Thread: Trivia and other useless but interesting items

Originally Posted by 4bee

John this is the only reference I can find for that or a similar accident.


I have no idea where Mt. Petrie is, near Winton perhaps?



https://www.ozatwar.com/ozcrashes/qld115.htm

Mt. Petrie is between Belmont and Rochedale. Near 1000 miles from Winton. Google maps is your friend.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Wasn't it near Winton the Qantas lost its first DH-86 on its delivery flight?

Yes, List of Qantas fatal accidents - Wikipedia

15 November 1934 Near Longreach, Australia de Havilland DH.86 VH-USG Crashed on its delivery flight from England to Brisbane after in-flight loss of control, probably due to the type's design deficiencies. On-board 4, Fatalities 4

Originally Posted by Bigbjorn

Mt. Petrie is between Belmont and Rochedale. Near 1000 miles from Winton. Google maps is your friend.

So I found Brian, but because it crashed South of Brizzie & was to going to Darwin it seemed logical that it would have passed close to Winton en route if it had turned Right. But it was obviously not the same A/c anyway as it turns out.

How the Oxford English Dictionary was brought to life in a rustic 'scriptorium' - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

"The Philological Society of London decided they needed a better dictionary — one that documented every single word in the English language — and appealed to the Oxford University Press to fund it.
Editor Frederick Furnivall kicked things off, but his work didn't prove fast enough. So a few years in, James Murray, an old school teacher, took over.
Murray worked from his Oxford home, in a corrugated iron shed at the back of his garden that had the romantic designation of "scriptorium".
"That's where he and his team of lexicographers and assistants went every day to collate and to draft the definitions of every word in the English language," Williams says."

I can't remember the details, but when the first volumes of the Oxford Dictionary were published, they had a big celebration, inviting some of the principal contributors to a special dinner (but only if they were male, of course). One of them (W.C. Minor) regretted he could not come. He had made such a big contribution that Murray went to visit him, a medical doctor. Finding that the address was an institution for the criminally insane, Murray assumed that his correspondent was the prison's doctor. He wasn't - he was an inmate, an ex-US Army doctor who had, while visiting London, defended himself against the "murderer" who had chased him from the US, and "materialised" out of the wall of his bedroom, running into the street and shooting him in the back. Turned out the man shot was a passerby on his way to work.

Detained "at Her Majesty's pleasure" after being acquitted on the grounds of insanity, he spent most of the rest of his life reading and sending words and quotations to Murray for his dictionary. His experiences during the Civil War apparently unhinged him, especially having to supervise floggings and branding of deserters. Today we would probably diagnose PTSD, although he was diagnosed with schizophrenia after being deported to the US in 1910.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

I can't remember the details, but when the first volumes of the Oxford Dictionary were published, they had a big celebration, inviting some of the principal contributors to a special dinner (but only if they were male, of course). One of them (W.C. Minor) regretted he could not come. He had made such a big contribution that Murray went to visit him, a medical doctor. Finding that the address was an institution for the criminally insane, Murray assumed that his correspondent was the prison's doctor. He wasn't - he was an inmate, an ex-US Army doctor who had, while visiting London, defended himself against the "murderer" who had chased him from the US, and "materialised" out of the wall of his bedroom, running into the street and shooting him in the back. Turned out the man shot was a passerby on his way to work.

Detained "at Her Majesty's pleasure" after being acquitted on the grounds of insanity, he spent most of the rest of his life reading and sending words and quotations to Murray for his dictionary. His experiences during the Civil War apparently unhinged him, especially having to supervise floggings and branding of deserters. Today we would probably diagnose PTSD, although he was diagnosed with schizophrenia after being deported to the US in 1910.

NowI know why English is such a MAD language!

Yes, there was a movie with Mel Gibson and Sean Penn about the dictionary. I saw it on an overseas flight a couple of years ago. (Laurence Fox (son of actor James Fox, nephew of Edward Fox (never saw him play a nice person ), ex of Billie Piper) who played DS Hathaway in the TV series Lewis) plays the editor of Oxford University Press).

Paper pushers and myself have had a bad relationship. My garage was full of paper required to be stored for 10 years by our Medicare bureaucracy untill a few years ago. it was box after box of a sheet of paper signed by people seeing there doctor when it was Bulk Billed. Happily I and thousand of other practice managers and Doctors have our garages back. Your still legally required to sign yet we can shred it immediately. A oxymoron still yet I am almost happy


Japan trip a few years back was amazing. I loved it. I did find the almost backward tech in some areas amazing. High tech and low tech even on the same line. High speed trains rocketed along yet a paper ticket and paper punch by conductor was a example I loved and was amazed by

Cut and past this similar trivial yet astounding issue "TOKYO — Officially, Shuhei Aoyama has been teleworking for a month. But that doesn’t mean he can avoid going to the office.
Several times a week, Mr. Aoyama makes a half-hour commute across Tokyo for a task seemingly more suited to the age of the samurai than of the supercomputer: stamping his official corporate seal on business contracts and government paperwork." Link may be pay-walled- Other trivia tight assed me just subscribed