Ozexpatriate

The Bradford Exchange is a privately held company with 500 employees and a revenue of $140m. For comparison, Hornby PLC revenues (2023) are £55.1 million // $68.7m. They sell many different railway-related toy trains sourced from the Kader Group (Bachmann) which you can find under their "Villages and trains" shop. Plenty of Bachmann H0 EMD-F1s and 0n30 Moguls dressed up as Budweiser or Coca-Cola / whatever. Also available for NFL teams, superheroes, Christmas, Halloween, and politicians. The Hornby Coca-Cola line is essentially a 'copy' of what the Bradford Exchange has been doing for years. Or Harry Potter. There are illuminated resin buildings as well. The QEII "model" is exactly the same as the silver dollar express. You'll note the Bachmann EZ track. If you really want an EMD-F1 unpowered "B" unit with KISS on the side, you can have that too.

Consensus is that prior estimates of up to perhaps Ca 13,000 years ago for the Clovis peoples are certainly not the "oldest". There is little consensus on actual "oldest", though Ca 23,000 years is a common conjecture. There are plenty of online sources to support this theory.

There's the physicist joke from The Big Bang Theory:

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'.

They did make it.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

Same thing with Paul Lynde. They would joke about it but (for the most part) were not 'out' at least in public.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I'm guessing the foreman the day before had told the apprentice to go the the company 'stores' to get a "long weight" - which the store keeper obliged with a "long wait".

The 'deadliest animal' question popped up today. The species causing the most human fatalities in the US is humans - though I couldn't find a good source - total annual homicides and automobile fatalities is around 60,000, not counting other accidents. Besides humans, the most likely culprit is not horses as some might insist, but deer. CNN: Forget sharks and bears – it’s deer that you should worry about hurting you I have seen a car immediately ahead of me strike a deer (which had a death-wish and leapt right into the car from the side of the road). Random searching suggests the following annual US fatality rates: Deer 200 Dogs 43 (average 2011 - 2021) Snakes 5 Bears <1 Sharks <1 From a non-fatal standpoint in the US the list of dangerous animals (from an advocacy group) seems to be: Humans Dogs Deer Globally the top three are: Mosquitos Humans Snakes

Newton Minow's "vast wasteland" is alive and well. I have the television on a lot. It is usually tuned to the Tennis Chanel. I might actively watch an interesting point being replayed. It's nice to keep track of what is going on. Yesterday they switched over to "pickleball" while I was here on RMweb. I suddenly noticed the cadence of tennis had switched to a raucous thonk/thonk at a much higher frequency. Pickleball is not something you want on in the background. I switched it over to golf - which I will do right now.

Perhaps - I don't remember it. Besides the 'national' stuff (Play School, Humphrey the Bear, Mr. Squiggle) there was a locally taped children's show on BTQ-7 in Brisbane. (I think.) I don't remember the name. If I remember correctly my cousin was in the audience for a taping. Wombat (where Agro first appeared) and later Boris's Breakfast Club, was filmed at BTQ-7. (Blog here.)

Agro is older than that - well back to the early 1980s.

With that discrepancy I'd say so - here they'd be sent to the "outlet" store.

Left to their own devices, a relatively homogenous work group will hire someone just like themselves by whatever common denominator with which they identify (age / race / gender / ethnicity / politics / all of the above). The result is group think and a cliquish "in-group" / "out-group" mindset. It's primate behaviour and therefore "normal". Consciously hiring with diversity in mind (with the role-appropriate qualifications met) is outside the 'comfort zone' for most but it produces better results.

Let's hope the gulf stream keeps doing its thing. The high desert here is dry and the soils have a lot of pumice (from all the volcanoes) and drain rapidly. Juniper and sagebrush dominate with ponderosa/lodgepole pine closer to the snowline.