Early Risers.

[jjb1970]

8 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

I doubt that very much. The Malayan emergency wasn't really 'amicable' with well over 10,000 deaths.

 

 

The Malayan Communists were primarily (though not exclusively) Chinese and seen as a malignant foreign influence by the majority Malay population, so the British/Commonwealth campaign against Communism in the country was supported by most Malays. The attitude of considering the ethnic Chinese persists today, the bumiputera system is effectively institutionalized discrimination and a major reason Malaysia didn't want Singapore in their country was it introduced too much Chinese influence. So the campaign tends to be remembered very positively in the country and didn't do our memory any real damage in the eyes of the Malay people. Britain left on good terms with the Malay people and continued to have pretty good relations.

 

The independent country continued the emergency until the Communists were pretty much wiped out, while Britain was their guarantee against Sukarno's Indonesia which had dreams of wider SE Asian hegemony. At the risk of sounding cynical it is probably the reason Malaysia was spared Indonesia's year of living dangerously unpleasantness as we'd already done the job of removing the more militant layer of Chinese, the Indonesia genocide was as much about ethnic score settling against the Chinese population of Indonesia as it was about anti-Communism for the regular people.

 

Suharto managed to harness and manipulate existing prejudices quite cleverly while securing himself as President and making himself an anti-Communist bastion in SE Asia at a time when that was an excellent way of securing political and financial support from the US and West in general. These days things are a lot better in Indonesia but even today you don't have to poke very far through the surface to find anti-Chinese sentiment. That said, to their credit they aren't as blatant as Malaysia.

 

I've heard Singapore called the Israel of SE Asia as people say it is surrounded by Islam. The threat felt by people here isn't Islam (there are a lot of Muslim people in Singapore and inter-religious tension is rare), the majority Chinese population is acutely aware they're sandwiched between Malaysia and Indonesia with all the anti-Chinese sentiment in both of those countries. Which is why the country is armed to the teeth (the toxic shrimp) and maintains good relations with outside allies. At the moment they have a special relationship with Indonesia aimed at Malaysia.

[polybear]

5 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

You used to be able to get chocolate-drop  dog treats in supermarkets  up until they somehow  became  poisonous in the recent past.  On a tour of the Cadbury Factory in Hobart in the mid 90's they told us that damaged or faulty chocolate bars were made into chocolate treats  for dogs so it apparently wasn't poisonous at least up until then .

 

They've been available for around 50+ years in the UK - and still are:

"Good Boy Chocolate Drops"

They're made to be doggie friendly, though for how long they've been like that I don't know.  They're certainly not a patch on Cadbury's that's for sure.

 

Bear here.....

Up at silly o'clock (5am) cos' I needed a No. 1 and there's little chance of getting any sensible zedding afterwards - at least I get an early start.

Right, time to get the furry ar5e in gear...

BG

[Grizz]

27 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

They've been available for around 50+ years in the UK - and still are:

"Good Boy Chocolate Drops"

They're made to be doggie friendly, though for how long they've been like that I don't know.  They're certainly not a patch on Cadbury's that's for sure.

 

😂😂😂

[Ozexpatriate]

2 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

Britain left on good terms with the Malay people and continued to have pretty good relations.

I have no argument with you there. 

 

The whole post-war period across the entire region beginning with the power vacuum after the defeat of imperial Japan, the collapse of the colonial powers, the western backdrop of "domino theory" hysteria, super-power proxy wars, the long-standing ethnic prejudices you refer to, and the very real struggles between factions for local control made for a very fraught time for decades.

 

I well remember the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia/Kampuchea being very much in the news during my schooldays in the 1970s.

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from the Charentea tad. Cloudy but getting warmer.  Many tasks for today, mainly involving drilling.  First off a hole through the living room wall to bri g the fibre cable to where we want the router to be. A picture to hang and a mirror to hang.  That will involve drilling through tiles,.  The hens also need mucking out. If I've any time left the another raised bed to build. 

 

Happy days. 

 

Jamie

[iL Dottore]

7 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

And chocolate and onions. In fact raw onion is poisonous to humans as well, but you will have to eat a lot to feel any adverse effects. Onions are also antibiotic and so is honey, even more so.

 

7 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

Probably better known is how dangerous it is to feed chocolate to a dog.  However, perhaps less well known is that chocolate is poisonous to humans as well.  The lethal dose (LD50) for an average weight human is 22kg. 

 

Thankfully I think I would be sick first.

There’s quite a long list of foods that are toxic for dogs. Chocolate, members of the allum family (garlic, onions, etc) and a lot else besides. The toxic compound in chocolate is theobromine - which is also toxic to humans - and although ingestion of chocolate is rarely fatal to dog, any dog that eats enough chocolate to get theobromine poisoning will be a very, very sick doggie indeed.

 

As always, toxicity is defined by how much is ingested with the LD50 being defined g/kg, mg/kg, μg/kg or - with some very toxic compounds - ng/kg (the most toxic compound known is the Botulinum toxin with a LD50 of 1 ng/kg or less).

 

With chocolate, the amount of theobromine will vary according to chocolate type (mass production chocolates usually have lower amounts of cocoa in them than artisanal chocolate) - so a Great Dane ingesting a square of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk is unlikely be affected, but a Chihuahua that eats half a bar of Dark Baking chocolate has a high likelihood of becoming an ex-Chihuahua (or - at best - an incredibly sick one).

 

Something I recently discvered is that Nutmeg is toxic to humans (estimated LD50 is 5.1g/kg) and it basically fries your liver. With the average UK male weighing in at about 83kg, he’d have to eat 423g of nutmeg if feeling suicidal. That’s a hell of a lot of Béchamel sauce and Eggnog to consume….

[Barry O]

WHITE RABBITS!

 

For it is the First of May!

 

Celebrated by our old friend Chris F with beer and Morris Dancing at dawn. 

 

Baz

[Ozexpatriate]

I just finished watching a documentary (which was on my DVR for ages) on a bubonic plague outbreak in San Francisco at the turn of the 20th century. Many, many parallels with more recent pandemics came to mind.

 

I found it interesting and well-presented with one exception.

 

I bring it up (mostly) because of some incongruous stock footage used. In the middle of the film representing trans-continental rail travel from/to Washington, DC (before 1910) was what was unmistakably the Stanier 4-6-2, LMS 6201 "Princess Elizabeth" - the first cut of which (strangely) was mirrored.

 

This is a partial screen grab:

 

When mirrored by me:

A strange editorial choice.

 

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

Wet outside so no lawns can be cut this morning.  Wooooopppppiiiidddddooo!

 

Youngest Herbert's team lost yesterday to an expensive team of paid players. They scored more than the other team but as they use Duckworth Lewis Stern.. they lost.. such is the use of statistics coupled to no use of Law 43.. "use some common sense"

 

If its still wet I may have to do some muddling.. and I need to sort my cricket stuff out for our game tomorrow. 

 

Stay safe!

 

Enjoy your day!

 

Baz

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl 

Another Ben I want out Collie  dominated night.

I heard him wandering around at midnight ish, so I came down stairs and let him out, about an hour later he wanted out again, after that he settled down. My total sleep about 6.5 hours.

 

Ankle and lower leg still not happy.

 

We've been on morning patrol, it's drizzling very slightly but the skies are quite bright, the only daffs left now are a few all white ones. Bluebells are appearing all over the place though thinly spread, many now showing themselves where they weren't in the past.

 

Production of Good boy doggie drops is being stopped.

Though some doggie drops are developed from chocolate, many doggie drops and come to that the cheaper end of the human chocolate market are not chocolate at all. But merely chocolate flavour that is all chemical and has never been near a cacao tree. 

 

We've never given Ben nor any of our previous canine companions doggy drops for fear of getting them too interested in the flavour when the real stuff is around. Though with a dog's sense of smell I'm sure they know the difference.

 

Plans for today

A wheelbarrow or two of soil into the raised bed.

Chop back more jungle,

Mark out stairway wall for fake paneling, 

 

Time for muggacoffee number 1.

[jjb1970]

39 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

I have no argument with you there. 

 

The whole post-war period across the entire region beginning with the power vacuum after the defeat of imperial Japan, the collapse of the colonial powers, the western backdrop of "domino theory" hysteria, super-power proxy wars, the long-standing ethnic prejudices you refer to, and the very real struggles between factions for local control made for a very fraught time for decades.

 

I well remember the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia/Kampuchea being very much in the news during my schooldays in the 1970s.

 

The post-war period was deeply traumatic all around for the region, as colonial powers faced the end of empires and young countries went through the growth pains of independence. All on top of the convulsions of the war (a war which for the local populations of SE Asia was fought between and for the benefit of outside powers).

 

And it was all made massively worse by the wider geopolitical ideological struggle of the cold war. Nowadays it's common to try and minimize Communist influences in post war independence movements and to frame things as national struggles for independence in which Communist parties came to the fore because they were the ones able to fight for independence. In a way it is maybe just an example of the pendulum effect, we went from viewing things through a prism of a global Communist threat which all but ignored all the other (in many cases entirely legitimate) factors in national independence movements to an inverse.

 

As with most things, it defies simple good/bad or left/right answers. Many people were motivated much more by a desire to be free of foreign rule and by nationalist sentiment than by Communist sympathies. And many such people did find common cause with Communists against a shared adversary. And grievances about unequal wealth distribution, lack of opportunity, access to education and careers etc weren't limited to Communist movements. And people who imagined people in SE Asia would become Chinese pawns can't have studied much of the regions history and its complex relationship with China.

 

On the other hand, there were ideological movements and the emergence of Communist China did give Communist movements an enormous boost. In the longer term Vietnamese people were still Vietnamese and were never going to be mere Chinese puppets but in the short term they were happy to accept Chinese support and Ho Chi Minh was genuine in his ideology. He was adroit in presenting himself as a nationalist in the war against France and removing other opposition but after the war he did shape Vietnam along ideological lines and wasn't exactly tolerant of opposition. And of course Khmer Rouge rule was truly horrific in Cambodia (Kampuchea).

 

I think the fundamental difference between Indochina and Malaya (and later, Indonesia) was that Communism was an organic movement within Indochina with significant popular support whereas in Malaya it was a foreign influence viewed as an enemy incursion by a majority (largely for ethnic reasons). Whereas Communism found root in Vietnam, in Malaya it struggled because anything associated with China was and still is seen with deep suspicion. In Indochina neither France nor the US found a viable domestic force capable of beating Communism, in Malaya the British did have local support to beat the Communists (though much of that support was also conditional on moves towards home rule) and handed over to an independent Malaysia which was capable of resisting Communism on its own terms because it was seen as a foreign incursion. That was more down to historical enmity between ethnic Malay and Chinese people than anything else. Which means that the only real lesson of why one anti-Communist effort succeeded and the other failed is the obvious one that an insurgency needs poplar sympathy to succeed. Mao's famous fish in the sea analogy was very apt, although a nasty piece of work he was no idiot.

 

The danger I now see is a growing tendency to translate domestic politics to the international sphere. Countries like Malaysia and Indonesia may not like Chinese influences at home, but just as they have a long history of ethnic tension they also have long historic trading links and at an international level are happy to cooperate and trade with China for mutual benefit. A lot of articles in British and European news media seems to assume that because, for example, Indonesian's have a long history of begrudging their own Chinese people that they're also hostile to China. My experience is that they have very little issue with Chinese people in China and have less of an issue with developing good relations with the country. Again, it's a complex matter which defies easy or short explanation, but the Twitter effect means now everything has to be squeezed into simple short form explanations.

[Gwiwer]

Oss Oss!!!

Wee Oss!!!

 

https://propercornwall.co.uk/events/obby-oss-2023/

 

 

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Grey start to the day here.  Sunny spells and showers, possibly thundery, forecast.  11°C now with 18°C possible.

I was thinking of washing the car today but in view of the forecast will just carry on thinking about it.

GDB Incident report:  Last night I slept quite well and woke once about 03.00.  However at around 05.30 I woke up again with a bang.  I must have turned the wrong way in my sleep and ended up on the floor on my dodgy Hip and Leg.   They are not happy.  Luckily my head missed the bedside table.  No sympathy from Management as apparently my snoring was keeping her awake.  The question is did I fall or was I pushed?

A visit to Asda has been requested,  apparently they have some plants that are good value  and that "we need."  Although it's not far away the car will be taken because she's bound to go overboard on the purchases and I'm not in the mood to carry them all on foot.

Have a good one,

Bob.

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Sympathies @grandadbob , I have twice fallen off the bed, fortunately with only my pride injured. The first time was my own fault, I went to pick up something from the floor that was just out of reach and I overbalanced. Problem was I had fallen between the bed and a wall and there was nothing to grab hold of to pull myself up so I had to crawl on my back around the foot of the bed to find a chair to haul myself back up. The second time was when I sat on the bed and nodded off and woke up in a heap on the floor, fortunately right alongside a chair.

[DaveF]

I know it's just after10.00 but I have been up for some hours.  The housework is done, half the washing is finished and is now in the dryer. It was going outside to dry but the forecast is for rain very soon, also the tulips in the tubs are very tall and would be in the way of the rotary clothes line - at least that's my excuse.

 

It started as a beautiful sunny morning, nice and mild for the first time in ages, cloud is now appearing and it should be raining before 11.

 

The next item on the agenda is to check my bank statements and then do my monthly accounts.  Then the rest of the washing can go in the machine and the rest of the day is mine to do what I like, as in theory is every day - but it never seems to work out like that, something always needs doing.

 

I seem to ache again this morning, so I think the forecast is probably right, or it could just be that I woke in the night and took a long time to get back to sleep.

 

David

[grandadbob]

Asda visited but Herself declared the plants there were not fit for purpose so we came away empty handed....

Oh dear, how sad, never mind!

I have vetoed any idea whatsoever of visiting a garden centre on a Bank Holiday.

Time for a muggacoffee.

 

[petethemole]

Beltane blessings to all.

[polybear]

6 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

 

The Malayan Communists were primarily (though not exclusively) Chinese and seen as a malignant foreign influence by the majority Malay population, so the British/Commonwealth campaign against Communism in the country was supported by most Malays. The attitude of considering the ethnic Chinese persists today, the bumiputera system is effectively institutionalized discrimination and a major reason Malaysia didn't want Singapore in their country was it introduced too much Chinese influence. So the campaign tends to be remembered very positively in the country and didn't do our memory any real damage in the eyes of the Malay people. Britain left on good terms with the Malay people and continued to have pretty good relations.

 

The independent country continued the emergency until the Communists were pretty much wiped out, while Britain was their guarantee against Sukarno's Indonesia which had dreams of wider SE Asian hegemony. At the risk of sounding cynical it is probably the reason Malaysia was spared Indonesia's year of living dangerously unpleasantness as we'd already done the job of removing the more militant layer of Chinese, the Indonesia genocide was as much about ethnic score settling against the Chinese population of Indonesia as it was about anti-Communism for the regular people.

 

Suharto managed to harness and manipulate existing prejudices quite cleverly while securing himself as President and making himself an anti-Communist bastion in SE Asia at a time when that was an excellent way of securing political and financial support from the US and West in general. These days things are a lot better in Indonesia but even today you don't have to poke very far through the surface to find anti-Chinese sentiment. That said, to their credit they aren't as blatant as Malaysia.

 

I've heard Singapore called the Israel of SE Asia as people say it is surrounded by Islam. The threat felt by people here isn't Islam (there are a lot of Muslim people in Singapore and inter-religious tension is rare), the majority Chinese population is acutely aware they're sandwiched between Malaysia and Indonesia with all the anti-Chinese sentiment in both of those countries. Which is why the country is armed to the teeth (the toxic shrimp) and maintains good relations with outside allies. At the moment they have a special relationship with Indonesia aimed at Malaysia.

 

Bear worked in Malaysia a couple of times back in 2006 & 2008; there was an in-country Rep. living out there (who worked for another UK Company) who I recall said that much of the "money" in Malaysia was owned by the Chinese (Chinese Malay?) rather than Malay.

 

In other news.....

Bear raided Wickes at 06-30 this morning for a piece of 44 x 6mm strip wood - eventually found, despite many of the bits being in the wrong slots in the rack 🤬; so many of the bits (all of the same size) were wrong it's obvious that it's due to some numnutz working there rather than down to  Customers.  Yep, Rant.  At least I found what I needed - and a decent bit as well.  It's now screwed n' bonded to the top surface of the Base Rail to hide the twelve square holes that use to house the wooden spindles.  That's a Tick.  As the screw holes have been filled and this'll need to dry before sanding it's unlikely that Bear will be danglin' on a brush today after all.  Oh dear, how sad....

Washing also done - it's now hanging in the Conservatory to dry, with the Dehumidifier running.

 

Right, time to MIUABGA.....

BG

 

[New Haven Neil]

We were up early, honest.

 

Went out early doors to take one of Mrs NHN's bikes to a local show, had to be there before 9, and by 0830 preferably.  Of course hardly anyone was there by 9.  Local thing.  They wanted to be all buttoned up as they opened to the public at 10, but of course folk were just turning up then with bikes in vans and trailers (show queens).  As there were plenty there already, personally I would have turned them away, 'read the instructions' kind of thing.  It's just rude in my book.

 

So then back home to be harangued by next door, which after half an hour turned out to be a request to water their plants while they go away.  I said the nephew's kids were coming so would get them to do it......their faces were a treat. 😆 So another bloody chore for a fortnight, pah. 🤬

 

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

A bit late on parade today due to having a few tasks to complete. I was just about to start writing this post, wheb Vickie and Ian turned up with the chop saw. So, we invited them in and had a good old chin wag for about an hour. It's really thrown things back slightly, but it's always nice having a chat with them both, something that we don't do nearly as often as we should. Anyway, I'm off to have a play with the chop saw. 

 

Back later. 

 

Brian 

[woodenhead]

Something that isn't getting much news time, Capita the big outsourcer got cyber attacked a few weeks back.  They themselves are not saying much, but it appears it was a big Ransomware attack and some data may now be appearing on the dark web.  If you have a pension managed in any way by Capita, be warned.  They also do TV Licensing and London Charging zones, who knows what might have been taken.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65443841

[The Lurker]

6 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

I have no argument with you there. 

 

The whole post-war period across the entire region beginning with the power vacuum after the defeat of imperial Japan, the collapse of the colonial powers, the western backdrop of "domino theory" hysteria, super-power proxy wars, the long-standing ethnic prejudices you refer to, and the very real struggles between factions for local control made for a very fraught time for decades.

 

I well remember the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia/Kampuchea being very much in the news during my schooldays in the 1970s.

We were living in Singapore at the time Vietnam fell to the Communists.

 

the American family living over the road were all for returning to Olympia WA there and then as they were sure Singapore was next. 

My parents persuaded them otherwise - and they were still there when my Dad’s secondment ended and we returned to Kent.

[jjb1970]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

 

Bear worked in Malaysia a couple of times back in 2006 & 2008; there was an in-country Rep. living out there (who worked for another UK Company) who I recall said that much of the "money" in Malaysia was owned by the Chinese (Chinese Malay?) rather than Malay.

 

That's the popular view in much of SE Asia, in a way the attitude towards the ethnic Chinese across SE Asia is strikingly similar to anti-semitism in the Western world with many of the same prejudices.

 

As with any prejudice, to take hold and have any power people need to see some link to reality (why would anyone buy into an idea that is completely divorced from reality?). In much of SE Asia Chinese people were (and are)  prominent in business and the professions, particularly trade. That leads to people going from seeing that some Chinese are rich, and active in professions, to assuming that the Chinese in general are rich and overly represented in professions. From there it is an easy step to xenophobia and racism and seeing the alien Chinese as a privileged minority pulling all the strings. That can lead to awful consequences as a convenient enemy within provides an easy scapegoat for anything people are unhappy about. 

 

There is a difference between sinophobia in SE Asia and anti-semitism in Europe and some other places as sinophobia tends to be localized. Even those Malays and Indonesians who have a problem with the Chinese in their own countries generally have no issue with Chinese people elsewhere, it's not a complete hate of Chinese people in the way that hate of Jews can become all consuming.

 

I remember the Indonesian riots after the 1997 economic collapse Chinese people were being hacked to bits by rampaging mobs as they were useful scapegoats. The ethnic tensions in SE Asia are a bit of a powder keg in times of stress. 

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Not much fuss from Arthur Itis or even the sprained elbow but the eczema is very sore. Ointments have been applied and things are improving but its still sore.

 

[PhilJ W]

3 hours ago, polybear said:

Bear raided Wickes at 06-30 this morning for a piece of 44 x 6mm strip wood - eventually found, despite many of the bits being in the wrong slots in the rack 🤬; so many of the bits (all of the same size) were wrong it's obvious that it's due to some numnutz working there rather than down to  Customers.  Yep, Rant.

You pay peanuts you get monkeys.