 
This video shows the line paying out at the start, and something of the walk up through the woods. Unfortunately it doesnāt show the flaking of the line at the end. It is fairly long at over 10 minutes but for the purpose of this discussion you only need to see the first part of it before emerging into the field, though it does show him walking back on our forest track further on.
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Thanks Bonzocat ! Itās definitely easier when the weather is warm.
The effect is similar i.e. one can pull either end to unravel the cable, but the cable itself is ordered rather than disordered. The advantage of figure 8 is that multiple cables can be stored in a box together and then come out ready to use. Plus if you want to deploy the cable over a distance you can hold one end and throw the body of the cable towards the speaker etc to connect and it will unravel as it flies.
Iāve āflakedā fishing line and ropes in the past instinctively, but never known the name of the process
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The thing that happens to me (so often) is that I have something in my hand and I put it down and I want it almost immediately again and I havenāt clue where Iāve put it! Itās happened to me just now. Iāve just looked at the contents of a memory stick on my computer. Iāve taken the stick out of the USB hub and put it down. I now realise I want the same stick so that I can copy a new presentation to it for tonightās photo club. Do you think I can find the wretched thing???
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Me too, but if each time you put something down momentarily, without thinking, visualize it for a moment, and youāll learn to overcome this sort of short-term memory, which is nothing to worry about - itās not serious and happens as we grow older. Happens to me all the time. My old boss, 99 years old living in Nice, confessed he has short-term memory loss due to age, and he emphasised due to age. As I said, visualise anything you put down momentarily, and youāll remember. Itās the sort of memory loss of a sudden thought or idea that you intend to follow up but disappears as soon as something else catches your eye.
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Ironic that you forget a memory stick. 
My problem is that I forget a vital word, in English, when I am in full flow writing something, and no matter how I try I canāt bring it back.
The other day I was writing something in a thread here (canāt remember which ) and I only needed the last word before pushing Reply. After 10 minutes of swinging my lower jaw side to side (Christine, Franās Aide swears by that and it does work sometimes) I gave up and wrote ābelittling.ā
The next day when she arrived and I said belittling but that it was not quite what I wanted, immediately she said āpatronisingā. But I forgot it again later so at the moment I have it written down beside me.
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Haha I often go hunting around for my missing spectacles only to find that I have simply pushed them onto the top of my head, also i have hunted around looking for car keys which were actually in my hand at the time.
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I think thatās connected with why my Dad stopped me coiling up the electric lawnmower cord as he saw me do it. Iād been coiling it up from the loose end where it plugs in. He told me to coil it up from the mower end (i.e. the fixed end)ā¦Since then Iāve done it with every appliance Iāve had to wind up the cord of, eg the vacuum cleaner, and the cord always stays put neatly.
I guess Dadās method is basically flaking while winding up (I havenāt been doing figure of eight though I do wind on my hand and elbow, but havenāt had a problem).
When I canāt find the word I want, knowing itās not all the other words that come to mind, I write down the nearest word I can get into Word and use the Thesaurus, or Iāll chase it around on the web until I find it, but quite often that word taps me on the shoulder maybe half an hour later or even the next day. Same with names.
The speed of delivery depends also on whether Iāve had a good nightās sleep.
You probably did!
Unless youāve been extremely lucky, at some time, something has probably āflaked offā something you own.
My most recent example has reminded me that itās eleven years since our volets were last painted. On the other hand, they now look authentically France profonde!
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