ARCHIVES - NOVEMBER 2004 TO APRIL 2005
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AMERICANS INVADE AUSTRALIA!
Nicole Kidman and Mel Gibson are world-famous Australian actors...
but both were born in the United States. Thousands of other Americans have
settled in Oz. The Australian Society of American Descendants (ASAD) aims to
identify, document, preserve and promote awareness of the contribution of
American Australians. For this story, please click on
AMERALIANS.
0504
OGOPOGO:
CANADA'S LOCH NESS MONSTER Everyone knows about Scotland's famous Loch Ness monster, but
comparatively few people have ever heard of Canada's Ogopogo, which hundreds
of locals and visitors claim to have seen in Okanagan Lake in British Columbia,
some 250 miles east of Vancouver. Ogopogo has been described as being dark
green, 15 to 50 feet long, one to two feet wide, with a head like that of a
horse or goat with a beard. Truth or fiction? Decide for yourself, after
clicking on OGOPOGO. 0504
WEIRD
AND WONDERFUL LETTERBOXES/MAILBOXES Twenty-five strange and funny letterboxes formed one
of the most popular exhibits at Sydney's Royal Easter Show last month. They were
the pick of 68 entries in The Great Australian Letterbox Competition, which
included replicas of flying pigs and rockets, golf clubs and an emu. For
details and photos of laughable letterboxes and mirth making mailboxes around
the world, click on WEIRD AND WONDERFUL.
0504
PRINCE
CHARLES DOWN UNDER Charles, Prince of Wales, the soon-to-be married (again) heir to the
British throne, who may or may not become King of Australia one day, made
headlines around the world when he said in Melbourne on March 3, "Gradually, as
the actress said to the bishop, it all became too big for me." The language was
fruitier and the jokes a little more risqué, Caroline Davies reported.
Royalists and Republicans can read more about this incident by clicking on
RISQUE. 0504
I
LIKE BEING OLDER! A friend in Florida sent us a delightful essay by an anonymous
author, which many over-50s are sending to friends everywhere. If you know who
wrote it, please let us know so that we can give him a well-deserved byline. His
remarks express our own sentiments, except that we octogenarians would revise
the sentence "I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 50s &
60s" to read "I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 30s and
40s." Anyone over 50 (and perhaps under-50s as well) should read this
consoling ESSAY. 0504
FOUR
DOTS IN Ajijic When world traveller Norm Gillespie, in Ajijic (pronounced ah-hee-HEEK), Mexico,
posted a message on our GuestMap, we emailed him, commenting on the four
successive dots in
the town's name. He said he made home movies of his travels, in which the
opening credit was A Four Dots Production. "Are there four dots over any
other place name?" he asked. Find the answer by clicking on
FOUR DOTS. 0504
THE LONG ARM OF THE WEB At home in Boorowa, a small town in the New South Wales outback, Andrew
Pritchard was checking out a live image webcam half-way around the world, in
Devon, England, when he spotted two people acting suspiciously. Quick as a
flash, he made a long-distance phone call to the Devon police. A few minutes
later, still watching the action through the webcam, he saw two patrol cars pull
up and.... To read what happened next, click on
BBC. 0504
MARCH
FEEDBACK We've received stacks of interesting feedback about our March issue,
notably Popular Piccolo Player Performs in Palo Alto, A Lot of Hot Air and
Read the Taos Daily & Horsefly! To see these and other contributions, click on
FEEDBACK. 0504
KILOMETRE-HIGH SOLAR TOWER PLANNED FOR OZ
If all goes to plan, a solar tower a mind-boggling one kilometre
(3280 feet) high - nearly twice the height of the world's tallest building -
will be built in a remote part of Australia appropriately named Sunraysia, by
the end of 2010. Cynics scoff at the idea, saying they'll believe it when they
see it. To read about this ambitious plan, click on
SOLAR TOWER. 0503
WEASELS
AND WEASELWORDS The internet is full of pleasant surprises. Searching for Don
Watson's Australian weaselwords website to read about his war against
bureaucratic jargon, we tapped in "weaselwords.com", only to find it's an
American website devoted not to fuzzy words but to small furry animals called
ferrets. To read more about ferrets and words, click on
WEASELWORDS. 0503
WANTED:
PACIFIC RADIO MEMORABILIA David Ricquish and the New Zealand based non-profit organisation, the
Radio Heritage Foundation, have embarked on a gigantic task. They plan to
collect and publish on the internet, details of every one of thousands of radio
stations, past and present, that have broadcast in the wider Pacific region from
the 1890s to the present day. For details, click on
RADIO HERITAGE. 0503
NEWSPAPER
IS ACTUALLY NAMED THE FISHWRAPPER Newspapers around the world are often contemptuously called
fishwrappers, the suggestion being that that's all they're fit for. Now we have
discovered a newspaper that proudly flaunts the name The Fishwrapper on
its masthead. To read about it, click on
FISHWRAPPER. 0503
HORSE
MILK "GIFT FROM HEAVEN" Before long, many people may be drinking milk from horses (more
precisely, from mares) instead of from cows. Horse milk is rapidly winning
converts in several European countries. It's rich in vitamins and minerals, is
easily digested, and contains only 1.5 per cent fat, compared with 3.7 per cent
for cows' milk. To read about this, click on
HORSE MILK. 0503
MESSAGES
FROM MANY LANDS "I've been inspired! Tired, retired, almost expired, and now
inspired!" That's the message posted on our GuestMap by Mary Thorman, of Costa
Rica. Other messages last month came from South Korea, India, Kuwait, Ireland,
South Africa, China, Greece, United States, Canada, United Kingdom and
Australia. To read them, please click on our
GUESTMAP.
0503
NIGERIAN
EMAIL SCAMMERS SCAMMED A clever English "scambaiter" and his quickwitted colleagues have
turned the tables on some of those obnoxious Nigerian email scammers, by conning
them in the same way that the conmen trick thousands of gullible victims. Their
strings of messages, posted on the internet, are hilarious. In a classic case of
man bites dog, the head baiter, Mike, claims to have tricked six different "419"
email scammers into paying out amounts totalling more than $US1200. Anyone
who's fed up with receiving spam from Nigeria (and elsewhere) should read this
story, by clicking on SCAMBAITER. 0502
SLAP
MY ASS AND CALL ME SALLY! We burst out laughing when we read that wonderful phrase in an email
from our friend Rocky Rodenbach, of Tampa, Florida, the other day. Slap my
ass and call me Sally!, he said, was a common expression in his neck of the
woods. An internet search revealed further details about Sally. To check them
out, click on SMAC. 0502
SILHOUETTE
MEN IN OZ AND US Two gifted Scissorhands, one in Sydney (Australia), the other in
Tennessee (US), both call themselves The Silhouette Man. They are keeping alive
the ancient art of cutting black paper silhouettes of people's faces. Many of
their superb portraits can be seen on the internet. Silhouettes were the most
popular means of capturing a likeness until the camera was invented. For
further details, click on SILHOUETTES.
0502
FAREWELL,
DOLLY DYER Senior Australians were saddened to learn that Dolly Dyer, a
much-loved star of radio and early black-and-white television, died from a
stroke on Christmas Day, aged 84. For my wife and me it was a personal loss, as
50 years ago Dolly and her famous American-born husband Bob Dyer were our
friends. As public relations officer for the oil company sponsoring their
national show, BP Pick-a-Box, I was closely associated with them for
several years. For this story, please click on
BOB AND DOLLY. 0502
WILD
WEST'S WEEKLY ALIBI Here's an amusing story by US newspaperman TV Hagenah, who shares our
interest in the many odd names given to newspapers. To read about the Weekly Alibi
and the Truth and Consequences Herald, click on
WILD WEST. 0502
MESSAGES
FROM AROUND THE WORLD The World's First Multi-National e-Book lived up to its name
last month, proving to be truly global. Successive messages in our GuestMap came
from visitors in Lithuania, Belgium, India, Canada, USA, Scotland, Canada,
India, Hawaii, USA (with an Afghan flag), and France. Earlier in January we
heard from readers in Iran, Poland, Mexico and Australia. To read these
messages, click on FEEDBACK.
0502
BBC'S
REVOLVING DOOR Being preoccupied on Christmas Eve, we missed hearing or reading
about a helpful BBC directive to its staff, on how to cope with revolving doors.
Even at this late stage, the report is well worth reading. Just click on
REVOLVING DOORS.
0502
NAME
AND SHAME IS A WORLDWIDE GAME Have you noticed how Naming and Shaming is the latest craze sweeping
around the world? In olden days, law-abiding citizens imprisoned reprobates in
stocks and hurled eggs and verbal abuse at them.. Today, Laura Norder supporters
punish mischief-makers and evildoers with Name and Shame ridicule. To read
this story, click on NAME AND SHAME. 0501
PREACHER'S
DONKEY WAS A HORSE 60 YEARS AGO The hilarious story The Preacher's Donkey is a classic example of an anecdote that has improved with age.
Thanks to expert advice from Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics,
Indiana University, we've traced its origin back to the 1930s or 1940s, when
famous US radio comedan Bob "Bazooka" Burns recounted a similar tale about a
horse instead of a donkey, to a nationwide audience. To read how Burns's
horse developed longer ears over the years, click on
THE PREACHER'S HORSE. 0501
BLOODSUCKING LEECHES REGAIN POPULARITY
Leeches, those small, slithery black worms that cling to your feet
and legs and suck your blood if you venture into their territory, are making a
medical comeback. They're being widely used to prevent veins from clotting after
skin grafts, reconstructive surgery or amputation. To read about this
development, click on LEECHES. 0501
SADDAM
LONG WAY FROM OZ Etta Long, who won a prize in a Shaggy Dog contest two years ago, is
now serving with an Australian unit in Baghdad. Etta sent us this parody based
on Irving Berlin's famous White Christmas, which we have compared with
the original version. To read the two versions, click on
ETTA LONG. 0501
NEWTS,
LIKE PARROTS, GET SQUIFFY In spite of some 70 years of familiarity with slang and colourful,
often crude, expressions, I have never heard 'pissed as a parrot' before, though
'pissed as a newt' was in common use in my distant student days. - Dr Hugh de Glanville,
a member of the Queen's English Society,
commenting on last month's story about intoxicated parrots. To discover how
cute newts behave like pickled parrots, click on
NEWTS. 0501
...TO
TALK OF SEALING-WAX Having already written about shoes, ships, cabbages and kings, we
felt obliged to pen a story about sealing-wax. You rarely see a wax-sealed
letter these days, but you may spot wax seals on professional certificates
proudly displayed in doctors' and dentists' waiting rooms. And they're sometimes
used to decorate formal wedding invitations. For more on this topic, click on
SEALING-WAX. 0501
CHICAGO
TOO IS FOND OF FALCONS A story in our November issue, Peregrine Falcons Love High
Buildings, told how the world's fastest birds nest in tall buildings in
Brisbane (Australia) and in the US cities of New York, Columbus Ohio, Harrisburg
Pennsylvania, Atlanta Georgia, and elsewhere. "I was a little miffed to see that
Chicago was excluded from your list," Richard Hugunine told us by email.
"Chicago did, after all, give birth to the skyscraper." To read about the
Windy City's falcons, click on CHICAGO. 0501
E-BOOK
FOR SENIOR CITIZENS ACHIEVES AIM Just four years ago, a retired Australian journalist and a South
African webmaster launched The World's First Multi-National e-Book, Life
Begins at 80... on the Internet, in a bid to encourage senior citizens
around the world "to ride the magic carpet of the internet." Starting from a
modest readership of a few dozen, our virtual visitors now number many
thousands. Lecturers and senior citizen advisers recommend the book to their
students. - To see a selection of readers' messages, click on
FOURTH BIRTHDAY. 0412
FOOD
CRITICS HATE BEING CRITICISED Food critics the world over often write ruthless reviews, but when
one of their victims hits back, they squeal like stuck pigs (and that's a
particularly appropriate phrase, if the allegations are correct). In the UK, a
vicious but at times hilarious war of words began when restaurant critic
Matthew Norman described the up-market restaurant Shepherds as "the eighth
circle of hell", "among the very worst restaurants in Christendom" serving
"meals of crescendoing monstrosity." For the rest of this story, click on
CRITICS. 0412
HOW
PARROTS GET (ahem) PISSED We've discovered at last how that colourful phrase "pissed as a
parrot" originated. For years, we'd wondered why humans under the
affluence of inkohol are sometimes said to act like parrots. If that pee word
offends you, then read no further. Otherwise click on
TIPSY PARROTS. 0412
FROM
HILLBILLY ZEB IN TEXAS TO A SOLDIER FROM EROMANGA It's not often that a story makes us laugh out loud, but this one
did. It was so amusing that we set out to find the name of its author. To our
surprise, we found different versions of the same story on dozens of US and
Irish websites. It gradually improved with age. Compare three versions, by
clicking on ZEB. 0412
COOKIE
ANDERSON'S 53,000 PEACE CRANES In a unique 30-year bid to promote world peace, Cookie Anderson has
fashioned 53,000 origami peace cranes by painstakingly folding squares of
colored paper. Her achievement is particularly praiseworthy since Cookie, who
lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (US), suffers from the effects of polio and a car
accident, and looks after her 92-year-old mother. For details, click on
PEACE! 0412
PAT
SOLLEY'S EXALTATION OF SOUPS Of the many thousands of food writers crowding the Internet, Pat
Solley is probably the wittiest, we wrote in 2001. The good news
is that Pat has written a book, An Exaltation of Soups : The
Soul-Satisfying Story of Soup, As Told in More Than 100 Recipes, which will become available on December 28 - too late for
Christmas, but it would make a souper New Year gift. To read more
about Pat and her book, click on
EXALTATION.
0412
MARY
POPPINS: AMERICAN REALITY VERSION Stella Reid, a 40-year-old British-trained nanny who has worked in
the US for the last 15 years, is one of three nannies who will appear in the
popular US TV show, Nanny 911, this season. Although dressed like Mary
Poppins, her actions are nothing like those of the beloved Mary Poppins
described in last month's e-book. The reality show depicts methods of dealing
with unruly children. To read an interview with Stella Reid, click on
JACKSONVILLE DAILY NEWS.
0412
THREE
MORE NOTABLE NONAGENARIANS Senior citizens may like to read about two of
Sydney's nimble nonagenarians. At 93, Dorothy de Low flew to Japan in May to
compete in the 12th World Veterans' Table Tennis Championships (click on
DOROTHY). And Nancy Phelan (91) has won a prestigious literary award
(click on
NANCY). And in California, Emeryville's New College held a party on
November 29 to mark the 97th birthday of Thomas C Fleming, doyen of black
journalists, and named its library in his honor. You can read about it in the
OAKLAND TRIBUNE.
0412
RACING
SHEEP AMBLE IN EMMAVILLE, BOLT IN BIDEFORD Champion racehorses burst from their starting boxes and charge
towards the finish line, eager to win. Racing sheep, by contrast, usually prefer
to amble. That's why horse races are more popular than sheep races. But an
English farmer claims one of his racing rams established a world record by
covering a 220-yard course (which included a "ewe-turn") in just 17 seconds.
To read about these tardy and speedy animals, click on
SHEEP RACING.
0411
MARY POPPINS:
THREE STATUES In what country was the author of one of the world's most-loved
children's books, Mary Poppins, born? Since it tells the story of a
London nanny, most people would promptly reply "England." But they'd be wrong.
The book, published in 1934, shows the author's name as P L Travers, but her
earlier name was Helen Lyndon Goff, and she was born on August 9, 1899, in an
upstairs room of a stately bank building in Maryborough, Queensland (Australia).
To read the story, click on Mary
Poppins. 0411
PEREGRINE
FALCONS LOVE HIGH BUILDINGS Birdlovers around the world are enjoying frequent visits to a website
in Brisbane, Australia's third-largest city, to see live camera shots of four
peregrine falcon chicks, whose nest is on the roof of one of the city's most
prestigious high-rise apartment buildings. In the United States, peregrine
falcons' nests have been found on skyscrapers in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
Georgia and elsewhere. For this story, click on
FALCONS. 0411
SLOW
CITIES SAY IT'S THE WAY TO GO We've heard of small towns in Australia and America where the most
exciting thing you can do is watch wet paint dry in the sun, but none of those
places wants to be proclaimed a Slow City. Yet dozens of towns in Italy and
others in Great Britain, Germany, Greece, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden. Japan and
Brazil are seeking that honour. Read about this valiant bid aimed at
improving the quality of life, by clicking on
CITTASLOW. 0411
WHO
WROTE THE PREACHER'S DONKEY? Does anyone know the name of the author of the hilarious story
The
Preacher's Donkey? It's posted on dozens of fun and joke websites, but none
of them discloses its origin. Compare these two versions by clicking on
CHRISTIAN
and
MUSLIM. 0411
HOW
THE EGG WAR ENDED George Bisbee, organiser of a planned re-enactment of an 1825 egg war
in Egg Harbor, Wisconsin, scheduled for October 2 (see last month's story),
sportingly offered himself as a target for disappointed spectators after the war
was called off. Because of atrocious weather, the planned sea battle had to be
abandoned in favor of a land battle, then some of the rival teams chickened out.
So George handed out 500 eggs to the crowd, donned protective clothing, and
invited them to take pot-shots at him. See George with egg on his face by
clicking HERE, and then read a
story by Sean Schultz in the
Green Bay Press-Gazette. 0411
FLYING
PHIL IN SOUTH AFRICA Flying Phil Rabinowitz, the world's speediest centenarian, who
divides his time between Australia and South Africa, was one of 56,000
participants in Sydney's annual City to Surf fun run in August, as we reported
in our September edition. For an encore, Phil and some of his children and
grandchildren took part in the Cape Times FNB Big Walk
in South Africa last month. The newspaper says the annual event attracts 25,000
contestants, "large and small, young and old, pale-skinned and dark, rich and
poor." For the full report, click on
CAPE TIMES. 0411
LOVABLY
CRANKY OLD CODGERS "If I have to get old, I want to be like the codgers I know -
politically incorrect and lovably cranky," says US humorist Gerald Nachman. "At
sixtysomething, I am rapidly approaching Codgerville, where suddenly - and
alarmingly - I feel almost at home." Senior citizens will enjoy reading this
story from the October 11 issue of
NEWSWEEK. 0411
All above articles copyright © 2004-5. Eric
Shackle
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