A strange world full of odd facts

[roginoz]

Not on our place ! P'raps they've got the runs.........!

 

{where's those bloody emoji things ? }

[Mick4350]

1 hour ago, roginoz said:

 

 

{where's those bloody emoji things ? }

here                   and      .

Edited November 3, 2019 by Mick4350

[Ratch]

Is this the one you wanted 💩

[Bigdave22014]

Brexit has had more dates than me this year 😭

[Beardie]

Not a strange or an odd fact but an interesting account which I wanted to share as we are heading towards the day of Remembrance..

 

This is an account of the Pipe major of the Tyneside Scottish at the battle of the Somme:

 

The pluckiest thing I ever saw was a piper of the Tyneside Scottish playing his company over the parapet in the attack on the German trenches near Albert. The Tynesiders were on our right, and as their officers gave the signal to advance I saw the piper – I think he was the Pipe Major – jump out of the trench and march straight over No Man’s Land towards the German lines. The tremendous rattle of machine gun and rifle fire, which the enemy at once opened on us completely drowned the sound of his pipes. But it was obvious he was playing as though he would burst the bag, and just faintly through the din we heard the mighty shout his comrades gave as they surged after him. How he escaped death I can’t understand for the ground was literally ploughed by the hail of bullets. But he seemed to bear a charmed life and the last glimpse I had of him, as we too dashed out, showed him still marching erect, playing furiously, and quite regardless of the flying bullets and the men dropping all around him.

 

Many, many pipers fell in WWI marching into the enemy fire with nothing to defend themselves and with the sole aim of stirring their comrades to do what they had to do. My God those guys must have been tough as all hell!

 

Others were not so lucky with this one being an account by Piper Griffith from the 21st Tyneside Scottish:

Fellow piper Willie Scott, a shipyard worker from Elswick in Newcastle, was still ahead of me playing. When I reached the German trenches and jumped in, the first man I saw was Willie – dead, but still holding his pipes. If ever a man deserved the VC Willie did

[Mick4350]

2 hours ago, Beardie said:

Not a strange or an odd fact but an interesting account which I wanted to share as we are heading towards the day of Remembrance..

 

 

[qn30jEkPz7]

(precursor fact: The Haber-Bosch process was developed in the early 20th century to capture nitrogen from the air and make it chemically available for making fertilisers for agriculture (at first tbh it was mainly for explosives). This process is largely responsible for the green revolution and supporting the huge recent growth in global population)

 

A half (on average) of the nitrogen in the bodies of humans (essential for the amino acids that form every protein etc.) was captured from the air by this process

 

(bonus interesting fact. Fritz Haber has one of the most mixed and tragic legacies of any scientist)

[Beardie]

Also considered to be the father of chemical warfare for developing and weaponizing chlorine gas during the first world war. The TV series "Dark Matters, twisted but true" did a piece on him although it isn't quite 'true' as it twists some of the facts for dramatic effect.

[qn30jEkPz7]

6 minutes ago, Beardie said:

Also considered to be the father of chemical warfare for developing and weaponizing chlorine gas during the first world war. The TV series "Dark Matters, twisted but true" did a piece on him although it isn't quite 'true' as it twists some of the facts for dramatic effect.

True, he is probably level pegging with Thomas Midgley Junior for the title of “Chemist with most problematic careers”

[Beardie]

Following on about WWI and it's pipers I just wanted to add that, although I believe a lot of people think that pipers were not considered legitimate targets by the opposition it was actually the opposite. Interrogations of German prisoners during WWI revealed that Pipers were actually considered targets of importance equal to, if not greater than officers and orders were that they be prime targets. It got to the point that, in some regiments, pipers were eventually considered too valuable for morale leading troops to and from the lines and in too short supply to expend their lives on the front line.

[593jones]

The car that Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were riding in when they were assassinated in 1914 had the licence number A111118.  Who says there's no such thing as coincidence?

 

  

[Beardie]

Very uncanny isn't it? What are the odds that an early car registration that was linked to the person whose death can be taken as the initial spark of WWI would just happen to be able to be read as the date of the armistice?

[Tzulscha]

It is well know that million-to-one shots happen nine times out of ten.

 

Somehow nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine-to-one just never quite works though does it?

[dogsbody]

It sometime seems that when you have a 50-50 chance at getting something right, about 75% of the time you get it wrong.

 

 

 

Chris

[JohnT]

On 03/11/2019 at 02:45, Beardie said:

Here is another interesting and odd fact that I only just discovered. In the wee Scottish town that I started this thread with it turns out that, back in 50's and 60's there was a family who owned the local record shop who had a son called Colin Hay. The family emigrated to Australia when Colin Hay was 14 and he went on to become lead singer of a wee Australian band called Men at Work. So the man who sang about coming from 'the Land down under' actually came from Saltcoats, Ayrshire, Scotland 😁

And just as I read that they played it on BBC Radio 2.  Coincidence? I think not. Who is spying on the BM membership 

[Pete in Lincs]

1 hour ago, JohnT said:

Who is spying on the BM membership

Ken Bruce. A Scottish Gentleman AND the popmaster!

[Tentacles]

Quote

It sometime seems that when you have a 50-50 chance at getting something right, about 75% of the time you get it wrong.

Or, to flip it around, "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - ice-hockey legend Wayne Gretzky. 

 

(I'm trying to be positive after a "challenging" week)

[qn30jEkPz7]

Reading "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari" it suggests that during WW2 that the chimes of Big Ben on the BBC radio before the news were live recordings for a while but that German scientists found a way to get useful information on the weather over London from the sound so the live recordings were replaced by recordings. Anyone have a source for that or more detail?

 

Searching for it takes me to someone else asking much the same question on another forum https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=227687

 

Shame as the rest of the book is good and thought provoking

 

[Beardie]

I heard this recently on TV, can't remember what the programme was. I don't think it was about weather but, rather, the sound of the bombers. If the Germans could hear their own engines in the broadcast of Big Ben they would know they were over London.

 

Just found this article from the Daily Fail that may or may not be accurate https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7420981/BBCs-wartime-gambit-Big-Ben-bonging-Nazis-scored-direct-bomb-hit.html

[bhouse]

3 hours ago, Beardie said:

Daily Fail that may or may not be accurate

Given the source, my bet would be 'not accurate'.

[Beardie]

That may well be, I wish I could remember where I first heard it- it wasn't that long ago. I can see how it would work but you would have to time your bombing runs in line with the radio broadcasts. I suspect that, if there is any truth in it, it is just that it occurred to someone at the beeb or in government that the Germans could possibly use it rather than that the Germans had any intention of using it.

[bhouse]

From our time, @Beardie, I suspect it'll be difficult to discover the truth. A great story, but It sounds rather like one of those "I reckon..." stories you hear down the pub. One in a hundred may be true, but which one in a hundred is it?

 

I'd have thought that Big Ben's chimes would have been played from a recording as soon as the air raids on London started - I can't believe that the British government would have wanted the BBC to broadcast the sound of air raid sirens, explosions and German bombers to the UK and overseas audiences.

[dnl42]

Hang on, I thought I read you lot owe cricket to an alien visit? 

[rio]

On 08/11/2019 at 04:28, Tzulscha said:

It is well know that million-to-one shots happen nine times out of ten.

 

Somehow nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine-to-one just never quite works though does it?

Some one has been reading Terry Pratchett's "Guards Guards" 

 

Rio 

[Tzulscha]

14 minutes ago, rio said:

Some one has been reading Terry Pratchett's "Guards Guards" 

 

Rio 

It seems I'm not the only one!