A fact with a depressing history, and one that I’m sure New Yorkers already perhaps knew: the last prison ship in use by the USA is shutting down.
Meanwhile, the British government is opening them up:
(Strictly speaking it isn’t a prison. People are merely detained there.)
j
Oh, cool. Is your performance recorded anywhere? It would be interesting to see your take on the character and compare it to Olivier’s. I’m sure you nailed it.
There is a road near here called “Fields-Ertel.” Ertel was the name of a farmer, and at one time the road ended at his farm. Noone seems to know where “fields” fits in there.
Or, more simply, It’s divisible by 11 if the sum of the odd digits equals the sum of the even digits.
There are also (relatively) simple tests for division by 7 and 13.
I may have mentioned this already on the message board, but it didn’t come up when I searched this thread.
You know the old hackneyed joke:
A: It’s raining cats and dogs!
B: I know, I just stepped in a poodle.
Poodles were originally bred to assist hunters by flushing and retrieving waterfowl; the traditional grooming style was developed as a way to prevent the dog’s fur from weighing it down while in the water. The breed name comes from a Low German word puddeln, meaning “to splash”, and a cognate to the English word “puddle”.
So from an etymological perspective, B is really saying he stepped in a puddle, after all.
Maybe saying “I just stepped on a poodle” is funnier. Depends on style and context though.
The weird little poofs of hair are there to protect the muscles and keep them warm. And of course, one on top to make it pleasant to pat their little heads. LOL!
Personal factoid: I learned to walk holding onto the collar of a standard poodle named Missy.
1 - 1 !!!
I forgot about this part; thanks for mentioning it.
Of course. I’m not suggesting that the joke should be told any other way.
I learned a new word. obdurate
I can’t recall seeing it in print or heard it used until a character called Tom Selleck obdurate in Blue Bloods. The character was upset because her idea for a political ad was dismissed without discussion.
It could be useful in puzzle word games. I avoid pretentious words in everyday conversions.
You never watched the muppets ?!
That was a cute clip. I like the Muppets. I don’t remember details from the skits.
I enjoy learning new words. Hopefully I can use obdurate in the 8 character thread game.
Hah! To explain @pjd’s rather cryptic post, the FA Cup tie between Charlton Athletic and Cray Valley Paper Mills FC (post 7949 et seq) ended in a draw. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67279192
The tie will now go to a replay (which will have extra time (overtime) and penalties, if required, to produce a winner).
As an aside, this is an enormously significant result for Cray Valley Paper Mills. For a tiny side like CVPM, money is always short. I don’t know the average ticket price for the fixture, but I’ll assume, say, £20. The crowd was 6721 (tiny, but I guess a walkover was assumed, and anyway it was on telly).
That’s a gate of around £130 000, with something similar for the replay*.
The English FA requires both clubs participating in a match to split the net ticket revenue evenly through to the quarterfinals. The only time this 50-50 split changes is when a club outside the top four tiers (Premier League, Championship, League One, League Two) plays against a club hailing from those top four tiers. In that case, the split is 55-45 favoring the team outside the top four divisions.
My bold. Source.
Then there were TV fees for the game - around £50 000 per club, I believe (source). So CVPM stand to make something of the order of £200 000 - more if the second match in televised live - an eyewatering sum for a club whose average home crowd is around 150. I they were to win, there’s some prize money and the prospect of another haul in the next round.
Happy days.
j
* - I’m assuming that the second game will also be played at Charlton, by agreement between the two clubs, in order to maximize revenue (CVPM’s ground capacity is 1000). By rule, a replay should be played at the ground of the away team in the first match; but a change of venue can be negotiated.
My wife couldn’t figure out who I was going bonkers on the beach in New England following a soccer match on my phone between a third tier and eighth tier team in England.
40 years ago my mother was similarly perplexed when I was doing the same thing glued to a short wave radio in Pakistan.
Great!
Make a note - 14 Nov, 7.45 PM GMT.
j
(Someone in the bunkhouse uses an obscure, multisyllabic word)
“What in tarnation was that?!”
“There it went - it’s hiding in the corner!”
BLAM! BLAM!
John Wesley Hardin. So mean he once shot a man just for mellifluous erudition.
Jeffrey Combs, famed (to me, anyway) star of the Re-Animator films, as well as several VA credits and TV roles, has a very distinctive cold, snarky, and slimy voice, that fits his characters very well. I always assumed that it was just a slightly altered version of his real voice-but it isn’t. He actually sounds different IRL.
It was in Gilbert & Sullivan’s Tit Willow from The Mikado. That’s where I learned it.