Things you were shockingly old when you learned

has no-one heard of Tommy Tedesco?

*raises hand*

Til about the Soviet air force disaster plane the TU 55. It was a single pilot bomber that was dangerous to fly, even more dangerous to land and killed loads of pilots, everything about it seemed designed to kill the pilot - even the ejector seat fired the pilot downwards out of the bottom of the cockpit! But the funny part was the pilots called it the "booze carrier" because the coolant system used an alcohol/distilled water blend that was not dissimilar to Russian vodka, so if they managed to survive a flight they'd drain the remaining gallons of alcohol out the craft to sell on the black market.

I remember hearing the story among a bunch of other stuff about ineptness, poor training and corruption in the Soviet armed forces.
Not sure to what extent that was propaganda during the end of the cold war and pre the dissolution of the USSR.
I think there was one book I always meant to read on the subject and may be several others by now. Think i heard about it or the subject in general as a news item in the late 80s.

this plane was designed by the Concordski guy, not sure if he was a terrible designer or the Soviet system was all geared towards getting things done a bit too fast.

James Ure OBE (born 10 October 1953) is a British musician, singer-songwriter and record producer. His stage name, Midge, is a phonetic reversal of Jim, the diminutive form of his actual name.

I dunno, I always sort of assumed he was called Midge, never thought about it tbh

I assumed it was because he was small. I don't know if he is or not though.

.. 5 feet 6 and a half. I suspect it was a dual purpose nickname tbh.

Midhe Ure has more of a ring to it than Shortarse Ure I suppose, although not much

Midhe Ure, is that the Gaelic version of his name?

Maidhe (pronounced "Fred")

Every time I think of Midge Ure I think of Rik Mayall knocking on his door and calling him "Midge UEEEUUUURRGHHH" in Bottom, or Filthy Rich & Catflap whichever one it was.

In the musical Oklahoma!, the song "The Surrey With the Fringe on Top" describes the surrey as having "isinglass curtains you can roll right down" although here the term refers to mica, commonly used for windows in vehicle side screens (but totally inflexible).[13][14]

oh i'd love that, i'd be a mineral deposit, a ball of isinglass curtains inside a rock

If goldfish grow to fit the size of the pond they're in how big a waterway would you need to grow a fish that could provide curtains for Surrey? I mean, like.

a neat summary of the previous conversation, but does it work with sturgeon

THat a load of the titles that were in the sale section in Guerssen at the start of the pandemic 3 years ago are still there. Which has me wondering how many copies of things they got and put there in the first place. Thought some of that Turkish and middle eastern stuff would be popular so is that an overcalculation they made themselves?
Anyway worth having a look at if you are into the area of early 70s Turkish & middle eastern psych rock or funk influenced hybrids. Cos there are a load of titles there still.

The first Sham 69 single was produced by John Cale.

not enough electric viola iirc

I probably did know that at one point because I've got that single and it says on the back, but if I ever did know that I'm learning it again now

continuing the theme of "nobody who had Cale as a producer ever wanted to again"?!?

(c.f. Patti Smith, Stooges, Modern Lovers)

also squeeze!

"When we worked with John Cale in the studio, he threw out all the songs that we had written" lol

also Happy Mondays

who apparently got mad that they were paying for Cale to just listen to their guitarist playing in the booth over and over bcz he couldn’t figure out what the untrained musician was doing to get his sound

i just got that Pen15 thing last week. i saw the name of the show online and it dawned on me. i guess they didn't do that where i grew up. or it was so secret that i never heard about it. okay, i looked up the actual origin. i don't remember that prank. anyway, i had no idea why the show was named that until last week.

you know, scott, you really RAQT

welcome to the pen15 club, scott

i'm not really a shows person but that one is hilarious imo

That this exists
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNfy3Urhtsc

"nobody who had Cale as a producer ever wanted to again"

Except Nico! Though who knows if she "wanted to" or had to put up with him.

And vice-versa.

God knows she uttered at least two withering putdowns about Lou I won't quote right now, will leave it for sometone else like Tom D.

There's a story from her last sessions with him, about Cale riding her back like a saddle, making horse-racing commentary as she crawled around on all fours.

Almost forgot about that one.

Never heard of that one tbh.

A titmouse is just a tit and not some sort of mouse

OK, you and me both.

townies

Townies are tits

Charming.

Mike Seeger is Pete Seeger's half-brother, not his son

ok so i dug a bit deeper into the titmouse story -- mainly bcz i wanted to post "read some effing potter (beatrix)", and it turns out that

(a) the book called "the adventures of tommy titmouse" (1940) (which if we judge it by its cover is about a bird) is by REGINALD HARRISON
https://stellabooks.com/storage/images/stock/1320/1320452.JPG

(b) the book called "the life and adventures of thomas titmouse and other stories" (1855) is by PETER PARLEY (sounds made up*; story seems to be tristram shandy for kids)
https://pictures.abebooks.com/inventory/30258253523_3.jpg

(c) and the book called "the adventures of tommy titmouse" (1910) (by potter, beatrix) is indeed about a MOUSE (of course BP was also a townie, at least until she became a hill-country sheep farmer)
https://www.jonkers.co.uk/uploads/00072/00072253.jpg

*pseudonym for samuel griswold goodrich, author, scientist, senator, dianosaur reconstructor

oh fvck it, potter's book is called THE TALE OF MRS TITTLEMOUSE (per the cover obv)

apparently the word tomtit (applies to various birds) is a shortening of "tom titmouse" and the correct plural is "titmouses"

no

verb - titmousar

yo - titmouso
tu - titmousas
usted - titmousa
nostoros - titmousamos
vosotros - titmousais
ustedes - titmousan

Where does Abi Titmuss fit into all this?

she's a folk figure like the rest

That the moral panic about female infanticide in China was around much earlier than I thought. Also That the one child policy there came in later.
I just came across it being a topic of discussion in the Nellie Boy book I picked up last week background to her appearance in beginning to write. I think part of an article she responded to which is about 1880. & there had been rumours of female infanticide for a few centuries beforehand.
One child policy only came in in 1978

The plural of sphinx is sphinges - though sphinxes is also correct.

I listened to a lot of music when my English was still developing and as a result I now sometimes have "oh THAT'S what that means" moment. Most recent example is "and man that was all she wrote" from Springsteen's "The River" - I used to think she'd written the guy a letter announcing her pregnancy.