mike carey

Thanks, @RadioRob, with the prolonged error message I figured something like that had happened. Glad to see it's back.

Thanks for this post confirming the impression I had gained.

I think you may have meant artisan. artesian adjective ar·te·sian (ˈ)är-¦tē-zhən : involving, relating to, or supplied by the upward movement of water under hydrostatic pressure in rocks or unconsolidated material beneath the earth's surface

Ms Tate, really?

Mod's Note: We've removed some posts that went down a rabbit hole and became a little too aggressive.

She's the chair of the Australian Government's Productivity Commission. But I don't think that's the one he was talking about.

Does Bozo think so?

Some may have noticed I have changed my avatar. It's a bad photo of a red poppy I grew last year or the year before, a symbol of remembrance with its origins the Flanders poppies that grew in the ground of earth disturbed in war, In Flanders Field.

I suspect he meant complaisant, which it turns out is a word in English, although I checked it to see if he had used a French word. It means "marked by an inclination to please or oblige'.

This morning's national Remembrance Day service was conducted in the forecourt of the Australian War Memorial under partly cloudy skies. The service was attended by the Governor-General, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. The service in Brisbane was attended by Her Royal Highness Princess Anne, the Princes Royal, who is in Australia as the Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Australian Corps of Signals to mark the centenary of the Corps.

'Tradie' is more than a look, and often here it doesn't always even include 'that' look. People here are more likely to use 'bogan' for the look (in my part of the country at least), which is a borderline derogatory term for poorer and 'unrefined' people. Tradie is essentially a term that refers to people in the building trades (hence the typical Australian abbreviation/diminutive—shorten the word and ie or o at the end), and extends to tradesmen you'd employ to do minor home repairs, or who work in licensed trades like plumbing and electrical work, and also carpenters and the like. It also refers, more obliquely, to the proportion of them who have become increasingly prosperous as their small businesses do well with that kind of work and don't take on any of the pretensions that wealth can generate (some making a virtue of not doing so, a sort of reverse snobbery). To me at least, the word 'tradie' sits in a neutral to positive register, not a negative one. But back to the gentleman in question.

I think I've said it before, but from my experience there is a sort of gravity about prices in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US (and to a lesser extent in the UK) that leads to a closer alignment of the numerical dollar/(pound) number than the value at the exchange rate, especially for non-traded goods, or services where the price in the other market isn't affected by the price in another. Distance can affect price variations, providers in Niagara Falls ON might charge a similar exchange rate adjusted rate to those across the river, those in Toronto or New York not so much. Some travelling escorts would adjust their rates to match prevailing local rates.

You say that as if trade deficits are a bad thing, and that a deficit with one partner can's be offset by a surplus with another.

That sounds as if you expected what he says to be decipherable.

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Okay, this wins the internet today.

Dijon mustard would be one idea. I know that works for me when I fry mushrooms and add it with cream for a sauce for a steak or pork chop.

Well, one would hope to be able to visit Mr D'Arcy unannounced.

Interesting, I've driven around the periphery, Annapolis to Dulles. From National and Arlington to points south, Alexandria, across the river on the beltway, and back up to the former Bolling AFB and back to Crystal City, but I don't remember driving through the city itself. Parts I went weren't too difficult, but none of that recent. Maybe there was drama but the recollections of have faded. I wonder whether I should hesitate to try driving there again!

Some scenery in Berlin is pleasant, it would seem. Even the rail stations have their attractions.

One older thread with only one substantive post.

I went to two, but they were in the before times. Interest was episodic, some years planning started but faltered then the idea vanished. It had the benefit of coinciding with MAL so those attending could take advantage its open events, but the disadvantages of being in the north-east in January, and it being easy to leave committing until the last minute (and not doing so) and other things easily prompting a late decision not to go.