Quote: Bertrand Russell

“If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinise it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.”

-  Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

Mea Culpa..

Yesterday's post about Wallis Simpson featured a pic that was, in fact, Princess Margaret.  The error came about because the site that I took the picture from used a heading alongside the pic, rather than above it, so that I thought the pic belonged to the Wallis Simpson series.

That error was picked up by eagle eyed Byter Enid, who thought that it was Princess Margaret because of the warmer eyes.

Here is a pic of Wallis Simpson at the time of her wedding to Edward VIII in 1937...

and a pic of Princess Margaret on her wedding day in 1960 when she wed Anthony Armstrong-Jones:

Polar Bears

Germany was in stunned mourning after the sudden and premature death of Knut, Berlin's world-famous polar bear, at the end of what animal welfare groups said was an unhappy, short life.

''Everyone is just in shock here,'' said Claudia Bienek, a spokeswoman for Berlin Zoo, where Knut shot to global fame in 2007 as a photogenic snow-white cub after being rejected by his mother and reared by hand.

Knut was pulled dead from a pool in the enclosure he shared with three females on Saturday afternoon. He was just four years and three months old, well below the average life expectancy for polar bears of about 35.

News Report, Sydney Morning Herald 21.03.2011

Some facts about polar bears:

Quotes: Wallis Simpson

"My husband gave up everything for me… I'm not a beautiful woman. I'm nothing to look at, so the only thing I can do is dress better than anyone else. 

If everyone looks at me when I enter a room, my husband can feel proud of me. That's my chief responsibility."

Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor

(1896 - 1986)

Wallis Simpson in 1931

Wallis Simpson may well be the forthcoming centre of attention:

• A collection of Wallis Simpson's clothing, including elegant negligees, as well as luggage, Christian Dior handbags and other items owned by her, were sold at auction last week. A Louis Vuitton vanity case sold for $77,500.

• In September 2010 Sotheby's auctioned 20 pieces of Wallis Simpson's jewellery. Expected to fetch $5m, the final return was $13m.

• Madonna has co-written, and is directing, a movie titled W.E., about the romance between Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson.

• The affair between Wallis Simpson and Edward, and his abdication to be with her, is depicted in the film The King's Speech.

• Two new biographies about Wallis Simpson are to be released soon.

"You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance."

-  Wallis Simpson

Harmony Day, 21 March 2011

No Bytes on Sunday

No need to be sad.

I will be away from my computer over the weekend, so that there will be no Bytes on Sunday.  It will, however, return on Monday.

Buccal Swabs, DNA and Phantoms

Viewers of shows such as CSI, Law & Order, Silent Witness and NCIS will know what a buccal swab is: a big cotton bud that is rubbed on the inside of someone’s cheek to obtain a DNA sample. It is pronounced “buckle”.

I was involved with buccak swabs recently in connection with one of my clients. The client having refused to allow such a swab to be taken, the Commonwealth DPP then sought a court order forcing such a sample to be provided. The sample was reluctantly given, placed into a sealed, chain of custody bag and sent away for forensic analysis. A little while later the Federal Police came back sheepishly and asked for another sample. Someone had placed a heavy object on the plastic bag, or had sat on the bag, or something, causing the seal to be broken and the word VOID to appear on the bag in large bold letters. Eventually the client consented to another smear with the swab.

Contemplating that over an idle moment, I wondered why the big cotton bud was called a buccal swab. Had it been invented by Dr Buccal? The reality is more prosaic: it comes from a Latin word meaning “pertaining to the cheek” and was first used in popular English literature in 1838.

Quote: Mike Tyson

"Yes, time flies. And where did it leave you?  Old too soon...smart too late."

- Mike Tyson  (1966 - )

 

Reader Comment: Rules of Elections

Byter AV posted the following comment in respect of the Elections post:

Years ago I came across a pamphlet urging the public to always vote out governments, as a rule. They should be re-elected only when they've performed particularly well. So (in theory at least) we would be rid of career politicians and only the most deserving would qualify for parliamentary pensions.

Reader Comment: Eva Braun and Hitler

(The pics below and the captions have been inserted by me.  Otto)

Byter Steve writes:

ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL stuff about Eva Braun! I have read it all twice and have also printed it out to keep! Fascinating!

If you are not familiar with them, can I refer you to two amazing recent-ish films about Hitler.

The first is Hitler – The Rise Of Evil starring Robbie Carlyle (yep – from The Full Monty!). It’s an American film so it’s got the usual “Hollywood feel” which of course takes the edge of the film (bad accents and so on). In any event, it’s not a bad look at Hitlers youth and of course his rise to Evil. The interesting thing is that about a month before filming started, the production company and also the “lead” had received so many death threats that they almost pulled out of the film altogether. In fact, the actor who was playing Hitler (the “lead”) did pull out – can’t remember his name. So they were left without someone to play Hitler and Robbie Carlyle was strangely chosen and believe it or not, he did a pretty good job. It’s well worth a look.

Ask Otto

Byter Steve writes:

Diane assured me that it is cheaper to leave a fluorescent light on than to turn it on and off every time you want to use it. I have heard this before, but I believe it to be “an old wives tale”. Can you tell us who is right please?

Steve, have you not heard of non gender specific language, aka gender neutral language? Linking elderly married women with untrue stories, ie “old wives tale”, is asking for trouble, my non PC friend.

Let me summarise for you what various authoritative websites and sources agree upon:

Caffeine and Kids

It is always fascinating to see how attitudes and social norms have evolved  over the years by looking at old ads and the attitudes underlying them.

Sanka Coffee, for instance, was quite comfortable in its day with racism and ethnic stereotyping...

(Click on pics to enlarge).

Elections

Otto’s Rules of Elections:

The following principles of voting and elections are my own observations, developed over a number of years.

Feel free to dispute, add or comment.

1. People vote governments out, not in.

Voters do not change votes for an alternative government when they are satisfied with the government in power. As long as that government is doing okay, they will keep that government in. When dissatisfaction sets in, they will then vote for the alternative.

2. People care more about national issues than international issues.

People care more about State issues than national issues.

Voters care more about issues that directly affect them than issues in the abstract. They are influenced by what they feel themselves, by what is affecting them and their situation.

Quote: Dalai Lama

I find that because of modern technological evolution and our global economy, and as a result of the great increase in population, our world has greatly changed: it has become much smaller. However, our perceptions have not evolved at the same pace; we continue to cling to old national demarcations and the old feelings of ‘us’ and ‘them’.

- Dalai Lama

Tsunami

Once again we have seen tragic loss of life and property from a tsunami.

I do not recall the term ever being used when I was younger, in those days anything in the nature of a large wave was called a tidal wave. That is no longer the case.

Following are some facts about tsunami:

• The word tsunami dates from 1897 and is Japanese from tsu, meaning harbour, and nami, meaning waves. The plural can be tsunami or tsunamis.

• The term tidal wave has fallen into disfavor in recent years in that tsunami have nothing to do with tides. A tidal bore is a phenomenon in which a tide creates an actual wave travelling up a river or narrow bay. A huge wave can also be created by a coastal surge from a meteorological event, such as a tropical cyclone. To that extent they can resemble a tsunami in that all comprise waves of water travelling inland. A tsunami, however, is a series of ocean waves with very long wavelengths (typically hundreds of kilometers) caused by large-scale disturbances of the ocean, such as earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions and explosions. A tsunami can also be caused by an above ocean event, such as impact from a meteorite.

Some Monkeyisms...

Softly Softly Catchee Monkey

Meaning:

Achieving success requires careful and quite planning and strategy.

Origin:

Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts (and the author of the unfortunately named “Scouting For Boys”) spent time in Ghana with the Ashanti. Whilst there he heard the phrase used:

If it were not for the depressing heat and the urgency of the work, one could sit down and laugh to tears at the absurdity of the thing, but under the circumstances it is a little "wearing." But our motto is the old West Coast proverb, "Softly, Softly, Catchee Monkey"; in other words, "Don't flurry; patience gains the day." It was in joke suggested as a maxim for our levy of softly-sneaking scouts, but we came to adopt it as our guiding principle, and I do not believe that a man acting on any other principle could organise a native levy on the West Coast-and live.

Eva Braun

(Click on pics to enlarge).

Today’s youth probably only know of Eva Braun as the name of a cocktail in Fawlty Towers, that marvelous episode entitled The Germans, when Basil develops concussion and upsets his German guests.

London’s Daily Mail yesterday published previously unseen photographs of Eva Braun (pictured above, right, with sister Ilse in 1913), Adolf Hitler’s long time companion. Having met Hitler in 1929 when she was 17, she became his companion in 1931 and moved in with him at the Berghof near Berchtesgaden in 1936. Kept hidden from the German public, Hitler married Braun in the last days of WW2, on 29 April 1945. Forty hours later they both committed suicide in a bunker in Berlin.

Humour

Ever noticed how your voice gets louder when you speak to people who don’t speak English well? My lecturer at uni said “Remember, they have trouble with English, they’re not deaf.”

Sometimes humorous stories impart an element of wisdom and insight...

A motorist is driving past a mental hospital on a dark, moonless night when he gets a flat tyre.

As he begins to change the tyre, he notices that one of the patients is looking at him over the top of the fence whilst leaning his arms and chin on the fence.

Nervous, trying to work quickly, he jacks up the car, takes off the wheel, puts the wheel nuts into the hubcap on the ground and gets the spare tyre.

Whilst taking the spare tyre to the wheel, he steps on the hubcap, sending the wheel nuts clattering into a storm drain.

The mental patient is still watching him through the fence.

The motorist desperately looks into the storm drain but the wheel nuts are gone. He paces back and forth in the dark with the patient still watching him, trying to think of what to do.

Finally the patient says "Take one wheel nut off each of the other wheels and put them on this wheel and you’ll have three on each. That will get you home and tomorrow you can take it to your mechanic and get the missing wheel nuts replaced.”

"That's brilliant," says the motorist, "What's someone like you doing in an asylum?"

“I might be crazy,” replied the patient, “but I’m not stupid.”

IWD 2011

A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.

- Irina Dunn

When I posted yesterday’s item about Margaret Thatcher, I did not realise that not only was that date – 8 March - International Women’s Day (IWD), it was also the 100th such day. IWD is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women in the past, present and future. It is a day when women are recognised for their achievements, regardless of divisions, whether national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic or political.

It was therefore appropriate to have a post featuring Margaret Thatcher, even if it was in ignorance of the importance of that day.

I received a suggestion that I should have included the famous story about Margaret Thatcher and the vegetables. That story holds that Mrs Thatcher, whilst Prime Minister, went to a restaurant for dinner one evening with some of her senior Cabinet Ministers following a late night session. The waiter asked Mrs Thatcher what she wanted to order and she replied that she wanted the beef, rare. The waiter asked “And the vegetables?”, to which she reportedly replied "They will have the beef as well.”

Quote: Margaret Thatcher

“The lady’s not for turning.”

- Margaret Thatcher

The above phrase, used by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in her speech to the Conservative Party Conference on 10 October 1980, has become a phrase defining her personality and character.

According to Brain Walden, BBC commentator:

Her strong points were her iron will. I've never known a will like it in politics and I've known a few politicians in my time in various countries. I've never known a man or woman faintly like her, she was as tough as they come, and anything that required guts and will she could do for you. Anything that required sensitivity, she couldn't, she had none.

Graffiti

Marketing and Mirth

Does anyone else find this ad for OriginEnergy funny?

It cracks me up every time I see it.  The look on the kid's face at the end is priceless, all the more so for there being no conversation in the ad.

See it at:
http://viad.tv/video-9847/origin-energy-save-electricity/

Cabs and Cairo

Email from Byter Leo:

The people in control in Egypt have asked the city's taxi drivers to drive around Cairo sounding their car horns.

It is hoped that the familiar sounds of the city will induce a return to tranquillity and normality.

Operation Toot ’n’ Calm ’Em will last for the rest of the week.

Words and Willies

Caution: The following post contains adult subject matter and some risque language

A lengthy post but hopefully one you will enjoy or at least find interesting...

I’m tired of pretending I’m not special.

I’m here and I’m ready.

I got tiger blood.

I have a 10,000-year-old brain

and the boogers of a 7-year-old.

I’m a high-priest Vatican assassin warlock

Park your judgment at the door.

Your children will weep

Over your exploded body.

They’re going to lose.

They lay down with their ugly wives

in front of their ugly children.

Just look at their loser lives.

I was born dead.

Hope is for suckers.

Don’t remember.

Don’t care.

Scoreboard doesn’t lie.

The above lines are not the lyrics of a Bob Dylan song or a Leonard Cohen poem, although they sound somewhat like that. Instead they are a collection of Charlie Sheen’s recent rambling comments in interviews and talkback telephone calls.

It is always sad to watch a train wreck in progress, be it Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan or Charlie Sheen. What fascinates me about Charlie’s ongoing public meltdown is the images, metaphors and expressions he uses in his somewhat bizarre rants. In some ways they are almost poetic in the style of Dylan and Cohen.

In years to come the current fuss will diminish and Charlie will be looked backed on with a nostalgia for an irreverent son, a good guy who just lived life a little too fully but whose legacy to TV and films lives on,  much like Errol Flynn.  During his Hollywood years he was considered a scandalpus, unholy hellraiser, debauching women and underage girls at his house in the Hollywood hills or on his boat.  Today he is looked on with admiration and proudly claimed as one of Australia's own.

Reader Comment: Elizabeth I and Winston Churchill

Byter Charles pointed out to me that the Queen Mother was never called Queen Elizabeth I, as I called her in yesterday’s Bytes, that this title belonged to the Queen of a few centuries ago.

I should have realised that but can only plead in mitigation that I took the description from the site that had the pic of King George VI and his family. Charles further advised that he remembered from primary school being told that the wife of a King (by birthright) is called a Queen, but the husband of a Queen (by birthright) only gets the title of Prince.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,

and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender

be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly;

and listen to others,

even the dull and the ignorant;

they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,

they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,

you may become vain and bitter;

for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;

it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs;

for the world is full of trickery.

But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;

many persons strive for high ideals;

and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.

Especially, do not feign affection.

Neither be cynical about love;

for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment

it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,

gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.

But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.

Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,

be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,

no less than the trees and the stars;

you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,

no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,

whatever you conceive Him to be,

and whatever your labours and aspirations,

in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,

it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.

Some time ago I was invited to make a speech at an 18th birthday. The young lady who had turned 18 is the daughter of a friend of mine and I have known her for many years. The theme of my speech was a quotation from George Bernard Shaw, words in which I strongly believe: “Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage: it can be delightful.” Malcolm Fraser quoted only the first couple of words of that sentence – “Life was not meant to be easy” - and was pilloried by the press of the day for being an unfeeling and uncaring silvertail who was out of touch with the economic hardship of the community. Had he quoted the entire sentence the press may have been less harsh towards him.

The King's Speech and Aussies

I confess that I haven’t yet seen the film The King’s Speech.  When I first heard about it some time ago, I looked it up on the net to find out what the storyline was.  There were some interesting facts.

For those who have not yet seen it and don’t want to know what it is about, read no further.  There are spoilers ahead.  I imagine that most people by now know the general general story depicted in the movie. 

The film is a British historical drama in which Colin Firth plays Albert, the brother of Edward, Prince of Wales. Edward, as Edward VIII, became king on the death of their father, George V, in 1936. In the same year Edward abdicated over his love for Wallis Simpson, thereby promoting Albert, aka “Bertie”, aka George VI, to the position of king. There is only one problem, Bertie has a terrible stutter that makes him a hopeless public speaker. From 1934 Bertie utilised the services of Aussie speech therapist Lionel Logue, played by Geoffrey Rush. When Britain declares war on Germany in 1939, Bertie delivers a faultless speech heard around the world.

At least that is what the film shows.

The reality is somewhat different and also removes the even stronger Australian connection than Lionel Logue coming from the Antipodes.

Inappropriate Children's Ads: Du Pont Again

How soon can baby be nuked under a sun lamp? If you said “2 weeks”, then you’re spot on, at least as far as Du Pont was concerned in 1960.

Du Pont has previously featured in Bytes in the context of inappropriate children’s advertising, namely various ads for cellophane that showed babies wrapped in it. See them at:

http://bytesdaily.blogspot.com/2010/12/inappropriate-ads-du-pont.html

According to the above advertisement for the Du Pont Health tan Sun Lamp, it’s absolutely safe, so much so that you can sleep under it and hold your newborn under it to go give the bub a “Luxurious Golden Health Tan”. “Be Healthy – Stay Brown th’ Year Round.” Why is it safe enough to clamp on the baby’s cot for the little tyke to sleep under? Because Du Pont Polyester Film blocks out harmful burning rays but passes the good stuff, the “long tanning rays”.

One commentator has suggested that because baby doesn’t know when to turn over while asleep, baby should be strapped to a device like a slowly rotating rotisserie that would enable baby to get an even, all over tan.

RIP Jane Russell

Jane Russell, voluptuous star of the Howard Hughes pic The Outlaw (above) and Hollywood sex symbol, died aged 89 in her home on 28 February.  She died of respiratory failure after having watched the Oscars with her family.

Contrary to popular belief, in the The Outlaw she did not wear the bra especially designed by Howard Hughes, revealing in her autobiography that it was too uncomfortable.  Instead she wore her own bra with the straps down.  Censorship restrictions and savvy promotion by Hughes meant that the film generated considerable discussion and received huge publicity.

Bob Hope once introduced her as "the two and only, Jane Russell".

In 1952, she and Marilyn Monroe (with whom she appeared in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, below) were to sign their names and place their handprints in wet cement outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre.  Grauman's was not amused when Marilyn suggested that she and Jane imprint their finest assets for posterity:  Jane's breasts and her bottom.

Quote: Shirdi Sai Baba

“Before you speak, ask yourself: Is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve on the silence?”

- Shirdi Sai Baba (Unknown - 1918)