Early Risers.

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, petethemole said:

Nunc est bibendum = Now is the time to drink

Ergo bibamus = Therefore let us drink

Followed - at a certain stage and / or a certain age by 

 

Sto ergo urinam : I stand therefore I wee 🤣

[The White Rabbit]

And as night follows day...

 

 

In vino veritas – in wine there is truth / wine loosens the tongue

 

minima de malis – the lesser of two evils

 

nemo liber est qui corpori servit – no one is free who is a slave to his body (whether in pursuit of pleasure or pain)

 

nigro notanda lapillo – marking with a black pebble / as above, a bad, sad or unlucky day was marked with a black pebble (a good one with a white pebble)

 

Non licet omnibus adire Corinthum – not everyone is permitted to go to Corinth / we're not all rich enough to go to Disneyworld/Vegas/Paris ?

 

O tempora! O Mores! - Oh the times! Oh the habits! / These are bad times.

 

Otium cum dignate – leisure with dignity / a well-earned retirement? 

 

qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum – let him who wants peace, prepare for war

 

Qui me amat, amat et canem meam – love me, love my dog / take me as I am 

 

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes – who will guard the guards themselves?

 

res ipsa loquitur – the facts speak for themselves / allegedly, a legal defence for the homicide of mothers/dragons in law... 

 

sumptus censum ne superet – let not your spending exceed your income / live within your means

 

timeo danaos et dona ferentes – I fear the Greeks even when bearing gifts / beware an enemy being friendly

 

 

[Tony_S]

I went to a school that had a Latin motto but we didn’t study Latin. 

[Danemouth]

3 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I went to a school that had a Latin motto but we didn’t study Latin. 

 

My school was the same - it gained a latin motto whilst I was in the fifth form "Veritas Praevalebit" - which means "Truth will prevail"

 

I have a very slight knowledge of latin as an altar server in the Catholic Church in the latin days (pre 1965). Still serving sixty years later albeit in a different parish 😀

 

Dave

[Coombe Barton]

Our school motto was Dat Deus Incrementum - God gives Growth

Our translation - for chrissakes give us a rise.

[Coombe Barton]

Latin gave me up as a bad job in the third form

 

[Barry O]

Mens Sana in Corpo Sano was our motto.. avoided Latin did Russian instead!

 

Baz

[BoD]

The only thing I remember about Latin were that the two books Civis Romanus, a reader, and its associated Mentor invariably had their covers graffitied to make Elvis Romanus  and Cementor.

[TheQ]

Evening Awl,

Only had two races today as all our competition packed up at lunch time.

 With a northerly wind the best for sailing was down river from the club, up river it was mostly across the river but patchy between the houses. So buoy 1 was well down river from it's normal  position.

The start line was along the upriver section, but almost immediately turned the 90 degree corner to sail down river and down wind.

 

Race 1, course 1p , 3s.

We made a perfect start, ten feet in front of anyone and at a higher speed. We broke free of the mob, who were covering each other, by the time we were at the bottom  buoy we were fifty yards ahead.

Due to the direction of the wind every one was on port tack going down river, which meant going back up river we had total right of way over the boats coming down. Especially when we met the 25 dinghies en mass them having just started.

On rounding the corner, and having the wind  across we should have accelerated, but the wind dropped, so we were gently cruising up to buoy 3,  however the two next boats got some better wind and were catching rapidly until the wind got to us as well.

Round buoy 3 and head back to the club, long tack slowly towards the right hand bank, then a short tack across the river often cutting the tack short due to dead patches under the house wind shadows.

 

On rounding the corner the other two were close behind and we didn't get away this time. But we did hold them off to Bouy 1.

Rounding that we tacked up river, but our tacking is still not as good as it was before my sailing compatriots accident, he can't sit out, and is slow moving about the boat. I wasn't too good today either..

Both boats passed us before we reached the corner and an unusually short race finish.

 

Race 2 they introduced buoy 2, as boats were heading towards each other on a tight corner, so the Course was 1P, 2P, 3S.

Again we made a good start but not as good as the previous one.  We made it to bouy 1 in first place, but one boat over took on the way back up river, this we followed for the rest of the race. With the distance varying between a few feet and thirty and fourth.

The other boat that beat us previously chose a course to buoy that was lower and faster, but we made it to the buoy without a final tack and they were forced to pass behind us. Their recovery was very much slower and we were a hundred feet ahead. This we held  till well after the corner, they then got desperate and hauled up their spinnaker.  It didn't set well and after a hundred more yards they somehow ended up in the trees. So they eventually had to be rescued. This meant no more pressure from behind and all we could do was try to close the distance to the boat ahead, we did that but never got past them..

 

 Latin was certainly not any part of any school I was at, no other languages than English in primary school. French and English at the first secondary school. Gaidhlig native speakers and English at the second secondary school, Although I only took English at the third Secondary school, Gaidhlig native speakers, Gaidhlig learners, French and German were available.

 

 

 

 

 

[The White Rabbit]

For us, Latin was compulsory until the fourth form, then most of us dropped it like the proverbial hot potato. French and German were quite sufficient for me. Enough fragments remain in what passes for a memory these days to allow a passable imitation of someone with a 'good' education. Though I always argue most of my 'education' came from outside school, however, that's another story and one which would certainly upset the old school. 

[jamie92208]

25 minutes ago, BoD said:

The only thing I remember about Latin were that the two books Civis Romanus, a reader, and its associated Mentor invariably had their covers graffitied to make Elvis Romanus  and Cementor.

Our Latin primer got altered to the Corned beef eating primer but for the life of me I can't remember what it's real title was. I gave latin up 3 weks before O level but like the Rabbit I remember  quite a bit of it.  My motto was translated by a Cambridge classics MA one drunken night in the Ratty Arms at Ravenglass.  He wrote it out on a beer mat.  Pete Fazakerley, a great guy sadly died of a brain tumour efore he was 30.

 

Jamie

[DaveF]

I did Latin for two years as I could not avoid it at my grammar school.  The residual knowledge has been useful in understanding how Latin names of living things work.

 

Then I changed to German for the next two years (4 and 5 or 10 and 11 if you are younger) and did it and French at O level.  I much preferred sciences.  The German is useful on holidays, for modelling Swiss railways and watching TV.  French was easy as I had French friends.

 

All three languages came in useful when I did my Biology degree at Manchester University.  Anyone who had not done any Latin and German at school had to do a basic course in them at the start of the first year.  French and German were handy when text books were in demand in the library - very often similar information was available in French and German books - and I enjoyed upsetting lecturers by using French and German references.

 

My then girlfriend was studying French and German, it was sometimes useful being able to talk to each other knowing that most people did not understand us.

 

David

[PeterBB]

5 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

 

Charities are notorious, standard advice is that if you want to leave something to charity write it as £xx, never write it as a proportion of the estate. I've had friends who went through hell as charities took a very predatory approach as to what constituted 20% of the estate or whatever the proportion they wanted was.

I've heard of that too.

 

[PeterBB]

Latin - reached the required 48% in in-house exams but too many others hit higher marks and thus continued to 'O' level.

 

French - just a jumble of words and never got the hang of it and post op had a hearing defect; uni had to do a year of French or Russian so obvious chose Russian but 'modeste strenu sancte' is more or less what it was I currently think.

 

Edited February 5, 2023 by PeterBB

[Tony_S]

There was no Latin or Greek language at my school. Most boys learned German, one form each year learned French. Apparently the white heat of the technological revolution we were being prepared for ( probably something Harold Wilson or Tony Benn thought up) required us to learn German as someone thought that was destined to be the language of science and technology in the then future. Not sure what the life  of Hans und Gerda in Deutsches Leben Part 1 was preparing us for. 
Aditi did French, German and Latin to O Level and French and German at A level. Many years late she did Institute of Linguists exams for fun. I suppose she got a good start with languages as English was her third language starting when she was six years old. Aditi’s school had a Latin motto Per Aspera ad Astra which is slightly different to the RAF one. 
Tony

[Ozexpatriate]

7 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Apparently the white heat of the technological revolution we were being prepared for ( probably something Harold Wilson or Tony Benn thought up) required us to learn German as someone thought that was destined to be the language of science and technology in the then future. Not sure what the life  of Hans und Gerda in Deutsches Leben Part 1 was preparing us for. 

There was a time where it was thought learning Japanese would be essential for the technological 'future'. No longer so.

 

A former electronics engineer colleague was fluent in English, Russian, French and Vietnamese. She had studied engineering in Russian in her homeland - Vietnam.

 

There is a school of thought that Mandarin would be a good choice today. My niece recently won a prize as a top high school student of Mandarin in Australia.

 

Edited February 5, 2023 by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

13 hours ago, polybear said:

The use of a Sidewinder seemed like overkill to this Bear, unless they just happened to have one that was about to go lifex and needed disposal anyway.

 

I would've thought a using the aircraft's gun (they do still have those, don't they?) would've been equally effective and with less risk of damage to any electronics being carried.

F22 Raptor carries a M61A2 20-millimeter cannon with 480 rounds. 20mm cannon shells are overkill too.

 

Then where would they go - even with a short burst?

6 hours ago, PupCam said:

Will bullets go ~20000' uphill I wonder?  (Assuming service ceiling of the aircraft circa 60K  and the balloon was flying at circa 80K)

Raptor max ceiling is 65,000'. Balloon was at ~66,000'. 

 

Single AIM-9x Sidewinder missile was the 'surest' way to hit with zero collateral ordnance expenditure.

[PupCam]

2 hours ago, Danemouth said:

My school was the same - it gained a latin motto whilst I was in the fifth form "Veritas Praevalebit" - which means "Truth will prevail"

 

When I was at the Great Empire and a project manager (there were many) dictated how things were going to go (as they often did) I always took the opportunity to dust off my favourite saying; "Reality Will Prevail" (which was generally different to the plan) and guess what?  It always did! 😀

 

Perhaps they'd have taken more notice if I'd said Veritas praevalebit? 🤔

 

Anyway, I don't care any more.

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon/evening all from Estuary-Land. Had a productive morning at the toy fair, purchased three items that run on parallel strips of metal. One is not running as such at the moment as its still in kit form, at about half the new price. All that retail therapy is tiring so a bit lot of eyelid inspection was required. 

[Ozexpatriate]

7 minutes ago, PupCam said:

I always took the opportunity to dust off my favourite saying; "Reality Will Prevail"

My old boss used to like to say "volition is not a strategy" in similar circumstances.

[Coombe Barton]

My Latin is below the standard of The Life of Brian

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

Internet connection off at moment and its absolutely still outside. Mobile data for this month all used up so I’m using Swmbos phone as a hotspot.

Not much to report but did a bit of tidying up in the garden and changed a bulb in my can.  This reminded me, spent nearly a whole deltic on a new tyre earlier this week. I cant remember the last time i  took a punctured tyre and got it fixed.
Goodnight

Robert

 

[Coombe Barton]

My "Reading German for Scientists" book (university-1968) is still in a box round here somewhere. Along with my chemistry texts they will get shipped to a third world country when I get the energy and time

 

[Tony_S]

3 minutes ago, Erichill16 said:

Mobile data for this month all used up so I’m using Swmbos phone as a hotspot.

Our BT router has another box connected to it so that if the landline system fails it switches over to the EE mobile data network. Well it is supposed to. I am not aware of it happening if it has. 

[Tony_S]

I mentioned recently our crocus were in flower before our snowdrops. Well, the snowdrops have all burst into flower today. Perhaps because it was sunny. Aditi mentioned there was one crocus out. What I thought were crocus flowers were not. Iris reticulata apparently, some sort of mini iris.