pmccarthy

Humpty Dumpty

Let it ride!

Getting my foot in the door

Once upon a midnight dreary

Academy Award nominees

150

I'm stuck on the high fives. Can someone explain how ten is correct?

The Soviet Union had very inefficient industries producing crap products. Their workforces were unmotivated. Perhaps they were better than Australia today, which has hardly any industry. Unions and collective bargaining just about destroyed Australia's mining industry and docks in the 1980s. They were saved by individual contracts and subcontracting parcels of work after the changes brought in by Hawke and Keating and followed up by the Libs. The CFMEU never got sorted out. Nor the fire brigades here in Vic. We are heading back to the bad days.

Exactly where we are headed. With no manufacturing, no mining and smelting, and collective bargaining setting wages through centralised unions. A majority of the population dependent on government support.

fifteen

The left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and vice versa. What we have in politics is a dedicated communist as prime minister. No need for further analysis.

I was told there are two vaccines, a single shot and a two shot. When I had the single shot about two years ago I was told I would not need any boosters in future.

Look up defenestration. It can mean sacking someone from a job, or throwing them out of a window. One word with two meanings, both appropriate.

Another dead Putin man today, I reckon his circle will be thinking about how to get rid of him.

Those of use with connections to gas wells or coal deposits will survive the freeze.

Refreshments will be served. (I think I am on a roll!)

Extravagant parties

This lacks a topic and a list of any unsuccessful choices of letters. Makes it too hard compared to earlier puzzles.

The great Roman dictator had his name immortalised. Caesar became Kaiser, Czar, Tsar, Shah and a salad.

To be fair, we were all wearing tinted safety glasses on that ute. Three of us in the front and five or six in the back (I took the photo).

They pulled it out. I don't know whether it was fixed, I guess so because they had extensive workshops and lots of apprentices. We had to use big International utes after that. Here's a pic on the way to a job.

Chewy jerky

Its just another dating service.

I was working on a mine that used Mini Mokes for scouting around the lease. We had some empty bitumen lined overflow dams that were near the mill, and we used to take a shortcut through the dams. One day there was an overflow and the dam had a metre or so of water in it - my mate drove the Moke in without looking and it almost disappeared. I reckon just the windscreen was sticking out.

There really aren't that many new sources of copper. The ones I have reported on all seem to have problems. Some have massive environmental impacts. Others, worldwide, have first nations objectors. There is a difference between a natural deposit in the ground, however massive, and a resource that can become an ore reserve. Trump seems to be finally overruling the objections to Resolution Copper in Arizona, but it will be the deepest large underground mine in the world and I expect there will be massive problems developing and operating it. It will be a Block Cave 2000 metres deep. Recent block caves by Rio Tinto have not gone well.