BS: The Floss

Subject: BS: The Floss
From: Senoufou
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 04:15 AM

I've just heard about this new Thing. It's been banned in many schools because the pupils are doing it at every available moment. I had a look on Youtube and it looks fun. (I tried doing it myself - not easy, but quite good exercise!)

It seems there's a lad called Backpack Boy who demonstrates it online, and I think it's on that Xbox game called Fortnite (not sure about that though)

I do love to see new trends.

There's also a gesture called The Loser (I thought at first it was the 'dickhead' sign, but no, it's a capital L on the forehead with finger and thumb) That and The Floss are earning detentions in schools everywhere!

I suppose flipping plastic bottles of water on to the ground, and those 'fidget spinners' are vieux jeu now.

Anyone heard of other new Things I should know about?

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Stanron
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 04:37 AM

I remember the looser sign from the old Top Gear. Clarkson used it whenever he could make it look like he won anything. Shame they moved to Amazon. It's forbidden territory now for me.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Senoufou
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 04:44 AM

Oooh, I've found a video on Youtube showing all the dances from Fortnite in real life, and there's a fantastic one called 'Best Mates'.
I'm going to try that one, but I'm not sure I can do it.

When younger, I used to dance like anything. Does anyone remember the Slosh?

When the village children come out of school, (they often come to chat to me on my garden bench in front of our house) I'm going to ask them to demonstrate all these new dances for me!

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 06:06 AM

I've been having problems with a stiff shoulder for the last year or so, and the Floss looks like a great exercise to loosen it up.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Senoufou
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 06:56 AM

Good idea Jack! Dance is good exercise because one gets into a rhythm.
I used to be quite a good dancer.

Stanron, I used to think Clarkson was very funny, but somehow I can't abide him now. He's a rude and arrogant you-know-what in my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 07:41 AM

Go down the beach in this hot weather and you'll see plenty of lovely young women wearing arse-flossers, aka thongs.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Senoufou
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 07:45 AM

Hahaha Steve! Is that what they're called? I should think thongs are most uncomfortable to wear. Like a cheese wire...

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Stanron
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 07:52 AM

Senoufou wrote: He's a rude and arrogant you-know-what in my opinion.

Part of the success of the old Top Gear involved walking the fine line between acting and actually being arrogant, ignorant, conceited and stupid. Men got the 'blokiness' and women got the talentless ambition. In the show he was balanced by the other two. On his own, perhaps, that balance is lost.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Senoufou
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 08:32 AM

That's a good summary Stanron. I used to like his iconoclastic attitude and his mischievous sense of humour. He reminded me of several 'naughty boys' I've taught over the years. Cheeky, but they made me giggle even as I gave out detentions.
But somehow that's no longer so amusing. Perhaps times have changed?

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Jos
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 08:46 AM

Surely women got the blokiness as well, didn't they? Women don't live in a complete vacuum - they are 'people', after all.

Although Jeremy Clarkson could be arrogant and crass, in the end he was 'sacked' for saying something that he didn't say.
What I heard him say was 'Eeeny meeny miney mo, catch a ...'
My grandchildren quite happily say 'Eeny meeny miney mo, catch a fishy by the toe' - which strikes me as odd. Why fishy rather than something like froggy, which does have toes? Or would that be offensive to the French?

The 'offensiveness' on TopGear came on the part of people over a certain age, who completed the rhyme in their heads, using a word that Clarkson had refrained from using.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 09:00 AM

I thought he was sacked for punching a co-worker?

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Jos
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 09:35 AM

You could be right, that may have been the final straw, but it was probably a combination of several occasions when he was thought to have crossed a line.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: leeneia
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 11:01 AM

To get back to "the Floss", which is a simple dance, I can see why kids are doing it.

It's simple.

Backpacks are common, and bring up the idea of doing it by association.

The dancer doesn't move around. It can be done while standing in a line, in a hallway.

Anybody can do it, not just the jocks.

It gets rid of nervous energy.

(Can't say I care for the deadpan expression and the thousand-yard stare of the boy on Britain's Got Talent.)   

I wonder how it got the name Floss. To me, there's embroidery floss, dental floss and a river named Floss.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Senoufou
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 12:04 PM

Clarkson was sacked for punching assistant producer Oisin Tymon, because when they got back from filming the chap hadn't got a meal ready. Spoiled brat.

I think it's called The Floss because the movements with both arms resemble using a giant invisible piece of dental floss.

I've been watching the dance 'Best Mates' again. It's hilarious. But after a couple of seconds trying to copy it I'm gasping for breath.

Do I need to grow up? :)

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Raedwulf
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 12:34 PM

No, Sen, you don't need to grow up. Peter Pan & all that (or Petra, for those that prefer...). Mind you, I'm shocked,

I used to think Clarkson was very funny

Really? I am a bloke & I've always thought he was a complete & utter arse (the fact that he also used to right *cough* sorry, write for The Scum is entirely incidental, but Little Dick John, sorry, Richard Littlejohn & all that...). He may be, personally & privately, a very lovely person, but publicly? He has always cultivated the persona of being a total prick, made his money from doing so, and therefore can hardly complain if everyone thinks that's who he is!

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Senoufou
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 01:28 PM

Apparently (according to him) he was terribly bullied at public school (was it Repton? Can't remember) But maybe he was so annoying there that they set upon him. No excuse for bullying of course, but I've seen bullies go for an extremely annoying child.

No, he was quite funny at first. He said what the rest of us didn't dare say. And he had a very mischievous grin. He was witty and amusing. But he ended up a stereotype - an entitled, privileged prat.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Raedwulf
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 01:55 PM

Fair enough. I shall disagree to agree! Ummm. Hang on... ;-)

He can be witty, but unfortunately a lot of the time he seems to be a parody / caricature / stereotype. Of himself, even. I wouldn't dare speculate to what extent this is deliberate on his part, or unconscious. It just doesn't appeal to me, even if a particular turn of phrase cadges a grin out of me. If you see what I mean?

(Yes, Repton, apparently, and however odious he might have been back then, if what he claims happened to him is only half true… Grrrrr… I loathe bullying! But it doesn't in the least excuse him becoming something of a bullying bastard himself. If you've been bullied, you ought to know better...)

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 02:02 PM

"To me, there's embroidery floss, dental floss and a river named Floss."

Not strictly true, Leeneia. There is no river named Floss, except in fiction. George Eliot is believed to have based 'The Mill on the Floss' on the Lincolnshire town of Gainsborough and the River Trent which flows through it - she stayed for a period, during her researching for the book, at a merchant's house close to Gainsborough Bridge and by the Trent, where there were a number of mills. There is also a tidal bore at Gainsborough, known locally as 'The Aegir', which is thought to have given Eliot the idea for the deaths of Maggie and Tom Tulliver in the swollen Floss.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 02:15 PM

Plenty of "flossing" going on at the 2 primary school leavers' ceilidhs we played for this last week! - in between the other dances!! Both were fun nights where any previous restrictions on flossing were obviously ignored!

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Senoufou
Date: 29 Jun 18 - 02:40 PM

I think I'll start a Fortnite Club for pensioners in our village. We can get the local schoolchildren to demonstrate, then have a go ourselves.
I want to master the Best Mate one. It seems you can't do it on the spot, you have to sort of lollop along. Maybe I could try it on Norwich's main shopping street ('Gentleman's Walk') but sadly my husband would die of shame.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: leeneia
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 01:36 AM

Thanks for the info on the fictional River Floss, Backwoodsman.

A book I once read pointed out that the names of rivers often come from antique or even lost languages. Even though it's fictional, the Floss seems to be one of them. How else to explain a stream of water named for thread?
========
Senoufou, I like your idea of a dance get-together with the kids.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Jos
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 02:57 AM

Don't many of the names of rivers simply mean a variety of 'river' or 'water'? Is this why many rivers have the same names, such as Avon and Yeo?

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Senoufou
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 03:20 AM

I should think the German word der Fluß has something to do with it.
(Everyone please note I have discovered how to get that there 'foreign'
on my Chrome laptop!)

Have now discovered a video on Youtube with 59 of these weird dances from Fortnite, with humans dancing alongside the robot characters.
I want to dance ALL of them.

By the way, does anyone know what this strange XBox game is actually all about? What does one have to do? (Hopefully not zap dancing robots of various kinds!)

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Raedwulf
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 03:41 AM

It's a PvP survival game, Sen. :)

Which means... It's Player vs Player - you aren't fighting NPC's (non-player characters). There probably are mob's (mobiles - entities generated by the game, often aggressive, but with a limited amount of AI), but every avatar you see (i.e. the things that look similar to your avatar) is controlled by another person. Not by the game.

As for survival, you have to learn to use things in the game environment to produce better weapons, armour, and whatever other gear you need to survive. And (not having played it myself), it's probably also 'Last Man Standing' - to win you have to eliminate everyone else (or at least everyone you're not allied with).

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Senoufou
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 04:03 AM

Thanks very much for that Raedwulf! There seem to be some interesting characters in the game, a pink cat type of a thing, and a very muscular young lady. But everyone is saying that it's become rather addictive, and children want to play it all night long. (Why ever don't their parents just turn off the router at bedtime?)

I myself rather like Minecraft with 'Stampycat' explaining and demonstrating the various features. I love his friend Ballistic Squid (!!) Has anyone watched, "There's a hole in my Hulahoop?" or the 'Diamonds' song?

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Raedwulf
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 04:21 AM

Heh. Minecraft is another one I've managed to avoid, so you've lost me there! :) I've more or less been an MMORPG player for the last decade. That's Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. More depth to them & more social side too. I've never really been into PvP, so the survival game genre isn't really my thing, nor FPS's either (First Person perspective Shooter).

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Senoufou
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 04:35 AM

Goodness, you're very knowledgeable Raedwulf! I just like to watch the various Youtube videos about the most popular children's online Games.
Do you find them a bit addictive?
A friend told me there's a game where one builds a whole city on an island and defends it from marauders. One has to sort out agriculture, housing, public security etc. I asked her if the game was called 'The UK Government'!

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Raedwulf
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 06:19 AM

Lol, Sen. The UK government is more Ankh-Morpork these days - "Welcome, barbarian invaders!" and in 2 years you're just another ethnic minority in a teeming city. It's either that or "Those are our guns, our shells, you still haven't paid for them. And stand up straight when you talk to me, you nasty little debtor!" ;-)

I'm a gamer (amongst other things, including being obnoxious occasionally! ;-) ). Board games, 1/72 scale soldiers & Airfix kits, hex-map strategy games, RPGs, you name it, I've played it (the genre if not the specific game). As for computer games... My better off mate at the top of the road (Jonathan) had the original Pong game (he was better at it than me, but he got to practice more!). My eldest brother bought both the original Atari VCS (the one that came with the Tank game) & a ZX80. I remember coming across an Asteroids cabinet tucked around the back of a motorway service station on the way to Birmingham (I wasn't terribly impressed) before anyone had ever heard of it / it was a thing (oddly enough, I don't think I ever played the original Space Invaders).

So, yeah, I'm a gamer, I play games... ;-) There's something called the Bartle Test (google it, if you really want to know). It's been poo-poohed since it was created, but it remains a fairly straightforward categorisation of your gaming psyche (possibly of more than your 'only' gaming psyche!) into 4 divisions - Achiever, Explorer, Killer, Socialiser. I invariably come out as either ESAK or SEAK, with Killer being a distant last. I enjoy solving things and talking to people. And I'm a bit of a completionist, so Achiever, yeah... But whilst I'm *very* competitive, the person I'm trying to beat is me, not you! So I've never got the hang of the Killer bit... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Jos
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 06:38 AM

I've never bothered with any of those kinds of games - from seaside arcades to sonic hedgehogs to play stations and X boxes and the rest.
I play old-fashioned board games to please grandchildren, but the only one I take seriously is Scrabble. The final score doesn't bother me, but individual high scores and trying to add interesting words to the board are what I enjoy.
Raedwulf's "the person I'm trying to beat is me, not you!" I do understand.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Raedwulf
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 06:53 AM

Given but individual high scores and trying to add interesting words to the board are what I enjoy, I understand entirely what you mean too, Jos. The game or sport (or whatever) doesn't matter; what matters is that you find some enjoyment in it. And, secondary but also very important, that you allow others to enjoy the same thing in their own fashion.

SEAK or KAES (or whatever), you might as well be generous & gracious to others, right? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Senoufou
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 09:30 AM

Oooh Raedwulf, we've just got back from the supermarket, and I've had a go at your suggested Bartle Test. It seems I'm 87% socialiser, 80% explorer, 20% achiever and 13% killer. So I'm a SEAK.
Glad I'm not 100% killer!

And what in the world is that game called 'Pong'? I hardly dare imagine, but I know a few people who might do well in it!!!

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Raedwulf
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 11:41 AM

Pong, as in ping-pong, Sen. The original one bat (no! I never said anything about 'old bat'!!!) each side video game. ;-)

And yes, the Bartle does add up to 200%, it's generous like that! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 11:49 AM

I'm an ESAK:-) 87% 53% 47% 13%

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Raedwulf
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 12:17 PM

Quite honestly, I'd be surprised if anyone currently on the 'cat came up with K as their favourite breakfast cereal (and that stuff is 60 years old, apparently! :o)! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Senoufou
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 02:36 PM

Special K is revolting, like eating cardboard!

I can't imagine anyone doing that Bartle Test admitting that they enjoyed killing folk during their XBox games. It would make them out to be total psychopaths wouldn't it?

And I can't quite accept the thread on here about killing poor wild moose ('Hey rap!') Firing guns at those beautiful creatures for fun. No.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Senoufou
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 02:41 PM

At the supermarket I was tempted to try out some of those Fortnite dances down the aisles of Asda. (sounds like a holiday destination doesn't it? 'The Aisles of Asda') but my husband looked very, very alarmed and begged me not to even think of it.

'Best Mate' would be impossible as one would be knocking people over, but 'The Floss' could be done on the spot.

They'll be wheeling me away to a care home for the demented any day soon...

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: leeneia
Date: 30 Jun 18 - 10:53 PM

Just as I said, Senoufou. The Floss (and no doubt many of the other dances) can be done in places where there is little room. I do think that the Best Mate dance looks very uncomfortable - likely to lead to a bad fall.

That was a good thought about the River Floss and the German Fluss.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Jos
Date: 01 Jul 18 - 05:56 AM

Maybe the words Floss / Fluß is related to the English word Flush.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Senoufou
Date: 02 Jul 18 - 02:43 AM

I think Fluß means 'flow'.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Raedwulf
Date: 02 Jul 18 - 12:28 PM

In which case, it's almost certainly related - flush is "move quickly, spring up", which covers the 3 main meanings - flushing prey i.e. making a bird or rabbit spring from cover, to go red very quickly, and to cleanse with a quick flow of water. Other uses such as "level" & "a run (i.e. flow again) of cards" are probably also related. Oddly enough, my OED doesn't seem too certain of the origin of the main meanings (it won't commit itself past M.Eng), but for "run of cards" says it derives from the Latin for flow!

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Senoufou
Date: 02 Jul 18 - 12:57 PM

I've only got 'O' level Latin, but the word for 'to flow' is fluere, and the adjective 'flowing' is fluxus. So it's more than likely they're all connected to 'floss' and der Fluß.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Jos
Date: 02 Jul 18 - 02:35 PM

I'm amazed - I got O-level Latin (a long, long time ago) and I can't remember much of it at all - though I have got a dictionary. Did you remember that or did you look it up?

PS. I tried the floss - I was sceptical about a dance that didn't involve any steps, but for someone who now has dodgy ankles (too much North-West Morris?) I found it quite enjoyable.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Senoufou
Date: 02 Jul 18 - 04:00 PM

I didn't look it up Jos, but languages are my great love.

I started studying Latin in the sixth form and got the 'O'level in two years flat. I wanted to study French in the Arts faculty at Edinburgh Uni and they wanted Latin for their 'Attestation of Fitness' (!)

My silly friends and I used to giggle at the daft stories provided by Kennedy's Latin Primer, our ancient textbook. It was full of virgins in the woods and Marcus and his mate Lucius going to the Forum.
The schoolteacher (magister) was always thrashing his pupils. I reckon he was a Roman type of perv!

I was somewhat disappointed when I got to Edinburgh to find that the lectures in 'Vulgar Latin' were not as I had supposed, but merely about the transition of Latin into French! :)

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Stanron
Date: 02 Jul 18 - 05:00 PM

I just came across that recently on a tv documentary. Early medieval literature migrated from Latin to native French and was known as 'vulgar'. Can't remember what the program was now.

I hated history at school. It was terribly taught. Now it's the first thing I'll watch on tv. If I were starting to study again I'd like to learn Latin, maybe Greek and certainly old English.

It's too late to actually do it, of course, but I like the idea.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Jos
Date: 03 Jul 18 - 03:20 AM

There's no age limit for studying and learning, Stanron. Do it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Senoufou
Date: 03 Jul 18 - 04:10 AM

I agree with Jos. Go for it Stanron!

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 08 Jul 18 - 03:22 PM

The Floss
YouTube
https://youtu.be/u98kIvxGoa4?t=353s

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Jul 18 - 03:23 AM

Thank you FreddyHeadey, I've never learned to do blue clickies, in spite of numerous helpful instructions.

I had another look at the dances from Fortnite, and they've got the cheek to put the Charleston on there! My Irish Auntie taught me that in the fifties (she was a 'Flapper' in the twenties) Nothing new about that!

Subject: RE: BS: The Floss
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 09 Jul 18 - 01:09 PM

Just ask Joyce and Vicky, if candy floss is sticky1!!