Dear Banjo,

>>I wish to thank you for your patience, forbearance and kind indulgence.<<

And vice versa.

A bit of verse:

I don't like the family Stein,
There's Gert, there's Ep and there's Ein.
Gert's poems are bunk.
Ep's statue's are junk.
And nobody understands Ein.

From "Before the Big Bang" p. 95

"It was Eddington who, according to legend, is said to have showed his grasp of communication skills when asked by a journalist if he was one of only three people who understood Einstein's general relativity. Eddington did not reply, and the interviewer pointed out there was no need for him to be modest. Eddington corrected him instantly. He wasn't being modest; he was trying to think of who the third person was."

Jean Smith's bio of Eisenhower shows that Eisenhower was a very intelligent man. His communication skills were better than Eddington's. He got elected president twice by communicating that he was just an ordinary person. I voted for his opponent because his opponent seemed more intelligent to me.

Some very small objects above the atomic level are zircon grains. The oldest grain dated on earth as 4404 million years old is a cut and polished zircon grain 150 micrometres wide.

Thank you for your discussion and the civilised way you ended it.

.

More on misunderstanding ...

.

It was the man from Ironbark who struck the Sydney town,
He wandered over street and park, he wandered up and down.
He loitered here, he loitered there, till he was like to drop,
Until at last in sheer despair he sought a barber's shop.
''Ere! shave my beard and whiskers off, I'll be a man of mark,
I'll go and do the Sydney toff up home in Ironbark.'

The barber man was small and flash, as barbers mostly are,
He wore a strike-your-fancy sash, he smoked a huge cigar:
He was a humorist of note and keen at repartee,
He laid the odds and kept a 'tote', whatever that may be,
And when he saw our friend arrive, he whispered "Here's a lark!
Just watch me catch him all alive, this man from Ironbark.'

There were some gilded youths that sat along the barber's wall.
Their eyes were dull; their heads were flat, they had no brains at all;
To them the barber passed a wink, his dexter eyelid shut,
'I'll make this bloomin' yokel think his bloomin' throat is cut.'
And as he soaped and rubbed it in he made a rude remark:
'I s'pose the flats is pretty green up there in Ironbark.'

A grunt was all reply he got; he shaved the bushman's chin,
Then made the warter boiling hot and dipped the razor in.
He raised his hand, his brow grew black, he paused a while to gloat,
Then slashed the red hot razor-back across his victim's throat;
Upon the newly-shaven skin it made a livid mark -
No doubt it fairly took him in - the man from Ironbark.

(continued ...)

.

.

(continued ...)

He fetched a wild up-country yell might wake the dead to hear,
And thought his throat, he knew full well, was cut from ear to ear,
He struggled gamely to his feet, and faced the murd'rous foe:
'You've done for me! you dog, I'm beat! one hit before I go!
I only wish I had a knife, you blessed murdering shark!
But you'll remember all your life, the man from Ironbark.'

He lifted up his hairy paw, with one tremendous clout
He landed on the barber's jaw, and knocked the barber out.
He set to work with tooth and nail, he made the place a wreck;
He grabbed the nearest gilded youth, and tried to break his neck.
And all the while his throat he held to save his vital spark,
And 'Murder! Bloody Murder!' yelled the man from Ironbark.

A peeler man who heard the din came in to see the show;
He tried to run the bushman in, but he refused to go.
And when at last the barber spoke, and said ''Twas all in fun -
'Twas just a little harmless joke, a trifle overdone.'
'A joke!' he cried, 'By George, that's fine; a lively sort of lark;
I'd like to catch that murdering swine some night in Ironbark.'

And now while round the shearing floor the list'ning shearers gape,
He tell's the story o'er and o'er, and brags of his escape,
'Them barber chaps what keeps a tote, By George, I've had enough,
One tried to cut my bloomin' throat, but thank the lord it's tough.'
And whether he's believed or no, there's one thing to remark,
That flowing beards are all the go way up in Ironbark.

.

Ah, at last… a bit of commonsense on this thread!

This is one of my father’s favourites and hence was one of the first poems I became familiar with as a small child.

As a botanist, I have a great passion for the eucalypts, especially the ironbarks of north Queensland, for which the taxonomy is in bad need of review. I know of several unnamed species.

Hence I have been called the man from ironbark from time to time.

The ironbarks dominate savannah woodlands over huge areas in the north, and yet the esteemed botanical authorities haven’t seen fit over the years to get them sorted out! This is all the more amazing given that several rare and restricted species requiring special conservation measures have been named in southeast Queensland and there is certainly the potential for some to be formally recognised in the north.

The vast ironbark woodlands inland from Townsville on the enormous basalt plains of the McBride Plateau and extending into many adjacent areas, consist of as yet unnamed species!!

And I used to have a flowing beard too!

True!!

.

Dear Ludwig,

.

That's a very noble profession. I love the bush but I'm afraid I don't know much about gum trees.

When I was a kid one of my daily chores was to chop the wood for the fire. It's a long time ago now, but I seem to recall that ironbarks were the toughest. Bloodwoods were a bit easier. They split fairly easily if you hit them hard enough.

We still have an old wood stove in the family home on the Darling Downs and I'm afraid my brother has had to chop all the wood on his own for so many years now I've lost count. The pine as well but that's no problem. We used to take it in turns when we were kids.

I sometimes dream of that flock of white cockatoos that seems to have elected domicile for just about as long as I can remember down at Rangers Bridge on the Condamine river, 18 km from Dalby on the Warrego Highway. There are some very tall gum trees down there and the white cockatoos are always to be found, swirling around in the light breeze high among the gum trees.

I have no idea what the life span of a white cockatoo is but I suspect that I am probably looking at a different generation every time I go back there, which is not too often.

Those are some of the things I miss, living in Paris - not chopping the wood - the cockatoos and the gentle tinkling sound as the gentle breeze rustles the leaves of the gum trees down by the river side on the Condamine.

That was where I spent most of my school holidays whenever I had nothing better to do - which was the case, most of the time.

When I think of it now, I'm sure glad I did.

.