Couple of quizzes to keep you entertained. There are no real rules; I will post the answers after a suitable period of time. Discussion is permitted.
Cwiz 1: Prisons
1. In which novel did Edmond Nantes escape from the Chateau d’If?
2. In which prison was the Marquis de Sade incarcerated?
3. Which South African prison was named after the Afrikaans word for seal?
4. Which Cavalier poet wrote, “Stone walls do not a prison make”?
5. Which US prison took its name from pelicans?
6. Who wrote
I never saw a man who looked,
With such a wistful eye,
Upon that little tent of blue,
Which prisoners call the sky.
7. Tartarus was a dungeon in Greek myth; for whom was it built?
8. Frank Darabont directed which prison movie?
9. Which isolated UK prison opened in 1809 to house Napoleonic War prisoners?
10. In 1952, the Kray twins were held in which historic prison?
This cwiz is courtesy of ProfessorPineapple
Cwiz 2: Scrambled Plays
1. Forgoing toadwit
2. Meth cab
3. Née in lewd farmyards
4. Limp agony
5. Anal seas fathomed
6. Sex up or die
7. A Leo knocking bar
8. See earthling games
9. I scorn hero
10. Sole had soul
Ovally Balls 
Ticht – if you are about..
Remember I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about an old colleague was going to share some cask strength whisky? Well, yesterday he delivered about half a bottle of Arran Single Malt from Cask 167, 54.7% vol. NOt tasted it yet, will need to make sure it is a time I can savour it (and recover the morning after…)
And also, in today’s Things I Didn’t Know But Have Now Found Out, apparently Steve Earle is an Arsenal fan! Yup, THAT Steve Earle! Poor sod….
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Used to like Steve Earle.
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Do you know much about Rohan Kanhai’s time playing in SA?
Sadly I don’t. To my shame I’ve never read much about the SACB or Howa Bowl. I suppose my only defence is that I haven’t read many sports books or biographies at all.
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It is a momentus day, my fellow Ovally Ballers!
It was EXACTLY 33 years ago today that we received our first three piece suite!
I was so chuffed I could hardly wait to tell Mrs BB when we got married later that day.
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It’s my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sumbitch or another.
Malcolm Reynolds
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Buddha was a total synt.
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You’re saying eave the statues up?
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leave don’t eave. Argggh!
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Tomp – No, it just reminded me of a Firefly episode where some people erect a statue to one of the characters even though he’s morally corrupt and then the captain puts him down with that line.
And then I thought of all the Buddha statues I’ve visited on holiday.
Sorry, it’s Monday.
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It’s quite a complicated problem. If you need to pull down every statue of anyone who is racist then at some point you’d have to pull down that one of Ghandi in Parliament Square.
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I’d leave the Buddha statues up obviously.
Tbh, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about a mob tearing down or defacing a statue. Take the Churchill example; he helped defeat the Nazi’s whilst being a racist. But most people were then. So who decides?
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This is going on in Prague at the moment. They had a big fight with the Russians because one of the local district councils removed a staute of Marshal Konev from its plinth. Konev was the head of the Soviet army that, and here’s where it gets difficult, liberated/freed/conquered Prague and most of Czechoslovakia in 1945. He went on to have a brilliant career putting down the Hungarian revolution in 1956 and other neat tricks.
So the Russians got angry about this and out came a story that there was a plot to poison a couple of local Czech politicians in revenge. But that story wasn’t real. It was a bit of politics within the Russian embassy – by the way, the local council changed the name of the square the Russian embassy stands on in honour of Boris Nemtsov.
Last week a couple of Russian diplomats got their cards to leave the embassy. Now, in Moscow a few weeks back a gang of protestors smeared some slogans on the outside of the Czech embassy and in St Petersburg some protestors let off a smoke bomb. Tensions between the two countries are fraught it’s fair to say.
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But in the Old Town Square in Prague they’ve just restored, or rather placed as it’s a copy, the Marian column that celebrated the Habsburg victory over the Swedes in the 1640s.
This memorial was pulled down in 1918 as it was a symbol of the 300-year Habsburg rule over the Czechs and just before World War I the Czechs declared independence.
So some memorials coming down, some going up.
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Maybe one those nice shiny signs with pros and cons next to it. Nelson was probably a synt too but we shouldn’t remove his column (Karl).
Or maybe just say ‘s/he had his/her views, which were complicated. You may disagree with them’.
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And, finally, I live in fashionable Prague 3, an area called Zizkov, which is named after the blind fundamentalist Hussite revolutionary Jan Zizka. The main street which runs east-west through the area is called Konevova, also after Konev. There have been long been calls to rename the street. And the latest suggestion is for it to be named after the Empress Maria Theresa.
I sense the hand of the all-powerful printers and sign industry behind these shenanigans.
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Gonna re smash that fucking Marian column!
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@tomp
I’d forgotten she was from your neck of the woods. I bet they love her nearly as much as the Irish housewives love Daniel O’Donnell.
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People tried doing this with the Colston statue for years. Nothing happened very slowly.
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@tomp
Imagine doing that with that Oliver Cromwell statue at the Houses of Parliament. Would be about 8 pages long.
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There aren’t many memorials to the Red Army in Prague. We live near the major Prague cemetery and there’s a military graveyard there. Lots of Soviets, natch, some British, Canadians, Poles and Kiwis, mostly aircrew who died on Czech soil or in Czech skies. Also a fair few Bulgarians solders, including some very young kids.
They also have a statue of a mean-looking Soviet soldier.
Also there are some statues of old Communist types, including the Commuinst journalist writer and underground resistance worker Julius Fucik, who was killed by the Nazis in 1943.
Fucik used to have lots of places named after him in Prague and around the Republic but after 1989 most of those were renamed. However, the Czech embassy in Moscow is located on Julius Fuck street.
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If a sign is too hard maybe a qr scan linking to the Wikipedia page.
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Ha. I tried so hard not to spell his surname wrong and then fuciked it up at the end.
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OT,
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@tomp
That is a glorious twitter thread. Just brushes over the Ireland thing as if he just was having a bad day or summat.
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I’m sure I read it as a kid. The picture of the boy Cromwell and the boy King Charles is what I most remember.
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There’s a statue of some bastard in Woking* that I wouldn’t mind smashing.
* amazing name considering the circumstances.
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Is it HG Wells? War of the Worlds starts there.
When we flew to the UK last year, we bussed it from Heathrow to Woking and then got the train to Bournemout. Had an hour or so to kill in Woking. It’s a strange old place, very cramped. We had a pretty ice cream in one of the gelaterias they have there.
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Re old kids books my parents showed me a book I had about vikings in the late 80s. In it there is a character called Olaf (what else would he be called?) and the book paints a picture of his life and times.
This includes battles and raids. Some mild drawings of stabbery. But what most surprised me was that during the raids there is a drawing of him literally dragging away a nun somewhere.
Now there’s no description of what’s going to happen to the poor nun in the book but it’s pretty clear from the picture.
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Tomp – No the tripod.
I used to go to the bowling / arcades place as a kid. It’s a bit of a dump if I’m honest.
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Although, the lazerquest was great.
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It was ok. They had some play area outside the Peacock Centre that was quite good, but it closed at 6 p.m. in July so we couldn’t chill out there for too long. The streets are pretty narrow, which made me feel a little claustrophobic.
The Waterstones, my main reason for going, was rubbish, which was a disappointment.
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We once spent a good 40mins trying to find the Jimmy Hendrix statue in Seattle.
Don’t bother.
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Think I’ll go and pull down Greyfriar’s Bobby statue. There’s a dug that needed to get a grip rather than pining over a deid man.
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Freedom for dugs from human oppression!
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Very happy anniversary the BBs.!
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I might go and tear down that statue of Eric Morecambe because it is offensive to Ernie Wise.
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Never been to Waterstones in Waitrose.
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FFS. Woking.
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The new Swindon?
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Happy suite anniversary to the BBs!
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Went to Woking once, can literally remember nothing about it.
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Apart from being there.
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Drove through Swindon once too.
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Who needs Deebee’s travelogues when I’ve got such fascinating anecdotes.
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Me and Iksy have previously discussed the exit at Swindon train station that is just for people going to the Research Councils.
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I’ve driven through Woking and Swindon, nothing to be shouting about.
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Been to the railway museum at Swindon. That was interesting (it was actually). York one is better.
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Am I the only person who thinks cops in the US should have more money?
For training and to vet applicants properly. Maybe even to attract more people to be a cop and therefore have a wider choice of people to be cips.
I’m absolutely behind reform, but defunding seems stupid.
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York >>>> Swindon
For so many reasons.
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wider choice of people to be cips.
There’s only 1 cips
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