Paul,

How things change!!

When I go to visit friends in Glen Innes and some other towns, I take bottles of boiled water with me, if said friends don't boil or use a top grade filter.
To drink unfiltered/unboiled town water does me no good!!

composition of ball propellant .
40 to 70 percent nitrocellulose
10 to 60 percent nitroglycerin
3 to 7 percent ethyl centralite
1 to 5 percent dibutyl phthalate
1 to 5 percent polyester adipate
1 to 5 percent rosin
1 percent diphenylamine
1 percent ethyl acetate
1 percent potassium nitrate
1 percent potassium sulfate
less than 1 percent graphite
less than 1 percent N-nitrosodiphenylamine.
Causes serious eye irritation. May cause an allergic skin reaction. May cause damage to organs (circulatory system, blood, kidneys, liver) through prolonged or repeated exposure.

Nick,

I don't use ball powder.

Gee Issy, when we were kids in the Orange district, never thought twice about drinking creek water. At the house G'dad had a very deep well with permanent water, to top up the tanks around the old place, which were feed with roof water off the house, me thinks the roof paint contained lead.

Then again Issy, us kids liked to get down on all fours (act like a sheep) and lick the salt blocks in the paddocks, (after the sheep had cleaned them up for us).

Cooked a big Xmas pudding and cake this week. Took me from 5am till noon on Thursday. The pudding is 10 out of 10, but the cake is a little dry could have given it 1/2 hours less.

Just on the subject, for years I used to do Irish Xmas Cakes, for all the family up to 6, start early in the year with a big air tight jar(s), the very large screw top commercial coffee jars work well , fruit, whiskey etc, let it ferment for 6 to 12 months, the longer the better, the worlds best Xmas cake. I can't find the recipe.

"T" and I did 20 puddings one year as one of her "fundraisers" for back home in NZ. Bloody hell that was sinful. All weekend boiling puddings used those baby formula tins, the puddings were popular but bloody hard work.

Peanut oil can be processed to produce glycerol, which can be used to make nitroglycerin, one of the constituents of dynamite. Note however, there are other processes that can be used to make dynamite without using peanuts at all..The Irish TimesSun, Dec 24, 2017.

My guilty pleasure: Lilly Higgins’s peanut butter and sesame cookies.It isn't just turkeys causing chaos. One policyholder reported damage to her kitchen carpets and walls after two Christmas puddings exploded.

Dear Paul,

I remember our visit to Mexico City a few decades
ago. We had a lovely lunch at the Hilton Hotel
and were on our way to a museum when stomach
troubles hit me like a bolt of lightening.
I had been so careful not to drink the water - and
that's why we chose a safe place like the Hilton
for lunch. But I did not think things through. For
dessert I had ordered a fruit salad (forgetting that
the fruit while growing -
would have been watered using their water).

Well, instead of walking up the museum steps, I dashed.
It must of been a usual practice for tourists - because
the security guard at the entrance pointed me in the
right direction to the toilets. So much for safe
hotels. I should have stuck to wine.