willedoo

A lot of up's over there. One song he wrote was about the Nannup Tiger.

Sunshine Coast - but a bit too much sunshine lately.

The destruction of the Russian missile corvette 'Askold' is not positively confirmed yet but going by photos and video emerging, the damage is unlikely to buff out. The Russians are claiming they intercepted the missiles attacking the Kerch shipyard and only small fragments hit the ship. It looks like they've used the hull of the ship to intercept the missiles. The video footage showed three missiles with the last one appearing to score a direct hit. The Askold was only launched in 2021 and hadn't seen action yet.

A bit of thread drift here, but the author pinched that quote from the Ukrainian war. In Ukraine it's "If Russia stops fighting, there will be no war. If Ukraine stops fighting, there will be no Ukraine". They've been using that quote since the war started early last year. It's always possible the saying might predate the Ukraine war, dating back to an earlier conflict somewhere.Or maybe the Israelis coined the term years ago and the Ukrainians pinched it.

Matt Taylor, former front man of the late 60's, early 70's blues band Chain. He started out in the Bay City Union in Brisbane. The band moved to Melbourne and when it broke up, Matt Taylor joined the Wild Cherries for a while then joined Chain. Chain was originally a Perth band before moving to Melbourne and had a lot of lineup changes over the years. It's most recognisable years were when the Matt Taylor/Phil Manning duo were heading the band. Matt Taylor aside, it's like a big spider web the way some of those musicians moved around from band to band. I think I might have to pick someone a bit more famous next time. At least he's now famous for being unknown on this forum.

It's a dry year here. Total rainfall for the year so far is 21 inches, in the context of a 60 inch average rainfall area. In the 35 years I've been here, 2009 was the driest at 32 inches, so there needs to be eleven inches in the next seven weeks to equal that. Four inches fell in February, so the rest of the year is 17 inches so far. Twenty inches for a year is a lot more sustainable in the harder country west of here. On the coast here, it's very soft country and the vegetation has adapted to a high rainfall, so you get die back a lot sooner than in harder country. Three months without rain here is the equivalent to five or six months dry west of the range.

He's been a support act for American blues artists like B.B. King, Albert King, Freddie King, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Willie Dixon, and Albert Collins on their tours here.

No, he's an Australian performer. It's starting to sound like he might have been an under performer going by his lack of recognition here. Australian musician, singer/songwriter, harmonica and guitar player, lives somewhere near onetrack.

Probably a long shot as they only had one top twenty hit, but it got a lot of air time in those days.

Neither of those. Some recognisable names he's been in a couple of bands with are Glenn Wheatley, Lobby Loyde and Phil Manning. Apart from his solo career (some would say uneventful), the best known band he was in was most known in the early 70's.

When I was in Burma in the 1980's, the law was to drive on the right, but only about 15 or 20% of vehicles were left hand drive, all newer vehicles. The older vehicles were all right hand drive. A bit scary in Asian high speed traffic to be the passenger in the left seat in the middle of the road. In those days there were a lot of 50's and 60's Yank Tanks with R.H. drive conversions. All these years later, it's still a crazy place. They still drive on the right and import R.H. drive vehicles. The mix of L.H. drive and R.H. drive vehicles is probably about 50/50 now.

An interesting article from the International Driving Authority: https://idaoffice.org/posts/the-history-of-left-and-right-hand-traffic-en/

I think the U.S. and their allies are mainly scared of a post-putin Russia and the instability a total defeat of the Russians in Ukraine would bring without the current mob in power. At least now it's a known quantity; the U.S. knows where the nukes are and they know who to talk to. Their worst nightmare is a defeated putinless country descending into a giant version of Chechnya with nukes. What we've seen is the Western allies supplying enough aid for Ukraine to defend itself, but not enough to win. From the standpoint of the allies, in the likely event that Russia gets to keep what they've taken, Ukraine still has plenty of land left, and the allies can at least say they tried. Israel on the other hand, is so small there's no wiggle room for American support. Jewish people are so embedded in U.S. society and the economy that America can't afford to lose Israel. I would say it's a mix of strategy and favouritism.

He's been a solo artist for a long time but in the past was front man for an Australian band. His musical career started in Queensland, then the band he was in at the time moved to Victoria. He's lived in your state for a long time. Like a lot of old musos he's down to pubs and small venues. You might not recognise him now but you probably remember when he was young.

Not Willie. Right industry though.

This is probably an easy one for some people.

I think Michael Jackson started it.

I realise this is whataboutism, but it would be nice if some of the worldwide anger regarding the casualties of the Palestinians was shared around to include the 100,000 Ukrainians killed by Russia. I'm not belittling the Palestine situation by any means, but Ukraine suffers mass civilian casualties, bombing of schools and hospitals, targeting of civilian ambulances and bombing of churches on a regular basis. If the level of worldwide anger and disgust over what's happening in Gaza had been applied to Ukraine, that war would have ended a year ago.

They look like Yvonne De Carlo eyebrows.

On second thoughts, Yvonne De Carlo.

She looks a bit like Mary Tyler Moore not smiling.

SFM got on fairly well with Boris, so maybe they were talking one day and Boris invited him on the trip. Two used-to-be's on a day out.

At this stage it's looking awfully likely that Trump would have a good chance of securing the GOP nomination if there's no legal barriers to running. Out of all the GOP contenders, Nikki Haley is probably the most sensible I think. As for the Democrats, nobody really stands out. Biden is making a big call to be in the job for another five years, taking into account his age and health. The VP is a non starter in my opinion.

This is scary: https://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/one-year-from-election-polls-offer-gloomy-view-for-biden/news-story/ca94a5e8d62fe6ef5b8e49ac6674ad63

This is a rare sight: SFM standing around with his mouth open but no noise coming from it.