MARY WAS AN ATHLETE

Mary Denise Rand was an English athlete who excelled at jumping, hurdles and the pentathlon. He won the long jump at the 1964 Summer Olympics by breaking the world record, the first British female to win an Olympic gold medal in athletics. 

 

Until 2024, Rand was the only British "female" athlete to win three medals in a single Olympics.  

 

RANDOMS 2026 #17

 

This year I've started including some writing with my randoms posts from time to time, but not on every post because sometimes I like the minimal simplicity of just chucking out ten random images and not typing anything!

AUSTRALIA

50 NOT SO WELL KNOWN FACTS ABOUT AUSTRALIA 

 

Some good ones... those bloody roo shaggers

1. The Australian Alps get more snow than the Swiss Alps.

2. 90% of Australians live on the coast.

3. Tasmania has the cleanest air in the world.

4. The Great Barrier Reef is the largest ecosystem in the world. It is made up of nearly 3,000 individual reefs and can be seen from space.

5. Australia has over 60 separate wine regions.

6. Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world.

7. The Indian Pacific train has the longest straight section of train track in the world.

8. The Great Ocean Road is the world's largest war memorial.

9. 80% of Australian animals are unique to Australia.

10. 5 km of Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock) is underground.

11. Australia has the world's longest golf course measuring more than 1,350 kms long.

12. Australia is home to 21 of the world's 25 most venomous snakes.

13. Perth is the only city in the world which can have aircraft land in its CBD.

14. Australia is bigger than we realise, it's almost the same size as mainland USA.

15. The largest cattle station in the world is located in Australia, Anna Creek Ranch in South Australia and it's bigger than Israel.

16. The first Police Force in Australia was made up of the most well-behaved convicts.

17. It would take around 29 years to visit one new Aussie beach every day – there are 10,685 of them!

18. AFL invented to keep cricketers fit in the off season, there are claims that the game may have been influenced by Indigenous Australians.

19. The world's largest rock is not actually Uluru, but Mount Augustus in Western Australia and actually twice the size.

20. Australia is the 6th largest country in the world.

21. There are 1 million camels that roam wild in Australia's deserts, the largest number of purebred camels in the world, they are exported to the Middle East.

22. You can fly from Perth to Melbourne faster than you can fly from one end of Western Australia to the other.

23. There are over 60 different types of kangaroos and a baby kangaroo when born is only about two centimeters long.

24. Aboriginal culture is the oldest on Earth – it is estimated that the continent's original inhabitants, the aboriginal people, have been in Australia for between 40,000-60,000 years.

25. Australia has 19 World Heritage Listed sites.

26. 91% of the country is covered by native vegetation.

27. 33% of Australians were born in another country.

28. Over 300 different languages and dialects are spoken in Australia including 45 Indigenous languages. In fact, 21% of Australians don't speak English at home!

29. WA is home to what is believed to be the oldest evidence of life on Earth – the Stromatolites.

30. Australia is the only continent in the world without an active volcano.

31. In Australia, sheep out number people 2.5 to 1 (in 2020).

32. Australia was the second country in the world to give women the right to vote in 1902.

33. Per capita, Australians spend more money on gambling than any other nation, with over 80 percent of Australian adults engaging in gambling of some kind.

34. Canberra was selected as the capital because Sydney and Melbourne could not stop arguing which city should be the capital.

35. Australia is home to the longest fence in the world, the Dingo Fence. Originally built to keep dingos away from fertile land, the fence is now 5,614 km long.

36. The Australian dollar is considered to be the most advanced currency in the world – its waterproof, made of polymer and notoriously hard to counterfeit.

37. Australia is the only continent covered by a single country.

38. The world's oldest fossil was discovered in Australia – 3.4 billion years old.

39. Australia has around 600 varieties of eucalypt trees.

40. Australia was one of the founding members of the United Nations.

41. Stonemasons in Australia instituted the 8-hour working day back in 1856.

42. In Aboriginal culture women are not allowed to play the didgeridoo.

43. The venom of the elusive platypus can kill a small dog.

44. Australia's most deadly marine animal is the Box Jellyfish and is responsible for more deaths per year than snakes, sharks and saltwater crocodiles.

45. The only two mammals in the world that lay eggs are found in Australia – the echidna and platypus.

46. Before the arrival of humans, Australia was home to megafauna, three-metre tall kangaroos, seven-metre long goanna's, horse-sized ducks and a marsupial lion the size of a leopard.

47. Both kangaroos and emus lack the ability to walk backwards. This was the reason they were chosen for Australia's coat of arms – to symbolise a country always moving forward.

48. The termite mounds that can be found in Australia are the tallest animal-made structures on earth.

49. Australia is home to more than 1,500 species of spiders.

50. The Great Victoria Desert is bigger than the whole of the United Kingdom.

 

 

PRIMAL WATER

This is an interesting podcast from Tom Cowan, countering the misinformation from books like "Your Body's Many Cries For Water" that led so many fashion followers to constantly drink liters of water. No traditional societies ever did that and there are good reasons why.

https://odysee.com/@Dr.TomCowan:8/waterfeb282024:8

 

 

Although very popular with teenage girls and yoga enthusiasts, the current fashion of guzzling down vast quantities of "water"  doesn't actually stand up well to scrutiny.

 

This best selling book was essentially complete misinformation:

 

 

HOT TUB RELEASE

 

This invitation is really odd. I have no idea where it originally came from, but it sounds like it would have been a life changing inclusive and vegan experience. There are slightly too many rules for my liking, but I guess they were all necessary or it might have gotten out of hand... 

 "Let’s keep this simple. I have a hot tub on Euclid . I am having a group release party on January 28th. Everybody is welcome (last time was all men which was fun but I would really like to get some women this time).

Here’s how it works: Five people get into my 400 gallon redwood hot tub. The temperature is a challenging 125 degrees. After a few minutes, everybody “evacuates” (voids their bowels in the tub). We see what floats to the surface.
 
This “letting go” stage is followed by a “coming together” stage in which each person helps the person to their left reach satisfaction (handsex). Simple and wonderful. 

 

Some ground rules:

 
1) No footwear of any kind in the tub! Leave your flip flops on the deck!

2) Do not go into the house.

3) Scents are okay but please, NO GREASY HAIR PRODUCTS.

4) Please refrain from smoking.

5) Once everybody is in the tub, its silent time. No talking until everybody is out.

6) If you do not like what is “going down” (or coming up) step out of the tub. You do not need to make it everybody else’s problem.

7) Please commit before showing up. Don’t come out to the backyard, check out the “scene” and then decide to leave. This disrupts the experience for everybody.

8) Please no laughing or frivolity. Its not that it has to be “dead serious” but we don’t want it to turn into a joke. For many people a group release party is a vulnerable psychosexual experience and your laughter can be shaming.

9) PLEASE NO LOUD TALKING AFTER THE SESSION. MY NEIGHBORS HAVE COMPLAINED SEVERAL TIMES AND HAVE THREATENED TO CALL THE POLICE.

10) If you are over two hundred pounds it is fine, but please let me know in advance.

11) PLEASE NO DIABETICS, PREGNANT WOMEN OR PEOPLE WITH HEALTH CONDITIONS WHICH MAY BE AFFECTED BY A LONG AND UNUSUALLY HIGH TEMPERATURE HOT TUB SITUATION.

12) NO DRUGS OF ANY KIND!!!!

13) Please make sure that you have eaten well and NOT EXCRETED FOR AT LEAST TWELVE HOURS before coming.

14) No food in the hot tub or on the deck. If you must eat, finish your food in your car.

15) You can park directly out front or along the street. PLEASE DO NOT PARK IN THE DRIVEWAY. If parking is limited park on POPLAR st.

16) Do not turn on the airration jets under any circumstances. This makes the party impossible to clean up afterwards and also disrupts the atmosphere in the tub.

17) Please show up on time for the session. The orientation period is extremely important and helps to insure that the party will be a success for all participants.

18) NO CAMERAS OF ANY KIND INCLUDING CAMERA PHONES. For many, the session is a “discreet” experience and respect for individual privacy concerns is of utmost importance.

19) If you have a health concern which you believe may be transmittable through personal waste material please wait for at least two weeks after the matter has cleared up before attending a session.

20) You are welcome to bring a friend PROVIDED I KNOW IN ADVANCE. Please do not show up with an extra participant. Thank you for your interest and contact me if you wish to participate"