[RubyRed]

    It's a good job I'm not religious. Fire, plague, floods and locusts. !! Though I'm sure I've heard about them before . . . 

[Growster...]

And also 'Domestic Property Soot Content Inspectors', Ruby, coming to a village near you next year...

[Goosegirl]

My dear Ruby. Growster has given me so much interesting historical info andI don't even know where to start to have a little bit of fun on this subject, so I'll just have a go as one does.

1) It can be useful when you don't want foxhunters on your land. Get your sweep to put the soot into a hessian sack that's tied on the back of a greyhound then just let it run free.
2) Soot is used in a vulcanization process to treat rubber and used in toners for laser printers and copiers. Hey, we could be millionaires next year!
3) Ruby. Just a little caveat. If someone calls to inspect your chimney please let them know you've just got the flue which, in this current crisis, will delay any further investigations until your chimney has been in quarantine for two weeks. 

[jezza]

Hello  we have a soot inspector comes every year  the council send a man down to sweep the chimney and checks that we use smokeless coal he tests the soot to see if we have been burning logs, something to do with the carbon content numbers   jezza

[Growster...]

Hello  we have a soot inspector comes every year  the council send a man down to sweep the chimney and checks that we use smokeless coal he tests the soot to see if we have been burning logs, something to do with the carbon content numbers   jezza

I hope you are joking Jezza...

:0(

[Growster...]

GG, it is also pretty good as an alternative to toothpaste - so I've heard...

I wouldn't really know what to do if those particular horsemen arrived on my doorstep, probably ask them if they have a leaflet, or an email address or something as silly...

[Goosegirl]

If four horsemen knocked on my door I'd ask for their ID and, only if it was all in order, I'd let them in for a little sit by the fire whilst I provided them with a home-cooked meal accompanied by some home-made wine, then I'd inject them with some of my cat's flea treatment. In the meantime, I'd tether their horses to one of my fences so they could do a bit of grazing on my lawn then I'd work out how much to charge them in the morning for their overnight stay. Hopefully I'll have saved them from pestilence, stopped them from arguing who goes into the top of my two bunk bed by drawing the shortest straw so that's war sorted as is famine because I made sure they had full tummies before they went upstairs, but death is far beyond my control unless I used the wrong wine recipe! 

[Growster...]

I reckon you're making all that up, Goosey!

Horses don't like home-made wine!

[wighty]

Just watch out for your milkman, he might not be who you think he is!  (T.P. fans will know what I mean, but we have racked our brains to think which one he was).

[Growster...]

Just watch out for your milkman, he might not be who you think he is!  (T.P. fans will know what I mean, but we have racked our brains to think which one he was).

He used to be Ernie, Wighty, but now I'm not so sure...

Hey - we don't even have a milkman!