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Today marks the beginning of what I have decided will be Ugly Week, as the name implies, a week devoted to various things ugly.
Not to be outdone, here are some ‘Shit Gardens Australia’ from Landscape Australia . . .
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Monday, May 16, 2022
Sunday, May 15, 2022
BYTES AND PIECES
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Sadhu Indians are religious ascetics holy persons in Hinduism and Jainism who have renounced the worldly life. They are sometimes alternatively referred to as yogi and sannyasi. A Sadhu's life is solely dedicated to achieving mokṣa (liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth), the fourth and final aśrama (stage of life), through meditation and contemplation of Brahman.
Amar Bharati is a Sadhu who for the last 45 years has been holding his hand raised without once putting it down. He chose to become a Sadhu in the 1970s whilst working at an Indian bank, living a modest life with his wife and three children. Following an epiphany out of nowhere which made him choose to leave his family, job, and friends, he decided to dedicate the rest of his life to Shiva, a god from Hinduism. At first, he still felt the temptation to do things that were not permitted as a monk, that is why he needed to do something more drastic to truly consolidate his religious beliefs.
In 1973 he chose to raise his hand and hold it up for the rest of his life in order to show his faith and appreciation towards Shiva. When asked why he is holding his hand up he always responded that this gesture is to militate against wars and support world peace as well as being a way to show his respect towards Shiva. At first, the pain in his hand was terrible, but the pain never outweighed his dedication. After the first two years, he started losing any sort of sense in his hand and with that also the pain started to go away.
Bharati is still holding his hand high and he is not planning to put it down any time soon. Even if he was to put his hand down, his muscles are severely atrophied, and most probably lowering his hand would cause permanent nerve damage in the arm, therefore he is better off alone keeping his hand up for the rest of his life, not only due to health reasons but also for spiritual reasons.
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The 1908 Summer Olympics
were to have been held in Rome but Italy pulled out after the 1906 eruption of
Mt Vesuvius. Although the cost of
reconstruction was blamed, it was also thought that this was a convenient
excuse, the Italian Prime Minister Giovanni Gioletti having declared that the
Olympic Games were “a complete waste of money”.
With an Anglo-French exhibition being planned for London, it was agreed to incorporate a sports stadium for a cut of the takings.
Unfortunately, things did not run smoothly:
- Unlike the 3 previous Olympics, athletes competed as national teams rather than as individuals, so that flags of all the competing nations would be displayed at the stadium. They forgot to fly the Swedish and American flags. The Swedes stormed out of the stadium in protest. The Americans refused to dip their flag at the Royal box, a custom surviving to the present on principle of not deferring to a foreign power. The Finns were told to march under the Russian flag but refused and marched flagless. The Irish, told to march under the Brit flag, refused to march at all.
- Every entry in the tennis was British. One of the finalists injured his hand and could not play, his opponent won the gold without hitting a ball.
- The motor boating was a washout because of gales.
- Only one team, Australia, turned up to contest the rugby gold medal. Britain’s top rugby players were in Australia on tour.
- The swimming events and the fishing competition were held in the same specially-built pool but unfortunately the water was not changed. The water became so murky that swimmers said that visibility was less than 15 cm (6 inches).
A judge walked across the athletics field and was speared by a flying javelin.
- The American shot putter was accused of deliberately dropping his shot on the foot of his Brit opponent.
- As with previous Olympics, the host nation provided the judges. The Americans complained of bias on the part of the Brit judges, illustrated by Brit middleweight boxer Johnny Douglas getting a split decision from the event referee, Douglas’s father.
- In the men’s 400m race, 3 Americans lined up against one Brit. The Americans were the favourites, having won all the sprints in previous Olympics. The Brit was blocked by the American trio on the final bend and forced off the track. Blacking, pushing and jostling was considered fair play back then at a time when there were also no marked lanes. The British judges ordered a re-run but the Americans refused to do so, in protest. The Brit runner, Wyndham Halswelle, ran the race on his own to win the hold. The NY Post reported “Our uncousinly competitors have to learn how to win from American athletes, and they still more need to learn how to lose.”
- By the way, Halswelle was disgusted by the whole affair and never ran again, being killed by a sniper’s bullet in France in 1915.
Gallery:
White City Stadium
American team march past
Halswelle wins gold
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Quotes by Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite:
My dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant, whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace.
Perhaps my factories will put an end to war sooner than your congresses: on the day that two army corps can mutually annihilate each other in a second, all civilized nations will surely recoil with horror and disband their troops.
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Saturday, May 14, 2022
SYDNEY SUBURBS
CURRANS HILL:
Location:
Currans Hill is located 60 kilometres south-west of the Sydney CBD in the local government area of Camden Council and is part of the Macarthur region.
Name origin:
The suburb was named after Michael Curran who was a resident of Narellan in the 1880s.
About:
Currans Hill is a residential estate consisting mainly of freestanding houses.
The population of the area as at the latest census of 2006 was 4,977 and many of the residents are young families.
European settlement of Currans Hill started with several land grants in 1811, 1816 and 1831.
By the 1880s Currans Hill was a thriving agricultural community. Rail and tramways made the connection and trade of dairy and crops between Sydney and the Camden area possible. The Camden tram, Pansy, was a popular means of transport for the residents of Currans Hill. Pansy's route, which opened in 1882, ran from Camden to Campbelltown with several suburb stops on the way such as Kirkham, Narellan and Currans Hill. The railway line was eventually closed in 1963 by New South Wales Railways.
In 1944 the renowned Australian filmmaker Charles Chauvel transformed rural Currans Hill 'into a makeshift battleground to film 'The Rats of Tobruk' starring Chips Rafferty and Peter Finch. Currans Hill residents assisted in the construction of the sets. The site of the film set was eventually replaced with a drive-in cinema.
In the 1990s Currans Hill was converted from a farm land area to a residential suburb and subdivided into medium-sized residential lots consisting of public and private housing.
Today there is a recreational lake and a number of large reserves connected with cycleways and walking paths. There is a primary school, a community hall and a corner store. A Christian high school and church are also found in the locality.
Gallery:
Pansy, the Camden locomotive
Camden Pansy train at Camden milk depot
Filming The Rats of Tobruk
By the way:
The Rats of Tobruk were soldiers of the Australian-led Allied garrison that held the Libyan port of Tobruk against the Afrika Corps, during the Siege of Tobruk in World War II. The siege started on 11 April 1941 and was relieved on 10 December. The port continued to be held by the Allies until its surrender on 21 June 1942.
The defenders had adopted Tobruk's excellent network of below-ground defensive positions which had been built pre-war by the Italian Army. The propagandist for Germany, William Joyce, better known as "Lord Haw-Haw", began describing the besieged men as living like rats in underground dug-outs and caves. In radio broadcasts, he derisively referred to and addressed the garrison as the "rats of Tobruk". Likewise, the ageing warships that supplied and evacuated Tobruk were also denigrated by German propaganda as "scrap iron". The ships became known affectionately to the garrison as the "Scrap Iron Flotilla" and the "Tobruk ferry service".
Australians reclaimed the name as a badge of pride, even going so far as to strike their own unofficial medal bearing the likeness of a rat. The metal used to make the medals came from a German bomber that the Rats had shot down with captured German guns.
An image from the film
A patrol from the 2/13th Infantry Battalion at Tobruk
Rats of Tobruk unofficial medal, 1941, made by the Rats themselves.
Friday, May 13, 2022
FUNNY FRIDAY
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Caution: risque content ahead.
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SOME HUMOUR:
__________
My new girlfriend told me that I was the worst she has ever had in bed.
How could she make that judgement in 30 seconds ?
__________
Two pilots are dead and brave passengers break down the door to take control of the plane.
They get on to air traffic control who guide them….
“Ok stay calm…now do you see those 3 switches located on main panel?”
“Yes, yes!!!”
“Ok make sure they are all switched to ‘on’”
“Ok, ok!!”
Passengers are sweating with panic…
“You see the dial above the copilot’s head?”
“Yes, yes!!”
“Make sure it is rotated 90 degrees clockwise”
The passengers follow the order ….
“Ok it’s done!!!!”
More instructions from Air Traffic Control…
“Now the blue button on the lefthand panel…make sure that is engaged”
“Ok, ok I think it’s done” sweats the passenger
“Good. Now slide the red lever 50% northwards”
The passengers are in a state of flux but coping….
After 5 or 6 minutes of intense conversation and instructions, air traffic control declare…
“Ok, I think we’re going to be ok……
……you’re all clear to take off”
__________
What is similar to windows but can instantly detect the cause of most common computer-problems?
A mirror
__________
Someone told me there was caffeine in chocolate
If that’s true, then why has my dog been asleep for so long, huh?
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A wealthy woman moves to America from France. She buys a large house and plans on having a large house-warming party with many distinguished guests. For the event she hires a famous artist to paint a mural to depict a moment in American history. She decides on General Custer’s last stand against the Indians. The mural is to depict what the American general was thinking the moment of his last battle.
He works feverishly on the painting and on the night of her party, his mural in the centre of the main wall in the large room with all the guests, with a cloth covering it. When the time for the unveiling finally arrives, everyone wataches as the cloth is dropped.
The guests gasp and scream when they see what is revealed. There are Indians having sex in every possible position, and even more bizarre is a large fish in the centre of all the Indians with a halo over its head.
The French woman screams to the artist, "What is this? This is not what I asked for!"
He replies, "Yes, it is. You asked me to depict what Custer was thinking during his last moments on earth. That was 'Holy Mackerel, look at all those fucking Indians!"
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LAW & LAWYERS
A father walks into a restaurant with his young son. He gives the young boy 3 nickels to play with to keep him occupied.
Suddenly the boy starts choking, going blue in the face. The father realises the boy has swallowed the nickels and starts slapping him on the back. The boy coughs up 2 of the nickels, but keeps choking. Looking at his son, the father is panicking, shouting for help.
A well dressed, attractive, and serious looking woman, in a blue business suit is sitting at a coffee bar reading a newspaper and sipping a cup of coffee. At the sound of the commotion, she looks up, puts her coffee cup down, neatly folds the newspaper and places it on the counter, gets up from her seat and makes her way, unhurried, across the restaurant.
Reaching the boy, the woman carefully drops his pants; takes hold of the boy's testicles and starts to squeeze and twist, gently at first and then ever so firmly. After a few seconds the boy convulses violently and coughs up the last nickel, which the woman deftly catches in her free hand. Releasing the boy's testicles, the woman hands the nickel to the father and walks back to her seat in the coffee bar without saying a word.
As soon as he is sure that his son has suffered no ill effects, the father rushes over to the woman and starts thanking her saying, "I've never seen anybody do anything like that before, it was fantastic. Are you a doctor?"
"No," the woman replied... "Divorce Attorney."
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LIMERICK OF THE WEEK:
There was an old girl of Kilkenny
Whose usual charge was a penny.
For half of that sum
You could fondle her bum --
A source of amusement to many.
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GALLERY:
Some mime humour . . .
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CORN CORNER:
Back in the 1800's, cowboys hung lanterns from their saddles at night,
It's the first example of Saddle Light Navigation...
English is weird
It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.
What word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it?
Short
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Thursday, May 12, 2022
POETRY SPOT
The Wander-Light
Henry Lawson, 1902
And they heard the tent-poles clatter,
And the fly in twain was torn —
Tis the soiled rag of a tatter
Of the tent where I was born.
And what matters it, I wonder?
Brick or stone or calico —
Or a bush you were born under,
When it happened long ago?
And my beds were camp beds and tramp beds and damp beds,
And my beds were dry beds on drought-stricken ground,
Hard beds and soft beds, and wide beds and narrow —
For my beds were strange beds the wide world round.
And the old hag seemed to ponder
('Twas my mother told me so),
And she said that I would wander
Where but few would think to go.
'He will fly the haunts of tailors,
'He will cross the ocean wide,
'For his fathers, they were sailors
'All on his good father's side.'
Behind me, before me, Oh! my roads are stormy —
The thunder of skies and the sea's sullen sound,
The coaster or liner, the English or foreign,
The state-room or steerage the wide world round.
And the old hag she seemed troubled
As she bent above the bed,
'He will dream things and he'll see things
'To come true when he is dead.
'He will see things all too plainly,
'And his fellows will deride,
'For his mothers they were gipsies
'All on his good mother's side.'
And my dreams are strange dreams, are day dreams, are grey dreams,
And my dreams are wild dreams, and old dreams and new;
They haunt me and daunt me with fears of the morrow —
My brothers they doubt me — but my dreams come true.
And so I was born of fathers
From where ice-bound harbours are —
Men whose strong limbs never rested
And whose blue eyes saw afar.
Till, for gold, one left the ocean,
Seeking over plain and hill;
And so I was born of mothers
Whose deep minds were never still.
I rest not, 'tis best not, the world is a wide one —
And, caged for an hour, I pace to and fro;
I see things and dree things and plan while I'm sleeping,
I wander for ever and dream as I go.
I have stood by Table Mountain,
On the Lion at Capetown,
And I watched the sunset fading
From the roads that I marked down;
And I looked out with my brothers
From the heights behind Bombay,
Gazing north and west and eastward,
Over roads I'll tread some day.
For my ways are strange ways and new ways and old ways,
And deep ways and steep ways and high ways and low;
I'm at home and at ease on a track that I know not,
And restless and lost on a road that I know.
Wednesday, May 11, 2022
SIGNS
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Sign, sign
Everywhere a sign
- Lyric, Signs - Five Man Electrical Band
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From Bored Panda, pics and readers’ comments, at:
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Reader comments:
And the movie Idiocracy can now be found under documentaries.
I'll wait until is in history section.
Very accurate
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Contains complementary cookies.
Schrödinger's cookies - there is no chance of knowing if there are cookies in it until you open it
My mum gave me a tin of biscuits for Christmas and said "I thought you could keep your sewing things in it!" It's full of needles and spools of thread now.
Who put cookies in my sewing tin?
I’m Danish and once had a summer job at the factory that made those, and they were really proud about what a popular export they were. And I’m not saying anything bad about Danish butter cookies, but I was thinking that surely you guys would be able to bake this kind of thing yourself? I mean are they really ‘send all the way across the atlantic’ good? And then finally this year I started seeing the sewing kit meme and somehow at least this makes a tiny bit more sense 😄
Yes! Grandma's emergency sewing kit! 9.99! Perfect 🥰
*Must consume cookies to use*
Sewing? Damn, I thought they were made for storing loose screws and nails.
Sooo everyone does this?! Lol Thought it was just me.
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What's a handicap pole?
A disabled citizen of Warsaw?
Nothing like the righteous indignation of the ignorant.
Why is there a pole in the disabled parking bay?
maybe it carries the sign which says disabled parking spot?
And the ticket for chaining the bike to a handicapped signpost will probably be more than they paid for the bike & lock! As it should be!
That told you...bozo..🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🖕
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Should be hot dog and beer.
Ok. Ok. I will just this once.
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What happens if I read it? Huh? HUH!?
You’ll get done for invasion of privacy
hey guys what does the sign say?
Uhhhhhh.... umm.... something....
that was a terrific trap.
Too late. You should have begun with "Please do not read".
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I need this sign
As do I
Go on, git
My husband would love this, he’s against them welcome sign mats, when i asked him why, he said obviously, I didn’t want people over
This is my dream sign!
Go on, git! That's the best part.
I recently purchased my very first welcome mat - it says "Come back with a warrant."
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My Grandfather’s tombstone says: “adios”. Nothing else. He was a dry MF.
Kim had a good sense of humour
Hopefully is wasn't the wrong number!
It's the etched photo that really sells it. 🤣
Jesus only calls if you have an early 1990s brick model cellphone.
She looks like the very definition of a church lady.
'...and Jesus said, "Kim, git yer a*s up here, pronto!".
Go on... git!!!
The imp on my shoulder wants to put a don't text and drive psa on that
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In the Colorado Rocky Mountains. They are well known for their clever signs.
I don't get it. Explanation please?
tinnitus is when you have constant ringing or buzzing in your ear
Trust me tinnitus is no laughing matter however that’s funny.
I agree. To both.
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I want to meet the person who thought of this!
The artistic embellishment makes it! 😄
I want this now, and I don’t even have a car yet
Cute, but I'm sure they get pulled over a lot.
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Where else am I supposed to do my competitive dog grooming? In the elevator!?
" Please use the lifts " is also written
That’s why I only groom my dogs on escalators as an amateur.
Me as well, just some fun grooming with friends.
Aww man, there goes my dream career.
Awww but I’m so much better at grooming than all those other ding dongs....
I'm desperate to know the story behind this sign.
Push chairs?!
Also known as strollers.
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Why are so many people pooping with pens in hand?
I always carry my pooping pen with me wherever I go...
That one cross there is very concerning…
The top tick is very pretty.
that "X" guy wants to watch the world BURN
You cant tell me what to do, do it yourself.
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How did they know?
Experience!
Hey, that was supposed to be top secret.
I want to shake the hand of whoever put up those signs
No. No you dont
Dammit, stop giving away our secrets!!!
Ladies are not slippery when wet thank you!!!!
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