AN AMERICAN kid got 0% for these answers in an exam. Seems unfair. Questions/answers:
Q – In which battle did Napoleon die?
A – His last battle.
Q – Where was the Declaration of Independence signed?
A – At the bottom of the page.
Q – The River Ravi flows in which state?
A – Liquid.
Q – What is the main reason for divorce?
A – Marriage.
Q – What is the main reason for failure?
A – Exams.
Q – What can you never eat for breakfast?
A – Lunch and dinner.
Q – What looks like half an apple?
A – The other half.
Q – If you throw a red stone into the blue sea, what does it become?
A – Wet.
The teacher clearly lacks a sense of humour… oh, and Napoleon didn’t die in battle…
4.
I‘mlike a cross between a marathon runner and a sprinter.
I can jog short distances.
14.
“To get back to my youth I would do anything in the world, except exercise, get up early, or be respectable.” – Oscar Wilde
“The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.” – Will Rogers
23.
“Old age comes at a bad time.” – San Banducci
“I’m so old that my blood type is discontinued.” – Bill Dane
“Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your retirement home.”- Phyllis Diller
26.
“I’m at that age where my back goes out more than I do.” – Phyllis Diller
“Nice to be here? At my age it’s nice to be anywhere.” – George Burns
“Don’t let aging get you down. It’s too hard to get back up.” – John Wagner
“First you forget names, then you forget faces, then you forget to pull your zipper up, then you forget to pull your zipper down.” – Leo Rosenberg
28.
SOME further examples of the idiosyncrasies of the English language, set to verse.
We’ll begin with box; the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox is oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, and two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose is never called meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a house full of mice;
But the plural of house is houses, not hice.
The plural of man is always men,
But the plural of pan is never pen.
If I speak of a foot, and you show me two feet,
And I give you a book, would a pair be a beek?
If one is a tooth and the whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t two booths be called beeth?
If the singular’s this and the plural is these,
Should the plural of kiss be ever called kese?
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren;
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him;
But imagine the feminine … she, shis and shim.
30.
Munguin wishes to express his gratitude to AndiMac, John, Erik, Brenda and Graham. He would put a Czech in the post, but the post is probably gonna be on strike soon,and in any case all the Czechs appear to have left for better places…like the Czech Republic. Not very handy for small animals trying to run intentional publishing houses.
**********
Bonus:
THE pregnant woman went into labour and started shouting: “Couldn’t! Wouldn’t! Shouldn’t! Didn’t! Can’t!”?
She was having contractions.
***********
MUNGUIN'S NEW REPUBLIC 
That one about the dug’s dinner…it hit a nerve.
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All been there. Watching telly as kids, brother and me sitting on the settee. Mac (the dog) puts his chin on the settee between us. Father shouts… ‘right, you two, off the settee, Mac wants to lie down’.
And we did!
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This is kinda funny… what with us being global and holding all the cards, and being world beating and there being no downsides and all…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/28/britons-need-to-be-less-squeamish-about-drinking-water-from-sewage-says-agency-head
Obviously he means English people, because there’s precious little of that here… Hilarious.
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We’ll need to be super vigilant and ensure they don’t try (as they will) to siphon off our fresh water supplies and flog us bottled stuff in return – “Sparkling Urinal Water”, sourced from Pratt’s Bottom (Bromley) and bottled in Looe.
And with that, I think it’s time to retire.
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I worked with a guy who lived in Pratt’s Bottom. So it does exist.
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… How embarrassing!
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There was a famous review of a restaurant in Kent many years ago which included the line:
“Geographically, this restaurant is halfway between Elmer’s End and Pratt’s Bottom. Gastronomically, it is about the same”.
There’s also a location near Nunney in Somerset called Dead Woman’s Bottom.
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🙂
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LOL Love it, Nigel.
Who on earth ever came up with names like that?
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LOL Time for a shower….
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Its a great business model…you charge people to piss and then sell it back to them, and, if any of your “product” is lost due to leaky pipes you top it up with free rainwater.
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That’s Brexit Britbin for you. The quintessence of Entrepreneurship.
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You may live in a city situated on a river, and so of course your municipal water supply inlet is located “safely” upstream from the downstream discharge of your municipal sewage treatment plant.
But if you live in a city which is 240 miles from the end of a 2,450 mile river, you think about the fact that every upstream town and city for more than 2,000 miles through seven states has done exactly the same thing. Makes you think a lot about effective sewage treatment technology. 🙂
A pretty picture of the Missouri River in Montana:
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PS…..Some big river statistics:
Contrary to popular misconception, the Mississippi River is not the longest river in North America. The Missouri is almost 100 miles longer, and since it flows into the Mississippi at St. Louis, the Missouri-Mississippi river flow, from its headwaters in western Montana to the Gulf of Mexico, ranks fourth in length in the world…….(3,710 miles/5,970km,) following the Nile (4,160 miles/6,693km), the Amazon (4,000 miles/6,436km), and the Yangtze Rivers (3,964 miles/6,378km).
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Oh dear… The Tay, 120 miles, is our longest river…
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Tris…..The Tay my be shorter, but has LOTS and LOTS fewer towns and cities along it dumping treated (or untreated) sewage. A river like the Missouri is an entirely different sewage situation. 🙂
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True, Danny… 🙂
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aye, from Ben Lui to the North Sea.
Beautiful silvery Tay,
With your landscapes, so lovely and gay,
Along each side of your waters, to Perth all the way;
No other river in the world has got scenery more fine,
Only I am told the beautiful Rhine,
Near to Wormit Bay, it seems very fine,
Where the Railway Bridge is towering above its waters sublime,
And the beautiful ship Mars,
With her Juvenile Tars,
Both lively and gay,
Does carelessly lie
By night and by day,
In the beautiful Bay
Of the silvery Tay.
Beautiful, beautiful! silvery Tay,
Thy scenery is enchanting on a fine summer day,
Near by Balmerino it is beautiful to behold,
When the trees are in full bloom and the cornfields seems like gold,
And nature’s face seems gay,
And the lambkins they do play,
And the humming bee is on the wing,
It is enough to make one sing,
While they carelessly do stray,
Along the beautiful banks of the silvery Tay,
Beautiful silvery Tay, rolling smoothly on your way,
Near by Newport, as clear as the day,
Thy scenery around is charming I’ll be bound…
And would make the heart of any one feel light and gay on a fine summer day,
To view the beautiful scenery along the banks of the silvery Tay.
William Topaz McGonagall (March 1825 – 29 September 1902)
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Good old McGonnagall.
The Tay, the Tay, the Silvery Tay;
It passes the boatyaird twice a day!
Said my granny!
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Alex…..Very nice! I like that. “Beautiful
Silvery Tay”
No one will ever write such a poem about the Missouri River. From its headwaters on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains in Montana, it flows for about 2400 miles……carrying tons and tons of silt down from the northern Great Plains. Its nickname is the “Big Muddy.” Famously said to be “too thick to drink, and too thin to plow,” it empties into the Mississippi at St. Louis, where its light muddy flow can often be seen IN the Mississippi for miles.
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“too thick to drink, and too thin to plow,”
Classic.
That pics not working, Danny.
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Ah it’s working now for me.
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Tris……Glad you got to see the picture. Especially in the Spring of the year, when the water flow in the Missouri is high and the silt load is heavy, an aerial view of the Missouri IN the flow of the Mississippi is dramatic. It’s land from the Great Plains on its way to form the Mississippi Delta at New Orleans. The Delta extends more than a hundred miles south from New Orleans.
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That’s some delta…
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Interesting video!
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Yeah, it’s a good one….although it goes a bit weird at the end.
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Some Mock Gonagal
If somewhat terse versification.
The Tay the Tay the silvery Tay
It flows from Perth to Dundee and back again
Twice, every day.
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He was bang on… what with it being tidal.
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“A pretty picture of the Missouri River in Montana”
Is there a Montana River in Missouri?
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Hi Panda Paws……The short answer is no. There is no Montana River…..in the state of Missouri OR Montana, or anywhere else. 🙂
The LONG (but unbelievably interesting) answer: 🙂
The thing is that (west of old British colonial America) the states (and territories and some cities, etc) were often named AFTER rivers, instead of the other way around. The State of Missouri (1821) was named after Missouri Territory (1812,) and Missouri Territory was named after the great river (the longest in North America) that bisects what became the State of Missouri. The Missouri River had long been named by the time Lewis and Clark put their boats into the Missouri at St. Louis in 1804 to find the headwaters of the river, in the Territory of Louisiana that President Tom Jefferson had recently bought from Napoleon.
Months later in 1805, they found the headwaters of the Missouri in what became (84 years later) the State of Montana, but by 1889 all the rivers had already been named, and none of them were named “Montana.” So Montana didn’t get a river…….or more to the point, there was by then no such river to name the state after.
So when and how was the Missouri named?……..
The Missouri River was named after a Siouan Indian tribe whose Illinois name, Ouemessourita, means “those who have dugout canoes”. “The river remained unexplored and uncharted until Étienne de Veniard and Sieur de Bourgmont began to travel upstream, writing descriptions in 1713 and 1714. Bourgmont was the first to use the name “Missouri” to refer to the river and he and Étienne de Veniard would later establish the first fort on the Missouri River in 1723.” So the Missouri River got its name about 80 years before Lewis and Clark, and roughly 100 years before the State of Missouri entered the federal union in 1821.
Googling……:
On May 14, 1804, Lewis and Clark left St. Louis, Missouri with 45 men, a 55-foot keelboat, and two large canoes to trace the Missouri River to its headwaters for the first time. On the eastern slope of the Rockies in today’s Montana, they found three small rivers, any one of which might be considered the Headwaters of the Missouri. Meriwether Lewis would write in his journal, on July 28, 1805:
“Both Capt. C. and myself corresponded in opinion with respect to the impropriety of calling either of these [three] streams the Missouri and accordingly agreed to name them after the President of the United States and the Secretaries of the Treasury and state.”
So thanks to Lewis and Clark, the mighty Missouri begins with the confluence of three rivers in Montana, the Jefferson, the Madison, and the Gallatin. Anyone from Missouri should go see those Montana rivers, as well as the Yellowstone River, which flows through the National Park named for it.
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Speaking of Lewis And Clark, I saw this lot at the Town And Country Club in That London in the late 80s sometime.
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Thanks Derek…….Surprising! I wonder if a British audience had any idea who Lewis and Clark were. Very big in American history, but probably not well known in England.
As usual, I needed some help with lyrics. 🙂
https://nightlysong.com/2010/10/05/looking-for-lewis-and-clark-the-long-ryders/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Ryders
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Morning Danny,
It’s said that if you live in the east end of London your water has already been filtered by 8 other humans but since the water has a high level of cocaine they esers don’t give a sh*t.
Great selection today.
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Hi Dave, LOL…LOL…..Interesting indeed! 🙂
I was Googling the matter of how many times the fresh water of the planet earth has likely been “used” by humans, and subsequently purified for drinking by later generations. But it would vary a lot, depending on whether your water supply is from a surface river, or from a deep fresh-water aquifer.
The scientific issue of where the planet earth’s water came from in the first place is fascinating. It seems likely that water was brought to the Earth from asteroids and comets crashing into it a few billion years ago. Ever since then, we’ve doubtless been drinking some treated sewage, it’s just a matter of how long ago the sewage was treated and how well the purification was performed. 🙂
https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/water-origins/
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Strange that bottled water has a use by date, maybe that should be a refilter date.
Yes it can go off due to system contamination but funny that it is so old and needs our planet to refilter and purify something we need potable every day.
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Dave…….I do wonder if any of the primordial water from the comets and asteroids is still available for drinking……maybe in super deep underground aquifers…….or if all of today’s water sources have by now once been sewage that’s been treated……or naturally purified by the earth.
The “toilet to tap” issue is a big one here in the states, even as a drought in the west puts a strain on municipal water systems. I know that the outflow of a sewage treatment plant can be made potable……even pristine pure…….if you apply the requisite technology, although nobody actually likes to think about it. 🙂
Our water source in Kansas City is the Missouri River…….which certainly carries treated sewage from 2,000 miles of cities, towns, and farms by the time it gets here. I don’t worry bout the sewage, since I know that the municipal water of Kansas City is properly treated and constantly tested, but we recently switched to bottled water because we didn’t like the chlorinated taste of the water. Chlorine compounds are used to kill pathogens. There’s also the fact that in the Spring, Kansas City water gets smelly from the melting of the upstream snow pack on the northern Great Plains, which seeps thorough leaves and soil and picks up aromatic (but safe to drink) organic compounds, which are then carried downstream by the river.
The highly purified bottled water we started using is free of odor and chemical taste, since it doesn’t use chlorine for purification. It tastes great……and has a picture of a pure mountain spring on the label. But if you read the fine print, you find that the raw source of the bottled water is the municipal water system of Fort Worth, Texas. Fort Worth water comes from surface sources, maybe not that much different than the Missouri River water in Kansas City. It’s all a matter of how you purify it. Our bottled water does taste fine, even though there’s almost surely some recently treated sewage in that surface water from Fort Worth. 🙂
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A few years ago I was inside “the hollow mountain”, Cruchan. The guide explained that you might get a drip of water on your head or shoulder as you walked round. What that will tell you, he says, it that today, 30,000 years ago, it was raining!
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Aye been there, 1200 old feet of granite rock above the generator hall and it leaks all over.
Remember all the rubber seal material was stored in a small loop tunnel as it was always wet.
There was a problem with the temperature in the hall and the temperature of the granite was rising, much like a storage radiator. the ventilation system had to be improved.
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When you take the tour of Hoover Dam that forms Lake Mead near Las Vegas, you go down more than 700 ft in an elevator to the power generators at the level of the bottom of the lake. Then when you go into the access tunnels cut deep into the rock at each end of the dam, you notice the dripping water everywhere. The tour guide then tells you that it’s ancient water moving through the rock, and NOT Lake Mead leaking and the dam failing. 🙂
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…all of which must come as a bit of a relief!!! 🙂
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🙂
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Really. It was my recollection, perhaps an urban myth, that there was an ante-room much prized for the constancy of its temperature that was enterprisingly, if informally, set out to lay down and age some rather fine wines…
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LOL LOL LOL….
Brilliant.
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Jake…..Great! I think it’s fascinating that water in deep freshwater aquifers consists of rainfall that occurred thousands or tens of thousands of years ago.
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LOL Even stream water from up in the hills can be dubious.
I remember as a little lad being taken into an hotel at lunch time when we were way out in the countryside.
There was a great big “Don’t drink the water” poster in the bar, with a picture of a sheep peeing in the burn (stream).
When I’m walking in the hills and take a drink of fresh water from a burn, I’m always vaguely aware of that poster.
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Tris…..I like that. Animals and people have been relieving themselves in waterways since the beginning of time. I’ve read that the reason people drank so much alcohol in ancient and medieval times was because what we would consider potable water was not available. Pretty much all fresh surface water was polluted. Safely drinkable water is a relatively modern development.
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Yes, I think they drank weak ale, or later made tea, because at least the boiled water that these involved was a little less ghastly.
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Tris, many years ago when I was but a laddie, a pal and I were wandering in the Kilpatrick Hills, as we often did. it was a hot day and we both drank deeply from the sparkling waters of the Maryland Burn. thus refreshed, we rambled on for only about twenty yards to find a decomposing sheep carcass wedged in the boulders mid-stream🤢Did us no harm whatsoever but after that we did tend to look a way upstream before choosing a place to drink.
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LOL…
And yer still here tae tell the tale, Andi. So maybe they are right… we’re all just a bit squeamish.
Still, I’d be dubious if there were people camping by the side of the burn!
I still see that sheep, but then I think to myself… It would be very diluted… and after all, you did drink the canteen coffee…
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🙂
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Great story Andi! And an excellent plan to check out the water upstream before drinking. 🙂
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Bottled water in glass bottles keeps fine, but not in plastic, as it leaches into the water over time (discussed ages ago, I think).
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Yes, I think you can taste the plastic, unless it is VERY cold.
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Yes. Interesting that water would have a use-by date. Never really thought about that. I never buy bottled water, unless out somewhere, and then I always buy sparkling Scottish water.
Certainly it has a date after which it has lost its sparkle.
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Tris……I do wonder about that use-by date on bottled water.
I’ve found that the plastic taste in bottled water mostly comes from the milky looking gallon-size plastic containers. The water we use comes in smaller, clear plastic bottles. We don’t notice any plastic taste from those bottles, although the water does taste better when very cold.
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I really hate water that isn;t very cold, even fresh water.
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EEEEEK.
Mind you, up there in the wilds of Montana, the Missouri is mighty pretty!
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Tris…..I do like that picture of the Missouri in Montana. It’s also a lot more pure and unpolluted in Montana than it is 2,000 miles later, when it gets to Kansas City. 🙂
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Ever thought about moving house, Danny?
Mind, the downside is that 2 000 miles is a bit of a commute, especially in winter!
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LOL Tris……the idea of driving to work in a Montana winter would be a non-starter for me, even if it weren’t for the 2,000 miles. 🙂
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Yup, I think I see the problem… 🙂
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🙂
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In the summer of 1976, when parts of Gwent were put on water rationing due to drought but the West Midlands of England (which extracted water from our side of the border) was not, a graffito was seen on the cistern of a public lavatory in Cwmbrân:
“Flush vigorously! Birmingham needs your water”
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LOL.
Wasn’t there some pretty violent reactions at times when the English stole stuff from Wales?
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Yes there were (Capel Celyn was one example), but never often enough to my way of thinking. Ultimately, Brits (having used force around the world to get what they want) only pay attention to force in return.
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You may have a point there.
I remember a Scottish MP being asked why it was that Ireland could have a referendum every 7 years but the Scottish Secretary was saying we would have to wait 30 year (like it was going to be his business)_and he replied to the effect that …well, the Irish would take action…
They do seem to understand that sort of response.
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The drought in the American West has forced water restrictions on the seven states that use allotments of the flow of the Colorado River according to the Colorado River Compact of 1922. Lake Mead on the lower Colorado is literally drying up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Compact
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What will happen if it does dry up?
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Tris……Of course the Colorado River won’t totally dry up, but the status of the lakes my be a different matter. There will (hopefully) always be some snow pack in the Colorado Rockies that melts in the Spring and moves down the Colorado. The problem is that the water was originally allocated to seven states based on incorrect assumptions about the future average water flow in the Colorado. Since 80% of the Colorado water goes to irrigation for agriculture, the first people hit with restrictions will be the farmers. But sooner or later homeowners in Phoenix for example may be affected. Arizona is a desert state, and Phoenix is the fifth largest city in the country……after New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston.
As for Lake Mead on the lower Colorado, the outlook is serious. So far however, the water authorities have been able to maintain the lake at a level such that the inlets to the power generators at Hoover Dam are still submerged. Downstream from Hoover Dam, the Colorado River just dries up. It hasn’t flowed into the Gulf of California for years. Its yearly flow is ALL used by the seven states, and is impounded by Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
The last time we were in Vegas, we went out (about 30 miles) to Hoover Dam. It was heartbreaking to see the “bathtub ring” of dried salts on the rocks around Lake Mead, which show where the lake level USED TO BE.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/16/feds-will-ration-water-from-colorado-river-amid-historic-drought.html
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That’s serious stuff, Danny.
How long has it taken for the water to fall so far?
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Tris……..Lake Mead was at full capacity (and overflowing at Hoover Dam) in 1983. I know a man at work who was in Vegas that year and went out to the dam. He says that there was no bathtub ring round the canyon walls, and the water inlet towers to the power generators of the dam were fully submerged. In fact 1983 was a flood year, and the lake at its peak that year overflowed into the spillways of the dam, which had never happened before or since (except during initial testing.)
1983…..Water pouring over spillway of Hoover Dam and no bathtub ring on the walls of the canyon:
So I Googled that and find that the all time high elevation of the surface of the lake was indeed in 1983 at 1225 ft. However, Lake Mead again attained full capacity in the summer of 1999, when it reached 1220 ft. From 1999, over a span of 23 years, it has steadily fallen a total of 184 ft to its present level (last month) of 1041 ft.
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Thanks for that research, Danny.
Who knows if maybe the weather will change again and as it clearly did later in the 80s and 90s.
In the meantime there have been floods in the Middle East… in the desert kingdoms. They may be the next tropics.
And this:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-62705240
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Yes, we can hope for another flood year like 1983, but that was 40 years ago, and with the changing climate there’s more and more speculation that maybe Lake Mead…and Lake Powell upstream on the Colorado from Lake Mead……will never recover. Lake Mead is now at 1041 ft, and “dead pool” level is 895 ft. This is the level of the lowest water inlets to the generators, and therefore the point below which water can’t move through Hoover Dam. The feds always adjust the levels of the two big lakes as required. Lake Powell is often fuller than Lake Mead, and the feds can increase the flow through the Glen Canyon Dam on Lake Powell to raise the level of Lake Mead. But there’s only so much water moving down the Colorado, so they can only do so much. Therefore reductions in water allocations to the seven states of the Colorado River Compact are inevitable.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/water-levels-lake-mead-dangerously-close-hitting-dead/story?id=85584196#:~:text=Anything%20below%20that%20is%20considered,at%20895%20feet%20in%20elevation.&text=The%20water%20levels%20at%20Lake,from%20becoming%20a%20dead%20pool.
Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam are amazing constructions to see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Dam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Canyon_Dam
As for California, you never know what will happen. Droughts, floods, and the occasional earthquake. And with floods come the inevitable mudslides. At least floods and mudslides put out the wildfires. 🙂
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LOL. Look on the bright side.
These dams are indeed amazing consructions.
As for the future, it will be what it will be because despite all the promises , no one seems to be doing that much about the changing climate, at least stabilise it if nothing else.
As one of my buddies says… It will see me out… which is fair enough, but I worry for the animals. This isn’t their fault.
Penguinkind is at risk!
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Tris…….”Penguinkind is at risk!” 🙂
Glen Canyon, as impressive a structure as it is, is much hated by environmentalists, who opposed its construction, and to this day are demanding that it be removed (if that were even possible.) At the time of its construction in the late 1950’s through 1966, it was vigorously opposed by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups. Glen Canyon was wild and remote, and was the site of beautiful gorges and slot canyons, and ancient native American sites. On the other hand, the Bureau of Reclamation of the Department of the Interior in Washington saw hydroelectric power, Colorado River water control, and a great lake, (second largest in America after Lake Mead) for recreation and water access to previously remote and undeveloped canyonlands. So the dam was built and most of Glen Canyon is now drowned by Lake Powell.
The dam has had a troubled history. It suffered damage from the 1983 Colorado River flood, with hastily constructed plywood barriers being all that prevented the lake from overtopping the spillway to possible disastrous effect. Serious vibrations were detected in the dam at the time. And it’s located on the Arizona/Utah border, upstream from the Grand Canyon. (Hoover Dam and Lake Mead are downstream from the Grand Canyon on the Arizona/Nevada border.) So the water outflow from Glen Canyon Dam has damaged the eco-system of the Grand Canyon. Silt which once came down the Colorado and built beaches and sandbars in the canyon is now trapped behind the dam. So Grand Canyon’s beaches and dry areas are eroding away. And since the water comes out of the dam from the bottom of Lake Powell, the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon is now a cold water river with a constant temperature of 46 degrees F, instead of a seasonal 35-85 degrees F. This has played havoc with the fish species, not to mention its effect on tourism and water rafting down in the canyon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risks_to_the_Glen_Canyon_Dam
https://www.glencanyon.org/grand-canyon/
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I can see how excited that guy was about bringing back nature to that area and I certainly sympathise with that. But over the period o f time that the lake has been there, nature, besides humans, will have become used to there being vast amounts of water there.
It’s a hard one.
And the millions of people who rely on the waters there … what will they do . They don’t have long to find a solution (if you pardon the pun).
It’s frightening.
At the same time we are hearing today of the disaster that has struck Pakistan, a third of which is flooded.
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Yes, I saw a report on the Pakistan flood.
Too bad that weather extremes like drought and floods can’t be evened out.
As long as the Glen Canyon Dam is there, we can hope that they got it fixed after the 1983 flood. Having it fail might wipe out everything in the Grand Canyon as we know it.
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Thanks Danny for the information on the hydro electric dams. It brings the dynamics to light, the added pressure on Lake Powel to maintain the Hoover Dam level above the turbine intake, or Colarado river dries, a point I had not considered, the alteration of the river’s natural fauna due to temperature change, caused by the dam. Interesting but must be a worry for millions of residents in those states.
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No. Can’t be English. The story specifically refers to ‘ordinary people’ as opposed to governmment and water companies. That must mean Scots as Sunday Times readers are presumed to be exclusvely English. Bevan’s PR spinners would otherwise have told him not to use the term and avoid giving offence by calling them ‘ordinary’.
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WP at it again. That was meant to appear immediately after Tris’ comment on the Grauniad story.
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LOL my mistake….
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Nice group of funnies this week!
Well done Andi! I love the books on shelves. 🙂
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That was a laugh out loud moment for me…
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An Irish mate told me he worked in the Belfast library as a uni holiday job. A customer asked if they had anything by Hugh Denny. My mate went off to look. Checked the shelves and catalouges but drew a blank. Sorry, he told the customer. I can’t anything by Hugh Denny.
“You must have!” came the indignant response. “He’s famous. Went over Niagara Falls in a barrel, tied up in chains and still escped.” Just think of Houdini in a Nornirn acceent…
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LOL.
It’s wicked hard to understand sometimes.
I have two mates from NI, both highly educated, one a doctor and the other is both a doctor and a lawyer, and often I have to get them to repeat stuff, so strong is the accent.
I heard on the World Service last night that there is a guy in America who is working on a programme which people can use in call centres which will make accents softer.
The example they played was a call centre operative from India who was “translated” into what they described as middle class mid west, whatever that is. The inventor of the software is, himself, of Indian extraction.
It would be helpful here too. A mate of mine who lives in Newcastle, England had a conversation with a call centre person in Glasgow recently and couldn’t understand a word of it.
Mind some Irish accents are so lovely. I was in Dublin with a Hungarian friend and he asked this guy for directions. After we got the directions my friend said: “Did you get that?” “Nope”, I said, “I was just listening to the accent, rather than what was said”.
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Anyone else here share my affliction (if such it is) of taking on (completely unconscously) the accent of someone you’re talking to ?
South Wales valleys and NornIrn are two of the worst, but there are others. I was once talking to a ‘customer’ (as we were obliged by then to call them, despite it being the Civil Service) who was from the north-east of England. After a few minutes’ discussion of the matter at hand, he asked me where I was calling him from, so I told him (in short, rather a long way from the banks of the Tyne). To which he replied – in rather peeved tones, I thought – “I tell ye summat – yuv a fyine Geordie accent”. I stammered an apology and assured him that I didn’t know I was doing it. Some people have thought that I was taking the piss, and have proven difficult to convince that I wasn’t.
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I’m not sure I would do it so quickly as that, Nigel, but I have a musical ear (I play piano by ear and have since I was 3), so I do pick up accents very quickly.
It was handy when the family moved to near Wolverhampton and I got a lot of stick for being a “jock” and for my dad, “coming down ‘ere, taking their jobs”. Fortunately within a week or so, I sounded just like them. The only problem was I had to switch it off when I got into the house. “Don’t speak Brummie!!!” my parents would shout.
I went to New York for a week and came back talking about “trash” and “sidewalks”.
And although I speak (rather rusty these days) French, if I’m here I have quite a Scottish accent, but after a few days in France, I sound far more French, with whatever accent…
In Québec I picked up Canadian French.
But I definitely couldn’t do it in the course of one telephone conversation!
So you play a musical instrument or sing?
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Here in the states, we so often call a customer service number and India answers. Sometimes I have real trouble understanding a strong Indian accent. I try so hard to understand without constantly asking him or her to repeat themselves, which is embarrassing.
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Yes, it is. But of course the American, or British companies save money by transferring the queries section to India where wages are lower.
But as I said, it doesn’t have to be someone who is speaking a second language. Even a strong accent from another part of the same country can be impossible to understand.
This ap sounds like a good idea.
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Yes, definitely a good idea!
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I’ve tried, but I’ve always been too lazy to put the practice in.
I did used to get up at singers’ nights in our local folk club and ‘do a bit’ (songs and a llittle stand-up) for about ten years around the turn of the century, and I can’t imagine life being worth living without music.
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So it is only folk music or other types of music you like?
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Ooh, no. You should see my record collection; very ‘eclectic’ it is. The only two real ‘deaf spots’ I have are opera and that manufactured country & western stuff (and its Irish equivalent, which I’ve long suspected of being put together iin some large shed on the outskirts of Dublin – a sort of ‘Diddly-I-Diddly-Ikea’, if you will).
I only started going to the folk club because I was chasing a woman (she outran me, of course) and her band was performing there one night. I enjoyed the evening so much that I kept going back for about ten years.
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LOL LOL…
Did you ever catch up with her in 10 years?
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I gave up after about five years with the recognition that she was too smart for me (in all senses of that word).
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Well, no one could say you weren’t a trier!!!!!
5 minutes is usually enough for me.
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Reminds me of trying to help a Nottingham pal to find a garage in Glasgow’s south side.
Spent ages looking for Paul McGhee’s in the area he told me.
Eventually stopped a local, who’d had a couple of swallies for directions to said Paul McGhee’s garage.
There it’s there son, just ower ther.
There it was right enough, Polmadie Garage.
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LOL…
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My neighbour tells me that he won’t be giving presents this Christmas, instead on that day they will put their heating on for an hour.
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“For an hour”??
Must be incredibly wealthy suburb where you live!!
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Barpe: Munguin’s readers are only the most select in the world. They come from all the best places…
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Oh Marcia, can I pop round to see your neighbour on Christmas day?
And will be all be having “cold turkey”?
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😥
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Smashing funnies this week. Though of all the jokes shortlisted at Edinburgh, I thought the one that won was the least funny! Go figures…
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I know. I wasn’t even vaguely funny… Odd.
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Just spotted this
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Love them.
For those from outwith these islands, the 30p piece is dedicated to a particularly unappealing “working class Tory” MP, who has made a habit of making a complete fool of himself.
He suggested, when inflation started talking off and no increase was forthcoming in either wages or pensions/benefits, that it was perfectly easy to make a nourishing meal for 30p.
As far as I know he failed dismally at any time to pass on his 30p recipes.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/may/15/tory-mp-lee-anderson-serves-up-a-30p-recipe-for-ridicule
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This Lee Anderson, overpriced at 30p.
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Utterly hilarious. What a tube.
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The dug’s dinner menu reminded that our cat food offerings here are similarly appealing. Although feeding the menagerie falls to the RS under division of domestic responsibilities, I know here it’s kept and had a look to refresh my memory.
Sheba is the overall brand name and its products include Cassoulet a la Volaille (chicken) and Caneton Bigarade (orange duck). I could cope with that. For some reason, the multiple translations that go with the main Bulgarski text do not include English. Post-Brexit, no need, presumably. Another win for Jake Caprice-Mogg to brag about?
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I’m sure you cook just as appetising meals for the humans in the household.
I wonder if the Irish still qualify for English translations. As I recall, in Ireland the first language is Irish and English is second on everything.
I know that up to the day when the UK actually left the EU, Michel Barnier conducted all his negotiations in English as clearly there was no danger that any of the English ministers who were sent to deal with him would have managed to negotiate in French.
Immediately after the date that the UK actually left the EU, he started using his native French, much to the irritation of the Brits.
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Latest master plan is to sell off government buildings in london to raise some cash.
After his last one was to get every civil servant back to working in their offices.
I suppose when they turn up to the office they will be sent home either because there’s no office to work in or they’ve run out of cash for the heating supply.
The good thing is that the benefits system will still support the windsors, extra cash already given.
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I thought that was hilarious.
Rees Mogg leaving notes around the place saying that people should be at their desks. Now he’s selling off the buildings, presumably to stock up on champagne for the Commons’ and Lords’ dining rooms.
I believe that Liz has had a big fat increase to pay her bills… although she’s not budging from Balmoral at the moment.
Because of the art treasures in the palaces, even empty ones have top be kept at a constant temperature all year round at our expense.
Maybe the Mogg should start selling off royal treasures.
They were happy enough to sell of the family silver of the country… time for the Windsors to forgo their gold pianos and £60m necklaces.
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I really worry for our children who live in England. My daughter, son in law and 5 year old grandson live in a village in South Staffordshire. They have a wee, well insulated relatively new house. My son and his wife live in a wee 60 year old house in Harlow, so not so well insulated, although they’ve done their best, (they used to commute to London, but now WfH). They are having their first baby – due on 1 October! Both families can cope at the moment but we worry as it sounds like it’s all going to get so much worse.
Our cats will only eat chicken flavoured dry food. And they only like the expensive Ultima brand! And to make it worse, one of our cats is allergic to grain in the food, so we have to buy Grain Free, which is more expensive!
Most food shopping here comes in both Spanish and Portuguese as we are so close to the Portuguese border. No English instructions, ingredient list ever.
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Things are undoubtedly getting hard for people. The prices of petrol and diesel, food, electricity and gas are scarily high and people’s income isn’t improving at the same rate.
After 12 years of Tory government, you might have expected better.
When I was young we had a dog who was like your fussy cats. In fairness, when he was a puppy he was really ill and wouldn’t eat. We tempted him to try stuff by cooking him chicken… and other delicacies, beef, pork…
Needless to say, when he got better and we offered him tinned dog food, he looked at us as if to say….”What on earth is this muck?” Then he walked away.
It took a long time and a lot of money to slowly by mixing best steak and some dog food, get him accustomed to the taste of what he should have been eating.
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Was that the same dog you had to get off the couch for? I think your dogs were spoilt rotten!
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Yep.
My father liked almost no one in the world, including my brother and me, but Mac could do no wrong.
Actually, when Mac got very old and eventually we had to do the decent thing and let him die, my father lasted about a fortnight after.
I miss Mac to this day.
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I’m a terrible person because I laughed at that…
The mutt died, my dad died, I still miss that dog!
Bit like the wife jokes.
The wife ran off with my best friend. I still miss my pal!
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LOL yes…. It’s actually true in this case, though!
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Very true tris. I’ve only had two pets in my lifetime. A budgie that was thirteen when he died, and a Cavalier King Charles who was ten when he died suddenly. Still miss him.
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Losing a pet is hard, Alex. I suspect people who’ve never gone through that couldn’t ever understand it.
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LOL. New?
That’s one way of putting it.
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