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Post by questa on Apr 24, 2021 21:59:27 GMT
I was going to say, "What a feast of funerary art!" but maybe that is a tad insensitive. I can't add anything to this incredible photo essay but I have some practical questions. With so much marble on display is it close to marble quarries? I can imagine most of the larger pieces were carved in situ. Some of the newer pieces have carved faces and photographs of the deceased. Are they a good resemblance or does the carver pretty them up a bit? There appeared to be very few people around. Of course you would have waited for a clear pic, but was it as empty as it seems?
Above all a brilliant piece of photo-journalism. You must be so proud of it.
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Post by questa on Apr 24, 2021 19:59:05 GMT
The word "midwife" comes from Old English where the "mid" means "with". Thus midwife means the person, male or female, who stays with the woman ("wimmen")for the duration of labour, birth and the first few days. The Wife is indicating the woman having the baby but the mid-wife indicates the experienced woman who assists in the birth. That is why men can be midwives without creating a word storm.
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Post by questa on Apr 24, 2021 6:04:20 GMT
1952 we had a phone installed. Dad was Shire President and Mum had a Real Estate business but all they got was a shared line with a neighbour 3 doors down. Many times we kids had to run down the road and tell them we were expecting an important call, so hang up, please. Total lack of privacy of course. Neighbour would have had access to the workings of Council and Developers...information that today would be priceless. # was LB 5735
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Post by questa on Apr 24, 2021 0:53:14 GMT
Amazing that the MGB was still around in 2004. Must have had the colour changed as you say Mark. It had a clutch problem though as it had 2 springs and occasionally one would break and Dad had to nurse it to the garage for repair. I had a MGB 67 model. First model to have 5 bearing crank shaft, push button door handles and wire wheels standard, but before reversing lights. Colour Champion red. Had a bad habit of overheating in slow traffic and screaming like a steam whistle, much to my embarrassment. Have to take a quick exit onto a side road and let it cool down before re-joining the stop-start queue again. Later it developed a trick of stalling as I waited to complete a turn. The fly wheel would jam and I would have to get out and retrieve a hammer ( which I carried for the purpose)and give the flywheel a healthy couple of bangs. Usually it started after that.
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Post by questa on Apr 24, 2021 0:14:40 GMT
Gee, I hope your car has comfortable seats!
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Post by questa on Apr 22, 2021 14:52:40 GMT
Kids with whooping cough make my blood curdle. We feel so helpless while they are having to do the fight for themselves. Mumps has dire consequences for boys sometimes and girls can get an abdominal version (rare)The humble chicken pox often shows up in adults as shingles...I hope you have all had your jab for that one...given at age 50+ Measles is nasty. Not only is it able to make the sufferer deaf or blind at the time but can show up 10 years later as SSPE which is a lingering fatal disease. In Oz babies are also vaccinated for meningococcal B. The new kid on the block is the Human papillomavirus (HPV). This is given in 2 doses to both genders of kids at beginning of teen age. It knocks out the sexually carried virus which causes warts and cervical cancer.
I must be one of the few in Oz who has seen a kid with Diphtheria...and that was my 1st week on the ward and she was going home next day. Mainly I remember the smell of membranes that nearly choked her.
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Post by questa on Apr 22, 2021 6:43:40 GMT
The usual seating arrangement is boy-girl-boy-girl and the Guest of Honour sits on the right of HM. She would probably turn to him/her to start the conversation and the guests take their cue from her. I don't know, I failed "Dining with the Monarch 101" at finishing school.
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Post by questa on Apr 21, 2021 23:50:22 GMT
US prudishness is the worst, specially on screen. I blame the ridiculous censorship of the past by the various official Boards and "stir up trouble " groups. So you get to see a bit of breast as a mother feeds a baby...How lovely! but someone will say it is porn. Gone, thankfully, are the days when married couples on screen had to have twin beds, then one could have a double bed but one actor had to have a foot on the floor! Fully dressed lovers, in any scene where kissing occurred were not to touch lips, they got around this by having the actor whose arm was behind the clinch placing his/her thumb between those sinful lips. As for Rhett saying "Damn"...
Today's censorship has eased up a bit but the graphic scenes of wars, thugs, goodies and baddies showing scenes of unbelievable horror and terror do not seem to be taking the place of the prudes' anxiety over a quick glimpse of skin. Seems violence is more acceptable.
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Post by questa on Apr 21, 2021 22:42:14 GMT
Several writers have commented how fast the Queen eats. Guests may not start eating until she does and when she is finished everybody must down cutlery at once. As you must also conduct light conversation with the guest on your right, and then on your left, you might only get a few mouthfuls of actual dinner before the plates are whisked away. I don't know how they do the left/right thing, maybe the ladies get to start the conversations with HM leading the way?
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Post by questa on Apr 21, 2021 2:17:24 GMT
I had my annual flu shot yesterday. Chatting with the nurse afterwards we concluded that the various vaccinations will probably act like the flu shots and need re-formulations each year to keep up with the coronavirus's morphing. The virus we are facing now is not the same as March 2020, and by next year it will be changed again, just like the present flu vaccine does. Whether or not it will be a savage 'season' or a milder one will depend on what variants are floating around. They are all part of the corona family, from the common cold to whatever is coming next.
The nurse had retired 15 years ago but comes in to do the flu jabs at our mobile clinic. She wasn't busy so we had a quick 2 metre chat.
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Post by questa on Apr 21, 2021 1:10:39 GMT
Un-called for, Kerouac2, and childish.
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Post by questa on Apr 20, 2021 9:43:27 GMT
"The baby was overtired and grizzled all the way home" "She is a bit grizzly, probably teething" Heard all over Oz, Implies baby is restless and unsettled but not actually crying all the time.
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Post by questa on Apr 19, 2021 0:03:12 GMT
I can't type unless I am looking at the keyboard and pecking with my 2 index fingers. This is very slow. I see people rattling off and not hitting wrong keys...oooh I get envious.
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Post by questa on Apr 18, 2021 23:37:58 GMT
I think Andrew is still under house arrest so there should have been a 'Presence' nearby, just for him.
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Post by questa on Apr 18, 2021 3:30:32 GMT
The older I get, the more I appreciate the monarchy...for UK, not as ruler of Australia but as the Rock on which the waves of history have crashed but has not crumbled. How can a very small island, surrounded by rough seas and enemies, survive all the hostilities and troubles and rise above them. The Monarch has no power other than "to advise" her Parliament, yet her presence sets an example, reinforces what should be done and gives courage to her people.
Out in the colonies we grew up singing God Save the King / Queen and had faded prints of the Royal Person in every classroom. Every picture theatre and football match played the National Anthem and Scouts and Guides promised to "honour" It was not a case of their monarch having a 'warm embrace,' but of simply "being there". Naturally all these relics have gone now.
I missed the coverage of the funeral and chose to not watch the flapping gums of the Windsor's and Oprah. The pageantry, as usual, was magnificent and you just know a British Monarch could never cross town in a bus and not be recognised. (post on another thread)
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Post by questa on Apr 18, 2021 1:04:41 GMT
Patrick, these are 'gorgeous, darling' I love the colour and wit of gay celebrations. Your pic of the chap with the green headgear staring at you is priceless.
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Post by questa on Apr 17, 2021 10:26:29 GMT
Thank you to all the memory recallers who kept this thread alive while I attended to other matters.
For your next assignment ... what can you remember about your family's earliest car. make, model breakdowns, road trips. Did it have a pet name? What happened to it?
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Post by questa on Apr 16, 2021 11:24:52 GMT
That's right, Harley is hares meadow, Bentley is plants bent and broken in that field. A lot can be found in the "names for baby" entries.
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Post by questa on Apr 16, 2021 7:27:46 GMT
Braithwaite is a common name here. A lee or leigh was a sheltered field...very valued so the name has many combinations...Ashley, Bentley, Harley.
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Post by questa on Apr 15, 2021 23:53:18 GMT
In a very amateur way, I love I tracing names back to possible beginnings. I have learnt that Vikings used "ing" to denote a family cluster and "ton" was the beginning of what became a town. (A "ton" was a wooden fort around the group of dwellings) Thus people knew that the chap called 'Was' led the group that have a fort, which became a town.
Washington.
When the Normans took over, the language took on De Ville and other French endings. Some crossed back to ancient usage so we get Tess Derbyfield from Tess of the D'Urbevilles. (A book that had me crying so much at the ending I couldn't read through the tears)
Chatting with a woman once, I said her surname, Whitaker, possibly meant white acre i.e. chalky soil. She laughed and said her husband's family had lived near Dover in UK for many generations, but the earth was too chalky to grow crops.
I'm no scholar but is fun to link up names.
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Post by questa on Apr 14, 2021 23:19:38 GMT
I heard but can't remember where, that it came from church stats. A few people formed a parish which may have shared a priest. Then a village had 1 or 2 priests and became a town with maybe a couple of extra churches and parishes as it grew. Then comes the cathedral which declares it is a city. I don't know where it goes next. Probably sits there waiting for a new roof and more tourists to visit.
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Post by questa on Apr 13, 2021 23:18:25 GMT
I was in Jogjakarta for the start of Ramadan one year. There they let off fireworks to mark the start and a few bangs each evening to celebrate. It was a time when the super-religious were gaining power and a few bombs had been planted just to "Remind" the faithful of their commitments. I lived near a park which had a men's toilet block in it. The cleaner went in to mop it one evening and saw a package that 'looked like a bomb' he said. He poked and prodded at it but couldn't get a clear view so he went outside and found a longer stick. He took shelter behind the open door and tried to reach around the door to poke again. KA-BOOM. He lived but lost his 'poking arm'
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Post by questa on Apr 13, 2021 22:50:12 GMT
Adelaide's isobar map yesterday looked like a drawing done by a kindergarten of kids who had drunk too much red cordial, and it turned out the weather to match. Morning was cold then the north wind hit and the temp climbed a bit. Then that system crashed into another low and we were enveloped in red and yellow dust which dropped visibility as the north and west gales danced a tango and branches fell one way then back again. Every hour or so there was a sprinkle of rain, it was about 22C until after sunset the wind eased and the temp rose to 26 and a bit more rain fell. All day everything was seen through the weird yellow light. So far today...cold, overcast, expect rain...
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Post by questa on Apr 13, 2021 9:38:18 GMT
the governor of Texas was bragging that herd immunit And I thought that the only herds in Texas were cattle
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Post by questa on Apr 12, 2021 23:19:51 GMT
So who are you left with when her hair gets long again?
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Post by questa on Apr 12, 2021 23:10:58 GMT
The good thing is that we have not yet had to use it... Except OF COURSE for your annual pre=season's TESTING
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Post by questa on Apr 12, 2021 2:04:06 GMT
They would over spray in case a spark or in case pieces of the burnt wire scattered when it hit the ground. One of the main causes of bushfires here is electrical wires swinging in the wind and arc-ing sparks which fall to the ground and ignite. All wires now have spacers to keep them apart, but the wind brings down branches to lie across the wires. Now they cut off the electricity on high fire days in such areas.
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Post by questa on Apr 12, 2021 1:53:04 GMT
If not...we are all doomed, I say...doomed!
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Post by questa on Apr 12, 2021 1:18:03 GMT
If you want to know who mucked up the Royals, look no further than that old bitch the Queen Mother. She carried hate and resentfulness all her life for her husband's early death which she blamed on the strain of being king...the fact that he smoked 40-50 cigarettes a day never got a mention. She ruled the Family and was instrumental in breaking Margaret's affair with Townshend and plotted to push Diana onto Charles. She did not allow the girls to get any education except for 'how to sit, walk etc like a lady.' It wasn't until she was Queen that Liz hired a tutor to teach her to High school levels.
It is common knowledge that the QM favoured Hitler's cause and thought him "a nice gentleman". It was she who pushed for Charles to go to Gordonstoun school. She had a circle of upper class ladies who kept her up with all the gossip and she interfered in many decisions that were made. Her hatred of the Windsors lasted to her death.
The general public loved her, perhaps she reminded them of their own grandmother, with a sweet smile. As one Writer said, "Why, she looks like somebody's little German cook!"
(No intention to be racist, size-est, nor occupation-ist)
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Post by questa on Apr 11, 2021 10:55:55 GMT
Mr Kerouac, may I introduce my friend, Mr Jung. Karl. this is the chap I was telling you about...
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