i think greg was refering to the wombat 120mm recoiless anti tank gun tho !!

Maybe, and there again, maybe not!

Christian the Married

Well, it's all relative.

A great little band from Liverpool,The Wombats.Check out their cracking debut album 'Tales of boys and girls and marsupials'.

A true fact about the wombat is that it is the only marsupial that has a backward facing pouch.This is to keep it's young protected as it digs it's burrows.

or it's inner tubes in whilst out cycling !!!

Isn't nature wonderful? How many million years did it take for the wombat's pouch to turn round? Answers on a postcard to:

Proffesor Jon Jonny Jonners,
36 Letsbe Avenue
Croydon

(Yes Jeff, he's moved in with HER! your secret life is a secret no more!)

Meanwhile, what happened to all the Wombats while the pouch was rotating?
Did the pouches all get filled up with earth?
When the pouch was half-way there, why didn't it stop to give baby wombats a nicer view of the world?
Were there other, failed wombat species with pouches on their knees? on the ends of their tails?

The answers to all these and many more scary evoloutionary questions can be found in Radar Bob Newton's best-selling new book "Why are Wombats?" Available from the above address.

Being the sites resident palaeontologist I am really fighting the urge to have a moment!
Must fight... must fi...must..........

Christian the Married

Well, I did say this thread should be educational...

Prof Jonners here with a small cream sherry - well it is Friday ( fish for supper of course).

Wombat!!
The most effectual Wombat!
Who's transported friends get to call him W.B.
Providing it's from a bush tree.

Wombat!
The indisputable sleeper of the gang.
He's the Wom, he's a Bat, he's Merv without a hat.
He's an antipodean lazy , tw....
Wombat.

Strewth he's a chief, he's a king,
But above everything,
He's a shoot on sight,
Wom-Bat.

No wombats were hurt during the re-wording of this song, but several were ignored.

Prof Jonners

There will be a short test later.

I remember seeing that song performed by Abortion Jack Nun on the spoons with Turban Jack Onion on the penny whistle at the Banjo Track Union near Oak Barn Junction.

I was the **** in anorak job wearing a floppy hat with my old pal "No-brain" Jock Tuna.

You might have seen me there. It was fun.

Enjoy your cream sherry (is that Bristol Cream? no, its for my bunions),

Broad Warbonnet, a long time member of the Warren Boot Band

Sumbetch!!!!.....Showoffs 'e's packin all four ARM...., AGM-45,65, 78,88....talk about BIG!!!...stand next to an AGM-78 and you may get and inferiority complex ....Ok Ok.. I'm referring to missiles carried on fighter..all riiiiight!!!!....

Okay peeps, today's word is:

flibbertigibbet

Hmmmmm....

IIRC, Flibbertigibbet is sourced from the Middle English (Saxon/Anglian) word for a flighty or whimsical person. The gender is neutral but it is mostly associated with (young) females...

Recently it has developed into the modern colloquial for a person who talks too much, a gossip and the like. It has been common term in Yorkshire which, funnily enough, is one of the historical main settlement areas of the Anglian peoples.

Down south it has a link to one of the doldem or lintel stones that are part of the Neolithic (3700-3400 BC) henge monument at Wayland's Simthy, Oxfordshire. Filbert was apprentice to Wayland the Smith, (Saxon God of Metal and Smithying) who threw him down the hill after some mistake. Where he landed he turned to stone and Wayland filled with remorse at his actions built his smithy around the hapless Filbert. This also is a Saxon myth transplanted into England with their migration, at roughly the same time as the Angles, but there mght be some incorporation of British mythology too.

moment over. Normal service should resume soonish...

Christian the Married

^ See? Educational, just like I said.

Wayland the Smith is of course a distant ancestor of Wayland Smithers, Monty Burns' sidekick.

Nick

Who said hedumification can't be fun!

Christian the Married

A frivolous, flighty, or excessively talkative person.

This is a fine word to throw out, in the appropriate circumstances, though there’s a risk of tripping over all those syllables. That’s no doubt why it has had so many spellings. The original seems to have been recorded about 1450 as fleper-gebet, which may have been just an imitation of the sound of meaningless speech (babble and yadda-yadda-yadda have similar origins). It started out to mean a gossip or chattering person, but quickly seems to have taken on the idea of a flighty or frivolous woman. A century later it had become respectable enough for Bishop Latimer to use it in a sermon before King Edward VI, though he wrote it as flybbergybe. The modern spelling is due to Shakespeare, who borrowed it from one of the 40 fiends listed in a book by Samuel Harsnet in 1603. In King Lear Edgar uses it for a demon or imp: “This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet. .. He gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the harelip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth”. There has been yet a third sense, taken from a character of Sir Walter Scott’s in Kenilworth, for a mischievous and flighty small child. But despite Shakespeare and Scott, the most usual sense is still the original one.

Now thats enough education for one day!

Anyone for a groovy CD?


Julien

More top stuff. I'm learning so much from this thread that my brain is beginning to hurt.

Well you started it!

Of course, it could just be the government trying to read my mind again.

That's ok. It won't take long.
It'll be only twice as long as it should take.
Phil.

So, according to Julien, it could be onomatopoeic then!

Nick

Right - I'll do you for that!

Hey hey hey!

dont be trying to fool people into thinking I use Big words!

Julien (out of my weasel suit)

I once heard my grandmother accuse a girl working behind the counter of being a fibbertigibbert.I never knew what it meant until now.

Far too educational today, Jeff.

I advocate a return to furry mamals.
We haven't had a Badger yet.
Well, you haven't.
Have you?
Gladys doesn't count.

I'd prefer a Beaver myself . . .

Grungefuttock: The moist patch found behind the knee after having been sitting on the leather seat of a classic english car of old - on a very hot day.

Dullity: A word describing the general state of grey overcast weather had during the month of February in the location of Stevenage.

Once or twice....

Settle down, children, settle down. Today's word, by popular request, is:
badger

10 bonus points to anyone who posts the response I'm looking for.

You mean this? http://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com/

That's brilliant! I love dancing badgers! But sadly, no bonus points, that wasn't what I'm hoping for.

. . . as in part of the Weasel family . . ?

I don't think they are - at least, I've never seen a Weasel airbrush!

Right Obi-Jiff,

Probably not quite what you are after but will out!
Badgers:

Classification -

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Mustelidae
Subfamily Mustelinae:
Subfamily: Melinae
Genus Meles (European Badger, Meles meles)
Arctonyx (Hog Badger, Arctonyx collaris)
Melogale (Bornean Ferret-badger, Melogale everetti) (Look out Greg!)

Subfamily Melinae
Genus Mellivorina (Honey Badger, Mellivora capensis)

Subfamily Taxidiinae
Genus Taxidea (American Badger, Taxidea taxus)

As weasels, martens, polecats and badgers all belong to the Family Mustelidae they are all related!



Christian the Married

Cool - badgers and weasels are cousins. Who'da thunk it?

Still not the points-winning response, though. C'mon, haven't any of you guys seen UHF?

Starring Weird Al Yankovic? No . . .

That's the one. 20 years old this year (the film, not Weird Al). I haven't seen it for about 18 years, but some bits stay in the memory.

Well, you've all let me down The response I was hoping for was:

"Badgers? We doan need no steenkin' badgers!"

Perhaps we can do better with today's word:

bandicoot

Marsupial, mainly insect eating, native to Australia and New Guinea. Several species many endangered or extinct including the short nosed bandicoot. From Telugu – pandikokku – literally meaning pig-rat.


Any good??

Unless you're referring to Crash Bandicoot – an Apple application . . ?

Sorry Obi-Jiff

And now for todays outing!

Bandicoot

ORDER PERAMELEMORPHIA
Family Thylacomyidae
Family †Chaeropodidae
Family Peramelidae
Subfamily Peramelinae
Genus Isoodon (the short-nosed bandicoots)
Genus Perameles (the long-nosed bandicoots)
Subfamily Peroryctinae
Genus Peroryctes (the New Guinean long-nosed bandicoots)
Subfamily Echymiperinae
Genus Echymipera (New Guinean spiny bandicoots)
Genus Microperoryctes (New Guinean mouse bandicoots)
Genus Rhynchomeles (Ceram Bandicoot)
Superfamily Yaraloidea (extinct?)
Family Yaralidae
Genus Yaralida

The entymology for bandicoot is sourced from the anglicised Telugu word pandi-kokku, (approximately pig-rat) originally applied to Bandicota bengalensis (Indian Lesser Bandicoot Rat) and now refers to approximately 20 taxa of this small omnivorous marsupial.

Hope this cheers you up!

Christian the Married

Well, I never knew there were so many types, or that they were so widespread. Thanks guys

Not related to Weasels then??

Well.... Both belong to the Phylum Mammalia but diverge after there so they share a common ancestor, but not related (especially in the Biblical sense!).

Bandicoots belong to the more primitive Class Marsupia that first appear around 125,000,000 years ago whilst Weasels belong to the later evolving Class Placenta of which the first identifiable fossils are from around 60,000,000 years ago.

and proud!

Christian the Married

So, a bandicoot could trace his family history back roughly twice as far as a weasel.

Not quite as simple as that as both genera evolve much later. The dates given are those for the first known fossils that carry clear indicators of belonging to those Orders.

The first Weasel like animal appears around 40,000,000 years ago with clearly identifiable weasels around 15,000,000 years ago.

Bandicoot-like animals appear about 50-60,000,000 million years ago with identifiable critters aroung 20,000,000. The dates given here for the Bandicoot are at present still floating...

Christian the Married