Are there many brits on able2know?

Are you implying that my thing is like a thimble? How did this conversation turn? I was saying that yours was like a thimble, Lord, and all of a sudden you turn the tables and have me looking at my crotch with a bit of concern.

You damn Brits.

Devious bastards.

I'm alluding to your cross stitch accident Gus. What the hell has that got to do with your crotch?

You Americans have sex on the brain.

By the way, don't you have an election coming up this year?

Yes, but unfortunately not presidential. We have to deal with the maggot **** for a few more years.

Why did that r in my last post come out as an l ?

and why are you talking politics all of a sudden?

Trying to divert attention from the thimble. Wag the dog and all that.

<dlowan - I know what a merkin is, that's why it's funny>

dlowan wrote:



The two esteemed writers you refer to wrote extensively in the slang of the day...

x

I've just had crumpets and tea for breakfast - how British is that?

...or is it crumpeii - if you have two?


x

ooops, nearly forgot:

Nobel Prize Winners from Manchester University Chemistry Department (Dates of awards in brackets):

Arthur Harden (awarded Nobel prize in 1929), for investigations on the fermentation of sugar and fermentative enzymes.
Walter Norman Haworth (awarded Nobel prize in 1937), for his investigations on carbohydrates and vitamin C.
Robert Robinson (awarded Nobel prize in 1947), for his investigations on plant products of biological importance, especially the alkaloids.
Alexander Todd (awarded Nobel prize in 1957), for his work on nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes.
Melvin Calvin (awarded Nobel prize in 1961), for his research on carbon dioxide assimilation in plants.
John Charles Polanyi (awarded Nobel prize in 1986), for his contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes.
Michael Smith (awarded Nobel prize in 1993), for his fundamental contributions to the establishment of oligonucleiotide-based, site-directed mutagenesis and its development for protein studies.
[edit]
Computer Science & Mathematics
Alan Turing, founder of computer science and AI. ACM Turing award is named after him.
Paul Erdős, was one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century or the Euler of our time, who posed and solved many problems in number theory and other areas. He also founded the field of discrete mathematics, which is the foundation of computer science. He was one of the most prolific mathematicians in history, with more than 1,500 papers to his name (Leonhard Euler was second in the list). In his early career, he held a post-doctoral fellowship at Manchester University and subsequently became a wandering mathematician. With no job, no home and his few clothes in an orange carrier bag, he would arrive at colleagues' houses, declare "My brain is open" and stay. Awarded the Cole Prize by AMS.
James Lighthill, was one of the most influential applied mathematicians of the 20th century. He made important contributions to the modern developments in theoretical aerodynamics and aeroacoustics (Lighthill's eighth power law) and was one of the founding fathers of the field of biofluiddynamics. He is also founder of IMA.
Osborne Reynolds is famous for his work in fluid mechanics. In 1886 he formulated a theory of lubrication and three years later he developed the standard mathematical framework used in the study of turbulence. The 'Reynolds number' used in modelling fluid flow is named after him (his students include JJ Thomson, who discovered the electron).
Ludwig Wittgenstein who is best known for his work in philosophy undertook aeronautical research in Manchester. Needing to understand more mathematics for his research he began a study which soon involved him in the foundations of mathematics.
Louis Mordell was a pure mathematician who made important contributions in number theory who worked at UMIST and the University of Manchester.
Sydney Goldstein was one of the most influential theoretical fluid mechanicians in this century. He is best known for his work in boundary layer theory where the "Goldstein singularity" is named after him.
Lewis Fry Richardson was a scientist who was the first to apply mathematics, in particular the method of finite differences, to predicting the weather (the father of CFD). He made contributions to calculus and to the theory of diffusion, in particular eddy-diffusion in the atmosphere. The "Richardson number", a fundamental quantity involving gradients of temperature and wind velocity, is named after him.
Sir Horace Lamb was one of the six professors appointed when Manchester University received its Royal Charter (his chair was in Mathematics, and Osborne Reynolds was given the Chair in Engineering). He made many important contributions to applied mathematics, including the areas of acoustics and fluid dynamics. His book "Hydrodynamics" (first published in 1895) was for many years the standard text on the subject and is still essential reading for serious researchers in fluid mechanics. It could be said that Lamb's main field of research was solid mechanics, and he made careful studies of the vibrations of spherical bodies which aided understanding in seismology. Research on waves in layered media led to the discovery of "Lamb Waves".
Bernhard Neumann spent more than a decade in Manchester. He is one of the leading figures in group theory and has influenced the direction of the subject in numerous ways.
Max Newman made many important contributions to combinatorial topology, Boolean algebras and mathematical logic. He directed the famous Colossus code-breaking operation in the war.
John Littlewood is famous for his work on the theory of series, the Riemann zeta function, inequalities and the theory of functions. He held a lectureship at the University of Manchester from 1907 to 1910.
Frank Adams was a leading figure in algebraic topology and homotopy theory. He developed methods which led to important advances in calculating the homotopy groups of spheres (a problem which is still unsolved), including the invention of the "Adams operations" which are now finding application in other areas of pure mathematics.
Tom Kilburn and Freddie Williams invented the Williams-Kilburn Tube and the first modern electronic computer in the world, the Manchester Mark 1.

AND...

Manchester University is more popular than both Oxford and Cambridge!

x

<Ellpus wakes.....yawns>

Eh?....wha...?.....is that you shouting, smorgs...?...have you made me my breakfast yet...?

Bugger...I forgot this thing was still switched on.......<click>

And Manchester is the only town with a heavy bus war going on.

Aha!

And that proves...what? Popularity is hardly a measure of academic excellence.

Wrong, Erik.
Two Australian women. Not several Oz girls.
And I don't really think we were terribly mad at you at all.

here, have a dripping buttie.

Ha!

Actually chai, I have had numerous "dripping" butties (a butty is a sandwich).

When I was a kid, it was very common for the Mums to get as much "goodness" into a kid as they could, whilst being constrained by a very tight budget.

A beef joint, when roasted (as you know) "drips" both fat and liquid from the meat.

This was left to cool, and later, the fat was skimmed off, leaving the now jellified beef "liquid" in the tray.
This jelly (called dripping), was then spread thickly onto a slice of bread. Some people made sandwiches, personally I preferred (and still eat it like that ) the dripping on one slice of bread and eaten as is.

Down here in the London area, it's simply called "bread and dripping", and is absolutely delicious.

I consider it one of my comfort foods, along with eccles cakes, boiled eggs and banana sandwiches. Not eaten altogether, mind you.

We COULD be, though...never underestimate us!

He better wotchit, that's all I'm saying.