Early Risers.

[Coombe Barton]

6 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

something had the line "It hurts like bu99ery!"

When I was having investigation biopsy for prostate cancer in 2011 which involves biopsy clippers up a place I'd rather not think about, I was trying to put on a good face (or other part of the anatomy) on it when the doc said that he was doing the same thing to an old Warwickshire farmer who expressed surprise with the phrase "BU99ER ME!"

Doc said it was the strangest yet most accurate description of the procedure he'd ever heard.

[woodenhead]

17 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Is it because according to one website, they are not keen on flying and were originally bred for meat and eggs?

I did think that myself, and I could be wrong as I am not an ornithologist.

 

I wondered though if perhaps they'd escaped from domesticity.

 

Certainly it's usually Mallards, geese and swans on the Bridgewater with irregular Herons or Cranes every few miles.

[monkeysarefun]

On 27/04/2024 at 17:54, grandadbob said:

Regrettably the only birds we see regularly are pigeons, starlings, magpies, a crow or two and nottalot else apart from flypasts by a squadron of parakeets.  Once in a while a robin pops in to say hello but that's about it.

Luckily, unlike  various reptiles, insects,  animals, plants and fish, birds haven't yet figured out how to be venomous, which is lucky because there are shedloads of varieties of them hanging around.

Those that knock on the window or stare in at me waiting to be fed: Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos, King Parrots, Rainbow Lorikeets, Australian Magpies, Pied Butcherbirds, Wonga Pigeons, Satin Bowerbirds, Indian Mynah birds.

Those that hang around the back yard or feed on the native flowers:  Galahs, Eastern Rosellas, Black Cockatoos, Honeyeaters, Red and Yellow Wattlebirds, Superb Blue Wrens.

 

In the evenings swallows will chase the insects around at high speed, once darkness falls the microbats take over. When fruit are in season in the stone-fruit orchards to the west, wave after wave of fruit bats will pass overhead, looking like bombers off to bomb Germany or something.

 

[Tony_S]

1 minute ago, woodenhead said:

wondered though if perhaps they'd escaped from domesticity.

I had never heard of them until you posted the photo but I can’t resist finding out about a new duck and they were bred originally from Mallards in Pomerania. They are meaty and can fly but don’t much. Popular as lawn and pond birds, that was an American source. Our nearest RSPB reserve is so near civilization there is a good 5g signal so,I can research the birdies (mainly water fowl) we see instantly. I am enthusiastic but really ignorant about birds. Hoping to get better. 

[Tony_S]

22 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

which involves biopsy clippers up a place I'd rather not think about,

Well probably preferable to clippers via the other access route. 

[Hroth]

9 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

Those that knock on the window or stare in at me waiting to be fed: Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos, King Parrots, Rainbow Lorikeets, Australian Magpies, Pied Butcherbirds, Wonga Pigeons, Satin Bowerbirds, Indian Mynah birds.

 

I've no sympathy, thats all your own fault...  🤪

 

[jjb1970]

I am watching the new Disney adaptation of 'Shogun', the book was fantastic and the old Richard Chamberlain TV adaptation probably did more to popularize Japanese culture in much of the world than anything. I have the box DVD set and still enjoy it.

 

The media has been singing the virtues of the new version and claiming it to be more authentic than the original. James Clavell was an Australian born British writer so was obviously writing about Japanese and Asian culture as an outsider, but he clearly had a passion for Asia and showed an empathy and affection for Asia which was unusual among western authors for the time. I see some criticize him for indulging in oriental tropes yet he did much to change how we viewed Asia in a very positive way. The new adaptation is darker and gritter as is usual for modern productions, and some of the characters are extremely well done, however overall I am finding myself preferring the older version. One of the critcisms of the original is it disney-ised Japan (kind of ironic given who made the new series), however in some ways the new series is just as alien and feels like it is applying a lot of current thing type characterization.

 

Worth watching and excellent TV, and it may introduce a whole new audience to a classic story but I still like the original. And the book remains the best of all 

[TheQ]

Try talking about cigarettes and waterways on an American site..

Fags and Dykes..

[jamie92208]

17 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Google suggests for the etymology:

 

FRENCH - late 17th century (in the sense ‘shelter’): from French; probably from Germanic bases meaning ‘hamlet’ and ‘enclosure’.

 

Certainly the aeroplane interpretation is from French as are many aeronautical terms - like: fuselage, empennage, aileron, etc.

Round here a hamlet is a hameau or a lieu dit.  I suppose that Hiemat from German could be related.  My thoughts were prompted by the fact that hangars were first needed in France during WW1 and maybe the local name stuck. 

 

Jamie

Edited April 28 by jamie92208

[DaveF]

The rest of the day is passing, slowly.  After lunch I scanned some whole plate (8"x6") mainly sepia toned prints of Dad's from the next batch of albums.  They are railway photos so will appear on RMWeb and perhaps flickr in due course.

 

After a while the fingers in my left hand were annoying me so I stopped, sat in a comfy chair and had a short nap followed by reading a magazine.  I've just survived a long telephone conversation with my aunt who is having more problems than usual with her hearing, even using her hearing aids, so I have heard the tale of woe.

 

The next job is to have a look at curtain fabrics online so I have an idea of what I want when the man comes tomorrow lunchtime.  I know what I want, they just don't make it any more and the local shops' offerings are worse than the ones I can find online.  They are just to be kitchen curtains and they need to be patterned as they do not show any marks as much as plain ones.   I think in the end it will suddenly be an easy decision, then all I will have to do tomorrow is to let him measure up while I look at the real samples just to confirm my choice.

 

I was going order new living room curtains as well but I cannot make my mind up as to what I would like so they will have to wait - they would last another few years if needed.

 

David

Edited April 28 by DaveF

[Coombe Barton]

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

Dykes

Also in geology for vertical magma intrusions

[woodenhead]

This afternoon I have been mostly cutting up Amazone cardboard packaging.

 

To form three supporting walls and 28 roof trusses for a mock up.

 

Quite therapeutic and I apparently have more knives than I expected.

[Tony_S]

11 minutes ago, DaveF said:

The next job is to have a look at curtain fabrics online so I have an idea of what I want when the man comes tomorrow lunchtime

I don’t do very well choosing curtains. There just seem to be so many fabrics and I think my poor brain gets confused. Also my optical processing clearly isn’t as precise as Aditi’s. Last time I “helped” I was told what I liked  was for children. The kitchen was easy it had wooden Venetian blinds. We did have people from curtain firms come to advise us but they generally pushed the “High Essex” style involving swag, flounces , multiple pelmets and rosettes.  Also fitting curtain rails wasn’t something the builder of this house contemplated. Most require drilling in to steel girders. The front bay window curtain rail needed three different types of fixing including one I made up from a plastic plug inserted into a large metal plasterboard fitting. 

[jamie92208]

12 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I don’t do very well choosing curtains. There just seem to be so many fabrics and I think my poor brain gets confused. Also my optical processing clearly isn’t as precise as Aditi’s. Last time I “helped” I was told what I liked  was for children. The kitchen was easy it had wooden Venetian blinds. We did have people from curtain firms come to advise us but they generally pushed the “High Essex” style involving swag, flounces , multiple pelmets and rosettes.  Also fitting curtain rails wasn’t something the builder of this house contemplated. Most require drilling in to steel girders. The front bay window curtain rail needed three different types of fixing including one I made up from a plastic plug inserted into a large metal plasterboard fitting. 

Tony, you are not alone, the problem may be gender based.  Such decisions are way above my salary grade. 

 

Jamie

[Tony_S]

4 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Tony, you are not alone, the problem may be gender based.  Such decisions are way above my salary grade. 

 

Jamie

I can pass any of the standard colour vision tests but Aditi sees more subtle shades than I do, when I think  things are the same colour and of course they are not. If left to my own resources I would probably have chosen rather plain curtains. We do work well as a team because Aditi will choose three patterns and if I don’t like one that gets eliminated. Then of course there is the excitement of finding out if enough metres of the material are in stock somewhere in the UK. She is definitely a good person to take when buying a car. She has no embarrassment about pushing for discounts, and asking what does this mean in the bill?   Years ago when salesman tried to talk to her about the lovely colour she would ask about fuel economy and how fast it could accelerate. She told one chap she had taught motor mechanics for years. She didn’t say it was General Studies she had taught though!

I don’t ever really wear bright colours, I am definately drawn to the drab spectrum. 

Edited April 28 by Tony_S

[Ozexpatriate]

3 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

birds haven't yet figured out how to be venomous

They have, but there aren't very many. One is in New Guinea - the Hooded Pitohui.

[Ozexpatriate]

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

hangars were first needed in France during WW1

I thought they predated the war - in that turn of the century period where many of the innovations over the Wright Brothers' wing warping (the Flyer first flew in 1903) were French.  Blériot crossed the channel in 1909 in his monoplane (with elevators).

 

Wikipedia

Quote

The word hangar comes from Middle French hanghart ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish *haimgard ("home-enclosure", "fence around a group of houses"), from *haim ("home, village, hamlet") and gard ("yard"). The term, gard, comes from the Old Norse garðr ("enclosure, garden").

...

Carl Richard Nyberg used a hangar to store his 1908 Flugan (fly) in the early 20th century and in 1909, Louis Bleriot crash-landed on a northern French farm in Les Baraques (between Sangatte and Calais) and rolled his monoplane into the farmer's cattle pen. Bleriot was in a race to be the first man to cross the English Channel in a heavier-than-air aircraft, and he and set up his headquarters in the unused shed.

 

The rapidity of explosive experimentation in that period between 1903 and 1914 is quite amazing.

[Ozexpatriate]

4 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

... a young boy who had some injury like a broken arm or something had the line "It hurts like bu99ery!".

Taken literally, that is not something a young boy, should know about, whether it hurts, or how much.

 

I'm surprised the line wasn't "bloody bu99ery" or would that have offended Australian television censors? 😉

[PhilJ W]

4 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

When I was having investigation biopsy for prostate cancer in 2011 which involves biopsy clippers up a place I'd rather not think about, I was trying to put on a good face (or other part of the anatomy) on it when the doc said that he was doing the same thing to an old Warwickshire farmer who expressed surprise with the phrase "BU99ER ME!"

Doc said it was the strangest yet most accurate description of the procedure he'd ever heard.

 

4 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Well probably preferable to clippers via the other access route. 

That's all I wanted to read after having an episcopy of my bladder just over a week ago. It turned out to be a prostate problem but at least a biopsy wasn't required. I was still peeing razor blades for the rest of the day however.

[Winslow Boy]

5 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

No relative of the Norwegian variant?

From the Fjords of Manutopea.

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. I gave the fridge a really good clean out this afternoon. Behind one of the drawers I found a (vacuum packed) packet of cooked meat (beef). It looked and smelt OK but I decided not to chance it so binned it. It had a best before date of November last year. I was clearing it out because the drain was blocked by ice, the package was near to the drain hole and was also covered in ice.

[Hroth]

3 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Round here a hamlet is a hameau or a lieu dit.  I suppose that Hiemat from German could be related.  My thoughts were prompted by the fact that hangars were first needed in France during WW1 and maybe the local name stuck. 

 

46 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

I thought they predated the war - in that turn of the century period where many of the innovations over the Wright Brothers' wing warping (the Flyer first flew in 1903) were French.  Blériot crossed the channel in 1909 in his monoplane (with elevators).

 

Wikipedia

 

The rapidity of explosive experimentation in that period between 1903 and 1914 is quite amazing.

 

Before heavier then air flight there were airships, rigid, semi rigid and non-rigid. 

 

They were stored in large sheds to protect them from wind and rain and when semi inflated, would hang from the roofing struts.  Perhaps this might be where the term "hangers" as a storage shed for aeroplanes came from?

 

[Tony_S]

27 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

From the Fjords of Manutopea.

I didn’t know about those, I thought they all came from Halewood in Liverpool. 

[Hroth]

4 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I didn’t know about those, I thought they all came from Halewood in Liverpool. 

 

The Anglia and the Escort certainly did. Though who would want to pay for an escort from Halewood....

 

[Tony_S]

55 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Australian television censors? 😉

Some episodes in the first series of “Bluey” got through the Australian tv standards but were removed before showing on he Disney + channel. Some were edited by the BBC too. All,are broadcast now, no censoring. Not sure if the term “dingleberries “ survived though. The only episode I believe that wasn’t approved in  Australia  showed dangerous play in a bathroom.