The Maroons (“Marones”) have won this year’s State of Origin (two games to one). Of course they have!
There is no truth to the rumour that Anna threatened to have the entire team shot if they lost, but I can assure you that Gladys threw an almighty tanty after the final whistle. 😎
Pala-shay and Berry-jick-lian, respectively.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Many , many years ago I used to post comments to this site (generally negative reception!) flagging up my belief that global warming was a real threat to the planet.
Fast forward to 2020.
Oops. The above comment went up without my hitting the Send button. I was merely intending to say that Australia – its vast east coast especially, er, north-east , er, Queensland, seems even more so – particularly vulnerable to extremes of weather right now!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-55297805
Might man-made/livestock generated emissions of CO2/methane be regarded these days as a real threat – including current, dare one say populist, viewpoints on long-standing Oz-based blog sites – this one in particular – not merely an alarmist fantasy on the part of we nutters from 10 years ago?
Sorry to keep banging the same old drum…
Regards
ColinB
G’day Colin, good to hear from you. I had begun to think that the Chariot had been ‘disappeared’ by the gremlins of hyperspace – otherwise known as the denizens of the Middle Kingdom – so it’s a relief to receive your missive.
I’m sure you’re right. The past is another country, but nevertheless, I’m sure you’re right. Full marks for prescience! 😎
Boadicea and I have been doing our best to help the planet. Thanks to our EV, we have bought no petrol/gas/essence for 18 months – zero emissions from us, save a little heat. We’re also generating our own power emissionlessly (yes I know, but I like the word) from our rooftop solar panels – far more than we’re using in our pet Ioniq.
Agreed, the Brizzy weather is a little idiosyncratic right now, but it’s still the place to be from a Covid perspective. Hope you and Sheona are staying fit in BoJo’s multifaceted lockdown – it brings tiers to my eyes, if you’ll forgive the pun.
Catch you later! 😊
Thanks Bearsy.
In our part of the world, we still prognosticate on the subject of climate change – especially the likely man-made origins. In your part of the world, it would seem that near-catastrophic weather-change has become the more immediate problem (regardless of who or what is ultimately to blame).
We feel for you.
If I knew how to best to batten down hatches, I’d be offering you free and unsolicited advice.
Correction: use light buoyant timber as hatches: they double as coastal rafts should the need arise.
Too many years ago, I read that the USA Gummint was awarding, simultaneously or very nearly so, two research grants related to reducing the noxious emissions discharged into our atmosphere by our bovine friends.
One had to do with finding a practical means of collecting said emissions for use as fuel.
The other involved formulating fartless fodder.
Poot!
As long as I’ve gone to the trouble of logging in here, I’m forced to say something nice about one of Bearsy’s comments. Brings tiers to your eyes, indeed! (Rolling on floor laughing.)
“Fartless fodder”
Where cows and other ruminants are concerned, fermentation being at the front rather than rear end of the digestive tract, the potent greenhouse gas with absurdly simple formula (CH4, i.e. methane) exits mainly via the mouth!
Here’s an article that one sees near the top of a quickie internet search, primed with the relevant terms:
Bovine belching to blame for high methane output …
https://www.independent.ie › Irish News
6 Dec 2010 — WHAT weighs in at 490kg and produces 120kg of methane gas a year? … with the cow silently exhaling the gas through its mouth and nostrils.
##################
Sorry to revert to boring old schoolteacher mode (some 10 years at the chalk face!)
Of course, of course! The digestive action is up front, right where I left it!
It’s just that, to me at least, farts are funnier than belches. I used to enjoy talking face-to-face with the cows in the field behind us but couldn’t quite come to grips with the warning, “No open flame within 50 feet.”
Maybe I’d best move on to my beloved canine companions, who have been known, when sitting on my lap, to let loose the odd “SBD” (Silent But Deadly).
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, cogitationator, that the evolution of cattle is a complex and fascinating topic. First, you had those early prototypes on the North American plains that have now sadly all but disappeared. (Their conventional gut geometry with fermentation at the rear end being sadly the cause of those mass stampedes – yes – prototype jet propelled!).
Later of course the Mark 2 versions appeared in Europe and elsewhere with that species-preserving mutation, namely a reversed gut geometry. That came with fermentation at the front, with eructation, aka belching via the mouth as distinct from rear end.
That created its own problems, needless to say, with herds tending to proceed in the reverse, being propelled in that direction by gentler emanation of exhaust fumes from the front
Yes the rear-proceeding tendency was finally corrected, as we all know, but at the price of earlier generations of cattle becoming somewhat static, with no more stampede tendency.
Instead they became somewhat statuesque, slowly drifting iceberg-like where mobility is concerned.
Thus the early tag on the part of our predecessors , i.e. “beef-bergers” for grazing cattle.
That later became corrupted to “beef-burger”, needless to say, albeit in a strictly post-grazing culinary context.
I apologize profusely if I’m telling you stuff with which you are already familiar!
Well, one thing’s for sure: I wouldn’t want to have an Aurochs hurtling at me, even in reverse.
I do hope that you don’t get me wrong. I like cows, whether in the field or on the table. Those Herefords that lived in the field behind us were always friendly, generally willing to “talk” face-to-face over the fence and often more than that, as when they saw us stepping out back with tasty trimmings from the vegetable garden. They were especially fond of things in the brassica group – Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, etc. – and getting to them resulted in the closest we’ve ever seen to a stampede. I even quite like the smell of bovines, which is more than I can say for sheep or horses.
Looking much further back in my too-long life, I recall an incident (long story) in which I found myself standing in the middle of a Bison herd, which had started to move without my noticing. Fortunately, I had the good sense to remain absolutely still, the wisdom of which was demonstrated when the scar-covered big bull who was in charge of the herd paused when he came near me, looked me over and, seeing no threat, snorted and moved on. Their aroma was somewhat different from that of domestic cattle but not displeasing.
As I write this, my dear wifeperson is busy in the kitchen, preparing a vat of chili (heavy on the ground beef!) for tonight’s meal. Bison is good too, although, when you can find it, the price is always too (expletive deleted) high. There’s a farm I pass every so often that raises Yaks as well as cows. I’ve been meaning (and forgetting) to contact them and ask where I can obtain some yak meat in these parts.
It being the festive season, I shall hold off adding more to my current line of scholarship re the plus v minus contribution of bulls and cows and their evolutionary predecessors to global warming.
Suffice it to say that the neglected aspect is the positive effect that the species provides to green vegetation. The, er, fertilized-from-above latter helps ultimately to remove their own CO2 contribution at least (and later, their CH4-derived end-product CO2 ) from the atmosphere.
How you might ask?
Answer: think soil nutrition, finally promoting photosythhetic leaf growth.
Don’t be surprised if that entity – unflatteringly indeed crudely referred to in some quarters as bullsh*t – briefly reappears post-festive season in the New Year.
(Did I hear someone close to home mutter that my hesitantly-named entity has arrived already via this particular posting?)
Er, really? When my dear? Where? Kindly explain yourself!
It’s now New Year’s Eve, 2020.
So what can be done to rejuvenate this previously splendid site into its senior-stage 2021?
Here’s an idea from this distant voice from the past.
Post a question – any question, any subject -to me, personally, or Sheona for starters.
See what kind of answer it elicits, favourable, nerve-jangling, nerve-crunching or otherwise.
(Anything to re-activate comment, debate, furious ripostes, whatever!).
Do please keep the site going!
Sorry for my prolonged absence. I’ve been busy with other matters.
G’day Colin.
My techo alter ego has sent you an email which will grant you author status, should you wish to accept it. Enjoy!
Thanks Bearsy
It may take me a little while to learn how to post to this site as a newcomer (not counting my previous Comments). It’s not clear if an existing WordPress site-owner gets privileged access or not .
Maybe a comment (albeit longish) will do for starters.
Here’s one I put together this afternoon, listing the 33 or so different countries I’ve been to in my lifetime.
Aim? To decide which destination I’d choose if restricted to just one for a return visit .
Posting:
Nations visited outside the UK, listed roughly north to south where Europe and Africa are concerned.
1. Finland (inc Ivalo, 200 miles north of Arctic Circle)
2. Sweden (to verbally examine a PhD candidate’s thesis in public!)
3. Denmark (Copenhagen – somewhat disappointing)
4. Germany (Berlin especially memorable)
5. Netherlands
6. Belgium (Bruges highly memorable).
7. France (8 years full-time residence in historic port-town of Antibes on the Riviera, approx halfway between Cannes and Nice).
Historic country, vast array of scenery, but something lacking tourist-wise – lack of communication, joie de vivre?).
8. Jersey (Channel island, Crown dependency, not part of UK) – honeymoon destination.
9. Monaco (tiny but spectacular location)
10. Luxembourg (Ardennes uplands esp. attractive).
11. Spain (inc Majorca, Ceuta on Morocco coast)
12. Gibraltar (3 month sojourn – memorable)
13. Portugal (including 6 of the 9 remote mid-Atlantic Azores islands – crater-strewn Flores esp. interesting plus Sete Citades caldera on western end of San Miguel island. )
14. Italy (inc independent Vatican City, plus Sicily, Sardinia) – shame about its adoption of the euro- arguably killing Italian economy stone-dead…
15. Austria (Krems on the Danube a relaxed and scenically-attractive holiday spot)
16. Switzerland. (But never ever been skiiing!)
17. Slovenia (Lake Bled truly magnificent)
18. Hungary (the Lake Balaton resort of Tihany especially historic and interesting)
19. Slovakia (several trips to Bratislava and neighbouring locations to look after a friend’s cats!)
20. Poland (Krakow especially memorable – wide river, magnificent castle, main city square and environs)
21. Czech Republic (esp. Prague, plus Brno to south and Karlovy Vary in the north)
22. Croatia (coastal Opatija of interest)
23. Greece (inc Corfu, Santorini). Corfu has many hidden/not-so-hidden gems.
24. Turkey (inc neighbouring Greek island of Kastelorizo, main sheltered port especially?).
25. Cyprus (Paphos in west having entirely different character from Larnaca in east, latter with a memorable Syrian restaurant).
26. Georgia (latterly capitalist western outpost of Tbilisi especially interesting)
27 Ukraine (fly-over back from Georgia with brief stop at Kiev airport)
28. Morocco (inc. over-rated Marrakesh, over-touristy)
29. Tunisia (esp. the populated Matmata caves and tunnels that featured in a Star Wars film)
30. Ghana (2 year teaching stint in Accra capital with wander round interesting sub-Saharan far north – medically punctuated by early “glandular fever” (or was it cat-scratch fever?) , bacterial dysentery, late-stage malaria!)
31, Togo (capital Lome) – memento to French colonial status.
32 USA (2 year research stint at Univ of Pennsylvania Hospital Medical School, inc side-trips to NY, Chicago, Georgia)
33. Chile (4 locations: Santiago (capital), foothills of Andes, Algarroba ( unspectacular Pacific seaside resort bar those out-of-area resident self-herding Humbold penguins on neighbouring island), Valparaiso.
Near top of favourites : : Ronda in Spain, northerly bay town of Kassiopi on Corfu, plus Azores, plus Andes foothills in Chile, plus Togo capital (Lome) ) etc etc.
Favourite resort/choice for single return visit?
Nope, not a foreign destination – not in the above list!! My shortlist has a mass of UK choices: Devon, Cornwall, Stratford-on-Avon, Snowdonia etc etc. Top of list?
Answer: wait for it… Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh (Royal Mile especially – albeit highly touristy – but outdoor cafe-chat friendly!). (Went up there with Sheona to see both sons competing in same marathon, nipping to one or other vantage point at different stages of the race.
Second and third choice re Scottish destinations? Spoiled for choice – wouldn’t know where to start!
Sorry to end on what some here may regard as a misleadingly flagged-up favourite destination locale – home based! .
Glaswegian/Aberdonian-raised Sheona may differ re my own personal top choice of Edinburgh!