There are insufficient words to express the depth of my sorrow for the loss of 27 innocent lives in our very own Dunblane. Although it seems impossible, my hope and prayer is that peace will somehow find the loved ones of those whose time came far too soon.
In the 1920’s Sydney boasted one of the world’s largest tram fleets. By 1961 they were gone. A common story around the Western world.
George Street decorated for the Commonwealth Celebrations in January 1901.
The Old Wolf has Spoken
You are looking at Excalibur, the world’s tallest rock climbing wall, erected in Groningen, Netherlands. Climbing to the top would only be slightly harder than pronouncing “Groningen” correctly. I take one look at this thing and all I can think is “kill me now.”
No, I get woozy just looking at these pictures. Kinda like that video of radio tower climbers.
Some people have cojones of solid rock!
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Looking south on Mulberry Street between Broome and Grand Street – Little Italy, Manhattan, New York City.
Italians know how to celebrate Christmas.
Rome, Piazza Navona at Christmastime. Photo by Gina Lollobrigida, from her book “Italia Mia“.
Il Vecchio Lupo ha parlato.
Quartier Le Petit Champlain, Québec. (Click image for larger size). This almost has a Dickensian feel to it. Absolutely beautiful.
Despite the pervasive misconception that the now-defunct Sunshine Hydrox cookies were a cheap Oreo knock-off, they were the original sandwich cookie which came out in 1908, four years before Oreos did in 1912. Apparently they just didn’t do well against the Nabisco juggernaut, and also a lot of people were put off by the name, which sounded more like a bleach than a cookie.
I miss them.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Somehow the previous owners of my home got themselves on a sucker list and regularly get mail from people trying to recruit them into various disreputable money-making schemes. I present one here for your edification.
(Links to full-resolution images are included below each picture.)
(I’ve redacted the names of people on the list, because unlike “Sir Lad,” the owner and operator of this Ponzi scheme, they are victims whether they know it or not.)
There’s not much to say about scams of this nature other than do the math, and you’ll see that any such program is unsustainable and depends on a constant influx of new victims and an unsupportable number of people at the bottom. Once again, the success of Sir Lad – the person at the top – is predicated on the failure of thousands of people at the bottom. It’s interesting to note that he has added an additional layer of profit to this scheme – even though he’s no longer on the list of “gift recipients,” as the “monitor” he skims $5.00 or $6.00 from every victim. Notice how the wording of the letter targets the elderly and people in economic distress, those who can least afford to lose what precious resources they have.
I have taken a sample section from an excellent educational website entitled Cash Gifting Watchdog – I recommend this as a must-read for people who want to protect themselves and their loved ones from losing their money to disreputable con-men.
If members fail at marketing the programs to an ever-widening base of new members, then the pool of money being “gifted” among the existing members will dry up.
Cash gifting clubs promote themselves at invitation only gatherings similar to Tupperware parties, except that no product is being sold.
All those invited are there because an existing member of the program thinks they have money available to participate and will risk giving it to a complete stranger for the chance to have several complete strangers the same amount of money to them, multiplying their money (again, it’s never called an “investment”).
The “presenters” at cash gifting program gatherings give chalkboard or Power Point presentations which invariably end up with an image of a pyramid, showing how each member will make his or her way from the base to the top, where they will get the big payoff.
The money contributed by an incoming member goes to the top of the pyramid immediately, while the penniless member sits at the base of the pyramid until enough other members join to completely pay off the member at the top and move everyone else up a notch. Once a member is paid off, he or she is free to move on, but for a club to keep working, the money given to that member will have to be replaced from somewhere.
If, for example, the promised payout of a cash gifting club is $20,000, and the gift required is $2,500, only eight new members must be recruited to pay off one old member.
But what happens when a club reaches 100 members? If each of them is to get the full $20,000, for a total of $2,000,000, then 800 people must join. If each of them is to be paid, 6,400 must join. With each new level, the numbers grow more unrealistic.
For this example club, with its relatively low gifting and payout levels of $2,500 and $20,000, to continue for only two cycles after it gets its 100th member, 51,200 members must join.
Many clubs count on their paid off members to keep returning. Even if they all do, it is mathematically impossible for a cash gifting club to survive without an exponentially increasing membership base.
When the pool of new members dries up, so do the cash gifts, and any members who joined too late are out of luck – not to mention money.
Please be alert and aware. Programs like this are doomed to failure for all but those who begin them or happen to be the fortunate one or two at the very top of a new scheme. They are also dishonest, mean, and illegal in the extreme, but skirt the law by various means and tactics and thus are very hard to shut down.
Protect yourselves and your loved ones, particularly the elderly who are the most susceptible to such cons [1]
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Notes
[1] This is a bilingual pun, if you happen to speak French.
If you have a spiritual walk, this approximates Heaven. If you’re a humanist, this approximates an ideal human society. Either way, it’s a feel-good video.
The Old Wolf has shared.
Currywurst! A famous Berlin specialty.
They write songs about it:
They have museums for it:
There are recipes for it:
Rezept für Soße:
Zutaten (für 6 Portionen)
200 g Tomatenmark
175 g Apfelmus
500 ml Wasser
15 g Meersalz
15 g Zwiebelpulver, fein
15 g Paprikapulver
25 g Currypulver
Zubereitung
Tomatenmark, Apfelmus und Wasser in einen Topf geben, verrühren und kurz aufkochen.
Gewürze dazu fügen, fertig.
Die Sauce warm über die Currywürste geben! (Für die Currywurst kann man jede Wurstart nehmen: Mettwürstchen, Nürnberger, normale Bratwurst, Siedwürstchen. Das hängt ganz von der jeweiligen Vorliebe ab.)
And we makes it at home, precious:
Currywurst!
Marcel Leyat (1885-1986), born in Die, France, was an airplane designer and manufacturer. He began turning out airplanes in 1909. In 1919, he began manufacturing automobiles based on his experience with airplanes. The automobiles were built on the Quai de Grenelle in Paris.
Marcel Leyat in 1914
The first model was called the Hélica, also known as ‘The plane without wings’. The passengers sat behind each other as in an aircraft. The vehicle was steered using the rear wheels and the car was not powered by an engine turning the wheels, but by a giant propeller powered by an 8 bhp (6.0 kW) Scorpion engine. The entire body of the vehicle was made of plywood, and weighed just 250 kg (550 lb), which made it dangerously fast.
1921 Hélica at the Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris. (Found at Wikipedia)
In 1927, A Hélica reached the speed of 106 mph (171 km/h) at the Montlhéry circuit. Leyat continued to experiment with his Helica; he tried using propellers with two and four blades. Between 1919 and 1925, Leyat managed to sell 30 vehicles.
Hélica 2H, Series D21 (found at Frog Blog)
A page about Leyat (in French) can be found here.
This vehicle offers a practical solution for keeping bugs off your windshield; pedestrians who happen to encounter the Hélica would not fare well, I fear me.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Playing in the World Game 
