Delayed Bytes

For those who may have been wondering where the Saturday morning Bytes had gone, my internet service was down and hence transmission wasn't possible in time.  Those missing Bytes are below, plus the Sunday Bytes.

Jackie Evancho

W C Fields reputedly once said that an entertainer should never work with anaimals or children, the suggestion being that one would always be upstaged by them.

In case you  missed it during the week, take a moment to watch, and listen to, Jackie Evancho, a 10 year old singing Puccini's O Mio Babbino on America's Got Talent.

Jackie is not a newbie.  She has performed publicly on many occasions and released a debut album, Prelude to a Dream, in November 2009.

Nontheless, remember that she is only 10 years old.

Click on the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKhmFSV-XB0

Rivers, Oceans and Plastics...

(Click on photos to enlarge)

Byter Leo sent me an email that showed a polluted river in West Java, Indonesia that was so putrid that it defied belief. Most of the emails and videos that are sent these days are photoshopped or hoaxes, so that my attitude is usually a healthy scepticism until it is proven to be valid. In this case the video was real.

The river is known as the Citarum River and it has been described by various commentators as the most polluted river in the world.

Where once the river was gently flowing with a natural beauty, where villagers fished with nets, used the river water for their homes and to irrigate their rice paddies, today it is choked with the domestic waste of 9 million people and the industrial waste of hundreds of factories.

Quote: Dorothy Parker

"You can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think."

-  Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967).

Challenged by by the American columnist and wit Franklin P Adams to use the word "horticulture" in a sentence, Parker spoke the above words, a play on the old saying "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink".

Quote: David Berkowitz

“I didn’t want to hurt them, I only wanted to kill them.”

- David Berkowitz, aka serial killer Son of Sam (1953 - )

Quote: S Ullman

“Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.”

- Samuel Ullman (1840 -1924)

Origin: Grog

In the days of sail, conquest and exploration, it was necessary to carry fresh water on board ship for officers and crew. The only problem was that the water did not remain fresh. Stored in casks, it developed algae and became slimy. Accordingly stagnant water was mixed with beer and wine to make it sweeter and more palatable. As voyages became longer, greater amounts of water needed to be stored.

Following Britain’s conquest of Jamaica in 1655, a daily ration of rum replaced beer and brandy rations but some sailors saved their rations and drank them all at once, leading to illness and lack of discipline. In 1740 Admiral Edward Vernon (above) ordered that water be added to the rum to dilute it. Subsequently Vernon also ordered that lemon or lime juice be added. Although it was not then known that citrus fruits assisted in preventing scurvy, it was known that Vernon’s sailors were healthier than others.

Admiral Vernon was in the habit of wearing a grogram coat, being a coarse fabric of silk mixed with wool or with mohair and often stiffened with gum. From this he became known to the sailors as “Old Grog”.

Vernon’s insistence on watered brandy, with citrus, was not popular. The expression was that compared to the previous drink, it was "as thin as Old Grog's cloak.”

From 1756 sailors in the Royal Navy were issued a half pint of rum mixed with one quart of water, split into two servings, one before noon and one after the end of the working day. The rum ration, part of the regulations, lasted until discontinued in 1970.

And by the way, the famous quotation:

"Don't talk to me about naval tradition, it's all rum, sodomy and the lash."

was not spoken by Winston Churchill, although it is commonly attributed to him. The words were spoken by Churchill's assistant, Anthony Montague-Browne, who later said that although Churchill had not uttered these words, he admitted that he wished he had

Washington Post

From Byter Nadia:

Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational New Words Contest

Here is the Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus : A person who’s both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxicaton : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation : Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

"Bugger off, it's mine"

Love this story from The Daily Mail...…

A young lad accidentally dropped his Nintendo gaming machine into the gorilla enclosure where a gorilla named Bawang picked it up. Bawang started examining and fiddling with it, turning it over, looking through it and even pressing buttons. Soon a young gorilla named Hansai, Bawang’s adopted son, made a grab for the machine but Bawang was having none of it. Eventually the keeper managed to swap the Nintendo for an apple (fruit, not computer). Fortunately photographer Chris Spicuzza was able to shoot a couple of pics before the camera battery died (click on the pics to enlarge)...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1301933/Its-turn-mum-Gorilla-hogs-games-console-baby.html

Vintage Pics: QVB

(Click on pic to enlarge).

QVB, then known as Victoria Markets, Sydney, c 1900.

HMS Pinafore

Lately the more I see of politicians and political advertising, the more I am reminded of The First Lord's Song from Gilbert & Sullivan's HMS Pinafore...

Hear it at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrC0f0sjRFQ

Lyrics:

Quote: Thomas Jefferson

“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

- Thomas Jefferson 1787,  (1743 - 182)

The Fourth Estate

With all the fuss as to whether Mark Latham is or is not a journalist, I started wondering why journos are referred to (amongst other things) as “the Fourth Estate”.

Following is an explanation and some comments:

- Although the term “Fourth Estate” was at various early times used to refer to lawyers, to the Queen of England acting on her own account separate from the King, and to “the mob”, today the term is used to refer to the Press.

- Prior to the development of the concept of the Fourth Estate, there were three traditional estates, or groups/classes, in society: the clergy (the First Estate), the nobility (the Second Estate) and the commoners (the Third Estate).

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.