Nice people thread part 7 - a thread in its prime

Generali

vivatifosi wrote: »

Thanks Gen. My cousin lives on some acreage outside of Hervey Bay. It's slightly off-grid, so she harvests her own water and does some microgeneration. If the town gets hit hard, she gets it a bit worse because there's less infrastructure where she is. Also the rain run-off carries poisonous snakes.

We get spiders after rain. I carried (I think) a white tail spider into the house one evening. I did St Vitus dance before killing the damned thing.

vivatifosi wrote: »

My uncle is in Maryborough. He's about 2 streets higher than where the flood got to last time, so should be ok, plus he's in a Queenslander so on stilts anyway (though not so good if there's a hurricane force wind). The kids work away in the mines, driving those bl**dy great yellow things (like a digger only much much bigger).

Queenslanders are a great design for a tropical house. I read a great book during a sleepless night in Canberra about the history of the Queenslander.

Apparently people only cleaned themselves, crapped and slept indoors, the rest of life (cooking especially) was done on the veranda or on a middle zone between house and outside. The stilts, as you are doubtless aware, are to allow air to circulate all around the house for cooling purposes.

vivatifosi wrote: »

Needless to say, they think we are total softies lacking the pioneering spirit over here.

I kinda had that view when I lived in the UK. Now I think that all Poms and most Aussies are lacking in that spirit. Sydneysiders make up about 1/5th of the population of Aus. Most never venture west of Leura, less than 60 miles west of the Harbor Bridge.

misskool

PasturesNew wrote: »

I've never had pumpkin - and I won't. There is no way I'd buy one, then do something with it, because: If I don't like it, it's a waste of time/money... and I'm still hungry, would have a raft of washing up to do and so it's just a waste.

It's quite hard to find pumpkin pie in this country, otherwise, you could go to the shops and buy a slice to try and see if you like it.

I think the wastage is how people approach life. I've made/cooked many things which weren't great and therefore, it was a waste but it wasn't to me as it taught me that I didn't like that. I'm an innate explorer (hence my job) and so everything is something to discover and life is all the more exciting for it. But everyone is different, which makes the world all the more interesting.

vivatifosi

misskool wrote: »

(also, note on the cartoon. I think the main point he was trying to make is that sensationalistic science journalism doesn't help. We need educated scientists to help write/edit and present the stories otherwise the nuances get lost.

Brilliant post, don't like to shorten it, but I'm going to anyway:D.

I think there are similar concerns re business/economics journalism. Gen has rightly picked holes in a BBC article today and I recall spitting chips when a Sky presenter said he didn't see what all the fuss was about with Sir Fred's pension when it was "practically the same amount just a big higher, all that's happening is that it is being taken 5 years earlier" (paraphrased).

It's even worse in the local press. They're reporting on a local band one day and on the complexities of planning the major waste disposal system for Herts the next. When a big story falls in their lap, such as Buncefield, they drop the ball.

zagubov

misskool wrote: »

(also, note on the cartoon. I think the main point he was trying to make is that sensationalistic science journalism doesn't help. We need educated scientists to help write/edit and present the stories otherwise the nuances get lost. Everyone though the completion of the human genome project meant that scientist could now cure every disease and everything would have a genetic component. In fact, all we've done is manage to discover quite how elegant and complicated humans are as there are multiple layers of complexity driving our development and diseases)

Brings me back to my other rant. How many people with a science A level get to do science journalism or any journalism? I think everybody needs a bit more science than they've learned by 16 to cope with this world and certainly to write about it wisely.

Otherwise we'd all be making life-shortening decisions about health and the environment and wrecking ourselves and the world. Until I came to London I'd never heard the saying "too clever by half".

I'm a bigger fan of another Londoner, Danny Baker's saying "There is no honour to be had in not knowing a thing that can be known";)

chewmylegoff

Some of the FT's journalists are a joke- especially the "markets experts" on the alphaville blog. They are miserably incompetent, their knowledge of what constitutes market abuse is particularly pathetic.

CKhalvashi

CKhalvashi wrote: »

On iPhone at the moment, so will reply when I get to a computer.

It's looking like the treatment has worked as far as anything goes, but it certainly was a wake-up call that I drink, smoke and work too much :eek::eek::eek:

I've had a grovelling text message from a business manager this morning apologising for missing a meeting on my birthday (enclosing a cheque for £250) and he's hoping to meet me this week.

We've got nothing with this bank at the moment, so I'd like to see what they have to say for themselves, although he seems a nice enough chap, and also seems to know what he's doing

Happy 29th to OH today! I love getting both of them out the way within 72 hours, as it means we have the rest of the year to not worry :cool:

CK

lostinrates

It's the most beautiful evening out there. Sunset was quick, but blazed red and gold, and now it's nice a starry, and all that dank ness and wet air that's been hanging around has dissipated and its frsh and crisp and dry. It is going to be very, very cold though.

We just wrestled with three of the horses who are Leaping out of their skin at the excitement of having had the hounds very, very close to day. They had been dripping with sweat earlier, and we left them undresses a bit longer to dry off before putting their rugs on. They are like wild things tonight. I love it, but dh worries me, arou d it.

And we got a little more of the new border dug over.

misskool

i am munching on pumpkin pieeeeeeeeeeeeee

lostinrates

misskool wrote: »

i am munching on pumpkin pieeeeeeeeeeeeee

We'll be eating pumpkion pie next Thursday I hope. Or maybe pecan pie.

I love this time of year!

misskool

lostinrates wrote: »

We'll be eating pumpkion pie next Thursday I hope. Or maybe pecan pie.

I love this time of year!

Maybe I should make another pie. Now that I've figured out to make shortcrust This was my first ever shortcrust....



The colour has come out a bit yellow but it's a dark orange colour.