Quote: G Weilacher

“One only needs two tools in life: WD-40 to make things go, and duct tape to make them stop.”

- G Weilacher

Laws and Principles: Buttered Cat Paradox

 The buttered cat paradox is a tongue-in-cheek combination of two adages:

- cats always land on their feet;

- buttered toast always lands buttered side down.

The paradox arises when a piece of buttered toast is strapped to the back of a cat, buttered side up, and the cat is then dropped off a building at a great height.

The question then is: which lands first, the toast, or the feet of the cat?

-  There are two obvious answers: the cat lands on the toast or the cat lands on its feet.

-  There has, however, been considerable debate and humorous conjecture about the possibility of the two opposing forces causing the cat to go into a faster and faster spin as the two forces act against each other.

Australia's Prime Ministers: Edmund Barton

1/27:  Edmund Barton (1849-1920; Prime Minister 1901-1903)

  

Edmund Barton at age 17

(Click on photos to enlarge).

Sir Edmund Barton, the first Prime Minister of Australia, was born in Glebe, the son of a stockbroker. Educated at Fort Street High School and Sydney Grammar School, he subsequently graduated from the University of Sydney and became a barrister. In 1879 Barton was elected to the NSW State Parliament, becoming Speaker in 1882. In 1889 he became Attorney General.

An early supporter of federation, he was a delegate to the 1891 National Australasian Convention where he declared his support for the principle that “trade and intercourse…shall be absolutely free” in a federal Australia. He also advocated that both the upper and lower house of a federal parliament should be representative and that appeals to the Privy Council should be abolished. Barton took part in drafting a constitution which ended up being substantially similar to that adopted in 1900.

And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda

And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

-  Eric Bogle

A memorable and most poignant of national songs, it was written by Scottish born Aussie songwriter and singer Eric Bogle. And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda encapsulates the jingoistic boys’ own feelings that existed at the beginning of WW1, the horror and carnage of the reality as experienced at Gallipoli, the futility of war and ultimately the apathy and ignorance of later generations with the passing of time. Overall it is a strong condemnation of the glorification and romanticism of war.

Waltzing Matilda has been described as Australia’s unofficial national anthem. The words mean travelling by foot from place to place with one’s goods in a bedroll. In the early days the bedroll consisted of a rolled up blanket with a person’s necessities, tied of at either end with a piece of string and slung over the shoulder or back. The bedroll, or swag (and hence the term swagman or swaggie) was known as a matilda. To go waltzing matilda meant to take to the road by foot with your swag.

Quote: Capt Robert Lewis

“As the bomb fell over Hiroshima and exploded, we saw an entire city disappear. I wrote in my log the words: 'My God, what have we done?' "

Capt Robert Lewis, co-pilot of the Enola Gay which exploded an atomic bomb, codenamed "Little Boy", over Hiroshima on 6 August 1945

Gundagai and a dog sitting on a tuckerbox

This is a lengthy article but I believe it is of interest...

The Dog on the Tuckerbox

When my brothers and I were young, our parents took us to Gundagai for a tourist trip. It was then that I first came across the famed dog on the tuckerbox. I still remember wondering why a dog sitting on a food box waiting for his master to return was considered so special. The dog had to wait somewhere and the fact of the waiting was a natural response to its master having gone away. In my youthful innocence I mentally filed it under “Things that Don’t Make Sense but that I Can’t Explain”.

Some years later I came across a poem that made the whole thing understandable: the dog hadn’t sat on the tuckerbox 9 miles from Gundagai, it had shat in the tuckerbox 9 miles from Gundagai.

I was reminded of this recently when I saw a reference to the dog on the tuckerbox monument.

Humour: Monkeys

This is better told, rather than written, in that telling allows a Northern English accent to be used.  I have wriiten some of the words phonetically to preserve that feature...

A man takes his young son to the London Zoo to see the monkeys.

Alas, when they get to the monkey enclosure, there is not a monkey to be seen, so he calls over the attendant and asks”

“’Ere, where’s all the moonkeys then?”

“They’re all in the ‘uts,” says the keeper. “It’s the matin’ season and they’re all havin’ sex.”

“Do you think they’d come out if I threw a peanut?” asks the father.

“Would you?” says the keeper

Health

The best six doctors anywhere

And no one can deny it

Are sunshine, water, rest, and air

Exercise and diet.

These six will gladly you attend

If only you are willing

Your mind they'll ease

Your will they'll mend

And charge you not a shilling.

~Nursery rhyme

Wind In The Willows

When I reneged on a promise to my wife a few days ago about something that was for my benefit but that I was rluctant to do, I quoted what Toad said to Badger in Wind In The Willows.  She wasn't amused...   

'There's only one thing more to be done,' continued the gratified Badger. 'Toad, I want you solemnly to repeat, before your friends here, what you fully admitted to me in the smoking-room just now. First, you are sorry for what you've done, and you see the folly of it all?'

There was a long, long pause. Toad looked desperately this way and that, while the other animals waited in grave silence. At last he spoke.

'No!' he said, a little sullenly, but stoutly; 'I'm not sorry. And it wasn't folly at all! It was simply glorious!'

'What?' cried the Badger, greatly scandalised. 'You backsliding animal, didn't you tell me just now, in there——'

'Oh, yes, yes, in there,' said Toad impatiently. 'I'd have said anything in there. You're so eloquent, dear Badger, and so moving, and so convincing, and put all your points so frightfully well— you can do what you like with me in there, and you know it. But I've been searching my mind since, and going over things in it, and I find that I'm not a bit sorry or repentant really, so it's no earthly good saying I am; now, is it?'

'Then you don't promise,' said the Badger, 'never to touch a motor-car again?'

'Certainly not!' replied Toad emphatically. 'On the contrary, I faithfully promise that the very first motor-car I see, poop- poop! off I go in it!'

-  Kenneth Grahame, Wind In The Willows

Kings, Virgins and She-Elephants...

In case you missed it, the following is an article that appeared in the online Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday, reprinted from the Telegraph, London...

King's 12th wife caught cheating on him

August 4, 2010

Johannesburg

The 12th wife of the King of Swaziland, a former Miss Teen beauty contestant, has been placed under house arrest after she was allegedly caught with her lover, the Justice Minister.

Mswati Nothando Dube, 22, and the married minister, Ndumiso Mamba, were reportedly discovered by police in what is thought to have been a ''sting'' operation at the Royal Villas hotel in a town near Mbabane, the kingdom's capital.

With King Mswati III, 42, away on a state visit to Taiwan, she has reportedly been placed under surveillance at her mother-in-law's home and Mr Mamba is in jail on the king's orders.

Political commentators said the alleged affair was ''common knowledge''. Royal sources have said the king's mother - who shares power with her son and is known as the Indlovukazi or Great She-Elephant - had sent a delegation to Mr Mamba's village to lay charges of ''trespassing into another man's home''. He is known to have been a close friend of the king as well as his Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs.

Miss Dube first caught the king's eye when she was 16 at the annual Reed Dance, when tens of thousands of topless Swazi virgins pay homage to the monarch. Inkhosikati LaDube, as she became known, bore him a daughter within a year and a son soon afterwards.

Lucky Lukhele, of the pressure group Swaziland Solidarity Network, predicted that, if the charges were proved, Mr Mamba would get the death sentence and Miss Dube would be banished.

Telegraph, London

__________________

From Wikipedia:

In Swaziland no king can appoint his successor. Only an independent special traditional Council called the Liqoqo decides which of the wives shall be "Great Wife" and "Indlovukazi" (She-Elephant / Queen Mother). The son of this "Great Wife" will automatically become the next king.



The "Great Wife" must only have one child who is a boy (A king cannot have a sister or a brother) and be of good character. Her character affects her child's chances of ascending to the status of king. According to Swazi culture, a son cannot be the heir if his mother is not of good standing. She must not bear the maiden name of Nkhosi-Dlamini and she must not be a ritual wife (i.e. the eldest son is never the heir).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mswati_III_of_Swaziland

Another Clement Freud quote

"About one thing the Englishman has a particularly strict code. If a bird says Cluk bik bik bik bik and caw you may kill it, eat it or ask Fortnums to pickle it in Napoleon brandy with wild strawberries. If it says tweet it is a dear and precious friend and you'd better lay off it if you want to remain a member of Boodles."

-  Clement Freud (1924 - 2009)

Another Gough Whitlam anecdote

"I recently had to defend Killen, who is a High Church Anglican. He reads the Old Testament lesson in the Cathedral in Brisbane every Sunday. He would never be allowed to read the lesson next door. He sounds like an Old Testament prophet. One of the congregation told me that Killen would be more enlightened if he sometimes read the New Testament. I protested that he had read some of the epistles. In fact, when he was Fraser's Minister for Defence, he mentioned to his Turkish counterpart that St Paul had written many letters to people in Turkey, the Colossians, the Ephesians and the Galatians, but had received no replies. The Turkish Minister for Defence contradicted him. He said that Turkey had one of the best postal services in the world."

-  Gough Whitlam in a 2000 debate, "That politicians have lost their sense of humour"

Quote: Dudley Field Malone

"I have never learned anything from any man who agreed with me.”

- Dudley Field Malone (1882-1950)

Richard Lederer

Byter Nadia sent me the following poem:

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Then shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
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!

Mea Culpa

For those who may have been wondering where the Bytes have been for the last few days, I have been away from my computer spending a few days with relos in Canberra. 

I toyed with the idea of dropping in on Julia and Tony in Canberra to give some advice on what ordinary people are thinking but then I figured that they are pretty ordinary themselves and besides, I had a video to watch.

I love this pic from the Saturday Weekend Australian Magazine.  Couldn't find it online so I photographed it, hence the the less than optimum quality...

Quote: J K Galbraith

"The trickle-down approach to economic policy—what an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: 

 'If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.' "

- J K Galbraith (1908 - 2006)

Trivia: Goldfinger

James Bond to Auric Goldfinger, as he is about to be cut in half by a laser:

“Do you expect me to talk?”

Goldfinger:

“No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die.”

One of the greatest quotes from Bond movies. See it at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1TmeBd9338&feature=related

But did you know there really was a Goldfinger?

Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond novels, lived next door in Hampstead to an architect, Erno Goldfinger. Erno had built his home next to Flemings and, in so doing, had destroyed Victorian terraces. In addition, Fleming disliked the modernist architectural style, as well as the man personally. Erno was a bully, an eccentric and pro-Communist. An advocate of concrete tower blocks, he was also responsible for designing some of the most reviled buildings in London.

When, in 1959, Fleming needed a new villain, he named him Auric Goldfinger. “Auric” is a genuine word meaning pertaining to gold. James Bond fans know that the fictional Goldfinger is a megalomaniac who tries to steal the gold in Fort Knox for the Soviet Union. He is the richest man in England, the treasurer of Smersh and he cheats at golf.

Yoghurt and naked females

Getting ready to go to work in the morning with Sunrise on in the background I was surprised, nay shocked, to see an image on the screen for a yoghurt advertisement.

Sometimes subtle suggestion is more powerful than a blatant image. Mae West, for instance, is still regarded as one of the sexiest women who ever lived, yet her philosophy was not to appear nude but to allow imagination to do the work.

The yoghurt image that I am referring to is for Jalna Yoghurt, the advertising slogan being “A little pot of purity”. This is the image:

(Click on this and the pic below to enlarge).

So what is so shocking?

Compare it with Manet’s well known work Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (“The Lunch on the Grass”):

Painted in 1862, the work created controversy when first exhibited in showing a female nude juxtaposed casually lunching in a park with fully clothed men. It is all the more confronting in that the nude female stares directly out of the painting at the viewer. The painting remains controversial to the present day.

It is ironic that the yoghurt is advertised with the words “A little pot of purity” when Manet’s painting was considered to be anything but pure when it was first exhibited.

"Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

A couple of days ago I was discussing some quotations with a friend when he raised one: “Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.” I had heard it before but I confess that I did not know who said it and that I had only sketchy knowledge of the circumstances in which it had been said. Hence some internet research which provided not only the relevant information but also some laughs.

The words were spoken in 1988 during a Vice-Presidential debate by Democratic vice-presidential candidate Senator Lloyd Bentsen to Republican vice-presidential candidate Senator Dan Quayle.

Vintage Ads

(Click on pic to enlarge)

Quote: Clement Freud

"The depressing thing about an Englishman's traditional love of animals is the dishonesty thereof ... Get a barbed hook into the upper lip of a salmon, drag him endlessly around the water until he loses his strength, pull him to the bank, hit him on the head with a stone, and you may well become fisherman of the year. Shoot the salmon and you'll never be asked again."

-  Clement Freud (1924 - 2009), British politician and chef

Quote: Johann Goethe

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply.

Willing is not enough; we must do.”

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832)

Aussie Slang: Furphy

A furphy, meaning a rumour or false story or report, originates from the water cart first developed by Joseph Furphy, above,  (1843-1912). Furphy, a blacksmith and engineer, set up his foundry business in 1864. It eventually became J Furphy & Sons and continues to the present day, still family owned and now fifth generation. Its present day logo is based on the water cart:

Quotes: The 7 P's

Four steps to achievement:

Plan purposefully.

Prepare prayerfully.

Proceed positively.

Pursue persistently.

-  Wiliam Arthur Ward (1921 -1994)

I prefer an  alternative version, commonly known as The 7 P's:

Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

Vintage Pics: Parramatta Road / Sydney University

A carriage marked "Ashfield-Burwood" travels down Parramatta Road in the early 1870’s, with the University of Sydney in the background.

(Click on photograph to enlarge).

Two Minutes of History: The Great Debates, 1960:

In 1960 John F Kennedy, aged 42, ran for President of the US against the then Vice President Richard Nixon. Kennedy, a Democrat, was dogged by criticisms that he was too young and inexperienced. He had seen action as a PT boat skipper in WW2, following which he served as the Massachusetts representative to Congress between 1947 and 1953 and as a member of the US Senate between 1953 and 1960. Nixon was aged 47, had entered the US House of Representatives in 1946, the Senate in 1950 and had been Eisenhower’s Vice President between 1953 and 1960.

Nixon accepted Kennedy’s challenge to 4 televised debates, the first time such debates had ever been held and televised. Known as the “Great Debates”, the first focused on domestic issues and took place on 26 September 1960. It was the first time that the voters were able to see their candidates in competition.

Anecdotes: Gough Whitlam

Gough Whitlam

The following anecdote is taken from Gough Whitlam's speech in a debate in 2000 on the topic "That politicians have lost their sense of humour":

I soon learned that the Federal Parliament could also be vulgar. Rowley James, who had been crippled in a car accident, noisily entered the House during question time. Having settled in his seat, he noisily placed his walking stick on his desk. He then leaned to one side and broke wind. Speaker Cameron was so exasperated that he called him to order. James challenged him, "Mr Speaker, what did I do?" Cameron was speechless. Eddie Ward scarcely helped by raising a point of order.

Cameron: Yes, yes, what is the point of order?

Ward: Mr Speaker, I move that the honourable member's interjection be recorded in Hansard. 

Rowland (Rowley) James

Quotes: John Milton

“Here we may reign secure, and in my choice

To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:

Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”

-  John Milton (1608 - 1674), Paradise Lost (1671)

Of Kilos, Aesop and Trees

Discussing weight loss with dietician Simone, she made the observation that slow and steady weight loss in small measures is preferable to quick weight loss in larger amounts. This may come as a shock to fans of Biggest Loser or for those on a crash diet for a forthcoming event, but it is based on the principle that slow, sustained weight loss will be more likely to last than a crash diet.

In that discussion the moral of the Aesop’s Fable of the tortoise and the hare was mentioned – “slow and steady wins the race” – but I confess that I have had problems with that story from when I first heard it as a child. Everyone knows that the tortoise won the race because the tortoise kept travelling when the overconfident hare slept. But:

- Why did the tortoise challenge hare to the foot race? He did not know that the hare would sleep. Did he seriously expect to win?

- Why did the hare accept the challenge? The hare must have known that he would defeat the tortoise easily so what would have been the glory in that?

- Finally, what is the value of a life instruction that relies on a one in a million chance for success?

I mentioned an alternative analogy to Simone, which she also thought more appropriate for the weight loss scenario: the quickest growing trees have the shortest lifespans eg wattles, conversely slow growing trees live for much longer periods.

Afterwards I started wondering about the ages of the world’s oldest living trees. Did the gum trees on the shores of Botany Bay witness the arrival of the First Fleet?  Are there trees as old as the Ents (above) in Lord of the Rings?

Words Women Use

Thanks to Byter Anthony for this one...

FINE

This is the word women use to end an argument when they feel they are right and you need to shut up................ Never use "fine" to describe how a woman looks - this will cause you to have one of those arguments.

FIVE MINUTES

This is half an hour. It is equivalent to the five minutes that your football game is going to last before you take out the trash, so it's an even trade.

NOTHING

This means "something," and you should be on your toes. "Nothing" is usually used to describe the feeling a woman has of wanting to turn you inside out, upside down, and backwards. "Nothing" usually signifies an argument that will last "Five Minutes" and end with "Fine"