I think we should have a forum entitled...

Well that right ANA , that what friends are for .
Laugh !

Don't on any account iron the house plants! - I think the posts are getting confused.

What about if they've got sat on and are creased? On a cool iron of course?

sunseeker a woman after my own heart. Ironing is boring, boring, boring..

If the OP were a genuine rather than jocular request and such a thread instated, I think it would trigger a mass resignation from Gransnet, including mine.

My father always said "Nothing is boring; people are bored."

absent As ever, you are probably right!

Well they haven't exactly rushed to take me up on it.

Thank heaven for small mercies.

bags I used to use that on my own children, and only now realise what a barbed comment it is. Was only saying what I feel.

Help! I am feeling confused, what with soaking handkerchiefs, watering men's knickers pants, ironing poinsettias, feeling left out because everyone knows jingl except me . And I sliced my finger mandolining cabbage for coleslaw and dripped blood everywhere (not that it is relevant, but I want someone to feel sorry for me).

Icyalittle go on then, I feel sorry for your bleeding finger - concerned though that dripping blood onto a keyboard wouldn't be wise

The thread I presume is tongue in cheek started by a returned poster who once called herself jingl and now is jinglebellrocks I think. She was sorely missed by many, myself being one, for her incisive wit and crap cutting comments.

Hope your finger isn't too sore tomorrow.

Sel I hope you are not saying that J's comments were crap or was it only the cutting ones

Granny23 damn commas. Or maybe crap-cutting?

Is that an Oxford hyphen?

I feel sorry for you Icyalittle.

For the painful blood letting that is.

I have to take issue with you dear Sel. This would be an excellent thread topic.

Such fun!

ariadne, I never felt it was barbed. He wasn't that kind of guy anyhow. It was his way of telling us not to tell him we were bored and that if we were then we should do something about it; it wasn't up to other people to entertain us out of boredom.

Actually I think a little bit of boredom is good for people. It can be used as standing and staring time and letting things fall into place. That's how I use ironing (and knitting, so long as it's not a complicated pattern) because although it requires a small amount of concentration (mindfulness), it does leave the brain time to settle and calm down. I use washing-up by hand in the same way. So what other people might call boredom (or boring), I call calming. There is something very satisfying about doing even "boring" tasks properly.

No, I'm not advocating ironing, just arguing that it isn't boring from certain viewpoints, but a stilling activity and that I value those.

And I agree with what my dad said – one's boredom is one's own responsibility.

Or, in other words, intelligent people have no excuse for being bored. I call that straighforward, not barbed.

or even straightforward

I'm talking about in ordinary circumstances, btw, not if one is trapped by illness or imprisonment of some other kind.

Thank you, severally, for the sympathy and the info. Granny23

PS (after a morning of wood-gathering and peering at mosses), i think I could shorten all that above, ariadne, to this: ironing isn't boring; you are bored by ironing. That's not a criticism, just a statement of what I think. There's a difference between the two and that's the difference my father's comment was trying to highlight.