Do you buy your own Christmas Present?

In our house for the past 30 years we don't buy presents for each other at Christmas, but buy our own. Strange as it may seem this often means we don't get a present as we usually find there's nothing we really want.


Are weird in this? Obviously we don't have children bludgeoning us to death for the latest five-minute expensive gismo, but it does avoid the false 'oh lovely' bit - look at leBonCoin soon after Xmas if you really want a bargain! Unwanted presents quietly being disposed of.


However, I do have sources for free, legal - but old movies.


Many of us I think reach a certain age, where we look back more than we look forward, and for me this is not only books but music and films.


So my gift to you all this year is a freebie called archive.org


This is the most wonderful (American) site of all time, where you can legally download masses of classic mainly black & white films, and all for nothing. Don't want to download then just 'stream' them - another word for 'watching'. No chase-up mailings trying to sign you up for anything, just totally free. I have been using it for about five years and it is great and everchanging.


Yesterday I downloaded for my Christmas Present no fewer than six old British films, so that's my Christmas viewing covered. (list supplied on demand but how about 'Dr Strangelove' for starters?) Music? Jazz and Pop from all eras. Amazing stuff!


Oh and talking Xmas pressies - time for a commercial. I have just put 11 titles on Amazon and Kindle, all sets of Great Poster Classics


Just use the Amazon box here on SFN which should work, and then type 'Norman Clark' in the search box. Titles are (all 50 Greats) Ski (this is the oddy with 100), Motorcycling, Rail, Flight, Music Sheets, Veteran Cars, Vintage Cars, Post-Vintage Cars, Beer, Commercial Vehicles,and Golf.


Happy Christmas!


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If you're into films & golf, you might enjoy these extracts...(a couple have been removed).....worth catching (even though there are none from 'Keeping up appearances' or 'The Sopranos' here)........expletive alert for the last one, but worth watching....non the less.

http://metro.co.uk/2012/07/19/the-british-open-championship-the-best-18-golf-scenes-movies-3819354/

Enjoy, and a Merry Xmas to all !....

Good stuff Peter! Let's call up some others - Hey its Christmas (spelled it right that time?)

18 Reasons Why Golf Is Better Than Sex

  • You don't have to sneak your golf magazines into the house.
  • If you are having trouble with golf, it is perfectly acceptable to pay a professional to show you how to improve your technique
  • The Ten Commandments do not say anything about golf.
  • If your partner takes pictures or videotapes of you golfing, you don't have to worry about them showing up on the Internet, then you become famous
  • Your golf partner won't keep asking questions about other partners you've golfed with
  • It's perfectly respectable to golf with a total stranger
  • When you see a really good golfer, you don't have to feel guilty about imagining the two of you golfing together.
  • If your regular golf partner isn't available, he/she won't object if you golf with someone else.
  • Nobody will ever tell you that you will go blind if you golf by yourself.

  • When dealing with a golf pro, you never have to wonder if they are really an undercover cop.
  • You don't have to go to a sleazy shop in a seedy neighborhood to buy golf stuff.
  • You can have a golf calendar on your wall at the office, tell golf jokes and invite co-workers to golf with you without getting sued for harassment
  • There is no such thing as a golf transmitted disease
  • If you want to watch golf on television, you don't have to subscribe to a premium cable channel.
  • Nobody expects you to promise to golf with just one partner for the rest of your life.
  • Nobody expects you to give up golfing if your partner loses interest in the game.
  • You don't have to be a newlywed to plan a vacation primarily for the enjoyment of golf.
  • Your golf partner will never say, "What? We just golfed last week! Is that all you ever think about?"

I know I shouldn't do this but I just want to let you know that if you have youngsters wanting to get into Marketing - I have just put my former MBA Marketing programme out on amazon.com and Kindle as an inexpensive 10-part set (buy subjects separately). Under 'Essential Marketing' and welly cheap, and welly good!

The following appears in my '50 Great Golfing Posters' book and I think sums up the daftest sport ever created - you know of course where the name GOLF comes from? Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden.

Then women became as daft as we men; -but think of all the jokes we would have lost??

I know nothing about Golf....although there is a famous course virtually on my doorstep.So a few years ago, I gave into a (mad) impulse...and paid about £30 for a red leather caddy & clubs from a charity shop in Banstead, on the off-chance that I might have ago.....despite the fact that a'hero' of mine Mark Twain, I think described the game as 'a good walk ruined.....'

For keen film buffs, I have just finished watching one of my favourite Marlon Brando films (with Red Buttons & lovely James Garner too)...'Sayonara' through this excellent You Tube link showing full films rather than alot of fragments/trailers,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD_wxyTHJ2I&list=PL8F18E48510403329&index=23

A really excellent range of 'old films'......

Ah, Norman, surely I couldn't be implying.... oh, wait.... :)

Ian, you are surely not suggesting.................?

I remember this all very clearly and a lot of other people WERE suggesting...............!

Pollies were no different then from now I fear.

Mr Marples had other ideas about that, though....him being Transport Minister and a major road builder all at the same time :)

Vauxhall survived but is hanging on apparently. Beach station was slap bang center of town for the holiday makers and South station had the line to Lowestoft & the south. There was another station at Gorleston a couple of miles away. Just imagine how much frieght could have been carried on these ex-lines thus relieving the poor road system of overload etc ?

What a flippin' waste !

And more importantly, three motive power depots (MPDs, or "locosheds"), plus Lowestoft :

32C Lowestoft

32D Yarmouth (South Town)

32E Yarmouth (Vauxhall)

32F Yarmouth (Beach)

Just to think Gt Yarmouth boasted THREE railway stations pre-Beeching !

Fine job, Peter. Just missing the line about recreating British Railways and rebuilding the lines :)

The top magazine an old flame Norman ?

Ian, I thought you were meaning that - just didn't want to appear 'thick' ! (well, any more thick than normal !)

Lindisfarne - All Fall Down Great lyrics by Alan Hull

Councillors, magistrates, men of renown
Who needs to live in a dirty old town?
Yes, go on, tear it down
Who needs the trees and the flowers to grow?
We can have a motorway with motorway dough
I know, I know, I know, they've got to go
Tear them down, mess them round
Make a mockery of all of the ground
And if you ever have a sleepless night
Just count out your money, it'll be alright
Politicians, planners, go look what you done
Your madness is making a machine of ev'ryone
But one day the machine might turn on
We'll tear you down, mess you round
And bury you deep under the ground
And we'll dance on your graves till the flowers return
And the trees tell us secrets that took ages to learn
We'll tear you down, mess you round
And bury you deep under the ground
And we'll dance on your graves till the flowers return
And the trees tell us secrets that took ages to learn
We'll tear you down!

@Norman : to get BitTorrent : http://www.bittorrent.com/intl/fr/bittorrent-free

@Peter : you have to have had (phrase redacted) experience to understand 'em. What went wrong? Oh, just about everything from when "they" started building motorways and Marples/MacAlpine/Wimpey got their hands on the country. The Orcs, in fact :)

Peter - as I say its the computer (my ecuse and I'm sticking with it!)

The Course is in Puy d'Arnac just 8kms from Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne.

My Niblick and I are just good friends!

Vic, oh I've only just replaced the ash shafts as well - bugger!

NB just catching up on my reading (see below)![](upload://f0NGXCI9VhaqKFWG2Noaaowevh1.jpg)![](upload://dI6qceJTRJwevpTDzf3yiplbPCu.jpg)

Bet he still fondles his Niblick !

Dyslectic ? Too much excitement Norm !

hi Norman, re- new nine hole golf - which village are we talking about as a matter of interest ?

You may have noted the errors as I get excited! Sorry about those. I blame my computer, I am sure it is dyxlectic!