Bruce Tuncks

I'm sure it was a bulldog,onetrack. Was there another bulldog with a cartridge start? I sure remember the stack hitting the ceiling and this guy( foreign minister from SE Asia I think) jumping aside.I also remember that it was my fault for not getting the thing on the right stroke.

We had one where I worked. It was a 4 stroke engine, single cylinder, and it had a cartridge start. You needed to rotate the engine till it was ready on a firing stroke to start it with the cartridge. ( the firing stroke is alternated with an exhaust stroke). We used to set it up for VIP's to hit the cartridge container with a hammer and thus start the engine. One day, I set it up wrongly, on the exhaust stroke, and the VIP had to dodge the smoke-stack on its return from the ceiling. What a goof huh. SO... attempting to start a bulldog tractor with a cartridge and the engine on the exhaust stroke caused the cartridge charge to blow right thru the engine and blow off anything attached to the exhaust system, in this case the exhaust stack.

I reckon the "sunshine coast" deserves an award for creative advertising .... in actual fact, they get less sunshine than Mildura.

For awhile now I've wanted to send some money ( only $100 or so, which is quite a lot for a self-funded retiree ) to Ukraine. What has held me back is the worry about the integrity of the systems there. The last thing I want to do is to add to some oligarch's wealth. Any one got a suggestion?

As a South Australian, I have to say that there were never any convicts in SA. A pommy guy called Angas brought in lots of germans and the place ran great. These germans were never supporters of german militarism, although they were badly treated in WW1 by bullies. Just look at all the german names in SA war cemetaries to see what really happened.

I agree with onetrack and I reckon they ( electric cars ) will indeed become cheaper soon. In the meantime, if I lived in a cyclone zone, I would buy a petrol generator cos the scenario outlined by red was not stupid at all. But I would ( if I owned a servo ) have lots of swap-over batteries around too. In fact, some of these would be in small trailers just for interstate travel. An alternative to a petrol generator set would be a spare battery already charged up. Once, I scoffed at this woman who lived up in Stirling ( 20 km and 2,000 ft higher than Adelaide) and told her that electric cars would never suit her ..... I reckon I was wrong.

Good onyer Nev. Getting back to Australian literature, I have to say that I just love the Banjo's stuff. I can recite the man from ironbark and Mulga bill's bicycle and bits of the man from snowy river. There days I live not that far from Penola and where the poet Nielsen came from, but I don't reckon he was as good.

The WW1 soldiers, and the Wagner crims, both went over the top . But as armed men, why did they not fight back, against their own lot? Sure, the officer ordering you to go has a revolver, but you have a rifle. I think that in Vietnam, the too-aggressive officers in the American army often died as a result of a grenade rolled into their tents at night, and this eventually resulted in conscripts being replaced by mercenaries. They were mexicans fighting for a green card. So, is this happening with the russians? if not, why not?

I don't really disagree with the better ways to spend the same money....Bob Irvine, who was Australia's best rocket scientist, would and did agree with this completely. BUT, is it the same money? How would making all those rocket guys unemployed help with ( for example ) early childhood education?

I've been going through Coober Pedy for so long I can remember the signs" No rates and no services" and "Patrons are requested to not bring explosives into this theatre" I reckon going to mars would not be much worse than going to coober pedy. But it would still make more sense to establish a moon colony first. (1) No atmosphere=no dust. (2) much closer to home. (3) unlimited electrical power from mountain-tops near the poles. (4) I think it would be possible to fling stuff into low moon orbit from a railway line. (5) great soil for growing crops.

I reckon Fraser appeared to move to the left after he finished up as PM. Eisenhower and Menzies were way to the left of where their parties ( republican and liberal) are today. Did you know that Eisenhower approved of unions? And I grew up in Alice Springs under Menzies, and in those days we were almost communist, only done right... well, mainly right. Everybody, nearly, was on the govt payroll and it all worked well I reckon.

You are right again Nev. I'm starting to try and get rid of too much stuff here too. There comes a time where you have to say that you only see yourself as being capable of doing projects for another ( say ) 3 years and so anything past that needs to be got rid of.

My son says that feudalism is the most stable form of government for the long term, Capitalism, he says, is too voracious and therefore hard on resources. We are talking about approving feudalism here huh?

There is a serious problem in Australia, reference John Kerr and ( nearly ) bishop Hollingsworth. The problem would have been fixed by the republican's way os selection for the head of state, which was 2/3 of the elected lot. This would ensure that the head of state was bi-partisan. The poms don't have the same problem, as the royal family are in there for the long term. Kerr had to leave on account of being heckled everywhere he went.

We have had problems with rising damp, which is called "salt damp" out here. Once, when I was young and silly ( I'm old and silly now ), we had friends who had an old european-accent guy go around the house with a roll of lead. He made a hole in the wall and unrolled the lead as he filled the hole at the back and opened it at the front. ( he used mortar in the backfill job) . I have since seen plastic sheet used, much cheaper and a smaller hole required. Good luck and best wishes for your big job.

I remember when Abbott said he was going to shirt-front Putin. He did nothing of the sort. BUT in ww1, the NZ PM apparently shirt-fronted the pommy pm over the awful waste of NZ boys " Shot like rabbits against a fence" He lifted the pommy guy off the ground by grabbing his shirt-front. Good on him, says I.

That would solve the problem Marty. If charity shops could sell electrical stuff on the same ( as is where is ) basis, the problem would go away. I wonder who is the beneficiary of this insane rule?

There used to be a glyphosate ( roundup ) salesman who would drink his stuff in front of a horrified farmer audience. I have not heard of anybody doing this lately, and I think he got something bad. But it is true that insects have a very different metabolism to us, and plants even more so.

That's a good example of how a law designed to help those who would have been ripped off can actually hurt the intended beneficiaries.

I dunno Jerry... there was a sign up on the charity shop that they could not accept electrical goods. I was told that these goods needed paperwork from a registered electrician, and this made them too expensive.

When my mother died, we tried,firstly , to sell her stuff. Then we tried to give it away to charity shops. Lastly, we hired bins and that worked. It's really hard to give stuff to charity shops..... they are competing with Harvey Norman, who has new things and cashback and no repayments for a long time. A charity shop wants money up front as you buy. When Auntie Pat died, we had learned the score and this time we put stuff under her carport and told all the neighbors to take what they wanted. This worked.

Bugger, I thought that you lot were referring to James Cook, the famous navigator. He was about the only guy who could manage a ship and work out his longitude by the lunar distance method. He had figured out how to keep his crew alive on a long voyage too, a good hundred years before scurvy eradication became known. He sure is a hero of mine.

Yes, I know that historically it is the libs that have been supporters of corruption..... I didn't say that the advice had to be fair did I ?

I reckon the greens are even fuller of s##t than the libs. I also think most of us on this site could tell the libs what to do to get back. Being totally anti-corruption is the big one. I would advise them to paint labor as being the party of corruption.

I wish I could go back in time and fix the fact that we "allowed" japan to invade China. Well I don't think we complained enough. But today, I wish we would be nice about the good things they ( the Chinese ) have done in space. Personally, I would praise them and give them money to help new space things along. And not only the Chinese, the Indians, the Russians and the Yanks are all deserving of this praise and help. There may be others, like the Japanese. Selfishly, this would be good for our own security since space things come directly out of military money, but I would do it for the principle of rewarding good stuff.