Early Risers.

[roundhouse]

21 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Indeed so. An envinmental catastrophe. Who said environmental disasters were confined to the 20th century?

 

The canneries of the Columbia region, and Astoria in particular, supplied massive amounts of tinned salmon to the world. Most of the canneries would be destroyed in fires in 1883 and 1922.

 

Astoria, Oregon (famous for roles in The Goonies and Kindergarten Cop) was named for John Jacob Astor, proprietor of the Pacific Fur Company. His descendant John Jacob Astor IV would die with the sinking of the Titanic.  For a short time during the war of 1812, Astoria would be known as "Fort George" (in honour of King George III) after it was claimed by HMS Raccoon in 1813.  

Hence Fort Groge Brewery which is in an old car dealers.

 

https://fortgeorgebrewery.com/

 

They used to have a couple of amazing toilets cubicles and the beer is also very good.

 

[Ozexpatriate]

7 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

... cursive f

John, colour me intrigued. 

 

A singularly famous 18th century founding document of the United States begins (in cursive) with "In Congrefs" where the cursive f as a "long s" is quite notable. The transition from "f" to "s" is an interesting one. Use of the long "s", along distinct from the Gothic "s" and "ß" is interesting.

[AndyID]

9 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Funny you mention it. I almost brought it up earlier along with the "snakes with pelvi" reference.

 

A compatriot and fellow "banana bender"* is one of the most egregious proponents of the mythical Fred Flinstone epoch, sponsoring both the Creation Museum and a Noah's Ark "replica" in Kentucky. He left Australia a little after I did, to find more fertile ground for his hypotheses in the US bible belt.

 

* Which Aussies will recognize as a Queenslander.

 

I suppose free speech is protected but what I don't understand is the motivation. I can only assume it gives Ham a gigantic woody.

[Ozexpatriate]

1 minute ago, roundhouse said:

... the beer is also very good

Yes it is.

[Ozexpatriate]

2 minutes ago, AndyID said:

... it gives Ham a gigantic woody

At 510' long, the ark is indeed a very large erection.

 

I was pleased to see the following on their website:

Quote

Due to public health efforts to contain COVID-19, the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum are temporarily closed until further notice.

 

[Barry O]

Ey up!

Her indoors has set off for moreasons having delivered a mugatea to me. Famous words were uttered "stay in bed we can start moving things in the house after I get back"  Yeah,  right! 

 

I shall drink my tea, have breakfast then start on the moving of furniture, unspecified reasons for"...I believe she spoke to the repair man yesterday but a full report was not issued. Pah!

 

As it happens, rain has  fallen, but it has stopped precipitating for the time being.

 

Time to grab Thursday and get things done.

 

Stay safe, stay at home!

Positive thoughts to all ERs.

 

Congratulations to Colonel Tom!

 

Baz

[pH]

34 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Astoria, Oregon (famous for roles in The Goonies and Kindergarten Cop) was named for John Jacob Astor, proprietor of the Pacific Fur Company. His descendant John Jacob Astor IV would die with the sinking of the Titanic.  For a short time during the war of 1812, Astoria would be known as "Fort George" (in honour of King George III) after it was claimed by HMS Raccoon in 1813.  

 

But the fort had already been sold by Astor's Pacific Fur Company to the British (Canadian) North West Company less than 2 months earlier. If the captain of the 'Raccoon' had not insisted on a military ceremony to take possession of the fort, Britain would have had a much stronger case for retaining possession after the treaty ending the war of 1812. And the lower reaches of the Columbia River could have been the Canada-US border, and Washington State could have been part of Canada.

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from a still rather damp Charente.  We are now waiting to see if we will be classified as redvor green on the Govt. Map. If we get a green then some lockdown restructions may be eased after 11th May.  We will wait and see. 

 

Meantime today is a good one. Our gorgeous  granddaughter  completes her first orbit of the sun today. Last year we were south of the equator close to the 180'th meridian. We couldn't have been further away.  At least we are only 700 miles away today and will be videocalling her later this morning.

 

Apart from that it's shopping day, so I will be off to The Danglies. 

 

This afternoon hopefully a bit of shed time and some more scanning, i'm now into early 1975.  

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

[leopardml2341]

On the subject of 'why'.....

 

Why is there only one monopolies commission?

Edited April 30, 2020 by leopardml2341

[Ozexpatriate]

3 minutes ago, pH said:

... the lower reaches of the Columbia River could have been the Canada-US border, and Washington State could have been part of Canada.

Indeed, and was disputed until 1846*. Much is due to John McLoughlin, factor of Fort Vancouver and founder of Oregon City**, and his frustrations with his employer, (the Hudson's Bay Company), and the 1843 vote in Champoeg.  

 

* The Pig War in 1859 would resolve the San Juan Islands dispute.

 

** The end point of the Oregon Trail.

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Nice sunny start here after a very wet night.  More showers today, possibly heavy and thundery, with some sunny periods.

First thing to do after breakfast is to go for a walk.

Next I need to move some money around as one of my pensions landed today.

After that I will head to The Shed after failing in that mission for the past couple of days. 

Bin men due today and my fox stopping mission worked so he's moved down the road for easier pickings. Four doors along there is one helluva mess to clear up.

Have a good one,

Bob.

[leopardml2341]

Mornin' All

 

A brief moment of joy when the work laptop refused to start properly.....quickly reduced to reality when it was attempted a second time.

 

Bit chilly here this a.m. - have had to turn on the heating again, this does not appeal...

 

Not sure what today will bring, but I intend to broach it head on.

 

See you all later. Thursday; watch out!

 

[AndyID]

31 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

 

I was pleased to see the following on their website:

 

 

If only they had the courage of their convictions. Selective science makes me really angry. I better go to bed

 

[Dave Hunt]

34 minutes ago, leopardml2341 said:

On the subject of 'why'.....

 

Why is there only one monopolies commission?

 

And on a similar theme, what happens to your lap when you stand up?

 

The old ones are definitely the best (??)

 

Morning all. Been waiting since 0700 for the groceries to turn up - nothing so far. As Baz would have it, Pah!

 

The beautiful cherry tree at the front of the house now has its annual dandruff and the path is ankle deep in blossom. 'We' are apparently going to do something about it this morning. Pah! again.

 

What happens after that has yet to be determined.

 

Stay safe and well.

 

Dave

[The Lurker]

Greetings all from Sidcup where the beautiful blue skies of an hour ago have been replaced with growing grey clouds and I have just had to shut the "office" window as the warm sunny air has been replaced by a cold breeze. I go for my walk around about midday and I think that today I will be getting wet.

 

Measuring excessive death rates per head of population are not at a country by country level particularly helpful as it seems clear that the density of population also exacerbates the spread of covid. The US has a much lower per had excess death rate than the UK, but the UK is far more densely populated. And even that is misleading because "no-one" lives in most of Scotland. It might be interesting to compare the excess death rates in New York and London with say Paris, Milan and Madrid. It would not surprise me to see similar rates, given that all are densely populated and rely on mass transit for daily working. Countries that are naturally more isolated (Australia and NZ can manage to self isolate a whole country by restricting who can enter the country. One the mystifying things in terms of managing the spread of infection is why we all rushed to bring citizens home from infection hotspots. That surely exacerbated the spread of the virus.

 

 

[iL Dottore]

11 hours ago, brianusa said:

 

Something most can agree on - US marmalade is definitely not on!  We went the Robertsons route (until I found out there was no Golly any more) and now buy Duerr's marmalade which is much better, especially on what is called an 'English muffin' here, with lashings of melted butter.  Also, its discounted if you care to shop around!

     Brian.

Add Swiss “Marmelade” to that almost but not quite list (and French, German, Italian, etc.). Switzerland, France, Italy etc. all make perfectly splendid preserves, but “real” jams and Marmelades are really only made in the UK (same goes for biscuits IMHO, there is absolutely nothing that can compare with a dark chocolate digestive...)

11 hours ago, polybear said:

...1. "Smoked Scottish Salmon" means you're buying Scottish Salmon that's been smoked.

2. "Scottish Smoked Salmon" means you're buying any old Salmon that's been smoked in Scotland.

It's all in the detail, and I'm sure no-one is out to deceive....(yeah, right...)

And there you have it, modern marketing in a nutshell. I suppose it is the piscine equivalent of a supermarket’s house brand copy of X - almost but not quite the same. We also have a similar situation in Switzerland with the traditional Bundnerfleisch (air dried beef). Theoretically the meat should come from Swiss cows, but in practice as long as the meat is processed in Switzerland, it can be sold as Bundnerfleisch (there are labelling differences, but I don’t recall what exactly).
As an interesting digression, the production of “Scottish Smoked Salmon” for the mass market got me thinking about “cheap” (or ‘poor people’s’) food. In countries such as Italy, peasant food (aka la cucina povera) is very much it’s own entity, very different from la cucina borghese, (the Rich get the loin, the poor get the trotters and we get both arrosto di maiale and zampone - both very tasty). Whereas in the UK it can be argued that ‘poor people’s food’ can often be a cheap imitation of ‘rich people’s food’. I suppose the classic example of this is the “white sliced” bread made with the Chorleywood process, which allows bread producers to use a lesser quality wheat and make the bread very quickly (most white bread recipes require high quality flour, butter and milk and take a fair amount of  time to make - all of which costs money). Mass market pasties are another example (puff pastry instead of shortcrust, margarine instead of butter used in the puff pastry...). Both acceptable in their own right, but nonetheless an imitation of the “real thing”.

I wonder if this (to my eyes) lack of an independent non-imitative British cucina povera is due to the land enclosures of the 18th century and because Britain to be the first nation to industrialise, hoovering up thousands of agricultural workers in the 18th century, agricultural workers being the usual origin of a cucina povera.

11 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

I think you answered your question, but in a slightly different vein, why do some snakes have a pelvis?

 

4 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

And why do humans have a coccyx?

 

(Probably not a great idea to bring that question up in conversation with many of my neighbors, particularly those who firmly believe we were running around chucking spears at dinosaurs )

Well... Setting aside evolution for a moment, the simplest answer is Nature is THE recycler par excellence. Putting it simply, once something has been incorporated into the genome, it pretty much stays there, although the physical expression of that gene may be vestigial or absent in the mature organism (which is why we share so much of our Genome with critters like squid or chimpanzees). “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” is pretty much relegated to biological mythology, but it’s easy to see why that theory was popular. Anyway, to put it very simply, sometimes genes “switch on” when they shouldn’t or don’t “switch off” when they should - hence all that vestigial tail, moveable ears and six finger stuff.

Developmental biology is fascinating stuff, however if you go into it in any depth you start to wonder how we manage to survive as a species. What can go wrong is an endless list and the consequences of these biological errors can be pretty gruesome (e.g. the so-called “acephalic monsters” [a very old term and probably no longer used]).

Enjoy the day

iD

[Barry O]

So music room emptied in prep for the work to be done.

 

Polly,  there may be some music for you to play in among music store number 1.

 

 

Ten drawers worth.  The other two stores are larger and fuller.  

No complaints as it means I can buy trains!

Baz

[Happy Hippo]

9 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

Fairy lights could be the answer.

Your wish is my command:

 

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

Well the sun is shining this morning, but there are a few dark clouds about. There will most likely be no muddling or DIY today, my first task will be a trip to the Trafford Centre, followed by a visit to the butchers for the weekly meat rations and a pastie (or pork pie) for dinner. After that I’m not sure what I’ll be doing, possibly drawing up plans for a control panel, we’ll two actually, one for the staircase area and one for the main layout. But the actual dimensions for each will be identical. 

 

Stay safe, stay sane, enjoy whatever you have planned for the day, back later. 

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

And on a similar theme, what happens to your lap when you stand up?

 

 

In my case it is trapped between my belly and my thighs

[pH]

45 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

As an interesting digression, the production of “Scottish Smoked Salmon” for the mass market got me thinking about “cheap” (or ‘poor people’s’) food. In countries such as Italy, peasant food (aka la cucina povera) is very much it’s own entity, very different from la cucina borghese, (the Rich get the loin, the poor get the trotters and we get both arrosto di maiale and zampone - both very tasty). Whereas in the UK it can be argued that ‘poor people’s food’ can often be a cheap imitation of ‘rich people’s food’.

 

Perceptions of food as 'poor' or 'rich' can change: 

 

https://gizmodo.com/lobsters-were-once-only-fed-to-poor-people-and-prisoner-1612356919

 

In fact, in places, lobsters were so plentiful that they were ground up and used for fertilizer.

[polybear]

Today is retirement day

Off to "work" for the last time shortly, just to clear the nearly-empty already desk, sign some paperwork and hand my pass in.

Not sure how I feel about it all - not a nice way to bale out.  But the place is a shadow of it's former self - now full of highly qualified young cockwombles who couldn't engineer their way out of a paper bag.  I'm well out of it, and get to lay claim to my pension before the current situation screws that too (luckily it's one of the few final salary schemes left, though not for newer employees).

Here goes....

[pH]

On 26/04/2020 at 13:10, pH said:

I'm sitting here waiting for a phone consultation with my doctor and reading RMWeb while waiting. I  very seldom use the wifi from this room and it is sloooooooow! So I've just ordered a wifi extender.

 

... and it works!

[tigerburnie]

Morning, we had a decent amount of rain over night, the pond has been topped up as have the water butts on the greenhouse, the down side is I am sure I can see the grass growing...…………...

After the relief of Mafeking when Tescos delivered, we then had an early delivery of meat from the farmer, so our bare fridge and freezer are now at the desired levels, just waiting on 20 litres of West Country Cider to wing it's way up from Devon, luckily a few cans of Thatchers Haze were in the grocery delivery, so they will lubricate the tonsils for a few days, not that I plan on doing much singing...…….not even in the rain.

Take care and keep it covered...………………………...

[Happy Hippo]

5 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

And why do humans have a coccyx?

 

Probably to amuse!

 

I shall relate a tale of a friend whom was serving with my in Cyprus, who forgot which way the wind was blowing and took a downwind landing with about 10kts of wind following.  (Aviators will recognise the slight issue with this).

 

Since he was jumping a rather fast ram air canopy at the time his landing speed, even allowing for a braking flare was around 25 kts.

 

He adopted a very good 'position' and did an excellent PLF (Parachute Landing Fall).

 

But being Cyprus, the ground is somewhat hard and peppered with holes and boulders.

 

As the pelvis made contact with the ground, he rolled into a boulder which suddenly jumped out of the ground to meet him.

 

When he stood up, he said, 'My arse is twitching and won't stop'

 

We thought it was fright until he stood up removed his jumpsuit and dropped his shorts.

 

There was this little tail, sticking up under the skin at the base of his spine, twitching and wriggling.

 

After that he was called 'Pig'