Our hobbies

That's quite interesting, Mod. Perhaps you could answer a 30-year-old qustion for me. Back in the late 60s I came across a wonderful English story put to music by the Small Faces (pre-Rod Stewart's Faces). The story of "Happiness Stan" appears on the Small Faces' album titled "Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake." It seems to be a cockney story about a boy who goes off in search of "the other half of the moon 'n' danglie." It's like a rock-opera children's story, and it is fantastic both literally and musically. I love to smoke a little Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake, close my eyes, and watch Happiness Stan ride on the back of an enormous fly to go see Mad John.I certrainly would appreciate learning the origin of this piece. Any ideas? (Yes, I know this is a long shot.)”HM

LSD?

Quite possibly. But it's good anyway.”HM

When I looked at the lyrics from 'Happiness Stan' I immediately recognised the gibberish stylings of Stanley Unwin and his idiosyncratic gobbledegook. Is it the gobbledegook you are interpreting as Cockney dialect?As far as I can see the story was made up for the album rather than being traditional.TTFN,WK

Nice photos, I tend to photograph similar subjects, and in a similar style.My hobbies are:Playing piano, I am in a Christian rock band, and play for a church.R/C planes, my clubs web-site: http://www.blackdirtsquadron.org where I am the web master and hoster. I designed the whole site, and run the server.R/C boats and cars.Fishing and boating, I own two boats, a 19ft with a 225hp, and a rowboat with an 8 hp.Three wheelers, I have 3, 110atc 200x and a 250R.I have 1968 Camaro, with a 396, being restored for the second time, will probably take years to finish.Ho trains, but I haven't done it in a while, I will probably do another layout when I retire. Ferroequinologist.Ho slot cars, been collecting and playing with them for 35 years. My kids love them.Astronomy, and astrophotography. I haven't been doing that lately either, but will again someday. I own a Meade 8" reflector, and use an Olympus OM-1 for the photos.Online gaming. Been doing that since 1999, have been #1 on many ladders and tourneys, won a prize once(lol), lead teams in both offense and defense. Current team is here: http://www.teamrelentless.us
Hope to have write some music on an up and coming game, ascension, which can be found out about here: http://www.renwerx.com My brother is one of the developers.I also want to add, that while it sounds like I have spent a lot of money on hobbies, that most of my stuff I get in disrepair, and do the fixing myself, saving tons.

Thanks for checking, WK. Yes, Stanley Unwin is credited on the album info. He must be fairly well known in the UK. To an American ear he sounds so incredible wonderful, and just out of reach for easy comprehension. I loved the fact that I knew what the story was about without understanding most of what the narrator, Unwin, is saying. I sure would like to know what "Knees-up Mother Brodie" means. The visual I get is pretty nasty.Brit-speak, to an American ear, sounds elegant enough on its own. Story-telling in Unwin's "idiosyncratic gobbledegook" puts me right over the top.”HM

You should enter one of the many photo shop contests. I used to do some.

"Knees-up Mother Brodie" - the passage references several items of popular culture. Jack and Jill, Little Boy Blue, and Knees up Mother Brown. Knees-up Mother Brodie is a funny little phrase, I assume Brodie (which means 'brother') is a little play about with words that describe relatives.Knees up Mother Brown is a cockney tune about a girl who can't dance.

We've got a group of six that plays Battlefield 2142 together.Have you every played that game?Maybe we could kick you clan's asses some time I too play the piano. And I ride a dirtbike.

Thanks, Mod. That kind of stuff is so pleasant for me to listen to. It may stem back to when my parents read me "The Jabberwalkie" and other Lewis Carroll stuff. When you grow in the American Midwest, especially in Ohio, your ears long to hear that sophisticaed Brit-speak. Even Aussie-speak is very agreeable to us, probably because of our in-grown and mundane styles of speech, which sounds pretty bad to me when I go back to Ohio.”HM

Stanley Unwin advertises Amstard word processors, deep joy.Unwin also appeared in a series made by Gerry Anderson (of Thunderbirds fame) called 'The Secret Service' where he played a vicar who was a secret agent, I kid you not.TTFN,WK

It worries me that your two examples of 'Sophisticated Brit Speak', Unwin and Jabberwocky, are two of the clearest examples of linguistical nonsense associated with the English language. Both of them are comprised of about 50% totally made up words for a start. I know that Shakespeare has been credited with coining both several words and many phrases and sayings that have passed into common usage, but it is a rare person who commonly uses wabe, brillig or outgrabe in their common speech.Hmm, having just said that I see that in fact chortle was one of the words Carroll made up for 'Jabberwocky' and that is certainly in common usage.TTFN,WK

Of course that's true. I doubt if most Brits think that cockney is very sophisticated. But Americanese is coarse, even by cockney standards. Keith Richards in a druncken stupor sounds better to me than John Madden when he's stone sober.”HM

Hey, I play BF2142, or at least I used to. Any room in your clan? I'd like to get back into it.

Well, we don't really have a clan... but you could certainly play with us.Its just six of us that are friends in RL. One of us is running a Team Speak server and another is running a Ventrilo (not simultaneously, obviously) so we've usually got some way to talk. We haven't even picked a clan tag or anything, and we definately don't have a webiste.If you're really looking for an actual clan, you'd prolly be better off with one of the more established ones. The guys at Knuckle Up =KU= were pretty cool. But I think you have to "try-out" to join.Send me a buddy request. My name is: Here2DineI'm almost to rank 20 (something like 11,500 points). I usaually play Assault, but sometime Recon and Engineer only when necessary. I never play Suppor. My recon kit uses the machine gun, so I don't snipe. Basically just an invisible Assault guy with invisibility instead of healing and bombs/mines instead of rockets.What kits did you pefer? How high of a ranking did you get? What was your name?I'll talk to the guys (maybe but prolly not tonight) about getting an actually clan together, like with a name n'stuff.