h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Umm, maybe.
But weren't the tin variety called baths?

Which tin variety? The free standing ones or the built in enamelled ones with a plughole and taps?

Stand alone.
Plumbed ones of my experience were cast iron and impossible to get down the stairs when it became time to replace them. The claw feet catch you in the midriff.

This means "while at the same time"... for example if you were talking and eating at the same time, you could be said to be eating a sandwich whilst talking.

Unfortunately English is the most difficult language in the world to learn and British English much more so - we don't follow any rules, we make up new words every now and then and occasionally we get hold of a book that is several hundred years old, find a word we like in it and start using it again! Like whilst

Plumbed ones can be cast iron, fiberglass, stonecast (cruched stone with resin), or even TIN. The cast iron ones are a pain to get down the stairs but can be broken up with a club hammer, it's not too hard if you know where to hit them. They are much harder to get up the stairs. The easiest way is to find someone very strong and get them to "wear" the bath on they're back like a tortoise.

Should I have said "turtle". Even though they don't live on land.

I prefer my tubs with ice cream.

In bathing contexts, though, I agree with Goof that it is a moveable object. A galvanised one with two handles.

TC - I quite like baths with ice-cream as well, or G&T, or mangoes (never eat mangoes in bed: you can't get the stains out of the sheets)
BJ - "we don't follow any rules" - don't say that to anyone else! I've been making a reasonable living for 35 years teaching the rules to foreigners, Instance for you try just the order word muck about with to,
Goof - turtle or tortoise? whichever is faster, but either would have had a job in our old cottage; the stairwell ceiling's a bit low which is why our replacement bath was some sort of plastic.

Now you tell us - a few weeks ago we manoeuvred our old bath downstairs, murdering the walls and doing everyone's back in.

Unfortunately, it wasn't even a very nice one or a good quality one, or we could have sold it - chop it up in the bathroom? Do you realise there are people out there ready to give their eye teeth for an old-fashioned cast iron bath?

Two metres, or about six feet six inches in the old money. Cast iron, claw feet, white enamel still gleaming and with no chips. Brass fittings but the taps are removed. Sits under a Blackwood tree and serves as a horse trough to my daughter's mare. Believe me, a modern spa bath is an altogether better proposition.

And certainly a more appealing one than a tin bath in front of the fire - boy I remember having to do that, and the outside toilet as well! as they say It's grim up north, or was for a while anyway but it's quite nice nowadays

Ours was kept under the kitchen table, a strange affair with a lid that lifted up to reveal the tin bath beneath. We had an outside loo in London (the bath were up north, very north) no more than 20 years ago, and I guess there are many still about. But ours was reasonably civilised, just outside the backdoor. In t'tin bath house, the bloody thing was right down the end of the garden!

It was probably about 20 years ago when we had to move whilst our house was having an extension built. Thankfully it was only for a short while.

Gubbins. Any comments on the where this word came from and is it just a northern thing? (used elsewhere on the site and I was asked what a gubbin/gubbins were.

When I left on Friday, this was still vaguely a British English thread, but over the weekend it has evolved into the bath/tub/bathing appreciation forum!

Which is fine by me, because after a hard day's deliberating over the finer points of British English, what better way to unwind than in a steamy hot tub, overflowing with bubbles and sweet scented smells, with just a few Belgian chocs at hand for sustenance.

But iron?

A gubbin is surely a thingummyjig with an overtone of whatchamacallit and in the plural, 'stuff'.

Yes K, the best baths (imho) are cast iron. A drawback tho, they dont warm up as quick as others. Thus, when you lean back to luxuriate in the bubbles of your choice, a rude awakening awaits as your back hits the bath. But, they dont creak as do the plastic types, and once warm, they are supremely comfortable.

(I see we haven't weaned you off Belgian chocolates yet!)

And btw K, you will find somewhere on h2g2 a 'Chocolate Lovers Fan Club' (Run by archangel galaxy babe et al) I am not sure if it is a club for fans of chocolate lovers, or hopeless addicts such as yourself. If I was really clever, I'ld do a link thing, but I'm not, so you will have to search.

I remember encountering 'gubbins' in Salisbury (England) in the seventies. I suspect that it had been introduced by foreigners from the midlands. In those days people from Yorkshire and Lancashire were only allowed south of the Wash for holidays. 'Gubbins' is one of those words in which the singular ends in 's' (the gubbins) and the plural, which is very seldom used, should probably be spelt in the same way. 'Gubbins' is a collective noun, usually meaning 'extraneous bits and pieces', as in "I pulled the refrigerator away from the wall, revealing a hitherto unexplored region full of gubbins."
I agree with the sentiment that cast-iron baths are better than the plastic variety.

I'm thinking that a more modern application might be 'stuff I don't understand'. If, for example, when walking the street you come across a BT Engineer sat on his camping stool by one of those green boxes, you will see, should it be open, that the box is full of 'Gubbins'. In the old days, of course, they had a little striped canvas shelter to cover the whole palaver, so as not to frighten the horses (or people from Yorkshire and Lancashire) with the enormity of the ignorance of mankind.

Yes, I think that you are right. I am quite certain that this very keyboard is full of gubbins. I suspect that BT engineers probably had a specific name for those stripy awnings. I wonder what it was?

'Gubbins' is not in my dictionary, which is *British* English dictionary. You guys are making it up!