Particulates

[Ajax]

(29 May 2021, 18:08)MaryN Wrote: I agree with Pete Grey. We have no control over Ma Nature, so there is little point in agonising over it. We can only do what we can do, cross fingers for luck and plough on.

Ma'am, I am neither worrying or agonising, with respect to you and yours.

What if your Govt. knew this was coming because there is statistical correlation between space weather and geo effects? What if they could have evacuated and did not? What if people died from the lack of a warning and it could be proved they knew? Here I am discussing the big effects of volcanos and seismic fubars. They know. In time we will all see it. I have been trying to warn my pals in the USA for about a year now.
I think we all understand the concept of the "microwave generation" - if it does not happen tomorrow, then it will not happen ever. Right?
If the bridge is out where would you put the warning sign? On the cliff next to the sheer drop? A couple of miles back down the road? I believe you now understand my predicament.
Now back to the invisible, airborne threat which IS deadly - given time.
ANY country, anywhere, are your news channels discussing this?
No? Then why not?
I know you wonderful people are smarter than me and I know that you know that space weather impacts this planet and that electro-magnetic fields steer your air currents. The air currents circulate around the globe and so it makes no difference where an eruption takes place, the currents will spread the emissions.

What are we prepping for unless it be global survival?


How much money has the govts printed recently? Enough to provide everyone a 'gas mask' like they did in WW2? I think they printed a tonne more than that.
Has there been a single news report on this? I really do not mind about the flavour of the channel: BBC, Fox, CNN,? Any?

[Ajax]

(29 May 2021, 18:49)CharlesHarris Wrote: Ajax,

When I describe the BOL as having moved "outside the moderate damage radius" (from DC), I'm not kidding. I grew up an Army brat whilst my Dad was serving at the engineer proving grounds at Ft. Belvoir. During the Cuban Missile Crisis my brother, Mum and I all expected to be blasted to atoms and we prepared a bomb shelter in the cellar and stocked it suitably.

The cottage in which I now live was built in the 1970s, about 70 miles west of DC with three ridges of mountains between it and the I495 beltway around Washington, in the region called the Potomac Highlands, not far from Berkeley Springs.

As for tea, I've not had a proppa cuppa ever from a teabag. Me Sainted Mother would be appalled! I am blessed to have a regular supply of quality loose tea, send from a missionary friend I help support, who returns an ample Christmas parcel every year direct from the plantation in which it is grown in Galle.

For fellow Americans who may be reading here or others who are ignorant or simply unfamiliar, I feel obligated to tell the tea story as Mum taught us. I would appreciate any additions or correction of any errors of fact if my memory is fuzzy...

The tea which I am blessed to be regularly gifted goes by the botanical name Camellia sinensis, which originates from Galle, Sri Lanka. It is a very fine, low-grown (under 1000 feet), broken leaf tea that produces a dark cup with a good body that is mellow and brisk. It holds up well to the addition of milk (or even Admiralty rum after the second "dog watch").

Here in the US it is commonly used as a base often adulterated to lend a hint of authenticity to otherwise abominable blended teas. In its pure form it is of the common type favored for chai in India or for your favorite breakfast teas in England. I am told on good authority by my Brit expat neighbor that it is the very same tea served in the mess on ships of the British Royal Navy.

Tea leaves need to be treated like beer, in airtight containers protected from light and heat. I transfer loose tea from its plastic shrink-wrapped 500-gram bricks into half-pint glass jars with new canning lids as soon as I receive it. A quantity of these, stacked in an airtight, gasketed M2A1 cal. .50 military ammunition can are well protected and keep fresh for many years. Indeed my Mum brought over with her to the states when she emigrated from England multiple tins saved from WW2-era rations. The last of it we used at home was still excellent during the Reagan years.

Mum was a 10:00 and 2:30 tea break person; pre-heat the earthen pot, infuse with a cozy cover, wait, then pour kind. Her version of getting off of her feet, and getting a pick-me-up. She insisted that milk, if used, be added to the cup first, before pouring the tea, so as to avoid thermal shock to the bone China.

As a young lad I was taught that Tea was Britain’s secret weapon during WW2 and one of its most visible symbols of national unity. Mum told stories of how tea was the social binding force during the London Blitz where, night after night, fires blazed from bombed buildings, and she and her neighbours huddled in the underground tunnels while air raid sirens were a daily threnody.

As all you know very well, tea was and still is powerful both symbolically and practically. Churchill is reputed to have called tea more important than ammunition. He ordered that all sailors on Royal Navy ships have unlimited tea. Its perceived value in boosting morale not just in Britain is illustrated by the Royal Air Force dropping 75,000 tea bombs in a single night over the occupied Netherlands. Each contained wooden boxes with several hundred one ounce sachets of tea from the Dutch East Indies and was marked “The Netherlands will rise again. Chins up.”

Every one of the 20 million Red Cross packages sent to Allied prisoners of war contained a quarter-pound package of Twinings.

Tea helps restore at least a semblance of calm and normality during times of turbulence and danger. Its essence is that it is warm and comforting. It also provided an egalitarian sharing space in a society of rigid class distinctions. In the air raids, local Air Raid Wardens and Auxiliaries, mostly women, served tea to anyone, forming huddles, bringing strangers together, and providing a center for medical help.

Tea also played a critical role in the British Army, with historians attributing at least part of its success in maintaining espirt and morale during the almost never-ending military campaigns, many of them small colonial policing actions. One of the keys that distinguished it from every other European fighting force was that its embedding or tea in its routines greatly reduced the reliance on alcohol to calm troops as they prepared for battle, relax them at its end and keep them sober and alert while they sat around waiting.

Coffee serves a similar function in the US armed forces, but lacks the rituals associated with tea in Britain.

Sir, many thanks for this glorious post. Yup, tea is historic, has special brewing methods and drinking rituals, and to an outsider might seem like witchcraft lol

I live in an ancient part of the south UK. My own hometown is best known for its piracy, smuggling and bloodshed.
Anyway, back along, brandy, tea, coffee, wine, rum, tobacco - you know the fun stuff, was all taxed so hard that a black market came into existence. The pirates and smugglers did a roaring trade and many tunnels led from establishments on the quay to the back rooms and out into the many back streets. A lot of the coaching houses (it was four in hand horses in those days and staged in relay) were even called after the illegal trades in my county.
Any hoo, the pirates and smugglers ensured the common man got his needs itched and that he need not pay through the nose - they were all very poor.
A customs and excise house was set up on the quay eventually. I'm sure you can appreciate how well received it was.
Have you seen a certain Disney film about pirates? You know of the trading company and their nice, pale breeches?
Well, our pirates and smugglers did not like the new custom house and had a battle (cannons and all that loud stuff) in our harbour against the boys in the pretty white trousies. The slaughter was so great that the water in our harbour was red with blood - pirates, smugglers and customs officers. We even have a stretch of water behind one of our larger islands named after the battle.
Anyway, my town's most famous pirate took his own fleet and declared war on FRANCE! Many boats were lost.
To say southerners take tea seriously may be a slight understatement.
My very best to you.

[CharlesHarris]

My ancestors were lowland Scots and Irish who originally settled into western Pensylvania and later migrated south into what is now western Maryland, Virginia west of the Shenandoah river, West Virginia and parts of western North Carolina. They were a rebellious bunch, famous for the Whisky Rebellion, family feuds, the coal wars and such. We still have conservative, fundamentalist Pentaho stall churches who handle rattlesnakes as a test of faith. Thankfully Mum remained an Anglican and Dad went along with it, as the alternative Southern Methodists and Baptists were teetotalers and he would have none of that.

[Ajax]

(29 May 2021, 22:34)CharlesHarris Wrote: My ancestors were lowland Scots and Irish who originally settled into western Pensylvania and later migrated south into what is now western Maryland, Virginia west of the Shenandoah river, West Virginia and parts of western North Carolina. They were a rebellious bunch, famous for the Whisky Rebellion, family feuds, the coal wars and such. We still have conservative, fundamentalist Pentaho stall churches who handle rattlesnakes as a test of faith. Thankfully Mum remained an Anglican and Dad went along with it, as the alternative Southern Methodists and Baptists were teetotalers and he would have none of that.

About 400 years back my lot were Highlanders. Hey we might be Cousins lol. =D Grabbing rattlesnakes sounds fun. Our lot used to hunt wild boars with knives in the UK. Teetotal is good if the water is 100% pure - this is why brewing came about - to kill the gut bugs. Most old ales were very weak by comparison to modern rocket fuels, by you know this already.

[bigpaul]

my ancestors were fishermen and farmers going back many centuries as were most people in Devon back then.