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A strange world full of odd facts


Beardie

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So much has to do with what we pick up and how we pick it up. I have given it a lot of thought and done my research of late and am fairly confident that I can work myself up to where I want to be with little risk. My accident as a youth was due to picking up a heavy object that was such an awkward shape that, in order to grip it and lift it, I stupidly curved my back and I then further exacerbated the problem by walking with the thing. 

 

 

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11 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Barbells? I can get you a job lifting barrels. And, BTW, we all have bad backs.

Lift 'em? Thought you had to let the hogs heads chase you round the car park.......well that's what happened to me when out on the dray when at W&DB....and the ruddy thing was empty!

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Worst barrels I had to deal with, in a short spell working the bars in a holiday park many moons ago, were the Guiness ones. As opposed to the normal beer kegs which were fairly lightweight aluminium those suckers were full traditional barrel size but made of heavy metal and, when full, they weighed a tonne! On more than one occasion I was called on to roll a full one about half a mile across the site from one bar to another.

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21 hours ago, Black Knight said:

There was no year 0, and no January 1st as the first day. In Roman times March was the first month.

In the 300s the Church authorities back worked dates and made the first year of Jesus of Nazareth as year 1. The 'First Year of Our Lord' - Anno Domini - A.D., now known as the politically correct 'Common Era', C.E.

They've worked Jesus' birth date back to March, but the pagans wouldn't give up their winter feast, so they changed Jesus' birthday to 25 Dec to usurp the pagan feast.

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ummm, not quite.

In old Christianity it was believed that a Holy person died on the day they were conceived. In the early Church they knew the date during the Jewish Passover when Jesus died - in mid/late April, therefore he died on the day he was conceived, then work 36 weeks forward from that and it brings us to the last week of December for Jesus' birth

In the early Christian Church Easter was a fixed date, later it became a Movable Feast set according to the New & Full Moon period.

The Christ Mass day was at the end of a period of Religious observance, including fasting, starting about 5th December. The Christ Mass feast was to mark the end of the austerity and the beginning of celebrations, the 12 days of Christ Mass

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Happy new year and in case anyone has decided to turn over a new leaf and get fitter & healthier I have an odd fact that may help you.

 

One of the most protein rich and nutritious milks you can get is from pigeons. You may think that milk production for nurturing young is a purely mammalian & marsupial trick but several types of bird (flamingoes, penguins and indeed your humble pigeon) secrete a milk from the lining of their crop and can regurgitate that to feed their chicks. Very high in protein. No data on how well it goes with crunchy nut cornflakes available.

Edited by LostCosmonauts
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47 minutes ago, Bullbasket said:

Yeah, but how do you get a bucket underneath a pigeon to milk it?

 

 

With care. Thimble as a milk pail and one of those little three legged thingamajig that stops the pizza box from sticking to the toppings as a milking stool. 

Edited by LostCosmonauts
More coo, less moo
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On 12/31/2019 at 12:03 AM, Black Knight said:

Somat whats been annoying me lately; 2019 is not the end of the decade, the end of 2020 is the end of the decade.

We do not count starting at 0 to 9, but 1 to 10, or 20 or 200

 

We had all this 20 years ago with the 'end' of the millennium and although you are factually correct that there was no year zero so the decade/millennium doesn't start until he year 1. However, the argument was lost as people don't care about the maths but have an emotional reaction to the number changing in a meaningful way,

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11 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

 

Hopefully it's still safe to say happy new year in accordance with the latest calendar?

Unless you live in Burghead in which case they celebrate New Year on the 11th January with the burning of the Clavie, unless the 11th falls on a Sunday in which case they celebrate it the night before in observance of the sabbath. 

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The 'old new year' was traditionally celebrated on the 11th/12th January throughout the Gaelic areas of Scotland and is, or at least was, still observed in the Uists and some other places as well but I think the tradition is quickly dying out. I think the Clavie goes back to the tradition which would have held across ancient Celtic Scotland of putting out all the fires in your settlement which would have burned pretty much constantly throughout the year at New Year and then starting a single fresh new fire during the birth of the New Year and sharing this new flame to all the hearths of the community.

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It is illegal in the UK to own, buy, sell or otherwise distribute copies of Hitler's Mien Kamph

Only University libraries and accredited scholars may poses a copy

 

You may come back with - my local library has a copy, or I can get in Waterstones

I know where to by cannabis here but that still doesn't make it legal to do so

 

Mein Kamph was one of about 150 books added to the UK Government's 'prohibited' lists back in 1982

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1 hour ago, Black Knight said:

 

Mein Kamph was one of about 150 books added to the UK Government's 'prohibited' lists back in 1982

Bought my copy of Mein Kampf in '92 and still see it on sale in book stores here in Australia on a regular basis.

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1 hour ago, Black Knight said:

It is illegal in the UK to own, buy, sell or otherwise distribute copies of Hitler's Mien Kamph

Only University libraries and accredited scholars may poses a copy

 

You may come back with - my local library has a copy, or I can get in Waterstones

I know where to by cannabis here but that still doesn't make it legal to do so

 

Mein Kamph was one of about 150 books added to the UK Government's 'prohibited' lists back in 1982

 

You can buy Mien Kampf and weed legally in Canada.

 

 

 

Chris

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Never read Mein Kampf myself. I do seem to recall that my older brother's class had to read it at school back around the start of the eighties. I think it was in English class but could have been History. I am guessing that it has long since been removed from the curriculum.

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13 hours ago, Black Knight said:

It is illegal in the UK to own, buy, sell or otherwise distribute copies of Hitler's Mien Kamph

Only University libraries and accredited scholars may poses a copy

 

You may come back with - my local library has a copy, or I can get in Waterstones

I know where to by cannabis here but that still doesn't make it legal to do so

 

Mein Kamph was one of about 150 books added to the UK Government's 'prohibited' lists back in 1982

Purely in the spirit of polite inquiry...is there a place one may find statutory evidence of this? It seems to have the whif of the 'improbable' about it.

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1 hour ago, thorfinn said:

Purely in the spirit of polite inquiry...is there a place one may find statutory evidence of this? It seems to have the whif of the 'improbable' about it.

There's a good chance that there is some truth in this as in the UK, there are some really archaic laws that are still on the statute books and nobody has ever bothered to repeal them. One in particular. I think that I remember this correctly. Once, it was illegal to sing "Nellie Dean" at certain times. Don't know if that's still the case.

 

John.

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2 hours ago, thorfinn said:

Purely in the spirit of polite inquiry...is there a place one may find statutory evidence of this? It seems to have the whif of the 'improbable' about it.

Yes there is. There is a Government list. I do not know if its on-line but I got my copy through a HMSO - Her Majesty's Stationery Office, in Belfast

There were over a thousand books on the list at one time. Its reviewed from time to time and I'd say that the list today has much of the 'terrorist' type material on it.

 

I read Mein Kamph about 50 years ago. I had my copy until about 1981, then I foolishly lent it out and lost it. Since 1985 I have, from time to time, tried to get another copy but keep getting 'no, illegal' and my status as an accredited local historian isn't enough to crack the egg.

I've tried to buy on Amazon, but when I try to pay for it I get - 'This cannot be shipped to your country' thus I cannot buy it.

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