Cool 😎 Strange 🤪 or obscure 🙃 / interesting things...

Alan Williams said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1921308596626915792
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My Dad was the organist at Milton Abbey for 52 years. @Hugo Magnus will know that place.
I could never get my head around the instrument. I was quite good on the piano but a big church organ is a beast of a thing. Up to five keyboards plus pedals. And anything up to 150 stops to pull in and out while you're doing that. Dad had a special pair of slim shoes with scuffed leather soles which he kept in the organ loft only for playing the organ because they fitted between the pedals perfectly and gave just the right amount of grip. They were never cleaned and they lived up there for years.
My mother got in a lot of trouble one day when she went into the organ loft with a duster and a tin of furniture polish on the day of a recital because she thought it needed a good clean - and she polished his shoes and the pedals. I was turning the pages for him that day, which I often did. He was quietly cursing through the whole performance because "your mother has turned these bloody pedals into an ice rink"...
 
It's a beautiful area, I often ride through there.

Had you heard the story of the lad who fell from the church tower?

In 1588 John Tregonwell, son of the owner of the house, aged 5, wearing petticoats - the fashion of the day - fell 60 ft from the top of the church tower. His petticoats acted as a parachute and he survived unharmed, dying at the age of 87. His picture is kept in the Lady Chapel, along with a bust of St James of Compostella, patron saint of pilgrims and of Spain.
 
Hugo Magnus said:
It's a beautiful area, I often ride through there.

Had you heard the story of the lad who fell from the church tower?

In 1588 John Tregonwell, son of the owner of the house, aged 5, wearing petticoats - the fashion of the day - fell 60 ft from the top of the church tower. His petticoats acted as a parachute and he survived unharmed, dying at the age of 87. His picture is kept in the Lady Chapel, along with a bust of St James of Compostella, patron saint of pilgrims and of Spain.
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"Trans" women in this day and age wouldn't have survived as there is no way fishnets and a mini skirt would slow the descent sufficiently.

Gravity is transphobic.
 
Hugo Magnus said:
It's a beautiful area, I often ride through there.

Had you heard the story of the lad who fell from the church tower?

In 1588 John Tregonwell, son of the owner of the house, aged 5, wearing petticoats - the fashion of the day - fell 60 ft from the top of the church tower. His petticoats acted as a parachute and he survived unharmed, dying at the age of 87. His picture is kept in the Lady Chapel, along with a bust of St James of Compostella, patron saint of pilgrims and of Spain.
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Yes, I remember that (not the event - before my time somewhat - but the story). There's a mark on the wall supposedly at the spot where he fell. Don't know whether that's true or it's just a trig mark but that's what I was always told. I think there's an information board about it if I remember right.
I've been to the top of the tower and all around the internal galleries - priviliged access when your Dad has the keys.. It's an amazing structure. There is supposed to be a crypt under the north transept that's never been opened in modern times.

For those not familiar with the place, here it is. Well worth a visit if you're down in Darzet:

1747643573279.webp
 
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Gimlet said:
Yes, I remember that (not the event - before my time somewhat - but the story). There's a mark on the wall supposedly at the spot where he fell. Don't know whether that's true or it's just a trig mark but that's what I was always told. I think there's an information board about it if I remember right.
I've been to the top of the tower and all around the internal galleries - priviliged access when your Dad has the keys.. It's an amazing structure. There is supposed to be a crypt under the north transept that's never been opened in modern times.

For those not familiar with the place, here it is. Well worth a visit if you're down in Darzet:

View attachment 138867
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And we think we're sophisticated these days...buildings themselves were art then
 
Gimlet said:
And to think the oldest part of that abbey is over 1000 years old...
Medieval gothic abbeys and cathedrals are astonishing structures. No fancy surveying equipment. No computers. No power tools. Just built by men with hand tools and pencils and paper.
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Well, we're told they had no power tools...there's a lot of evidence that they had much more advanced tech than we are told.
 
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Dox said:
Well, we're told they had no power tools...there's a lot of evidence that they had much more advanced tech than we are told.
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They had horse powered equipment. Certainly cranes and winches and circular horse-driven pug mills which mixed mortar and cob putty. There's a few of those circular thatched buildings surviving in Dorset where chalk cob was a common material. You hear lots of theories about what they were for. Personally I'm certain most were pug mills. A horse walked around in circles inside driving a wooden post and an overhead shaft through wooden bevel gears connected to a crushing mill outside into which water, chalk, lime, horsehair and straw etc was fed to create the putty or mortar. The wooden machinery is always long gone but given that it's too hard to mix cob by hand in any quantity and the fact that you invariably see these circular structures near a water course convinces me that they were pug mills.
I've had this debate with English Heritage and they always dismiss the idea, even when you can still the hole at the top of the wall where a shaft would have run.

Possibly medieval masons had horse driven cutting and stone working machinery as well. Milton Abbey is a combination of stone and flint. They would have had a small army of flint knappers dressing those flints by hand. I've done that job myself many times. There is still today no satisfactory mechanised way of doing it. Just your hands and a hammer. At least we have safety gear and eye protection - it's a hazardous job.

I was knapping flints for a barn conversion that I was building back along. The people who rented a commecial unit next door kept parking their car very close to the work site. I told them not to as shards of flint fly off whining like bullets when you're knapping. You've no idea where they're going to fly and I didn't want their car to get damaged. But they kept doing it and one day there was a loud bang and the drivers side window exploded when a flint shard hit it. You can imagine what that would do to your eyes.

There must have been a lot of one-eyed flint knappers around in medieval times. Perhaps they did have some sort of PPE back then. It's an interesting question as that's the sort of archaeology that doesn't survive.
 
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Gimlet said:
And to think the oldest part of that abbey is over 1000 years old...
Medieval gothic abbeys and cathedrals are astonishing structures. No fancy surveying equipment. No computers. No power tools. Just built by men with hand tools and pencils and paper.
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W/nowt farting about!
 
I think it goes far beyond horse-power and further back than the middle ages.

100+ ton blocks of stone moved huge distances with forrests and mountain ranges between the source and destinations; intricate drillings; fitting of huge blocks of interlocking stone and granite that withstood earthquakes.

When you see places like Macchu Picchu - supposedly built by the Incas...there are very different layers of masonry, and the older layers are far superior to the later ones.

This guy has some interesting vids;

www.youtube.com

Brien Foerster

Ancient Lost Worlds and Hidden History. On location videos made by author and adventurer Brien Foerster exploring Peru, Bolivia, Egypt, Hawaii, Easter Island and other exotic places. With special emphasis on evidence that advanced technology and human history are at least 10,000 years old...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
 
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The body is no longer his. It belongs to them now.
This caterpillar isn’t dying — it’s serving.
Those pale, alien-looking larvae erupting from its skin are parasitic wasps, most likely from the genus Cotesia. After hatching inside its body, they chewed their way out… but didn’t kill their host.
Instead, they rewired it.
Now the caterpillar stands guard over their vulnerable cocoons like a zombified sentinel, twitching violently at any threat. It doesn’t eat. It doesn’t flee. It just protects the very parasites that destroyed it from within.
This isn’t just parasitism. It’s manipulation on a cellular level.
A puppet on strings made of instinct and invasion.
 
AirCon said:
View attachment 138880
The body is no longer his. It belongs to them now.
This caterpillar isn’t dying — it’s serving.
Those pale, alien-looking larvae erupting from its skin are parasitic wasps, most likely from the genus Cotesia. After hatching inside its body, they chewed their way out… but didn’t kill their host.
Instead, they rewired it.
Now the caterpillar stands guard over their vulnerable cocoons like a zombified sentinel, twitching violently at any threat. It doesn’t eat. It doesn’t flee. It just protects the very parasites that destroyed it from within.
This isn’t just parasitism. It’s manipulation on a cellular level.
A puppet on strings made of instinct and invasion.
Click to expand...
Genpop
 
1747686707879.webp

Molting is life or death. For this beetle, it was both.
Parasites inside it fed just enough to weaken muscle control.
Not enough to kill — just enough to trap it in its own skin.
As it struggled to escape, the soft, unarmored body was exposed.
Then came the second betrayal: the larvae fed faster.
Faster than it could harden.
It never finished transforming.
It became a banquet mid-metamorphosis.
 
1747686866744.webp

"Sir, Rolls-Royce-designed products do not fail.”—Imagine expecting a repair bill, only to be told your 19-year-old engine is still under an “unlimited warranty.” That’s exactly what happened to Bill Lear in 1963…
In 1963, Bill Lear, the man behind Learjet, was living in Geneva, Switzerland, and flying a surplus P-51 Mustang. After repeatedly facing issues with the starter clutch on his Packard-built Merlin engine, he reached out to Rolls-Royce for help. They instructed him to send the clutch over, promptly repaired it, and returned it.
When Lear called to express his gratitude and ask about the cost, he received an astonishing response: “My dear Mr. Lear, Rolls-Royce-designed products do not fail. They may need occasional adjustment, but that is covered by our unlimited warranty. There is no charge, sir.”
Lear was amazed. Despite the engine and clutch being built under license by Packard in the U.S. back in 1944, Rolls-Royce still honoured their commitment to quality nearly two decades later.
 
AirCon said:
View attachment 138915
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Except we don't live as dead flesh compressed into an inert meatball that will decay harmlessly into a hole. Every human being needs the equivalent of a football field just to be fed. And that's assuming we live as naked hunter-gathers destined for death by the age of 30. In space and natural resource depletion you can double that footprint to be clothed. Double it again to be housed. Double it again to earn a living. Double it again to be provided with transport, toys and societal "essentials" - buildings, shops, distribution centres, roads, places of work, power generation etc... See where this is going?
 
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AirCon said:
View attachment 138916
"Sir, Rolls-Royce-designed products do not fail.”—Imagine expecting a repair bill, only to be told your 19-year-old engine is still under an “unlimited warranty.” That’s exactly what happened to Bill Lear in 1963…
In 1963, Bill Lear, the man behind Learjet, was living in Geneva, Switzerland, and flying a surplus P-51 Mustang. After repeatedly facing issues with the starter clutch on his Packard-built Merlin engine, he reached out to Rolls-Royce for help. They instructed him to send the clutch over, promptly repaired it, and returned it.
When Lear called to express his gratitude and ask about the cost, he received an astonishing response: “My dear Mr. Lear, Rolls-Royce-designed products do not fail. They may need occasional adjustment, but that is covered by our unlimited warranty. There is no charge, sir.”
Lear was amazed. Despite the engine and clutch being built under license by Packard in the U.S. back in 1944, Rolls-Royce still honoured their commitment to quality nearly two decades later.
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What's the bit at the front that looks like the bottom of someone bending over? :unsure:
 
We should do this...
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This is not camouflage. It’s a trophy of the dead.
Meet the Assassin Bug nymph — nature’s youngest warlord. But this baby doesn’t hide. It wears the fallen.
After ambushing and draining ants alive, it stacks their empty exoskeletons on its back like armor. One by one. Shell by shell. Until it’s walking beneath a moving pile of corpses.
Why? Because ants are aggressive, and smell plays everything in the insect world. By wearing dead ants, it confuses predators and masks its scent — hiding in plain death.
It doesn’t run. It doesn’t beg.
It builds its shield from what it slays.
It’s not hiding.
It’s declaring war.
 
Dox said:
I think it goes far beyond horse-power and further back than the middle ages.

100+ ton blocks of stone moved huge distances with forrests and mountain ranges between the source and destinations; intricate drillings; fitting of huge blocks of interlocking stone and granite that withstood earthquakes.

When you see places like Macchu Picchu - supposedly built by the Incas...there are very different layers of masonry, and the older layers are far superior to the later ones.

This guy has some interesting vids;

www.youtube.com

Brien Foerster

Ancient Lost Worlds and Hidden History. On location videos made by author and adventurer Brien Foerster exploring Peru, Bolivia, Egypt, Hawaii, Easter Island and other exotic places. With special emphasis on evidence that advanced technology and human history are at least 10,000 years old...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
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It really pisses me off when I hear (mostly hippy leftie TV archaelogists and anthropologists in rainbow jumpers) theorising and pontificating about the probable purpose and function of prehistoric structures like Stone Henge, Callanish, Macchu Picchu etc. Invariably they were "ceremonial" or religious. Centres for customs, sacrifices and feastings. Why so? That's pure speculation. The superimposition of a modern romantic filter over the past. They have no evidence. It just feels like beardies in round glasses "pint of your best ale in a handle glass landlord/ I-restore-Morris-Minors-in my-spare-time" types - indulging in wishful thinking. It's projection.

Prehistoric man had exactly the same intellectual faculties as we do. In evolutionary terms they and us, if we could stand side by side, would be indistinguishable. Why shouldn't Stone Henge be the bronze age equivalent of a Hadron Collider, a Google hub or a Goonhilly observatory? Why do they have to be places where film extras in smocks processed carrying torches chanted "Ummm" while they sacrificed the first born? It's patronising, like our ancesters were a completely different species drawn from a film set. They weren't. They were just like us.

And if stone-age and bronze-age peoples had mastered celestial observation sufficiently to have figured out that the sun did not orbit the earth (as the ancient Greeks believed until Galileo put them straight) but the other way round, which they must have done to have built accurate prehistoric observatories, they were considerably smarter than smug post-renaissance man. That is, us.
 
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