old man emu

I found out why these people are stocking up on toilet paper!!!!!!

Interesting ... Bronze Age spear tip designs being used by apparently neolithic humans.

If no paper

Do not linger

Robinson Crusoe

Used his finger

Autocorrect can't keep up with drunken speed texting.

I went to the fish & chippery a few doors down from home at lunch time for a Chicko Roll. The shop also stocks a few "mum forgot" grocery items. The owner was telling me that someone came in and wanted to buy all the toilet paper they had.

Why hasn't there been a run on facial tissues and paper kitchen towel?

And the drift begins ....

It's interesting that the French word for "dipstick" is "jauge" and the English for a measuring device is "gauge"

Well done!

It's crazy when you can actually know too much to pass an exam well because you will be looking for more meaning in a DUMB question that isn't there. /QUOTE]

 

Too true. The harder you study a subject and get to know it, the more you see into the question. Is the sky blue? Yes. If you understand the reason the sky is blue, then you can launch into explanations of why some days in Summer the sky looks greyish, and in mid-winter it looks sapphire blue.

Particularly when alongside height, why is it not pronounced hate, or spelt hight?

Here's another odd one - "spelt"

This use of the word "spelt" as a noun, meaning a variety of cultivated wheat, is not in dispute, however its use as verb can give rise to disagreement. The debate over the correct spelling of words first began when Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755, followed by Noah Webster's An American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828. While people in England preferred Johnson's spellings, Webster's simplified variations became increasingly popular in the United States.

The "-t" often replaces "-ed" in verbs, of perhaps it is the other way around. "Spelt" is correct in Anglo-Australian English, but American English has it as "spelled" However, at the end of the horse racing season, many horses are "spelled" - rested in Australia.

If I'm in a hospital, recovering from an illness or procedure, I always ask the RN what works best. They are much more experienced than the doctors working in the wards of public hospitals. It's too bad that a RN can't tell an inexperienced doctor that they've got things all wrong. Everyone must kowtow to the doctor. Doctors think that completing a degree in Medicine entitles them to the Order of GCMG.

(Yes Minister. Episode Two: Doing the Honours)

How timely! My grandson's homework this week involved a section dealing with homophones (words that sound the same).

In the same homework were some reading words. How do you explain how to say this word: "eight"?

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They really mean it! They've stationed a guard armed with a light sabre beside it to prevent people from having emergencies.

A possible reason for millennials returning higher IQs than their parents is that modern education philosophy concentrates on problem solving, not rote learning that previous generations were educated (?) with. Put simply, an IQ test measures your reasoning and problem-solving abilities. The modern education system is based on the idea that one can always source fundamental information from the Internet, or will have access to apps that do the number crunching for you. How do you calculate True Airspeed? Fill in the blanks in this: True Airspeed (TAS) Calculator

When was the last time you heard a class at a primary school chanting their Times tables? Nowadays they are taught to gather information, analyse it and come to conclusions about the information. With that sort of education, is it any wonder that they are good at reasoning and problem solving? Hence the higher IQ scores. Then let them try to score well in a Mental Arithmetic test. Now who's a genius?

Everyday one of us comes across a new scam to rid us of our money. In the interests of keeping all up to speed on the current scams, here's a thread for you to inform the rest of us of new scams.

SCAM 1: Please confirm the purchase of a gift card

Source: Phone call from an (03) area code. The usual source of calls from India.

Details: Caller claims to be confirming the credit card purchase of a gift card. The amount is not outrageous (ours was around $149). Please confirm purchase by pressing "1" on your keypad. To decline the purchase, press "2".

Not having pressed either one, I can't tell you what happens next, but I imagine that pressing "1" gets nowhere, but "2" might put you on a Premium overseas call, which you will pay for through the nose.

My wife put a bar-b-qued chook and a loaf of bread on the table for dinner.

"What's this?," I asked.

"Bread and poulet."

Milton Jones is the bloke Phil pinches all his one-liners from!

What about the TE Gemini?

In early 1981, the option of a 1.8-litre Isuzu diesel model was introduced, fitted with an M76 five-speed gearbox. In Australia, all diesel Geminis were only available as SL/X five-speed manuals. Rhone green was a colour made available exclusively for the diesel, but other colours in the range could be ordered. Production of the diesel commenced in March 1981.

I'm annoyed that in NSW, Anzac Day falls during school holidays, due to the four-term system. That means that our children don't learn about what their ancestors did. What chance have I of telling my grandson (aged 7) that his Great-great Grandfather stormed the slopes of Anzac Bay on the 25th April, 1915, or that his Great-Grandfather wrested Tobruk from the Italians in 1942? The actions of those ancestors made their descendants what they are today.

Anzac Day is in no way a glorification of War. Australians would never glorify such a bad thing. It is a day of remembrance for those who died, often without a clue as to exactly why they were fighting on foreign soil. It is also a day on which to be thankful for the chance it gave to bring people from diverse parts of the country together for a common purpose at a time when the character of the Nation was still in its infancy.

Here's some info about Donald's parents. Frederick Christ Trump (October 11, 1905 – June 25, 1999) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was a prominent real-estate developer in New York City. His middle name comes from his mother, Elizabeth Christ Trump (née Christ; October 10, 1880 – June 6, 1966)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Trump

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Christ_Trump

Most new governments win by default because the previous sitting government stuffed up.

So, the Conservatives lose an election because they stuff up, then the non-Conservatives get onto power but lose a later election because they stuff up.

The logical conclusion to this is that neither Conservatives nor non-Conservatives are fit to govern because they both stuff at governing.

Under normal conditions lead does not react with water. However, when lead comes in contact with moist air reactivity with water increases. A small lead oxide (PbO) layer forms at the surface of the metal. When both oxygen and water are present, metallic lead is converted to lead hydroxide (Pb(OH)2):

Lead compounds are generally soluble in soft, slightly acidic water which is basically what stomach acid is.

My first attempt went completely Tits up I'm afraid. . .

 

I shudder to think what your buns look like.

And those first Cans were lead soldered together. A sailing ships crew looking for the passage north of Canada died from it. spacesailor

 

I thought that the Franklin expedition, which spacey mentions, had died as a result of lead poisoning from tinned food, but analyses of the bones of the victims show prolonged exposure to lead. By the time of the expedition, the Royal Navy was commonly using tinned meat. The firm of Goldner supplied 33,289 lb of canned meat to the Franklin Expedition. 6 Goldner supplied the Royal Navy with 2,741,988 lb of canned meat between 1845 and 1851. 7 The contract to supply the Franklin Expedition was one of its first commissions and represented less than 2% of the total amount of canned meat it supplied to the Royal Navy. If Goldner had been producing tainted meat in 1845, it is hard to see how the firm could have won repeated orders for the next seven years.

This scientific paper: https://www.hakluyt.com/PDF/Battersby_Franklin.pdf -  provides evidence that the primary source of this lead was not tinned food, which was in widespread use in the Royal Navy at the time, but the unique water system fitted to the expedition’s ships.

Bully beef and biscuits

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Why call it "bully beef"?

There are at least two thoughts on how this canned meat product came to be called "bully beef". Corned beef has long been a common type of preserved meat. The "corned" part comes from the method of preserving the meat by mixing it with granular salt, and these grains were small like seeds, for which "corn" is an old term. Storing foodstuffs in sealed containers began in around 1810 when the Napoleonic armies needed a way to get perishable food to their troops. Initially the food was in glass containers. In 1810, another Frenchman crossed the Channel and obtained a British patent for the use of tin cans to hold the food. But I digress.

There are at least two thoughts on how this canned meat product came to be called "bully beef". The French have a term "boeuf bouilli" which is boiled beef. The recipes I found used fresh beef, but the cooking process is the same for corned beef. Some etymologists suggest that "bully beef" is a corruption of the French term.

I don't like that opinion for the following reasons:

1. Canned corn beef was commonly available in Australia from the mid-19th Century.
    
   
2. A commonly available brand at the time was the Hereford brand whose cans carried a picture of a Hereford bull.
    
   
3. [ATTACH]50735._xfImport[/ATTACH]
    
   
4. The French term for corned beef is "boeuf sale" - salted beef.
    
   
5. In Australia we commonly associated the term "bully beef" with the Gallipoli campaign. Australian troops had not entered France before that time, so would not have encountered the term "boeuf bouilli"
    
   

According to Australia’s official historian Charles Bean, the canned meat particularly lousy.

“Over-salted bully in the heat of the midday or afternoon slipped in its own fat across the platter or mess-tin, swamping stray flies as it went,” he wrote in his diary. 

Things got better in WWll: 

He already woke her up,