Affentitten

I think the original post was written at a time when I was feeling a bit despondent. There had been several emails asking for major revisions on this and that, most of them in hindsight fairly justified. It was just this final email that was titled "One more thing..." and pointed out, wrongly, the alleged split infinitive. Once get through the hearing on Friday I am going to give her a bit of an AAR though because I felt the process of putting together this documentation was poor. It was like "produce a 10,000 report" but there were no guidelines or examples readily available. So I was like this guy sitting in a museum in London in 1860 trying to draw a platypus based on a few letters from settlers in Australia.

Well they are a protected species here, so I think any involvement in an AUSTRALIAN possum death as either the perpetrator or the end user would be frowned upon, particularly with a commercial context. But they are a pest in NZ so hence my eating it there.

And I had a very nice possum stew in Auckland once. That would land me in gaol in Australia.

In the 3rd world, animals are usually only killed for their meat when they have no further contribution to make in any other form. So when people eat goat, it's usually a female that is past its prime or a young male. The beauty of goats (and pigs) is of course that they are not fussy eaters and don't require the volume of water and forage that cows do. I don't mind eating goat, as long as it's tender!

Go the AA version

I was saw a movie about lesbian cheerleaders at a prom. Do I get to have an expert opinion?

PhD defences are usually formalities anyway. There is no real chance of failing them because you don't get to the hearing unless all the work has been completed to everyone's satisfaction. Most places don't even bother with these show trials any more at all.

It could be something as simple as popular misunderstanding. Market Garden is a phrase that you encounter elsewhere in life. Varsity Plunder isn't. And the former was also a more famous operation than the latter, so it got reinforced.

Was MG really known by the double handle at the time?

Well I don't take offence to that because it is true. In a way, it's a little bit disillusioning because you get trapped in narrower and narrower alleys. I'm going through that journey at the moment, realising that what I am doing now bears little relation to what I started out wanting to do!

Yes, I'm thinking of the episode of Hornblower where someone gives the crazed Captain a bit of a nudge towards an open hatch one stormy night.

No, that was ending sentences in prepositions.

I know. It would just be nice to win a point. I have to go in front of the Star Chamber next week to justify why I should be kept on as a candidate (SOP for all candidates after 1 year f/t candidacy) and I am getting hammered on just about every aspect of the 15000 word report I have to submit as part of that!

My PhD supervisor objects to the following sentence, saying that I have split an infinitive: "It can be seen that experiences have been for the most part positive, albeit with differing perspectives on some of the technical aspects of implementation." I believe she means that I have 'split' the "to be positive". I say that is no infinitive, since I am using the present perfect of the verb to be, and positive is acting as an adjective anyway. Support? Rebuttal?

Have you ever been to Egypt. Emrys? (I mean, since the time you were there for the consecration of Cheops' pyaramid?) At every major intersection they have traffic lights and about a dozen cops. One of them sits in a sentry box and changes the traffic lights with a manual switch. Got to find jobs for all those people!

I guess having a Royal Navy tradition in our family, I don't object to captains swearing at subordinates. I mean, the article states that she even "threw a wadded up piece of paper" at a senior noncom. Jesus. Toughen up! What ever happened to The Cat? I think what's more serious about this officer though is her staunch inability to develop her juniors. That when they went to her for advice, she abused them and that she apparently ruined so many careers. It's always the mark of someone who is insecure in their own abilities. Sounds like she was promoted as some sort of affirmative action poster girl and they backed the wrong horse.

But hell, this is just the piddling little ADF. Imagine what any one arm of the US forces spends alone. The thing that strikes you as you go through even a single month is just how much $$$ is contracted out to vast numbers of consultancies as "professional services".

Great online tool for examining what the ADF spends. Defence expenditure You can drill down by month, contractor, job etc. Apparently an audit has turned up some interesting payments, including an $18000 bar bill, some payments being itemised as "stuff" and phantom payments to non-existent contractors and/or real ones that have no knowledge of that particular invoice.

Or rather, once we start looking at them.

Haven't noticed that problem here in Australia.

I'm still standing by my claim of being the first Australian to throw an orange frisbee the length of the Temple of Bel at Palmyra, Syria.

I would have thought Aachen would rate as the first major German city ot fall. That was October 1944. EDIT: Ok, I see the qualification is west of the Rhine. Or East?!! What JonS said.

...and supply, location, point in the campiagn etc etc. Much like the on-paper strength and orbat of an infantry battalion would bear little relation to the reality even a day or two after it stepped off the boat.

They're old as, Bro.

Love to know how they got it in one take, even with the camera tracking.