On Wed, 29 Sep 2010 23:47:30 +0100, "Kathy McIntosh"
wrote:

During a conversation about the weather in work, I happened to mention that
when it rains, one of my cats has a habit of bringing frogs in, which then
take refuge in their water dish. Someone remarked that they didn't like
frogs because her Grandfather would stick his fork through them if he found
them in his greenhouse. I said what a shame, think of all the good they
could do [thinking of them eating unwanted bugs]. The general opinion was
that you *don't* want frogs in your greenhouse, but no one knew why.

So, why not?

Now we have an apology - of sorts - from Harry (who has still not
apparently read the original post properly), I'd like to have a shot
at actually answering Kathy's question.

There are a lot of superstitions surrounding frogs - some say that if
one enters your house it brings good luck; others say bad luck.
Touching a frog is supposed to make you infertile. All that money
wasted neutering the cat!!!!! Powdered frog livers are supposed to
ward off epileptic fits.

When it came to enhancing the magic in the bedroom, the frog was seen
as a beneficial creature. One tale speaks of a young lady whose lover
was not being faithful to her. She stuck pins into a live frog and
then buried the animal in the ground. As a result, it is said that the
young man underwent extreme pain and in the end, made his way back to
the girl. She dug up the frog and removed the pins, which caused the
pain to vanish. The two wind up marrying but, presumably, had no
children!

Maybe a lot of this stems from Biblical sources. If you have a Bible
handy, have a quick look at Revelation 16: 13-14 where frogs are given
a devilish connotation.

Cheers

"Jake" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 29 Sep 2010 23:47:30 +0100, "Kathy McIntosh"
wrote:

During a conversation about the weather in work, I happened to mention
that
when it rains, one of my cats has a habit of bringing frogs in, which then
take refuge in their water dish. Someone remarked that they didn't like
frogs because her Grandfather would stick his fork through them if he
found
them in his greenhouse. I said what a shame, think of all the good they
could do [thinking of them eating unwanted bugs]. The general opinion was
that you *don't* want frogs in your greenhouse, but no one knew why.

So, why not?

Now we have an apology - of sorts - from Harry (who has still not
apparently read the original post properly), I'd like to have a shot
at actually answering Kathy's question.

There are a lot of superstitions surrounding frogs - some say that if
one enters your house it brings good luck; others say bad luck.
Touching a frog is supposed to make you infertile. All that money
wasted neutering the cat!!!!! Powdered frog livers are supposed to
ward off epileptic fits.

When it came to enhancing the magic in the bedroom, the frog was seen
as a beneficial creature. One tale speaks of a young lady whose lover
was not being faithful to her. She stuck pins into a live frog and
then buried the animal in the ground. As a result, it is said that the
young man underwent extreme pain and in the end, made his way back to
the girl. She dug up the frog and removed the pins, which caused the
pain to vanish. The two wind up marrying but, presumably, had no
children!

Maybe a lot of this stems from Biblical sources. If you have a Bible
handy, have a quick look at Revelation 16: 13-14 where frogs are given
a devilish connotation.

Cheers

Thanks Jake. We have lots of frogs and toads in our greenhouse on the
lottie, but that's probably because we don't have any glass in it yet!

--
Kathy

In message , Sacha
writes
On 2010-10-01 19:14:34 +0100, harry said:

On 1 Oct, 17:54, Jake wrote:
On Fri, 1 Oct 2010 06:01:03 -0700 (PDT), harry
wrote:

On 30 Sep, 16:43, "Kathy McIntosh" wrote:

snip

"harry" wrote in message


One can only conclude that your grandad was a nasty ignorant man.

One can only conclude that you can't read adequately to access

newsgroup successfully.
Read my post again, decode it correctly, then you can apologize for th
at
comment.

I remarked that the grandfather was a nasty ignorant man. I see no
reason to change this view. *It would be my view about anyone that
deliberately stuck a fork in a frog or any other creature.
Harry there is a lot of difference between the words "the" and
"your".
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I would certainly agree
that
someone who kills any creature out of some sort of spite falls into
the nasty category.
However please could you explain, in simple terms, how you are able
to
conclude that Kathy's grandfather is nasty and ignorant (your original
reply used the word "your") on the basis of her report about the
behaviour of an entirely different grandfather.
If you can't explain, perhaps you would now have the simple good
grace
to apologise to her for the insult, however inadvertent that might
have been.- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
Well if he's not her grandad I'm sorry to her. But the grandad is
an
evil *******. Whoever he belongs to. I don't see the reason for
bringing the topic up anyway. unless to gain some strange notoriety or
to grab attention.

I think it's time you back off. You've insulted someone, bad mouthed a
non-relative of theirs by association and made a bit of a fool of
yourself, while trying now to turn it into their fault for asking a
legitimate gardening question. Not a shrewd move. Not at all. For
myself, I now question why you're on this group. Others may do the
same because much of what you appear to do is cause trouble or offence.
There is no reason for that, really, none at all. Your style of
posting is beginning to ring bells and they don't chime too happily with me.

"Harry" has been in my killfile for some time now as I have found his
contributions tasteless, offensive and ignorant. However, I still have
to read his contributions when others respond to his ravings and I am
interested in what Kathy, Tina, Sacha, Rusty et al have to say to the
group. Therefore, why doesn't everyone put our 'Arry in the killfile?
Then we'll all be spared his vitriol... at least until he reinvents
himself. Or there may be a Damascene conversion and he'll re-emerge in
more acceptable form.
--
Gopher .... I know my place!

On 1 Oct, 19:59, Jake wrote:
On Wed, 29 Sep 2010 23:47:30 +0100, "Kathy McIntosh"

wrote:
During a conversation about the weather in work, I happened to mention that
when it rains, one of my cats has a habit of bringing frogs in, which then
take refuge in their water dish. *Someone remarked that they didn't like
frogs because her Grandfather would stick his fork through them if he found
them in his greenhouse. *I said what a shame, think of all the good they
could do [thinking of them eating unwanted bugs]. *The general opinion was
that you *don't* want frogs in your greenhouse, but no one knew why.

So, why not?

Now we have an apology - of sorts - from Harry (who has still not
apparently read the original post properly), I'd like to have a shot
at actually answering Kathy's question.

There are a lot of superstitions surrounding frogs - some say that if
one enters your house it brings good luck; others say bad luck.
Touching a frog is supposed to make you infertile. All that money
wasted neutering the cat!!!!! Powdered frog livers are supposed to
ward off epileptic fits.

When it came to enhancing the magic in the bedroom, the frog was seen
as a beneficial creature. One tale speaks of a young lady whose lover
was not being faithful to her. She stuck pins into a live frog and
then buried the animal in the ground. As a result, it is said that the
young man underwent extreme pain and in the end, made his way back to
the girl. She dug up the frog and removed the pins, which caused the
pain to vanish. The two wind up marrying but, presumably, had no
children!

Maybe a lot of this stems from Biblical sources. If you have a Bible
handy, have a quick look at Revelation 16: 13-14 where frogs are given
a devilish connotation.

Cheers

Well superstition = ignorance in my book. And some things need
saying. I am not worried about offending people if something needs
saying. There's too much bending of essential truths goes on in these
"PC" days.
And there is no more superstition and evil about than is prated in the
bible and other religious books. Religion is the root of most evil.
Together with ignorance.
I'm sorry if I misread the post, but that is/was one evil/ignorant
*******.

That's all very well - but how do we decide who should be in the group kill file and who hasn't quite crossed the boundary yet? When I was posting direct to urg I had the most *enormous* killfile - I couldn't expect all of you to killfile all the people I had killfiled.

And where does legitimate peer pressure end and bullying begin?

On Fri, 1 Oct 2010 23:31:29 +0100, "Kathy McIntosh"
wrote:
stuff snipped

Thanks Jake. We have lots of frogs and toads in our greenhouse on the
lottie, but that's probably because we don't have any glass in it yet!

Wot, no glass? Maybe that's why what used to be called "glass houses"
are now called "green houses" ;-))

In a post a few weeks back I mentioned that a clearance of my pond had
to be delayed because I'd found newly hatched tadpoles and some frog
spawn in August. Happy to report that a late batch of tadpoles has
rapidly developed and I'm just hoping that they get far enough to
survive the winter. I've put some shelters around the pond and will
keep fingers crossed.

On Sat, 2 Oct 2010 02:24:49 -0700 (PDT), harry
wrote:
other stuff snipped

Well superstition = ignorance in my book. And some things need
saying. I am not worried about offending people if something needs
saying. There's too much bending of essential truths goes on in these
"PC" days.
And there is no more superstition and evil about than is prated in the
bible and other religious books. Religion is the root of most evil.
Together with ignorance.
I'm sorry if I misread the post, but that is/was one evil/ignorant
*******.

Harry

Why cannot you learn? Your last "apology" was something I called "an
apology of sorts" because having apologised you immediately criticised
the OP's motives for posting (which showed you hadn't read the post!).

Now you indulge in another self-opinionated (and I might construe
illl-informed) rant about religion and superstition. You also continue
to make assumptions about the parentage of the "grandfather" referred
to in the OP. He may have been (in my words) "nasty" (I can only say
"may" as I don't know his motives for killing frogs) but I won't call
him "evil" or "ignorant" because I didn't know him and I cannot say he
was a "*******" as I know nothing about his parents.

So your second apology is again tainted with ranting. It's not so long
ago that you were attracting praise for your successful efforts to
hatch out some grass snake eggs. So you do have a compassionate side.

Perhaps we could see more of that and less of the abrupt Harry. You're
entitled to your opinions, as are we all, but there are ways to get a
message across. We cannot "see" you - only "read" you so we don't have
the benefit of facial expressions to moderate your tone.

As Jim Hacker said "there's good in everyone". So come on mate, let's
see that.

Cheers

In message , Jake
writes

There are a lot of superstitions surrounding frogs - some say that if
one enters your house it brings good luck; others say bad luck.
Touching a frog is supposed to make you infertile. All that money
wasted neutering the cat!!!!! Powdered frog livers are supposed to
ward off epileptic fits.

When it came to enhancing the magic in the bedroom, the frog was seen
as a beneficial creature. One tale speaks of a young lady whose lover
was not being faithful to her. She stuck pins into a live frog and
then buried the animal in the ground. As a result, it is said that the
young man underwent extreme pain and in the end, made his way back to
the girl. She dug up the frog and removed the pins, which caused the
pain to vanish. The two wind up marrying but, presumably, had no
children!

Maybe a lot of this stems from Biblical sources. If you have a Bible
handy, have a quick look at Revelation 16: 13-14 where frogs are given
a devilish connotation.
Cheers

Looking back a few years I am still baffled about the mysterious case of
the frog in the toilet bowl....

I had approached the toilet with a view to using it, and was amazed to
see a frog floating around in the water.

I have never quite worked out how it could have got there, it certainly
couldn't have hopped through the house, up the stairs and hopped into
the bowl.
The only way I found credible was that it had entered via the soil pipe,
either by crawling up from the drains (suggesting that it was a toad),
or possibly having been seized and dropped by a large bird, it may have
dropped down the unprotected top of the pipe and lodged on the junction
near the top.
It is a true story, and apart from hearing apocryphal tales of "it
rained frogs", I know of no other instance....
--
Gordon H
Remove "invalid" to reply

"Gordon H" wrote in message Cheers

Looking back a few years I am still baffled about the mysterious case of
the frog in the toilet bowl....

I had approached the toilet with a view to using it, and was amazed to see
a frog floating around in the water.

I have never quite worked out how it could have got there, it certainly
couldn't have hopped through the house, up the stairs and hopped into the
bowl.
The only way I found credible was that it had entered via the soil pipe,
either by crawling up from the drains (suggesting that it was a toad), or
possibly having been seized and dropped by a large bird, it may have
dropped down the unprotected top of the pipe and lodged on the junction
near the top.
It is a true story, and apart from hearing apocryphal tales of "it rained
frogs", I know of no other instance....

It's certainly more spectacular than when I found a newt in my dog's water
bowl, for sure ;-)

Tina

In article , Gordon H
writes
I have never quite worked out how it could have got there, it certainly
couldn't have hopped through the house, up the stairs


Yes it could, i found one hopping up onto the top stair in my house and
another was hopping around behind the settee once. It only narrowly
escaped being flattened by two curious Dalmatians! They must come in
when the doors are open and heaven only knows how long they had been in
doors!
--
Janet Tweedy
Dalmatian Telegraph
http://www.lancedal.demon.co.uk

In message , Janet Tweedy
writes
In article , Gordon H
writes
I have never quite worked out how it could have got there, it
certainly couldn't have hopped through the house, up the stairs

Yes it could, i found one hopping up onto the top stair in my house
Did you try kissing it?

and another was hopping around behind the settee once. It only narrowly
escaped being flattened by two curious Dalmatians! They must come in
when the doors are open and heaven only knows how long they had been in
doors!

I have heard of dogs (even cats?) bringing frogs into a house, but I
have no animals, and all doors have weather protection across the
threshold and are kept closed except when I need to get in or out.
I'm still sceptical...

I have had frogs/toads crawl through the extremely narrow gap under my
garage personnel door. Sadly, they seem to like nestling under the
tread of my car tyres, which has resulted in at least two tragedies.
:-(
--
Gordon H
Remove "invalid" to reply

My husband and I have had a greenhouse for 10 years now and a wildlife pond right next to it, and I for one can assure you that frogs are no harm. Well, they never have been to me. Frogs eat unwanted bugs, and are no harm to us humans. I even have a large garden full of plants and there are frequently frogs darting about the place, causing no harm to anyone. My children and their friends even hold the frogs and newts from my wildlife pond, as long as they wash their hands after it is no problem! frogs are one of the more harmless of predators! so take it from me, someone with personal experience, frogs are harmless.

And might I ad, Sticking a fork through a frog? what a horrid thing to do. Deary me!