Dr John Dee

That's akin to heresy on this thread, dieter. There are some things up with which we will not put, as your hero Winston once said.

You've got too much time on your hands, daisy, but well picked up. Also seems they well and truly trump New Zealand (following the Croats in NZ link), being responsible for anyone who's anyone in that country as well, including several All Blacks. Most of those associations are at best nominal, or probably more accurately fanciful. Interesting what can be done with this sort of exercise.

I think maybe you should read dieter's post again.

I don't know whether the Croatians outdo the New Zealanders in laying claim to people and achievements from elsewhere but it probably says enough that they never seem to have noticed Steiner.

Not sure how many ways you think a hair can be split, daisy, but this isn't one of them. If you check, you'll find that Biffin claimed Steiner was Croatian. He wasn't, he was Austrian. He identified as Austrian. Steiner may have been born in Croatia but he spent not much more than a year there, if that. He might have been entitled to a Croatian passport since the kingdom was able to issue these but I suspect you'll have great difficulty in demonstrating that he ever had one. The only issue is (as it was before) that once again Biff's been having a lend of history.

Sorry dieter, no insult intended. I only meant that the empire (as empire) was pointless, being as it was a series of political settlements called an empire and serving only to prop up the Habsburgs for another 50 years or so. Its cultural contributions can't be denied although Mozart and Schubert might be stretching the point since they were born well before 1867. And never mind Mahler. Check out Alma Mahler's 'career' some time. She seems to have slept with most of Vienna. Happy for you to claim Kafka. I wouldn't trade him for a thousand Kiplings. And if you really want to boast you could add Robert Musil. Extraordinary writer.

I don't mean to be pedantic or anything, but Steiner was Austrian, a citizen of that other pointless empire, the Austro-Hungarian. Some people, including the bloke with the toothbrush moustache, didn't think that distinction meant much, though.

Very pleasing that you have arrived in Vietnam without harm, Biff. You don't mention, though, whether you caused any on the way. My sister was there a few years ago and loved it. She's always talking out of turn. I expect your bad French to continue. It's our historic duty to offend against the language, especially wherever we find the remnants of their failed colonial enterprises. I won't venture anywhere near the bad Dong puns. I presume you'll return with at least six months' supply of these. If not, you could bring back a stick-on Uncle Ho beard for BBO to wear to the first game of the season.

Hmm, this looks suspiciously like posting by proxy, another clever effort by BBO to slip past any scrupulous mods who might visit here. That's highly unlikely I suppose. More alarming is the information that he's been allowed to teach anyone anything. I though proponents of Dickensian education techniques had been shuffled off into administrative jobs long ago. Anyway, didn't you say in another thread that you were off for a souvlaki at lunchtime yesterday?

I thought it was as well but Jack obviously left it with a request to leave James Hird alone for the time being. I guess Alan Hird's stirring things up is a separate enough issue and should be able to be discussed that way but if it turns back onto James and his problems it might need to be shut down.

We're completely in the dark about the new satellite and it doesn't seem to have helped ease the load on the existing one. We have outage after outage, only some of them planned. Assuming the wet arrives soon we'll probably need to connect to the web via semaphore. Hope you're right 'bub. Will we have to rely on Telstra to get it working though?

The more things change the more they go backwards, daisy. We get by jumping from satellite to a Telstra mobile broadband service to using an iPhone as a hotspot. But there was a 7:30 report thing a while ago on a bloke who has to put his iPhone in a plastic bag and hoist it up a tree to get any sort of internet so I can't complain (and no one would listen anyway). Good to know that things are moving so fast in the metropoli though.

What's that thing about doing unto others? I tend to prefer that direction. First anyway. Have been enjoying myself of late poking feathers at Crusader Biffin and reading about nineteenth century s-x crimes in Vienna. No connection of course.

Literary reference: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.

I thought the Taoist resonances to you last countdown notice were very engaging, Mr Leg.

Surely Biff you don't think so little of your fellow Demonlanders (or at least your fellow habitués of this thread) as to compare them with the TIO? The TIO has just proved in the last few days how much noise it can make about the number of complaints it has received against the nbn. It is somewhat less voluble about the number of complaints it has resolved (presumably the TIO's job, but maybe not). You wouldn't find anyone round here just making a noise for the sake of it, I trust. (My apologies for the lateness of this response btw. It may go without saying that my internet service was, as usual, intermittent most of yesterday. As to the government's part in that I cannot possibly comment without fear of contravening the court order again.) Added: Kudos on the comment on the Goodwin thread btw. Hope it goes well.

Maybe this will help you get through your month wearing that face, Macca:

http://www.skynewssport.com.au/afl-news-display/bombers-lose-nearly-10m-over-doping-saga/9016?ref=BP_RSS_sn-sport_3_bombers-lose-nearly--10m-over-doping-saga_151116 Not quite the penalty it should have been, but it's a start.

If this thread handed out awards that'd be a five bananas.

Zaharakis's 'needle phobia' has been discussed at several different stages of the Essendon saga.

Thanks daisy. They made a lot of noise some months ago about the second satellite going up in October. I haven't heard anything since and I presume as a customer I'll get hear when it comes on stream. The satellite will be ok (albeit with various interruptions and slowdowns) until the wet starts but we can spend weeks under the sort of cloud that denies us any connection. Meanwhile we've hung onto a telstra mobile broadband service (marginal anyway). Between them we get by, but at around $170 a month. It's all a bit mad.

This post got buried in the rush after the whispering fellow put the frighteners on everyone around here but I wanted to add that it's nice to have a professional eye coincide with my far more amateur one, 'bub. I've scratched together a few technical perspectives over time and I wrote to nbn (I'm happy with their use of the lower case; more appropriate to their level of service) with a few questions about the location and capacities of the local fixed wireless tower. Received a page and half from them setting out my 'rights' under the FOI Act and likely schedules of fees etc etc. In another lifetime I used to handle FOI complaints for the Commonwealth Ombudsman so I was tempted to dust off my knowledge and make life miserable for them for a while but I doubt whether it'd achieve anything so I'm handing it all over to the local mp. Will I get anywhere? I doubt it. Even if we get a more reliable service it will only be a more reliable joke, as you say.

No, no, 'bub. I've heard about stories like that ... I'd never fall for such a scam.

Thank you Biff, but I'm sure you can exempt yourself from occasionally publicly censuring me, especially in BBO's absence. I don't mind given your expert command of the sarcastic; and besides there's plenty of cheap 'likes' that'll be available for you from some of the petty revanchists around the place. As far as that lab is concerned I trust you'll be careful. A member of the leather-jacketed fraternity set up a lab in the roof space of a house he rented a few years back just down the road from us. He was sure (perhaps like you) that no one would notice the comings and goings in this far-flung place, on which point he was correct. Nobody noticed the fire, either, until the house was nearly gone.

I'm sure we can arrange some Russian contacts for you to hack the Demonland archive before then, daisy. The two lovely young ladies from Ekaterinburg who have promised to complete my ménage and whose airfares I sent a while ago both have brothers in the computer business, or so they've told me. Of course I haven't heard from them since then but I'm sure I will soon.