I bet you didnt know that

Wossack

the purple tin wrote: »

Whatever the reason I'm glad Foreman got it instead of that annoying pumped up twat Hogan.

according to wikipedia, Hogan endorsed the 'Hulkamania Meatball Maker' instead of the grill :pac:

VW 1

Kat1170 wrote: »

We all know only two things ever came out of Wexford.

Strawberries and ........... :eek::eek::D

The 96 hurling team?

Floki

Kat1170 wrote: »

We all know only two things ever came out of Wexford.

Strawberries and ........... :eek::eek::D

JFK's ancestors.:)

py2006

Floki wrote: »

Elvis Presley's ancestors were Palatines (German) who settled in the Tintern area of Co.Wexford in the early 1700's. The name then was Presler. They moved up to Carlow for a short while before emigrating to America. It became Presley on emigration.

Great things come out of Wexford.:)

Presley is a Scottish name surely?

Floki

py2006 wrote: »

Presley is a Scottish name surely?

They probably changed it to sound more Anglo/English on emigrating or maybe it was just a slip of a pen.
There was an author talking about a book he published on the Palatines in co.Wexford on southeast radio this morning and he said when they came in here it was Presler.

RiderOnTheStorm

Kat1170 wrote:

We all know only two things ever came out of Wexford.

Kat1170 wrote:

Strawberries and ...........

..... roundabouts?

mzungu

The NYPD doesn’t actually have a choir, but it does have an Irish pipe band who are featured in the Fairytale of New York music video. They didn’t know ‘Galway Bay’, so they played the ‘Mickey Mouse Club March’ instead, and the video was later slowed down to fit the beat.

cdeb

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Some of the poetry was also graphic. This is the first line from a poem - Carmen 16 - by Catullus:

Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo

Google translate won't do it justice.

Just to return to the topic of dirty ancient poetry - the Romans were far from the only ones at it.

Geoffrey Chaucer, renowned as the Father of English Literature, has the honour of being the first known person to use the word "cúnt". It's in the Miller's Tale -

And prively he caughte her by the queynte

"Privily" means "intimately"; it's basically 14th century flirting.

The Miller's Tale is fantastic; it's a love square (not triangle) in which a young woman, Alison, who's around 20, is married to an older man but falls for the Cambridge student, Nicholas, they are putting up (the guy who prively caughte her by the queynte). But along comes another suitor, Absolon, who agrees to call to her window in the dead of night, lured by the promise of a kiss. When he calls, though, Nicholas and Alison are in bed together (the actual husband is out of town on business), and they decide to have some fun with Absolon.

(In this, é is not the é of Irish, but just an extra syllable instead of a silent e; think "Papa Homer, you are so learnéd" "Learned...it's pronounced learned".
There should be ten beats per line, with stress on each second one - a little hard when trying to make the words recognisable in modern English)

"Then make ready," quoth she, "I come anon."
And unto Nicholas she saidé still [quietly],
"Now hush, and thou shalt laughen all thy fill."
This Absolon down set him on his knees
And said, "I am a lord at all degrees [in every way];
For after this I hope there cometh more.
Sweetheart, thy grace, and sweet bird, thine oore! [mercy]"
The window she opens, and that in haste.
"Have do," quoth she, "come on, and speed the faste [hurry up],
Lest that our neighbours thee espy."
This Absolon 'gan wipe his mouth full dry.
Dark was the night as pitch, or as the coal,
And at the window out she put her hole,
And Absolon, him fil no bet nor worse [it happened him no better or worse],
But with his mouth he kissed her naked arse
Full savourly, 'ere he were 'ware of this.
Aback he started, thought it was amiss,
For well he knew a woman hath no beard.
He felt a thing all rough and long yherd [long-haired],
And saidé, "Fie! Alas! what have I do?"
"Teehee!" quoth she, and clapped the window to,
And Absolon goes forth a sorry pas. [walks off sadly]

So Absolon heads back home and plots his revenge. He calls back the next night, playing dumb, innocently pretending for a second kiss...but this time he's armed with a red-hot poker.

This Alison answeréd, "Who is there
That knocketh so? I warrant it a thief."
"Why, nay," quoth he, "God knows, my sweeté love,
I am thine Absolon, my darreling [darling].
Of gold," quoth he, "I have thee brought a ring.
My mother gave it me, so God me save;
Full fine it is, and also well engraved.
This will I give thee, if thou me kiss."

This Nicholas was risen for to piss,
And thought he would amenden [improve] all the jape;
He shouldé kiss his arse 'ere that he 'scape.
And up the window did he hastily,
And out his arse he putteth quietly
Over the buttock, to the haunche-bone [thigh];
And therewith spoke this clerk, this Absolon,
"Speak, sweet bird, I know not where thou art."
This Nicholas anon [immediately] let fly a fart
As great as it had been a thunder-dent [bolt],
That with the stroke he was almost yblent [blinded];
And he was ready with his iron hot,
And Nicholas amid the arse he smote.
Of goeth the skin a hande-breadth about,
The hoté kultour [hot blade] burnéd so his toute [arse],
And for the pain he wendé [thought] for to die.
As he were wood [crazy], for woe he 'gan to cry,
"Help! Water! Water! Help, for Goddés heart!"

The Reeve's Tale is similarly brilliant; I won't take up the entire forum with it, but it contains the lines -

As I have thricé in this shorté night
Screwed the miller's daughter bolt upright [flat on her back]

Part of the punchline of the tale is that the miller is actually asleep in the same room at the time.

A later example is the work of Sir John Mennes and James Smith. The former was Comptroller of the British Navy and Samuel Pepys' boss; the latter was an Archdeacon. Between them, they wrote a whole book of poetry, which includes a two-line poem about a fart from the fart's view ("Reader, I was born and cried/Cracked so, smelled so, and so died"), a poem about a man taking a shít, a poem about getting sick on bad sherry (or just maybe it was just too much sherry!) down the pub, and Upon a Fart Unluckily Let, two extracts from which follow -

Well Madam, well, the fart you put upon me
Hath in this kingdom almost quite undone me.
Many a boisterous storm and bitter gust
Have I endured by sea, and more I must:
But of all storms by land, to me 'tis true,
This is the foulest blast that ever blew.
Not that it can so much impair my credit,
For that I dare pronounce - 'twas I, that did it.

I never held it such a heinous crime,
A fart was lucky held, in former time;
A fox of old, being destitute of food,
Farted, and said, this news must needs be good,
I shall have food, I know, without delay,
Mine arse doth sing so merrily to day;

There's something fascinating about poems like this - it doesn't matter how good (or otherwise) they are; it's just the idea that here's some people from hundreds of years ago that you could see yourself having good craic down the pub with.

Are Am Eye

Fair play to them down there in wexford. Fr Murphy and a few thousand lads with pikes. And all that.


....Back in the days of the Roman Empire there was a popular religion/cult - Mithraism. If circumstances had of been just a little different it could have become the mainstream religion of europe instead of christianity.
However it got particularly popular in the military and the Roman Legions embraced it whole scale. Now mithraism was an off shoot of Zoroastrianism religions in Persia (a great enemy and competitor of Rome) Emperor Constantine the Great did not like the idea of his army converting to Persia's state religion. He ended the outlawing of the christianity religion/cult and started to promote it along side traditional Roman gods. Persecution of christians ceased. This was a crossroads where christianity may have been on the road to dying out to a slow process towards encompassing all europe.

py2006

Currently the Catholic Church can bypass employment laws to appoint priests and nuns as teachers and principles in state schools. This means they can ignore advertising and the interview process. (vetting?)

However, this looks set to end in the near future.

loyatemu

py2006 wrote: »

Currently the Catholic Church can bypass employment laws to appoint priests and nuns as teachers and principles in state schools. This means they can ignore advertising and the interview process. (vetting?)

However, this looks set to end in the near future.

there can't be that many priests/nuns/brothers still teaching anyway at this stage.

the purple tin

Scientists caught and studied a shark in Greenland. They reckon it could have been born as early as 1505.
On land, Jonathan the giant tortoise who lives in Saint Helena is 186 years old.

VW 1

the purple tin wrote: »

Scientists caught and studied a shark in Greenland. They reckon it could have been born as early as 1505.
On land, Jonathan the giant tortoise who lives in Saint Helena is 186 years old.

Any more detail on the type of shark or how they estimated age? Fascinating if true..

ohnonotgmail

VW 1 wrote: »

Any more detail on the type of shark or how they estimated age? Fascinating if true..

perhaps they cut it open and counted the rings?

the purple tin

VW 1 wrote: »

Any more detail on the type of shark or how they estimated age? Fascinating if true..

It's a Greenland Shark, here's more https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/11/400-year-old-greenland-shark-is-the-oldest-vertebrate-animal

https://inhabitat.com/512-year-old-greenland-shark-may-be-the-oldest-living-vertebrate-on-earth/

py2006

loyatemu wrote: »

there can't be that many priests/nuns/brothers still teaching anyway at this stage.

That's not the point.

Realt Dearg Sec

VW 1 wrote: »

the purple tin wrote: »

Scientists caught and studied a shark in Greenland. They reckon it could have been born as early as 1505.
On land, Jonathan the giant tortoise who lives in Saint Helena is 186 years old.

Any more detail on the type of shark or how they estimated age? Fascinating if true..

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_shark

Really interesting animal, their meat is toxic but Icelanders have a method for reducing it's toxicity to make it edible.

mzungu

VW 1 wrote: »

Any more detail on the type of shark or how they estimated age? Fascinating if true..

According to this article it can potentially reach 512 years old, but they were at least 272 years old, which is still fairly impressive.

Headlines circulating on the internet today (Dec. 14) breathlessly described the discovery of a 512-year-old shark — but they're a little off the mark.

The creature in question — a Greenland shark — does, in fact, live to be several centuries old, according to a study that was published in August 2016 in the journal Science, and which was referenced in the news coverage.

But the researchers' analysis of 28 female Greenland sharks did not identify one of them as over 500 years old. Eye tissue analysis presented a probability range suggesting that the sharks were at least 272 years old, and could potentially be as much as 512 years old, Live Science previously reported. [Extreme Life on Earth: 8 Bizarre Creatures]

Greenland sharks (Somniosus microcephalus) are native to the Arctic and North Atlantic, and can grow to be up to 24 feet (7 meters) long and weigh up to 2,645 pounds (1,200 kilograms), according to the Greenland Shark and Elasmobranch Education and Research Group (GEERG). They are slow-moving fish, cruising at about 1 foot per second (0.3 meters/second), and reaching depths of 9,101 feet (2,774 m), GEERG reported.

For some shark species, scientists use bony structures such as calcified vertebrae to track their age, reading rings that form in the hardened tissue as the shark ages. But Greenland sharks are "soft sharks" whose vertebrae don't harden enough to form telltale age markers, so scientists needed a new method to determine how old the sharks were, Julius Nielsen, author of the 2016 study about the sharks, told Live Science that year.

The scientists used radiocarbon dating to measure carbon isotopes absorbed by Greenland sharks' eye tissue, working with sharks that were captured as bycatch, the study authors reported.

The tissue gave them a range for the sharks' ages — they were at least 272 years old, and as much as 512 years old. The two biggest sharks — and probably the oldest — were estimated to be 335 and 392 years old, respectively. And the midpoint of the range — "the most likely single-year age in the 272- to 512-year range" — was 390 years, Nielsen told Live Science. [Photos: The World's Oldest Living Things]
"It's important to keep in mind there's some uncertainty with this estimate," Nielsen said. "But even the lowest part of the age range — at least 272 years — still makes Greenland sharks the longest-living vertebrate known to science."

As long-lived as they may be, Greenland sharks don't even come close to the longevity of hydra — freshwater polyps. These unassuming-looking invertebrates continuously regenerate their own cells, and are thought to be able to live forever under the right conditions.

Creatures that swim the ocean depths are notoriously difficult to observe in their natural habitat, and there is still much to be learned about many species that have been known to science for decades — and Greenland sharks are no exception, Nielsen told Live Science in 2016.

"Almost all of their biology is a mystery," he said.

Original article on Live Science.


Link: https://www.livescience.com/61210-shark-not-512-years-old.html

Oldtree

mzungu wrote: »

According to this article it can potentially reach 512 years old, but they were at least 272 years old, which is still fairly impressive.

Well it looks like those sharks won't be getting much older then, or were their eyeballs returned after samples were taken? Reminds me of a tree story

Professor Moriarty

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_shark

Really interesting animal, their meat is toxic but Icelanders have a method for reducing it's toxicity to make it edible.

I wonder how the Icelanders figured that out.

Realt Dearg Sec

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_shark

Really interesting animal, their meat is toxic but Icelanders have a method for reducing it's toxicity to make it edible.

I wonder how the Icelanders figured that out.

Trial and extremely costly error.

Professor Moriarty

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

Trial and extremely costly error.

That's what I was thinking. Lots of "you go first" and "after you".

the purple tin

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

That's what I was thinking. Lots of "you go first" and "after you".

Invite the mother in law over for dinner :pac:

Capt'n Midnight

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

I wonder how the Icelanders figured that out.

Same way they lots of these things start, in the past there were times when people would have starved to death if they hadn't tried a little culinary adventuring.

There's any number of different milk fermentations from cheese to alcoholic drinks.


For Surströmming the legend goes that Swedish sailors who failed to preserve their fish because of lack of salt ended up selling the rotten fish to islanders. And when they returned the following year they were shocked when the islanders went "do you have any more ?"

Normally when a tin of meat bulges you throw it away , for Surströmming that just means it's getting there.

Also
This is Kiviak, a traditional winter foodstuff consumed by Greenlandic Inuits. It may look like a seal's carcass stuffed with whole, fermented birds because, well, it is.

EndaHonesty

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_shark

Really interesting animal, their meat is toxic but Icelanders have a method for reducing it's toxicity to make it edible.

Do the Icelandic people really eat these ancient, rarely reproducing sharks.

Is that what they make that putrid fermented shark meat snack out of?

New Home

Didn't the Romans have a sort of a "ketchup" made by letting fish rot and ferment?

EndaHonesty

New Home wrote: »

Didn't the Romans have a sort of a "ketchup" made by letting fish rot and ferment?

I've seen a video of a "how it's made" for Worcestershire sauce and it does involve long dead fish and vinegar...

New Home

Like we said, what doesn't kill you (immediately), either makes you stronger, or " bio-accumulates" (and kills you slowly), or leaves you badly disabled.

Realt Dearg Sec

EndaHonesty wrote: »

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_shark

Really interesting animal, their meat is toxic but Icelanders have a method for reducing it's toxicity to make it edible.

Do the Icelandic people really eat these ancient, rarely reproducing sharks.

Is that what they make that putrid fermented shark meat snack out of?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hákarl

Apparently it's readily available in shops there, and yes by all accounts it's absolutely revolting, particularly the smell of fermented evil.

EndaHonesty

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hrl

Apparently it's readily available in shops there, and yes by all accounts it's absolutely revolting, particularly the smell of fermented evil.

It can't be too popular (thankfully) if the sharks can survive to reach ages of over 500 years.

I remember hearing a radio doc about the Greenland Sharks and one interesting fact (and depressing too, if you consider it) is the lack of a particular isotope in their eyeballs meant that their mother's had to be born before the nuclear age thus indicating a particularly long life.

This absolute enabled the scienticions to theorize the age of the sharks with confidence.