Today I learned...

[Cousin Jim Bob]

7 minutes ago, gmoney said:

It's pretty good as well. I'd rather listen to Goodnight Vienna than any Lennon solo album. 

 

It does sound nice just from a quick skim. The writing credits are insane. 

I've always found Ringo the most likeable Beatle so it's cool to discover this stuff. I think I will skip that Disco album that seems to have wrecked his solo career though.

[hallicks]

TIL, from Wikipedia: “In the 1956 Melbourne Games in Australia, local veterinary student Barry Larkin protested against the olympic torch relay when he tricked onlookers by carrying a fake flame, consisting of a pair of underpants set on fire in a plum pudding can, attached to a chair leg. He successfully managed to hand over the fake flame to the Mayor of Sydney, Pat Hills and escape without being noticed.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20080413001401/http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Temp/Temp-OlympicUnderwearRelay-EH.htm

 

[JLM]

I did not know the UK had a population of black squirrels until last week. I used to go to Formby Pinewoods as a lad to see the red squirrels there. I also see grey squirrels all the time, most days when waking my dog I’ll see some of them. I’m aware that grey squirrels are an invasive species and that they have contributed to the decline of the red ones. For over 30 years I thought that was the only UK squirrel knowledge primer I would ever need. 
 

I then visited my brother in Bedfordshire last week and exclaimed “what the FUCK just scurried across your garden?” And he goes “oh it was a black squirrel” like that’s a perfectly normal thing. 
 

Apparently a lot of them in Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, which made it even more baffling as I was born in Hertfordshire and have spent a LOT of time in both of those counties. Not only had I never seen one but I had no idea they were a thing in this country. 
 

Does everyone else already know about this? It blew my flippin’ mind. 

Edited September 5, 2024 by JLM

[Chest Rockwell]

Funny enough I was pointing out black squirrels to the kids in Canada when we were there on holiday a couple weeks ago and telling them we didn't have them back home. Turns out I am a liar and bad father. Thanks, JLM!

[JLM]

The other fun fact I learned is that black squirrels are a morph/mutation from grey ones and are similarly hardy, making them troublesome competition for red squirrels.  
 

However, the black ones we have in the UK are not thought to be morphs of the existing accidental grey population. They appear to have been imported and accidentally released separately. UK red squirrels just cannot catch a break. 

Edited September 5, 2024 by JLM

[BomberPat]

Jersey has red squirrels, and it was always a delight to see them, having been told growing up that I would probably never see one in the wild.

Though occasionally people there talk about them as a native species to be proud of, and how smart the people of Jersey were to have not allowed their native red squirrel population to be wiped out by greys. Except red squirrels aren't native to Jersey, and were only introduced there ten years after the grey squirrel was introduced to the UK.

I have a soft spot for grey squirrels too, though, it's not their fault.

[Carbomb]

TIL that tits (the bird species) are called "chickadees" or "titmice" in north America.

[HarmonicGenerator]

1 hour ago, Carbomb said:

"titmice"

 

(I didn’t know this either)

[Kaz Hayashi]

TIL (well was reminded)...

That my 65 year old work colleague was good friends with Fred Dibnah.

I'm a wood sculptor by trade, amongst other shit, and my colleague Dave taught me the ropes 4 or 5 years ago. We run a wood carving workshop in the North East, in which groups of people with additional needs, emotional difficulties etc, come along and learn to carve. We tend to make a mix of things from instruments to large animal sculptures you see in parks. It's good craic. 

Anyway, Dave and I were in his pick up truck, up in Northumberland collecting some Oak for a new project for the workshop. On the drive back we passed some tall old buildings resembling old chimney stack towers, just on the outskirts of a village called Wooler. It got me thinking, and us chatting, about the lost art of steeplejacking, and how absolutely crackers you must be to find out you were any good at it. I was about break out a couple of Fred Dibnah factoids, starting with the line, "...here Dave, can you remember the bloke Fred Dibnah?" I wasn't prepared for his response... "I went to Art college with Fred".

Naturally time stopped still at that very moment. The bloke sat next to me, who runs a workshop with me, who has just spent 2 hours with me wrestling an 8 foot lump of oak in to the back of a trailer, went to art college with Fred Dibnah.

I said.... "go on then", so he started telling about how he and his pals would pop round to Fred's gaff, and while Fred tinkered with engines, he'd pop a bucket of old oil on the floor, while Dave would dip his bike tyres in it, then take turns riding over a giant white bed sheet on the floor. They'd take breaks from making said 'art' to write poetry and sketch the engines. 

While I was trying to digest what sounded like a Friday night at Bohemian Grove, he mentioned that it was at the same time he started dabbling with Ice Carvings, full on chainsaw ice carvings. "Do you still carve Ice Dave?" I asked. He replied "not for a while now, the last one I did was a life sized Ice Carving of Alan Shearer, FOR Alan Shearer, I think it was for his birthday and he wanted to wow his guests or some bollocks".

As you can imagine I was in sensory overload by this point. Bicycle oil sheet art with Dibnah and Ice carvings for Shearer. In my dazed awe, I managed to verbalise a "What was he like?" To which Dave replied, "I couldn't be arsed to get out of the van to meet him. I rang his door bell with my 2 helpers, but I went back in the van to eat my sandwich."

As I'm sure you'll all agree, this is as good as it gets. National treasure.

[HarmonicGenerator]

This is not the first thing I’m supposed to take from that excellent story @Kaz Hayashi, but I have to defend the honour of Wooler… it might be tiny but that place is a town! A proper town! By Northumberland standards anyway. You city folk etc etc

My second takeaway is how much I’d truly love to have seen the life size ice sculpture of Alan Shearer. Was he wearing an ice Newcastle kit? Did he have one arm raised in the way he did after he scored a goal? Can you go into the ice trade and make another? 

Amazing story Kaz.

Edited September 8, 2024 by HarmonicGenerator
Alan Shearer has the same birthday as me. And Spike Dudley

[Kaz Hayashi]

59 minutes ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

This is not the first thing I’m supposed to take from that excellent story @Kaz Hayashi, but I have to defend the honour of Wooler… it might be tiny but that place is a town! A proper town! By Northumberland standards anyway. You city folk etc etc

 

My bad, I only go there to collect wood and eat insanely good home cooked food from a cafe, that's in an old converted barn with a tin roof, run by retired dinner ladies, serving food to long lost farmers and their dogs. 

Apart from the spanking new whiskey distillery, Wooler feels like it's about to enter the 90's. Lush little place. 

Also, I'm a pretend City folk, I'm just cosplaying as one, I'm from Bishop Auckland, home of the Prince Bishops and Kynren.

[Browser Brady]

Today i learned (the hard way) that you are meant to keep your shoes on during cryotherapy…

[Jazzy G]

That doesn't sound good. 

[Cousin Jim Bob]

I was googling what films American actor Michael B Jordan had been upto lately and this pops up

Quote

Jordan is also now a co-owner of English Premier League football club AFC Bournemouth.^[11]

 

That was a pretty big wait! WHAT!  Moment.

[Frankie Crisp]

Irving Rhames was given the nickname ‘Ving’ by Stanley Tucci.