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Ozexpatriate

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Ozexpatriate last won the day on April 11

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    Portland, Oregon USA
  • Interests
    Steam in the west country, Ca 1930, primarily GWR but also SR (former LSWR) and S&DJR.

    Also late 1930s steam on the Southern Pacific and the Norfolk & Western.

    Off Cadiz on October 9th 1805, in a memorandum to his Captains, Nelson remarked that "no Captain can do very wrong if he places his Ship alongside that of an Enemy."

    We could paraphrase that.

    No railway modeller could do very wrong by having a go at building a layout. (I should follow that advice some time.)

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  1. There's the physicist joke from The Big Bang Theory:
  2. I have it too - but I'm not sure in my case it's related to electronics. My only long-term exposure was to the little fans in desktop and laptop computers - nothing 'loud'.
  3. BLASPHEMER! HERESY! Pastafariansim is the true way. The divine Flying Spaghetti Monster (may you be touched by his noodly appendage) is the only al dente God. Thou shalt not have other pasta gods before him. Suggestions 1:1 (from the Loose Canon) Wear your colander proudly, and remember that global warming is caused by a paucity of pirates. Beer heaven awaits. Learn more here.
  4. Winners write history. It is typical human bigotry to presume that H. Sapiens is smarter (it's even in the name) than H. Neanderthalensis. While skulls certainly have a prominent brow early illustrators created the image of knuckle-dragging morons. (Wikipedia) The dates for both are considerably older than 200,000 and 40,000 years ago, but it is correct that Neanderthals existed long before modern humans.
  5. The article from the British museum linked above is a nice easy read and cogent: And I don't find it dumbed down or "woke" whatever people seem to think of contemporary museums - though they really should consider giving some of the stuff they ripped off back where it belongs (even if they may have done a better job of curating it than what might have happened).
  6. It's a Venn Diagram Dave - named for John Venn. The Blue Plaques are by "English Heritage" - this one is a pun. It's funny and it's a wacky sign. So full marks.
  7. Link added. These settlements (depending on the accuracy of the dating methods) were not likely permanent - given the extent of glaciation and hostility of the climate at the time. As much as I like Wikipedia - it is more reliable than it's reputation, I found this from the British Museum (p4) which may offer some clarity: So John ( @Coombe Barton ) is accurate. And @Dave Hunt is accurate. Over this period the sea level went up and down and the "channel" was a bay, a "river" and had megafloods at different periods. The essential truth, is that the vast majority of the multiple and various waves of the peoples who ultimately permanently inhabited Britain did so in boats. Not unlike the peoples who inhabited the Americas. They most likely traveled in canoes (or equivalent) down the west coast of North America (to avoid all the glaciation). The peoples who first inhabited Australia may have crossed a land-bridge (or canoed across abbreviated open water) during a period of low sea-levels perhaps 70,000 years ago. Later inhabitants of Australia certainly arrived in boats and some still do - or at least they try to.
  8. Tricky to know for sure. Modern humans were in Northern Europe 45,000 years ago, but perhaps not much before that. They were present in Southern Europe perhaps 10,000 years before that. For La Manche, this is useful. The channel was not always a channel. There was a land bridge 600,000 years ago but what is now "England" was glaciated. At some point there was a series of megafloods that carved the chalk where the Pas De Calais is today. Sea levels rose and fell a lot. In a more meaningful period for human migration there was a 'river' where the channel is about 20 - 25,000 years ago. At that point Wales and the North of England were still glaciated, but a passage might have been possible.
  9. Same thing with Paul Lynde. They would joke about it but (for the most part) were not 'out' at least in public.
  10. Yes. Graham Chapman's assessment of Aussie homophobia was not far from the mark - University of Woolloomooloo Philosophy Department rules. (Mind you I don't think the UK was that different.) Hollywood Squares was similar to Blankety-Blanks* in terms of double-entendres but Paul Lynde was the centre square. (People may remember Paul Lynde from Bewitched where he played Uncle Arthur.) In his case the campy humour was self-deprecating. * Originally in the US in 1975 and aired first in Australia in 1977. Blankety-Blanks was a repackaged version of Match Game (originally NBC-1962). There had been a rebooted version of Match Game on ABC (2016-2021) hosted by Alec Baldwin. The run ended with Baldwin's "legal" troubles.
  11. It has become very popular with "active retirees". Basically doubles tennis without all the running around - the ball doesn't carry as far. There are courts everywhere now - often collocated with regular tennis courts. It is noisy. As someone who is not up to playing 'proper' tennis these days, it does look fun. Indoor pickleball centres are starting to pop up too. Sort of like a bowling alley - with pub options.
  12. Good point. The US National Park Service puts annual US fatalities from ungulates (deer and moose) at 440. (These 'statistics' vary a lot.) Moose strikes in the US are going to be concentrated in Alaska and the northwestern tier in the lower 48. We have plenty of elk in Oregon.
  13. Not really: This was nasty: CNN: An Arizona man was mauled to death by a black bear in a rare, unprovoked attack Then there are those who encourage being attacked by bears, even if in that case, they weren't - luckily for them.
  14. I thought Hey, Hey, It's Saturday was nationwide. It was on in Brisbane. Agro was on "Hey Hey" - though I don't remember if he was a regular appearing character - Ossie Ostrich was the first banana puppet.
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