Hi,

A comment by Medway Handyman on another thread has got me thinking about
technical jargon.

In our company we are mostly engineers/tecchies of one sort or another. And
you know how it is.....tecchies have this constant game of trumps going all
the time.

Who has the best mobile? Fastest internet connection? Most powerful PC?
best Home Cinema? Most diagonal screen inches? The list goes on for ever.

A few years ago an American friend of ours introduced us to the concept of
"Piston Count". This is quite the most ridiculous parameter our staff have
EVER adopted for the purpose of trumping one another. Let me explain the
rules:

You need to sum up all of the pistons in your household. Qualifying pistons
must exist in functional internal combustion engines. Vehicles, power tools
and garden machines are all valid.

So my piston count is 16 which breaks down as:
Volvo (5), Toyota (4), Chainsaw, Mower, Ancient Flymo, Chainsaw,
Brushcutter, Hedge Cutter, Shredder (7).

The highest we had in our company ever as 42 (the guy had a TVR and a
Triumph Stag amongst other cars)

What's your piston count then?

+++++++

By the way functional model engines are permissible, as are boat engines.
After much debate we also allowed company car pistons to be included. The
matter of a Mazda RX7 was however never satisfatorily resolved.