Plaques

Further south in London (England) there are many circular plaques commemorating famous people on the houses they lived in. This one is for Charles Babbage.

But there are many. I remember being surprised to learn that Benjamin Franklin, a US statesman, had lived in London (UK) for five or six years. Not taught in our schools!

Of course there are fake plaques too, like the one shown below, painted not cast. Presumably this one was made by two friends, Colin and James. Alternatively one person called James Colin or Colin James, who knows? In the last century there was a bishop in England who went by that name, but I rather doubt he had a sense of humour to come up with this plaque, despite the Maltese cross on it.

But this plaque got me wondering about the age of this time traveler when he died. Do we just subtract the date of birth from the date of death as usual, getting 81?
Or do we have to add the five years he lived in the 21st century, getting 86? Is the concept of age even applicable to time travellers? What if he had died before he was born? Do we count negative ages? Or do we sum the length of the various periods time travellers existed to get their age? If there are any Buddhists reading this perhaps you could give us a reincarnation hint please??? All comments welcome before the end of April 2024.

Comments (1)
Jenny (Ibiza) asks "A not unrelated question: If you could get just one hop into another time zone, when would it be?" Well, I don't have many years left, so I would just hop say 30 years forward, hoping for even better medicine. I no longer have any marketable skills at my age, so I would have to take some money with me and hope it would still be accepted. Only a short hop, so there should not be too many language problems.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on April 23, 2024 permalink Comments Email

SWMBO turns 79

My dear wife, SWMBO (=She Who Must Be Obeyed ;-) has her 79th birthday today. So for almost 7 weeks we are the same age.
Then I become an octogenarian in june.

21 again? So that's worth 21 red roses ;-) However, the florist saleslady, declaring me to be a hopeless romantic, and confessing to being one herself too, gave me 30 red roses for the price of 21; now that is customer service!

Comments (3)
Billions of Versions... wrote " You two keep going! I'm right behind you and I need you to keep leading the way." Methinks I am more like leading the weigh.
Cop Car wrote : " Your beautiful SWMBO was born on my late grandmother’s 61st birthday. Please convey my good wishes to her and may you two have many more happy years together." Wilco.
Doug (Canada) wrote " And a huge Happy Birthday to SWMBO - and many more to come for both of you." Thankyou, Doug.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on April 19, 2024 permalink Comments Email

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Monday, April 15

Speed Trap Week

This week the police and other speed trap operators are focusing on catching speeders. A good source of income and much easier than catching terrorists. So all my faster car-driving readers in Germany who read this are advised to raise their right foot until the weekend. Licence saved?

The cartoon above was from the UK ; the photo below from the Isle of Man.

Comments (3)
Brian (UK) points out "that is even an official gantry now, see attached photo."

Billions of Versions... wrote " 167 mph? That's why the radar units around here will only tell you your speed up to 10MPH over the limit. If it's higher than that they will flash in red "OVER". I was riding a Kawasaki ZX10 back then. But yes, you are right Mike, since the radar device was NOT taking photos, we bikers saw that dynamic sign as a challenge ;-)
Keith asks "So who has been nicked so far and how fast?" A Porsche doing 208 through a 100 km/h zone while on his mobile phone. Loses his licence for 3 months, gets points in Flensberg and fined (only?) €700. A lady doing 174 through a 70 zone. A total of 220 people going too fast. No bikers though. And 3 people in those 220 nicked who didn't even have a driving licence!!!

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on April 15, 2024 permalink Comments Email

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Saturday, April 13

KTM Open Day

At the beginning of each motorcycle season, dealers hold open days to show off their new wares. Today KTM in nearby Peckelsheim held theirs, so I dropped in over lunch hour.

Attendance was very good, even at lunchtime, and the parking places were all taken; I had to park in the neighbouring lot.

In the hall for new bikes, all the different types were lined up, one of each, other names also marketed by KTM, like GasGas, Husqvarna etc too.

The biggest capacity bike there was the 1390cc V-twin Super Duke R, over 180 hp, going for € 23390. Looking very angular and naked.

For beginners, there was this 125cc, 15hp, bike shown below, going for around €5000. Featured an anti-block braking system which works in curves too, ideal for beginners I thought.

Walking through the visitors' parking lot, I saw some nicely restored oldtimers, like this Honda CB750 dating from the early 1970s.

Even rarer, this Kawasaki Mach III, 500cc two-stroke triple, also about 1970.

Of Harleys there were none; ghosted, all of them? A different clientele!

I don't think any of the slow Harley and Indian riders had come out of brumation yet, despite sunny warm weather ;-)

Comments (1)
Cop Car wrote : " Last week, I ran across the website of a motorcycle museum that is a car trip taking less than 30 minutes from our home: Welcome to Twisted Oz Motorcycle Museum | Twisted Oz Motorcycle Museum. At Derby Senior Center lunch, yesterday, a friend knew all about it. Unbeknownst to me, he is an aficionado." Thanks for the link, CC.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on April 13, 2024 permalink Comments Email

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Fryday, April 5

The Judas Pyre

Last weekend (Easter) the village celebrated its old pagan rites here's a three second video. As usual, organised religion (here The One True Church = OTC), unable to stop the old pagan rites, declares them to be their own and appropriates them. So the tradition spring equinox bonfire (returning of the light) became an Easter bonfire, and, only if you became a TRUE believer, would you get to see the face of Judas (ringed below) being burned alive for betraying their god. Yes, the OTC is nothing if not vindictive. So here is SWMBO's photo of the Judas Pyre. NOW do you believe? Or have pareidolia?

Translating from Wikipedia : The Easter bonfire developed from a secular heathen tradition, probably with Germanic or pagan origins. The oldest written evidence is an exchange of letters between the missionary Boniface and Pope Zacharias from the year 751 AD. This letter describes a custom called ignis pachalis (Passover fire). Since the question is raised as to how this should be dealt with in the interests of the church, it can be concluded that the Roman church did not yet know about Easter fires, nor did they know about the consecration of fire. The early agricultural form of the Judas pyre probably also developed from the Easter bonfire, with the earliest evidence in 1651 AD. In the 19th century, the original level of meaning was increasingly replaced by that of the burning of Judas himself, who would be punished for betraying Jesus. By stylizing Judas as a prototypical Jew, the custom of the Easter bonfire and Judas pyre in particular was exploited by anti-Semites.

Comments (1)
Billions of Versions... wrote " I wish I'd have known about the Easter bonfire. It's illegal to have a fire that big where I live. But if it was a religious ceremony, I think I could have pulled it off." About 7 metres tall this year.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on April 5, 2024 permalink Comments Email

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Tuesday, April 2

The Cop Car Coincidence

As you can see from my blogroll, one of the blogs I read regularly is that of Cop Car; we share a common interest in aviation. But I did not know there was a movie (about her?) However, looking at the TV guide for Germany this morning, I see that channel 37, Tele 5, is showing a movie called Cop Car starring Kevin Bacon, at 22:00 this evening. Great coincidence, I didn't even know she had made a movie(?). So I shall watch it this evening and tell you what I thought of it tomorrow.

Well that went wrong. I fell asleep about ⅓ of the way through the movie last night. It started quite well but then dragged a bit. Snore! So, instead of my review, here is the iMDb page. Nothing about blogfriend Cop Car either; so maybe we should ask her to blog how she got the nickname Cop Car herself?

Comments (1)
Cop Car explained : "Until I looked it up, I assumed that the movie had been released back in the Dark Ages and that I had merely failed to recall having heard of it because I did not use that screen name at that time (having been a young girl in the 7th century). I see that “Cop Car” was released in 2015. From Stu’s description, I’m surely sorry that I missed seeing that snoozer – lol. I thought that I had explained my screen name ages ago. Obviously, that was before Stu and I met because he remembers everything. History: I was introduced to blogging by our younger daughter Bogie (who BTW turned 62 yesterday) and advised by her (and strongly requested by Hunky Husband) to use screen names to protect family privacy. As Bogie had adopted the name of one of her furry cohabitors, I followed her lead by adopting the name of the elder of our two cats. Stu, at least, will appreciate that the original Cop Car was black and white." I didn't know that. UK police cars were just black when I was a kid; German ones were green. Now both are multicoloured hi-vis cars.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on April 2, 2024 permalink Comments Email

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Link to the previous month's blog.

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