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Subject: Thought For Monday June 12 From: Little Neophyte Date: 12 Jun 00 - 08:13 AM I am currently reading The Endurance, which is a book about a renowned explorer Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twenty-seven men who set sail for the south Atlantic in pursuit of the last unclaimed prize in the history of exploration: the first crossing on foot of the Antarctic continent. Weaving a treacherous path through the freezing Weddell Sea, they had come within eighty-five miles of their destination when their ship, Endurance, was trapped fast in the ice pack. Soon the ship was crushed like matchwood, leaving the crew stranded on the floes(huge pieces of floating ice). Their ordeal lasted for 20 months and they had two near-fatal attempts to escape by open boat before their final rescue. When they first abandoned the ship wreckage the plan was to march towards land which was 200 miles away. The men had to limit their personal possessions to only two pounds each with one exception, Shackleton allowed one of the crew members to take his banjo on the premise that is would supply the men with "vital mental tonic". All the men survived this ordeal. I bet that banjo kept their spirits up at the worst of moments. Bonnie |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler Date: 12 Jun 00 - 08:45 AM Perhaps it kept the polar bears away! Slight (?) thread creep: I work in the institution that has the original of Landseer's "Man proposes, God disposes" which shows a polar bear searching through the detritus of Shackleton's expedition. (No sign of a banjo!). Strangely, when the gallery was used as an exam hall, students were superstitious about the painting, claiming it brought bad luck to the candidate sitting near it so it had to be covered up (usually with a union flag!). I would have thought Millais' "Princes in the Tower" a more ominous subject! RtS |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: MMario Date: 12 Jun 00 - 08:57 AM Polar bears are an ARCTIC animal. I thought Shackleton's expedition was in the ANTARCTIC? |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: Little Neophyte Date: 12 Jun 00 - 09:18 AM MMario is right about the polar bears. They did not meet up with any bears but there was a spooky moment they recall when the ship's fate was nearing disaster from the crushing ice. One evening when all was quiet an unsettling incident occurred while several sailors were on deck. A band of eight emperor penguins solemnly approached the ship, an unsually large number of penquins to be travelling together. The penquins intently looked at the ship for a few moments and then they threw back their heads and emitted an eerie, soulful cry. "I myself must confess that I have never, either before or since, heard the penquins make any sound similar to the sinister wailings they moaned that day", wrote Worsley, one of the crew members. I have a feeling those penguins were not offering a eerie sinister chorus because of the banjo music. Bonnie |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler Date: 12 Jun 00 - 09:22 AM AARgh! I KNEW polar bears were only Arctic but perhaps Landseer....? (No, I think it must have been another expedition he was depicting...I'll go away and hide in a darkened room). RtS |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: sophocleese Date: 12 Jun 00 - 09:23 AM So the banjo scared away penguins but not polar bears? Monty Python style images of ravaging bands of penguins desperately held at bay by haggard banjo players are now filming through my head. What happens when you break a string? Could we get Mel Gibson to play a minstrel? What about Tom Cruise, Liam Neeson could be the commander and Ewan McColl has to be in there somewhere. |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: Little Neophyte Date: 12 Jun 00 - 09:36 AM Soph, the banjo music didn't scare away the penquins. The penquins were crying because the ship was being crushed by the ice and there was nothing they could do. |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler Date: 12 Jun 00 - 09:38 AM ...pokes head out of darkened room: it was Franklin's expedition to find the N.W. Passage that the painting depicts, so nothing to do with this thread! I've clearly really lost it! Open the cage! RtS :o( |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: sledge Date: 12 Jun 00 - 09:38 AM This is not a subject to be taken lightly, a cornered penguin is one of the most dangerous creatures known to man, take your leg clean off it will. |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: sophocleese Date: 12 Jun 00 - 10:21 AM So does the banjo soothe a penguin or scare it away? And after its taken your leg clean off does it return it? |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: Gervase Date: 12 Jun 00 - 10:33 AM At the risk of total thread creep, penguins might be terrifying, but they're bloody gullible. An RAF tale (perhaps apocryphal, but maybe not) from the godforsaken base on the Falkland Islands conjures up a wonderful vision of how tractable yer south Atlantic penguin can be... Bored flyers were issued with an order from their CO to stop being cruel to be penguins after complaints from various kelpies. It transpires that the Harrier pilots, practising low-level flying, had taken to beating in at under 100ft from left to right along the beaches on some of the outlying islands. Sure enough, 10,000 penguins would all swivel their heads and follow the plane along the beach. Then the Harrier guys would fly from right to left and - just like Wimbledon - the same 10,000 birds would turn and follow the plane the other way. Then they'd fly in from the sea towards the beach and over the birds' heads inland. Imagine 10,000 bemused penguins lying flat in their backs.... |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: Gervase Date: 12 Jun 00 - 10:34 AM At the risk of total thread creep, penguins might be terrifying, but they're bloody gullible. An RAF tale (perhaps apocryphal, but maybe not) from the godforsaken base on the Falkland Islands conjures up a wonderful vision of how tractable yer south Atlantic penguin can be... Bored flyers were issued with an order from their CO to stop being cruel to the penguins after complaints from various kelpies. It transpires that the Harrier pilots, practising low-level flying, had taken to beating in at under 100ft from left to right along the beaches on some of the outlying islands. Sure enough, 10,000 penguins would all swivel their heads and follow the plane along the beach. Then the Harrier guys would fly from right to left and - just like Wimbledon - the same 10,000 birds would turn and follow the plane the other way. And then they'd fly in from the sea towards the beach and over the birds' heads inland. Imagine 10,000 bemused and rather pissed off penguins lying flat on their backs... |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: MMario Date: 12 Jun 00 - 10:35 AM the penguins were gullible? And the pilots believed they got complaints from kelpies? |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: Mooh Date: 12 Jun 00 - 10:39 AM I'd love to try to keep a banjo in tune in the Antarctic. The atmosphere and temperature would turn it into a weapon, or kindling, or both. Where's that banjo now, btw? Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: GUEST,Mrr Date: 12 Jun 00 - 10:43 AM Since we're creeping anyway, here is another FFTKAT - Penguins are perhaps the only animal that NO humans eat. |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: MMario Date: 12 Jun 00 - 10:45 AM ?? I am told that they were clubbed frequently by whalers as a source of fresh meat. |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: MMario Date: 12 Jun 00 - 10:51 AM From a web-site on penguins, regarding human effects upon penguin population. 1 . Historians believe that indigenous peoples have hunted some species of penguins and taken eggs for centuries (Sparks and Soper, 1987). 2. Mass exploitation occurred when early explorers, sealers, whalers, and fishermen turned to penguin colonies as sources of fresh meat and eggs (Moller-Schwarze, 1984). Sometimes more than 300,000 eggs were taken in annual harvests from one African island (Sparks and Soper, 1987). Explorers were known to kill and salt 3,000 penguins in a day for voyage provisions (Simpson, 1976). Penguins were easy prey because of their inability to fly and their seeming lack of fear of humans (Sparks and Soper, 1987). Although egg-collecting was banned in 1969, illegal harvesting continues today (del Hoyo, et al., 1992). 3. During much of the 19th century, and into the 20th, penguin skins were used to make caps, slippers, and purses. Feathers were used for clothing decorations and as mattress stuffing (del Hoyo, et al., 1992; Simpson, 1976; Sparks and Soper, 1987). Inhabitants of the remote island grouping in the South Atlantic, Tristan da Cunha, still depend on penguins for eggs, feathers, oil, and skins (Simpson, 1976). |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: catspaw49 Date: 12 Jun 00 - 10:55 AM Karen and I really love penguins. We've stood in line for an hour just to get the chance to pet a couple fer chrissakes. Watch all the specials, buy books,the works. Perhaps the most disgusting atrocity man ever inflicted was by whalers who were running out of whales and would net penguins. They too have a high amount of oil. The pictures of monstrous vats of boiling penguins was not without some humor though......Disgusted as I was, I found myself singing "Boil That Cabbage Down" substituting "penguin" for cabbage......I'm definitely going to hell for that one. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler Date: 12 Jun 00 - 10:58 AM ...trying to redeem myself with an old joke: "Why don't polar bears eat penguins?" The pedantic answer is that the bears are Northern hemisphere and the penguins Southern, the jokier answer is "because they can't get the silver paper off". [note for overseas listeners: a Penguin is a popular chocolate-covered biscuit in the UK] RtS |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: sledge Date: 12 Jun 00 - 10:59 AM Catspaw Petting penguins, count your fingers |
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Subject: RE: Thought For Monday June 12 From: Little Neophyte Date: 12 Jun 00 - 11:14 AM Mrr, I can tell you 28 hungry men who ate penguin for at least 12 months. They had penguin pancakes for breakfast penguin burgers for lunch penguin potluck for dinner and penguin pie for dessert Maybe that is why those 8 penguins were crying when they saw the ship wreck and foresaw their fate with 28 hungry guys loose. Bonnie |
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