Fascinating Facts and Trivia

(01-11-2018 19:36 )Foggy Mainwaring Wrote:  ^
You were'nt trying to break the land speed record was yow.
Cos' you'll have a job with all them traffic lights.
Sorry kelly, forgot yam a Brummy, yous lot just go through 'em

I resemble that remark!!

But seriously, it was for 38 in a 30, average speed camera shite on well known artery into city centre. I know where it went down, overtaking some numpty foreign plated driver who hadn't a clue where he was turning, nor who was driving behind him while he decided. Four times i held my patience until blasting past him with two fingers in his direction!

^Quting from GreenMachine's post no 80
"Only 52% of the UK's 2,838 speed cameras are switched on rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrealllllllllllllllllllllyyyyy​​yyyy! Big Grin"

You found one of them 52%.

Fascinating facts about Birmingham(Lifted from the Net) I'll bet yow yam yams didn't know these.

Cluedo was invented by a Birmingham man who lived on Brighton road, about two miles south of the city centre. There’s a plaque up on the wall of the house where he used to live and invented the game.

Birmingham is home to 1.1 million people and is one of the most culturally diverse cities in the UK. We’re proud that we have people living here from Ireland, Africa, China, Poland, Russia, America….Birmingham is a shining example of how people from different backgrounds can all live happily together.

JRR Tolkien wrote Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit in Birmingham. The twin towers from the book were inspired by Edgbaston water works!

Reverend Wilbert Awdry wrote the Thomas the tank engine books there.

Famous musicians from Birmingham include UB40, Duran Duran, Musical youth, Roy Wood, Jamelia and Ozzy Osbourne. One of the members of Musical youth who died at a young age is buried close to Kings Heath test centre

Other famous people from Birmingham include Nigel Mansell, Murray Walker, Jasper Carrot, Cat Deeley, Tony Hitchcock and Toyah Wilcox.

^
Good stuff there GreenMachine.

Just to add, during the First World War, Tolkein was stationed on Cannock Chase, (which is just a couple of hundred yards from where I live), and is reputed to be a source of inspiration for his stories.

Can easily imagine so when me & Mrs Foggy go walking over there.

As we approach the 100th year remembrance of the armistice, I thought I would just add a fascinating fact about the origin of the poppy that we wear.
I, like many no doubt, thought it was of British origin.

But, I was surprised to find a few years ago, that it's origins lie on the other side of the Atlantic, as follows:

In 1915, a Canadian army medic Lt Col John McCrae, wrote a poem in memory of a fellow soldier and friend who had been killed at Ypres.
This poem is "In Flanders Fields".

This poem was inspiration for Moina Michael, who vowed to wear a red poppy in honour and remembrance of those who had served in the war.
After the war was over, Michael was involved in working with disabled servicemen, in her home state of Georgia USA.. Realizing the need to provide financial and occupational support for these servicemen, she pursued the idea of selling silk poppies as a means of raising funds to assist disabled servicemen. In 1921, her efforts resulted in the poppy being adopted as a symbol of remembrance for war veterans by the American Legion Auxiliary, and by Earl Haig's British Legion Appeal Fund (later The Royal British Legion) later that year.

On Cannock Chase, near to where I live are two military cemeteries.
One is the Commonwealth Cemetery for WW1, and the other is the much larger German War Cemetery for the German & Austrian servicemen from both wars, totalling nearly 5,000 graves.

I go there sometimes and just look at the graves of lads called Fritz or Hans, as young as 18 or 19 and I think what madness, what a waste of life.
It's quite an overwhelming sight, both emotionally and spiritually, just rows of crosses and crosses.

In France the rememberance flower is not the poppy, they use the blue cornflower.

(01-11-2018 23:00 )Foggy Mainwaring Wrote:  On Cannock Chase, near to where I live are two military cemeteries.
One is the Commonwealth Cemetery for WW1, and the other is the much larger German War Cemetery for the German & Austrian servicemen from both wars, totalling nearly 5,000 graves.

My older brother was in the Scouts many years ago, and went to Beaudesert camp near Cannock Chase. He still reminds me of the 'Headless Horseman' that filled the imagination on many dark nights spent there in tents. His vivid imagination of a man dressed in black on a horse looking for victims wouldn't be out of place in a movie made much later like "Sleepy Hollow", which he says still makes him jump every time he watches it.

I'm wondering if this tale comes from the fact there are all those war graves on the site nearby?

I think that list had an error it should be of course Tony Hancock not Hitchcock.
In Germany they start 3 months of celebrations with a carnival on our Remembrance SUNDAY.

(02-11-2018 00:29 )kelly1066 Wrote:  My older brother was in the Scouts many years ago, and went to Beaudesert camp near Cannock Chase. He still reminds me of the 'Headless Horseman' that filled the imagination on many dark nights spent there in tents. His vivid imagination of a man dressed in black on a horse looking for victims wouldn't be out of place in a movie made much later like "Sleepy Hollow", which he says still makes him jump every time he watches it.

I'm wondering if this tale comes from the fact there are all those war graves on the site nearby?

I don't know about that Kelly, the only headless horseman I ever heard of is the one you just mentioned.
I read the book by Washington Irving many years ago.
Who knows, truth is stranger than fiction.

The newspaper Daily Star debuted 40 years ago and who would have thought it would last that long, going up against the market leader, The Sun. Sometimes they had better Page 3 pics than them and were first with the all-colour Page 3 girls whom they called Starbirds. Calendars of those early years are very rare to find.