Neil Armstrong had a secret

On July 20, 1969, as Commander of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the moon.

His first words after stepping on the moon, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for Mankind,” were televised to Earth and heard by millions.

But just before he reentered the lander, he make the enigmatic remark “Good luck, Mr Gorsky.”

Many people at NASA thought it was a casula remark concerning some rival Soviet cosmonaut.

However, upon checking, there was no Gorsky in either the Russian or American space programs.

Over the years many people questioned Armstrong as to what the “Good luck, My Gorsky … ” statement meant, but Armstrong always just smiled.

On July 5, 1885, in Tampa Bay, Florida, while answering questions following a speech, a reporter brought up the 26-year-old question to Armstrong.   This time he finally responded.

Mr Gorsky had died, so Neil Armstrong felt he could now answer the question.

In 1938, when he was a kid in a small mid-west town, he was playing baseball with a friend in the backyard.   His friend hit the ball, which landed in his neighbour’s yard by their bedroom window.

His neighbours were Mr and Mrs Gorsky.

As he leaned down to pick up the ball, young Armstrong heard Mrs Gorsky shouting at Mr Gorsky. “Sex!   You want sex?! You’ll get sex when the kid next door walks on the moon!”

At least CA got one thing right …

Australia's vice captain

Choosing Shane Watson as Michael Clarke’s deputy, and therefore anointing him as Australia’s future Captain-in-waiting, will be popular with almost everybody down under.   He can bat (usually), he can bowl (most of the time), and he’s a nice guy – which is very important.

He’s a straight Aussie bloke from Queensland without tats, without a flashy celebrity girl-friend (though his current lady is  nice enough), and without megabuck advertising contracts for poofy or weirdo products.   When he had some spare time recently he visited his family and friends in his home town of Ipswich, which had suffered greatly from flooding, and lent a hand rather than driving expensive sports cars and getting pissed.

I will concede that there are other promising young cricketers who might be considered as future captains – Tim Paine for example – but at the moment they are not in the team.   One reason for this is that two places are still occupied by Clarke and Ponting, neither of whom deserve a place on current performance, recent century notwithstanding.

Australia’s renewal will not begin until Ponting is finally put out to grass and Clarke stops being a sissy.

A Latin lesson for the sick Wolf

Janus was absolutely right to point out that I had made the most elementary mistake by neglecting to render ‘law’ in the correct accusative case (making it the ‘object’, in English grammar) , and I immediately corrected it to ‘legem’.   However, it then struck me that it would be better classical Latin to express the statement in the passive voice – “The Law of the Iceni is honoured here” – so I changed it to the current version.

O Zangado objected, makings the following assertion –

Observatur isn’t even in the dictionary, and Janus is right about the accusative (lex, legis, f, 4th declension).

and then later compounds his folly by saying –

I just KNEW there was no -ur ending in Latin

Poor chap.   The wolf flu must be confusing his grey matter. Continue reading “A Latin lesson for the sick Wolf”

Indulgence

Indulge me please.  I have gone down with a second dose of Wolf Flu due to nursing the NSW through the mild, girly version of same all last week  and am feeling very fragile.  She’s gone back to work now and I’m huddled under my blanket feeling very sorry for myself, so, in between arguing the toss on Latin grammar earlier with Bearsy, I thought I’d indulge myself on YouTube with those songs that make me feel like I have something in my eye.

Continue reading “Indulgence”

BBC News – NHS accused of bias against private sector

BBC News – NHS accused of bias against private sector.

So why am I not surprised at this news?

God help the NHS if it was ever subjected to healthy competition from a Private Sector offering to carry out the same operations at NHS costs.  No wonder they are frightened it would impact on NHS hospitals, with their grossly inefficient management structures.

Gandhi in a New Light.

In my school boy days I often heard instructors singing the praises of Mohandes Gandhi, something which always left me with a degree of uncertainty. There was simply too much praise heaped on him, yet little to no scrutiny was placed in less savoury aspects of his life or personality. My suspicions were confirmed after reading Richard Shenkman’s “Legends, Lies, and Cherished Myths of World History” in which Gandhi was finally scrutinised and I learnt why he had two names — as well as the fact that he gave “Mohatma”, “great man”, to himself! Always having been sceptical of those who have been their own best friends and greatest admirers it made my quietly comfortable in my questioning of it all. Recently a new book as been published with even more damning information about Gandhi — some of which I had already learnt, other bits of it quite new. To avoid being repetitive I will simply attach a link to the article written about said book and let you read that there.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/8410318/Mahatma-Gandhi-racist-and-bisexual-claims-new-book.html

Spring Fever for O Zangado

Spring Fever

I know where the ivy climbs
while lords and ladies
drop in from the fields
and rambling brambles
with nettles entangle.

I notice the goosegrass
clambering through
the Japanese Quince
and see the forget-me-nots
competing with peony shoots.

And I smile wearily
at the dandelions
(with their long tap roots)
as they grin at me knowingly
from their position of strength.

But from where I sit
with the scent of the Daphne drifting
over me I see tulips and cherry blossom
lit up in the Spring sunshine.
I pull on the gardening gloves.

This year I will win.
It has only just begun.
This year a little at a time
the battle between nature
and nurture will be mine.

PS this is not new, only lightly pruned, so it may not qualify for OZ poetry competition