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Triceratops
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySun 03 May 2020, 15:48

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PaulRyckier
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySun 03 May 2020, 17:29

Temperance wrote:
Trike - trifle's trending on Twitter - honest!

https://twitter.com/search?q=Trifle&src=trend_click


Someone's described it as "soggy cake"!

Temperance,

"twitter" is that that "thing" that Trump always uses?
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And I see now that we have overhere a trifle recipe too
https://www.lekkervanbijons.be/fruit/een-zoete-trifle-maken
But it don't seem the same as the British one that I published upstream of the thread.



I will try to make it once (only for once...too much work...) And now, because you seem to have a lot of different kinds of "trifle" I had a look to the translation in Dutch. And now I see it is: a bit, a bagatelle. Hmm, not a bagatelle at least to "make"...in my humble opinion...

Kind regards from Paul.
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LadyinRetirement
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LadyinRetirement

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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyMon 04 May 2020, 13:21

Plebian that I am, I've made trifle with Swiss roll in the past.  I seldom make it now even though there are vegetarian gelling agents available.

Still not casting clouts.  The weather is dry at present where I live but I'm wearing my fingerless typing gloves for the first time in about 2 months.  My hands felt quite cold.
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Triceratops
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyTue 05 May 2020, 15:27

Rogue One was my selection for yesterday's May the Fourth film:

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LadyinRetirement
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyWed 06 May 2020, 13:02

I'd mentioned on the sprogs and sproglets quiz that the National Theatre is rotating some of its past repertoire for free (a different play every week - it's Frankenstein this week changing tomorrow).  My computer is running even more slowly than usual today so I can't copy anything over so if anyone is interested I'm afraid it means you'll have to google (or whatever your search engine of choice is).

In the French conversation group online yesterday when we were discussing what we'd been doing I thought I'd done averagely well making myself a pair of casual slacks but some of the other ladies has gone into mass production making masks and scrubs for their families and friends.  I hope it's okay to mention that because I'm not linking anything.  I'm ticking over with some practice albeit limited of Spanish and French but I'm afraid I've let the sign language slip so I need to practise that.  I know of one online resource (Sign Zone) - there may be others, I'll have to look.
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LadyinRetirement
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyWed 06 May 2020, 13:10

Correction to above.  My comment about the National Theatre buckshee offering had been moved to another thread not deleted.
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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyThu 07 May 2020, 09:02

I had my first really bad day yesterday. I sat down and had a good cry, and then manically cleaned every window in the house - something I have been meaning to do since the incarceration began. I soon felt much better, but also felt thoroughly ashamed of myself. God knows what other people are going through - I have nothing whatsoever to weep about. 

But onwards and sideways, as ever. Thank Heavens and nord we can still witter away here.
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LadyinRetirement
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyThu 07 May 2020, 10:29

Temperance, don't feel bad about things having affected you yesterday.  I'm still doing jobs in a somewhat here and there sort of way and I still haven't properly got stuck into spring cleaning.  As I've been self-isolating I haven't been going to the launderette so I've been handwashing items (don't have a machine) and ironing them when they dry as I go along.  Obviously that works better on sunny days.  The washing clothes by hand isn't difficult but it's time consuming.  I think the fact the French conversation and Spanish groups have weekly Zoom meetings help a little.  A friend down south suggested we (she and I) could perhaps have a Skype or Zoom meeting.  I don't know how to set up a meeting - only how to join one.  Also the online dictation class by Skype is still going once a week and one of the ladies from the Deaf Coffee morning (who used to be my sign language teacher) has sent me some suggestions (at my request) for online.  It is a very unusual time and like with Brexit news I've been restricting my news watching to the main points of the news.  I know the features about how town x in Italy is managing under lockdown are very worthy but if I mull over these things I will become scared as I will if I dwell too much on the people who are having protests against the lockdown (that's more in the USA than in the UK to be fair) or are trying to burn down 5G towers.  That's partly why I have been hand sewing small projects even though I have a machine.  I find sewing something not too complicated can lessen stress (unless I sew something the wrong way and have to get the seam ripper out).  Same as knitting something very simple and basic can destress me until I drop a stitch.  I need to bone up on some of the more simple computer codes also - nordmann has given some information on that already I know.
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LadyinRetirement
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyThu 07 May 2020, 10:36

I've finished the last book (a murder mystery) that I had out on library loan from before the lockdown the other day so I'll have to try to get to grips with my Elonex.  I did find an abridged version of a novel online which I read on my phone but it was very much abridged.
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Green George
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyThu 07 May 2020, 11:07

Bore da pawb. Just signed up for the OU Free course in "Beginner's Welsh". It's only been 9 generations since my family (well, one branch thereof) moved from Castell Caereinion, halfway along the railway I volunteer on and where, particularly when the Eisteddford is held locally, we do get a number of Welsh speakers.
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Triceratops
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyThu 07 May 2020, 12:32

Well I'm off for walk number 2 as it is a really hot sunny day. No problem as long as social distance is maintained.
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LadyinRetirement
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyThu 07 May 2020, 13:13

My local honey has arrived so I will see if it helps with the hayfever.  I missed the delivery because I was focussing on the zoom meeting and I didn't even have my headphones on.  The delivery person had left it half in half out of the cat flap which seems to be the default place people leave things if I don't hear.  I'd like to learn Welsh but I'm having enough on my plate with BSL and Spanish at present.  Even if the honey doesn't shift the hayfever I can use it as a flavouring and sweetener.  I like honey but as it's sugary and sugar is one of the things I have to use with caution because of my tendency to high blood pressure.  Sounds like some of my fellow historians sound as if they are becoming learned during the lockdown.
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Nielsen
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyThu 07 May 2020, 14:24

Alas, LiR, I'm not becoming learned, neither am I lean.
Oops, sorry I see you referred to historians - the closest I occasionally come is being hysterical.
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PaulRyckier
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyThu 07 May 2020, 16:07

Temperance wrote:
I had my first really bad day yesterday. I sat down and had a good cry, and then manically cleaned every window in the house - something I have been meaning to do since the incarceration began. I soon felt much better, but also felt thoroughly ashamed of myself. God knows what other people are going through - I have nothing whatsoever to weep about. 

But onwards and sideways, as ever. Thank Heavens and nord we can still witter away here.
 
Dear (cher) Temperance, I hope you are a bit comforted by all our "little chats" (nos petits chats) overhere...
I have perhaps the privilege to have it still very busy, although to be obliged to stay at home...doing the "household?" for two and washing (but therefore I have a washing machine), but I can't do the ironing (still the old fashioned man...). But as it were only my trousers and my shirts that the cleaning lady (not available for the moment) ironed, I now found out that, if you directly after the washing hold the throusers upside down in the fold it keeps its form and for the skirts dito...so I can wear them directly from the "washing thread?"...
When I said it to my sister, she said that she couldn't do that with those of her male partner, while he is a bit "thicker?" than me and uses such modern shape and stylish trousers, which after a while are a bit like a "bag?"...
Mine:
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And still the "turmoil" of the landlord (with the phone...)

And to do the supply from the pharmacie and to get money from the bank...with the food the local supermarket comes for  free at home, but I have to pay with cash...

And then I have still those "fora"...
 
And when it is not that busy some "documentaries" or films on the hard disc of the TV provider, so I can speed up the "advertisements" up to 64 times the normal speed...

Hardly have an hour to sit in the sun as "she" (the sun) is there for the moment and in a, as mentioned before, beach chair.

For the moment waiting for the food delivery inside...and perhaps no hour in the sunshine today in the beach chair...and I have still to water all the garden plants in the flower boxes and in the 10 metres long bush border along the path...four buckets from the rain barrel...with the watering can...

I have a persisting guess that MM is a bit in the same "framework" as I?

Kind regards, Temperance, from your brother in "confinement", Paul.
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LadyinRetirement
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyFri 08 May 2020, 12:21

Real life transcends online drama of course and there is a dove or pigeon that seems to have hurt his wing in the garden.  One of the local wild life rescue places is full but another which is more difficult to get to has capacity.  They don't do collections.  At the moment I can't see the bird even if I could catch him.  I usually put any bird food above ground level or try to so that the birds aren't sitting targets but I've put a ball of bird seed on the ground and filled a shallow saucer with some rainwater so the bird can have a sip if it goes past.  There are a couple of butterflies on my French window curtains at present.  I'll probably have to open the French window (I've been wary about opening it since I had the break in) and see if they fly out and be particularly careful that I lock it properly afterwards.  I'm scared if I try to pick the butterflies up I might damage their wings.  Of course with it being Bank Holiday which I had quite forgotten there are no buses and it is quite a walk to the wildlife rescue centre.  Tomorrow if the buses are running I could try taking the bird by bus but being careful about social distancing.  Of course I've got to see him again and catch him before I can take him anywhere.
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LadyinRetirement
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyFri 08 May 2020, 12:26

While I'm on the board are there any threads relating to debate or oratory in a historical setting, do any of my fellow Res Historians know?  A search hasn't revealed anything but I don't want to start a new thread unnecessarily.  In fact I may just do some looking on the internet to look for relevant articles for my own benefit (not necessarily to post on Rest Hist).
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PaulRyckier
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyFri 08 May 2020, 14:11

LadyinRetirement wrote:
While I'm on the board are there any threads relating to debate or oratory in a historical setting, do any of my fellow Res Historians know?  A search hasn't revealed anything but I don't want to start a new thread unnecessarily.  In fact I may just do some looking on the internet to look for relevant articles for my own benefit (not necessarily to post on Rest Hist).
 
LiR,

do you mean such "things" as Cicero's " De Coniuratione Catilinaria"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catiline_Orations
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Kind regards from Paul.
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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 08:50

I have begun Day 47 trying to find out the origin of the expression "going bananas".


Going Bananas


Not the most intellectual of research, I admit, but never mind.


Everybody knows what "going bananas" means: you've just turned plain cuckoo. But what are the origins of the phrase? Strangely, even the most authoritative source on Anglo etymology, The Oxford English Dictionary, isn't sure. The first known usage of the term has been credited to a 1968 academic publication, which noted that Kentucky college students were saying it.


It seems difficult to believe that such a common phrase could be less than four decades old. But there's some sense to the notion: it was during the late 1960s that rumours spread across university campuses that roasted banana peels had psychedelic properties, and that ingesting them could lead to hallucinations similar to ones brought on by LSD or psilocybin ("magic") mushrooms. (It isn't true, folks.) The reference to students in the OED entry - at least to me - gives weight to the argument that the phrase may only date back to the era of freak-outs, flower children, and free love.


Oxford suspects that the term is older...
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nordmann
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 09:07

My OED, published in 1958, has no problem having a stab at the etymology of the term. So, a decade before the hippy culture "origin" it seems theories still abounded for a phrase which was obviously then known to be in use - so I'm not sure which Oxford to believe, the one cited in your article or the one on my bookshelf, or maybe neither.

After "top banana" and "banana oil" for highest ranking and crazy respectively, my OED then tackles "going bananas" and comes up with three plausible origins.

1. Derived from "on the banana oil" (as mentioned above), a food flavouring suspected of being poisonous and banned in the US in the 1920s, which gave rise to both versions being used to indicate loss of reason and control
2. Derived from "bananas", a slang term for "sexually perverse" in the US (attested 1894), which was used in particular to refer to the debilitating effect of some STDs on mental function
3. Derived from "banana" as a burlesque slang for "comedian" whose act relies on visual impact rather than spoken word (attested US 1855)

As with a lot of slang it is very likely that all of the above are true - and that people originally applying the term based on one derivation found that it had much in common with its use by others who had adopted it from another origin, and so on until everyone used it to mean the same thing, even the hippies.
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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 09:30

Thank you, nordmann - erudite and interesting, as ever.

What a useful fruit the banana is - nourishing, cheap and delicious. It even has a low carbon footprint!


The Merits of the Banana


I shall have one on my porridge this morning: I have just one left and its skin has not gone too mottled and off-putting yet. I hope to replenish my supply on Monday. I do hope the Click and Collect lady on duty at Sainsbury's car park (North Devon) does not tell me: "Yes, we have no bananas."
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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 10:01

I knew there had to be a downside. Phoneutria! Guardian article doesn't mention this!


P. nigriventor and the P. fera, both known as "the banana spider", like hiding in banana leaves. They are venomous arachnids, and can give you a very nasty nip if you cross them. The "Brazilian wandering spider" (name applies to both) often wanders over here with the bananas, with the sole purpose of entering the UK illegally.



In 2005, a man was bitten in Bridgwater, England by a spider in a shipment of bananas and, in 2014, a family photographed a spider that they claim was in a bunch of bananas delivered to their home; in both cases, the spider was reported to be P. fera.
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LadyinRetirement
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 10:39

Temperance, a lady who lives in my general neighbourhood was bitten by a false widow spider a few years ago.  Apparently their bites can be nasty.

I can cook basic fare but I'm not terribly imaginative but then I don't have fancy ingredients available at the moment.  One YouTuber (who also has a blog) whose content I have looked at 'Bigger Bolder Baking' for inspiration gave some ideas for quick microwave meals and banana was mentioned by the lady as an item that can be used in the absence of eggs in some circumstances.  She's an Irish lady but living in Los Angeles, USA.  My sister-in-law is Colombian and she says that in Colombia they have plantain crisps like we have potato crisps here. I quite like the expression "to go cuckoo for cocoa puffs" or "to go cuckoo and not for cocoa puffs" for craziness.  I think they come from the States and are probably based on an advertisement for cocoa puffs.

I couldn't find the bird yesterday and I can't see it this morning so I hope it was less injured than I thought.  Worst case scenario would be that a predator has taken it - some of the neighbours say they have seen the occasional fox though personally I saw foxes more commonly when I was living in London than here fairly near the outskirts of a provincial town.
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nordmann
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 11:04

The banana may not even technically be a banana anymore anyway. As one of the first GM successes the Gros Michel, up to the 1960s the plant that we all knew and loved as "the banana", turned out to be highly susceptible to disease. Nature duly obliged and the "Panama Fungal Disease" promptly sent it into extinction. The inferior Cavendish strain, up to then only used for chemical processing (and presumably driving people "bananas") and which had been dismissed as a mere "plantain", then assumed the role of that which you and the rest of us slice into our porridge, shove down toddlers' gullets, etc.

However the Panama Disease has not been idle in the meantime and has now set its beady little oxysporic eyes on our Cavendishes too (ooh, er). In fact at this moment in time it is gaily traipsing through our plantain plantations with abandon, so much so that a new extinction event is confidently forecast within what's left of our lifetimes.

The poor Nigriventor and Phoneutria fera will soon have nowhere to live. However unlike us in current lockdown mode, this little bugger isn't called "the Wandering Spider" for nothing, so let's hope nature, even while decimating our humble Cavendishes, rescues the little chaps (chapesses, actually, they're spiders) and affords them a new vehicle soon on which they can wander into our porridges, splits, and baby food.

PS: I have encountered many false widows in my time and in my experience the venom of their bite is exaggerated. Being spiders I suppose we have to question how much they have contributed to their own predicament, false or not, but we can certainly without question absolve them of the scurrilous accusation that they take occasional cover behind bananas. They may be hiding behind their porridges, but that's a completely separate crime entirely.
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LadyinRetirement
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 11:05

MM, you mentioned in an earlier post (I'm not even sure if it was on this thread, sorry) that you had been expecting a pandemic to occur at some time but you hadn't been certain what type of disease would be involved.  Why did you expect it - I know you are very definitely not Mystic Meles Meles.  Was it because such things have happened periodically over the years?  Or that while new cures for illnesses are discovered all the time germs keep mutating?  I've heard some people say that taking too many antibiotics (though that's regarding bacteria and not viruses) isn't necessarily good for the human defence system.
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LadyinRetirement
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 11:09

Well the lady in question made the local newspaper and spent a bit of time in hospital with the bite.  Her arm really swelled up.

Or are you having a joke about 'false widows' who may not be spiders.
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Meles meles
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 11:11

Bananas, because of their high potassium content, are slightly radioactive. There's even an informal measurement of ionizing radiation called the BED (banana equivalent dose) which correlates to 10−7 sievert (0.1 μSv). However to get symptoms of radiation sickness it's been calculated that you'd have to eat 274 bananas a day for seven years, and strictly even then the radiation dose is not cumulative as one would excrete the radioactive potassium-40 isotope on a regular basis - probably very regularly if one was eating 274 bananas a day.


LiR - I only said I was expecting a pandemic because historically they are fairly regular occurrences as new strains of diseases - whether of plague, influenza, cholera, typhoid or other exotic things like hanta-viruses or indeed corona viruses - develop. For example there have been several world-wide epidemics of influenza over the past century, that of 1918-20 was the worst but there have been others (eg in 1957-58, 1968-69, 2009-10) and of course there is still no universal vaccine for influenza, only for the latest strain. I was also saying that a pandemic was likely because now, with the human population encroaching more than ever before on wildlife, and so with wild animals being forced to live ever more closely with humans, the chances that a virus would swap over from its natural animal host to infect humans is greater than ever before. Also of course with more and faster long-distance travel any virus outbreak that does occur can very rapidly spread all around the globe. The bubonic plague pandemic of the 1340s probably originated on the steppes of central Asia but could then only travel as fast as a horse or ship could carry the bacteria, whether in the bloodstream of a human, a rat or a flea. These days as we've seen, a person can be infected in the morning and be on the other side of the world by that evening before they've even started to show any sympoms at all.


Last edited by Meles meles on Sat 09 May 2020, 11:55; edited 2 times in total
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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 11:41

Steatoda nobilis is more noble (or nobel, as Donald Trump would say) than false. A misunderstood and often persecuted little creature, it arrived in England in the 19th century via Torquay - just like William of Orange (not Banana) did a bit earlier! Nothing good ever arrives via Torquay. The outbreak of Covid-19 in the South West started in that place - or it may have been Paigton - or Newton Abbot. Down the A30 somewhere anyway.

MM wrote:
Bananas, because of their high potassium content, are slightly radioactive...

Oh, no - I've just eaten one (on my porridge). Something else to worry about! 

The rest of your post reassured me - a bit.

EDIT: Then I read the additional information to LiR!
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Meles meles
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 11:52

The first recorded case of the Black Death in 1348 was in Melcombe Regis in Dorset, also not that far away from Torquay.
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PaulRyckier
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 11:55

Well said MM. Among others as you said: " These days as we've seen, a person can be infected in the morning and be on the other side of the world by that evening before they've even started to show any sympoms at all."

That is one of the reasons I think there are that many Covid cases in the "developped" world.

You spoke about a swap from wild animal to human. But it can also vice versa. In the news on "teletext" on the Dutch TV today I read that there was a swap in mink farms from farmers affected by Covid to their entire mink stock. (I  mentioned these mink farms (especially located in West Flanders) recently to you in one of the threads).

Kind regards, Paul.
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 12:17

Temps, I once asked an Arab nob at a diplomatic  reception where he  studied in the UK and he said Torquay - I suspect he sent someone else in to do his exams and course work. I asked why he chose Torquay and was  told it  was because he saw a picture of a palm tree there. When I nearly chocked laughing he went to the waiter and got me a beer so I suggested he must have learned something there. He grinned.
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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 12:48

Priscilla wrote:
Temps, I once asked an Arab nob at a diplomatic  reception where he  studied in the UK and he said Torquay - I suspect he sent someone else in to do his exams and course work. I asked why he chose Torquay and was  told it  was because he saw a picture of a palm tree there. When I nearly chocked laughing he went to the waiter and got me a beer so I suggested he must have learned something there. He grinned.


Palm trees are everywhere in that God-forsaken place - don't know how they survive, because it does snow down here, even on the south coast. But how about banana trees? Having nothing better to do,  I have just googled: "Do banana trees grow in Torquay?" The Daily Mail (sorry) gives us an answer:

Going Bananas in Torquay

Four-bedroomed house, plus bananas, for £699,000. 

Here's a bit of the garden - can you spot the banana tree?


Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 43ABD18A00000578-4832626-The_grounds_boast_plants_such_as_the_Canna_Cordyline_and_hibiscu-m-45_1504000555901

There are also a fine collection of Canary Island date palms, Chinese Chusan palms, New Zealand tree ferns, Chilean Potato vines and Mexican yucca for those with a green thumb.


But perhaps most striking of all are the collection of banana trees with enormous leaves that provide fresh fruit in the summer. 
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Triceratops
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 13:46

"That is Torquay !" "Well it's not good enough !!"

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nordmann
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 13:53

And what Alicia Keys could have achieved if she hadn't had the misfortune to be American rather than from beautiful Torbados ...

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Triceratops
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 14:17

In a more serious tone, I watched this last night. Former US Secretary for Defense, Robert McNamara, said it gives a reasonably accurate depiction of events at the time though it overplays the role of Kevin Costners' character (Kenny O'Donnell) at the expense of Ted Sorensen:

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nordmann
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 14:25

Ah, the nostalgia!

Not for the Missile Crisis as much as for when the president of the USA could be credibly played in a movie by the same actor who could also later credibly play Captain Pike in Star Trek.

When one looks at the present incumbent ....
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Triceratops
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 14:41

nordmann wrote:


When one looks at the present incumbent ....

Yes.

Though it was  a close run contest in 1960, Tricky Dicky won 26 States to JFK's 22, Kennedy taking the election with 303 Electoral College votes to Nixon's 219.
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nordmann
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 09 May 2020, 14:47

Ah, but even Nixon could be credibly played by the great character actor Frank Langella.



Mind you, Langella was also Skeletor once.
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PaulRyckier
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySun 10 May 2020, 11:50

Especially for MM, but perhaps others are interested in it too.

I had always so much difficulty to clean my "verlakte kookpotten" ((enamelled cooking pots?) even with a grinding sponge I couldn't remove the dark lines from cooking some vegetables and all, especially after cooking potatos. Even after a while you had a dark layer allover the cooking surface. 

And now, as I am accustomed to clean the "schoteldoek" (dishrag?) in a plastic recipient with a chloor tablet for the swimming pool, I coincidentally did this action in my enamelled cooking pot and see after rinsing it all... a bright new white kettle inside...

Kind regards, Paul.
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LadyinRetirement
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySun 10 May 2020, 14:50

For Temperance if she reads this, my hayfever is easier today but I don't know whether that's because of the local honey or because after a few pleasant, sunny days today there is a grey sky and some light rain.

nordmann, thanks for the examples of Roman conspiracy theory (or conspiracy anyway) on the relevant thrd
ead.
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LadyinRetirement
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyThu 14 May 2020, 01:58

The road traffic where I live is still fairly quiet at rush hour so I assume a lot of people locally are still working from home.
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LadyinRetirement
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyFri 15 May 2020, 12:08

Has anybody used the Borrow Box ap?  I looked online this morning to see if the local library is still closed - it is - but it said e-books and e-audio books (and e-magazines) could be accessed via Borrow Box.  You do have to have to have a library card and pin which I have.
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Green George
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyFri 15 May 2020, 16:30

nordmann wrote:
Ah, the nostalgia!

Not for the Missile Crisis as much as for when the president of the USA could be credibly played in a movie by the same actor who could also later credibly play Captain Pike in Star Trek.

When one looks at the present incumbent ....
Yes - more like Private Pike's grandfather.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9t_KDGqOmE
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PaulRyckier
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyFri 15 May 2020, 19:15

Perhaps especially for MM, but everybody is welcome to elucidate my queries.

I ate today for the first time in months sole (5 à 6 in a kilo). And they were good. My mother in the time (some 40 years ago) said that those of the Channel were the best. And she was a fish merchant.
Is that then the famous "Dover sole"?
And as it is forty years ago that she said it, is there still sole from the Channel, while there is perhaps no place anymore to fish, due to the continu growing traffic?

And MM, have you there in your neck of the woods some "visleurders"? (The word exists even in the Netherlands in Arnemuiden, but I found not a nowadays Dutch word, even not a synonym for it, although it was a common word in the Fifties. I knew many of them, who went from Ostend to Wallonia and Brussels.)

It was house to house sale and many times was the fish in Wallonia fresher than in some fish shops at the coast.
I sought for the English of "leurder" and found: peddler, hawker, street merchant. Then for "visleurder": fish peddler? itinerant fish merchant?
PS: My mother said also that the cod from de "witte bank" (white bank) was the best one. If I recall it well the "white bank" has to be somewhere near Iceland?

Kind regards, Paul.
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Green George
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyFri 15 May 2020, 19:41

"Dover" sole is a species, Paul. "Lemon" sole (the other frequently found one) is actually a flounder I think.
My mother has a fish merchant who goes to one of the fishing ports to collect his fish (he also visits several local pubs on different days of the week). He phones her most Sundays, takes her order and then delivers the fish.
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PaulRyckier
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySat 16 May 2020, 22:59

Green George wrote:
"Dover" sole is a species, Paul. "Lemon" sole (the other frequently found one) is actually a flounder I think.
My mother has a fish merchant who goes to one of the fishing ports to collect his fish (he also visits several local pubs on different days of the week). He phones her most Sundays, takes her order and then delivers the fish.
 
Gil, now  I understand. I thought that with the name "Dover" a "visgrond" (fishing ground?) as the "Channel" was mentioned.
I learned yesterday that a flounder is a "bot" (that was in our time rather a "workmen's" fish relatively cheap). But nowadays every fish seems to be a hype (and many times by this hype also expensive) We called it a "but". And now I see that it has his two eyes moving during life to the upperside.

But the most fished are the "plaies" In Dutch it is "schol", but we say "pladijs" or shortly "ploate".
And we have also the less distributed "schar" (dab) and the "tongschar" "lemon sole" which in louche restaurants is served sometimes as "tong" (tongue) our most expensive fish. Common sole, Dover sole or as I saw in the translation: "sole" tout-court.

Kind regards, Paul.
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nordmann
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySun 17 May 2020, 12:38

GG, as a steamhead you no doubt have a special drawer in the sentiment chest for that 1953 classic "The Titfield Thunderbolt" with Stanley Holloway, John Gregson, Syd James and the usual crew in attendance. My own association with the film is that it is the only one I can now recall with certainty (there would have been dozens of them) that I was admitted to watch at the Saturday matinee for the price of four jam jars. I remember it as I had managed to smash one of the jars on the mile long route to the cinema and then had to convince the battle-axe at the box office that a broken jar, once all the pieces had been meticulously and bloodily retrieved, constituted the same value as an intact one for recycling purposes at the bottle factory in the East Wall. She relented reluctantly and released me into the bear pit that was the Saturday "children's matinee".

But I digress. You may therefore appreciate this little YouTube upload from one man and his dog who managed, a decade or so ago, to identify portions of the long disused Camerton branch of the Bristol and North Somerset Railway (mostly between Camerton and Limpley Stoke) that had been used in the film, and with uncanny accuracy reproduce with his own angle of view and lens width those used in actual scenes from the film.



The "Thunderbolt" itself - and this almost beggars at least this one-time jam jar collector's belief - was actually an engine christened "The Lion" and had been built in 1838, a mere nine years after Stephenson's "Rocket"! Today she resides at the Museum of Liverpool, her last restoration as far as I can see having been in 1980.

Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 LMR_57_%22Lion%22_locomotive%2C_Museum_of_Liverpool_%28geograph_4545605%29

But you no doubt knew that.
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Green George
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySun 17 May 2020, 17:32

Yes - interesting stuff. As also is the fact that The Lion was in fact damaged during the filming the buffer beam was bent aiui.
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nordmann
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptySun 17 May 2020, 17:40

I read that in the wiki article, yes.

I was also tickled to see in the same article that some steamheads have recently thrown suspicion on whether the engine in the film, and that which presently sits in the Liverpool museum, is actually "The Lion" at all. They maintain it could be simply another "1838 locomotive", and not the famous lioness. Only a committed steamhead of the highest order amongst that fraternity could even begin to think that this might detract from the value of the exhibit ...
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nordmann
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyMon 18 May 2020, 11:09

It might be too late for this in some mass suicidal societies, but it's still good ...

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Meles meles
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyMon 18 May 2020, 11:21

Don't worry, it'll still be good for the second and third waves, or for the regional lockdowns following isolated outbreaks.

How's Norway? I assume, with it's huge North Sea oil sovereign wealth fund, Norway is better able to take the financial hit than many other countries and so there's not so much urgency to get the economy working. Here most shops, factories and offices are cautiously opening but schools, bars, restaurants, hotels, cinemas, beaches, and parks are all still closed. Additionally we cannot travel further than 100km from home and the nearby French/Spanish border remains firmly shut except to long-distance lorries (with the appropriate paperwork). Apart from a quick outing to the garden centre and to the supermarket, I still haven't been outside my home for weeks and haven't see anyone other than the neighbours, which is fine by me. I expect to reopen with restrictions and strict rules, possibly, in July (for Bastille Day maybe) but that is still subject to government edict based on how things progress. Needless to say I haven't any reservations until September and those few were made in January and February.


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nordmann
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PostSubject: Re: Our Daily Diaries   Our Daily Diaries - Page 6 EmptyMon 18 May 2020, 11:41

Officially things are opening up under some extreme restraints. Unofficially people's general behaviour regarding social distancing, face masks, etc has become rather too lax (yesterday was May 17th so a big test, which everyone failed) and only today there was an edict from on high in Oslo that some things will have to be re-implemented. The government's emergency powers elapsed last week so this would require another enactment of the constitutional article, which in turn requires the king's approval, and this time round he's suggesting that maybe it isn't fair dragging him into everything all the time and maybe people might instead just behave!

The health care system is back to normal here and the backlog of treatments etc that built up for the five weeks of stringent lockdown is now the big issue, with daily updates of its progress (70% cleared according to the radio this morning). The phone app thingy is working fine - I now actually have two apps, one that I still use daily to register my symptoms (not all gone yet) and one to warn me if I've been within a few metres of others who tested positive. I have a weekly antibody test at my front door which is showing surprising yo-yo results, but this is apparently typical I hear. My plasma count, which is the important bit, shows all the right numbers, which would be proof of immunity if and when we can start transfusion treatments.

I actually ventured to the pub last week - just to see what mass suicide looks like when it's undertaken by good-natured alcoholics all sitting 1.5 metres apart. An enjoyable evening but my curiosity has been sated now so I've reverted to a level of consistent sobriety that my body hasn't had to deal with since early adolescence. And I've become addicted to Tran, a peculiarly Norwegian concoction that emulates what it must be like to lick fish as a hobby (probably how it was discovered actually). Anyway, thanks to the dead fish I'm brimming with Vitamin D, so that's another reversion to health that my body reckoned it had seen the last of when Gary Glitter was still an idol and windy days were a health hazard for those of us whose flares were on the elephant scale.

All in all a good apocalypse so far - I'm wondering why we never thought of having one before!
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