Off Topic The "Discuss Anything Else" Thread

Some interesting history.

 

Very very interesting. Thank you!

 

How unlucky was this poor bloke? A Brit backpacker who was working on a trawler has become the first person in Australian history to die from a sea snake bite. R.I.P.

https://www.news.com.au/travel/trav...s/news-story/f413f687ac2082524a75a912a28686f6

 

If you do not recognise her, this is the new Doctor Who, Jodie Whittaker, with her Yorkshire accent:

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I hope her American husband knows how to find her home town because it would appear that whoever does subtitles on CBS television is going to struggle. She should have told them she actually comes from Skelmanthorpe, a village halfway to Barnsley.
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Heard her on the wireless last night; she was a scream!

I only watch when the Cybermen are on.

 

TV advertising is really struggling these days...

In that advert for a major building society with the young couple in the photo booth, the girl says that he snores like a rhino. How does she know? Has she ever slept with a rhino or been in the presence of one while it slept?

In an advert for that famous blue pill, the choice of music – Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel “Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)” – is amusing as we watch the guy descending the stairs with a grin like the Cheshire Cat. He then greets a beautiful woman who is presumably his wife or partner. So who was upstairs? The au pair? The housekeeper? The daughter?

 

I have to admit to finding the young lady in the photo booth a touch enticing!

 

Animal Heroes, 2016:

 

Why you have (probably) already bought your last car

Somebody tell Justin Rowlatt that they are living in a fantasy world.

Thinking about it, I could not recollect anybody that I know owning a hybrid let alone a battery-powered car; and I am sure that some people that I know will buy a new car in the next couple of years – dealership forecourts are full of them and pubs are closing faster than petrol stations.

I will never buy a battery-powered car. How is the salesman going to convince me that after spending fortunes to continually recharge the battery (no power point currently in my garage, so cost of electrician at outset), I will have to shell out a few thousand pounds for a new set of batteries when the first set expire?

Tesla will probably have gone to the wall long before battery-powered cars become mainstream. The renowned short-trader Evil Knievil (aka Simon Cawkwell) has a long running short on them that he could cash out now for a huge profit but he is waiting until Musk’s project goes down to zero.

The idea of driverless cars has got a very short lifetime – almost as short as the person who was killed not long ago when their driverless car crashed. Nobody is going to trust driverless cars.

It is easy to see how the concept of the ‘Boris Bike’ worked in London (large metropolis) but how many driverless cars are there going to be parked along Station Road, A.N.Other Village at 3am Saturday morning when Fred Bloggs needs to take Freda to the local maternity hospital?

There is no logic to his conclusion “think of the hundreds of billions of dollars consumers will save, and which can now be spent elsewhere in the economy”. With people not needing that money it will be factored in to a stagnation of wage growth over a period of time and there is an assumption here that people have something else that they want to spend the money on. According to a survey a third of the under-25s do not drink so they will not be down the pub earlier – boring young ‘snowflakes’ – but saving for their mortgage whilst living at home with their folks.

 

Ashers 'gay cake' row: Bakers win Supreme Court appeal

What a waste of court time and public money this has been. The judge in the original case should be struck off for failing to apply commonsense. And what was going on at the Appeals Court? And the Equality Commission of Northern Ireland?

Anybody running a business is perfectly entitled to decide on whatever moral or ethical grounds they have whether or not to serve any potential customer. It was not the actual customer that the bakery objected to but the slogan that was requested on the cake. More political correctness gone mad...

 

Certainly agree there, and made to pay the bill for the case going all the way to the Supreme Court?

 

Paloma Faith: 'Theresa May is criticised all the time because she's a woman'

Ms Faith demonstrating why us old world men have such a problem with feminists.

It would seem that every time a woman does something badly, there is some famous feminist along a few days later to claim that the criticism is because she is a woman.

Of May, according to Faith, “She is criticised all the time because she’s female”. The reality is that actually May is criticised because she is doing a rubbish job. If it were Tony Blair, we would still be saying that he was doing a rubbish job even though he would still be grinning inanely as he always did.

May’s robotic dancing at the Tory conference was criticised not because she is a woman but because most dad’s could dance better than that to Dancing Queen after a couple of beers at the Xmas party. Jean Claude Juncker’s shimmy at the lectern in Brussels the other day did not get mocked much in the British media because no-one was paying much attention except on Twitter.

I do not think that The Donald would have been holding a man’s hand on the steps at the White House, Paloma. This is nothing to do with gender equality, so back to making music...

Why are only 17 per cent of the most influential artists in music female? Is it not possible that this is because most females tend to buy music by male artists? That is the same as it has always been – would The Beatles have been so successful had they been The Spice Girls? Girl power was a thing of the 90s. When The Beatles landed at an airport it was not crowds of men screaming at them. I am pretty sure that The Spice Girls did not have crowds of men screaming at them either. Does Ed Sheeran sell more records that you, Paloma? Historically, you will find that women have always bought more records than men.

 

The secret joys of schadenfreude

I am sure that somebody will find amusement in this article from The Observer.

 

Ppssssttt, wanna steal a tug boat? Here's how.

 

Some breaking news from Germany "A 'hostage situation' at Cologne railway station":

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-hostage-situation-at-cologne-train-station/a-45893296

Hope BayernKenny is taking care of himself and is well out of the way of this.

Update: It appears there was just the one hostage, a teenager, who has been freed by the police. No further details as yet.

 

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has passed away aged 65.

In 1982 he successfully fought off Hodgkin's Lymphoma only to see non - Hodgkin's Lymphoma hit him in 2009. Again he was successfully treated, but this year saw the return of his cancer.

R.I.P. Paul Gardner Allen.

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Think it was non-specific Lymphoma the last time, Cyc.

R.I.P. Paul Allen

 

Trump really is very silly. It seems that when he has no public engagements he resorts to his usual tirades on Twitter with insults to all and sundry. One of the first recipients was of course, Stormy Daniels. Instead of remaining quiet, and being thankful that the judge had thrown out the Stormy Daniels lawsuit against him, no, he had to call her "Horseface". Didn't work, Stormy came right back with, "Game on, Tiny!"

She knows, I guess!

 

The Onion really know how to take the piss.

https://www.theonion.com/saudis-admit-journalist-khashoggi-died-during-botched-a-1829787419

 

Dear old pals!
Jolly old pals!
Always together
In all kinds of weather
Rain or snow,
Or forty below,
Give me for friendship
My jolly old pals!