Quotes from my Palm Pilot

I worked out how to crack my ancient Palm Pilot (pre 3COM!) data files. Found some great old quotes, in no particular order:

Travelers, there is no path. Paths are made by walking. (Antonio Machado, 1875-1939)

Relying on quantitative analysis is akin to thinking the buying & mailing of Christmas cards causes Christmas.

Organisations should change their habits - not their culture (Drucker)

Don't write off Disney as a global financial services player in the 21st century. No one has a bad day at Disneyland. No one's called Mickey Mouse a bastard (Linda Nicholls. Wallis Enquiry)

Rivers knew only too well how often the early stages of change or cure may mimic deterioration. Cut a chrysalis open, and you will find a rotting caterpillar. What you will never find is that mythical creature, half caterpillar, half butterfly, a fit emblem for the human soul, for those whose cast of mind leads them to seek such emblems. No, the process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay (Pat Barker, The Regeneration Trilogy, page 184).

The best way to predict the future is to invent it (The X-files)

Beneath all this horse-shit there just has to be a pony.

The fuckup fairy has visited again...

If you have the opportunity to seize power, sell your mother to do so - you can always buy her back afterwards. (Arab proverb)

False face must hide what the false heart doth know (Macbeth Act 1)

The better a hammer has served in the past, the more all new problems look like nails (Kotter)

There's a big difference between hope & expectation (Fox Mulder)

As cunning as a fox who has just been made Professor of cunning at Oxford University (Blackadder Goes Forth)

Whenever there's any doubt, there is no doubt (Ronin, 1999)

Mankind hopes vaguely, but dreads precisely.

You can tell a lot about a company by the person they keep. (Microsoft)

I do not know with what weapons WW3 will be fought with, but WW4 will be fought with sticks & stones (Einstein)

Insanity is doing the same thing again & again, but expecting a different result (Rita Mae Brown)

Change is inevitable, progress is not (John Callum).

You can't talk your way out of what you have behaved your way into (Covey)

More NZers believe Elvis is alive than support compulsory retirement savings (Michael Cullen)

Dealing with DSS is working for the dole (graffiti Melbourne)

The world breaks everyone, but afterwards some are strong at the broken places (Hemingway)

This project is so important, we can't let more important things interfere with it (UPS)

Work is a thing you do, not a place you go.

An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it (Orlando Battista)

My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income (Errol Flynn)

Cafe society or Nescafe society?

It girl or twit girl?

We don't like their sound - groups of guitars are on their way out... (Decca Records rejecting the Beatles, 1962)

Radio has no future (Lord Kelvin, 1897)

TV won't be able to hold onto any market it captures after the first 6 months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night (Darryl Zanuck, 20th CF, 1946)

Airplanes are interesting toys, but of 0 military value (Marshall Ferdinand Foch, French military strategist 1911)

There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home (Ken Olsen, founder DIGITAL, 1977)

Radio makes surprise impossible (Joseph Daniels, US Secretary of Navy, October 16 1942)

What use could this company make of an electrical toy? (Western Union turning down AG Bell's $100k offer to sell his struggling company)

Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? (Harry Warner 1927)

Stocks have reached a permanently hiqh plateau (Irving Fisher, Yale Prof of economics, Oct 17, 1929)

The Bull With the Bowler Hat by Clive Dalton and Don Clegg

An extract from the book Daft Laddies, Farming Tales of North Tyne and Rede 50 years on (2003) by Clive Dalton and Don Clegg, shared by permission. If you'd like a copy of the book, drop me a line or google the title.

In these days of genome mapping, DNA analysis, multiple ovulation and embryo transfer (MOET), cloning, and genetically modified (GM) organisms – you have to smile at the consternation caused by the simple process of Artificial Insemination (AI) on North Tyne and Rede farms in the 1950s.

As in all farming circles there are leaders who try new things, and countless sceptics who knaa nowt about it, but nivortheless have strang opinions forecasting doom and disaster for aall involved. There was a lot of it aboot in the 1950s when AI became available on local farms.

AI solved the need to keep a bull, freeing up feed for an extra cow and calf. It was also a lot safer as housed bulls regularly caused injuries to farm folk. But the big selling point was that through AI you could get the services of a much better bull and at reasonable cost. And you’ll remember the boss was nivor maede o’ muney!

Aall a lot of blow’d rrubeesh, said the sceptics! So what were their concerns - real and imagined? The first was how to taalk aboot it – even to say the name. The word “artificial” usually referred to manure from a bag. That was bad enough but the word “insemination” was just gannin’ ower far.

Trouble started with the inevitable questions of “huw de they git the juice oot o’ the bull”? Nobody had been to the AI centre at Shinfield in faraway Coonty Durham to see the process, so there was only conjecture of mind-boggling proportions.

So when we farmin’ college students with wor fancy beuk larnin’ explained how the bull served into a warmed rubber tube and the semen was collected in a small glass test tube – well that was ower daft for woords. “Nee bull worth his keep wad dee owt as daft as that, man!” was the comment.

Then there was the question aboot huw the cuw gat bulled if there wasn’t a bull? Well, we explained, it was done by the “AI man” – in the North Tyne that was a Mr Jamieson from Hexham. Now you were clearly away wi the fairies, bonny lad.

Suddenly, we students were a font of knowledge of such things – but you had to watch what company you were in afore borstin’ forth with yor newfangled knowledge. It was aall right at the Saturday night dances to explain such things to the village lassees, but not to chorch folk ov a Sunday.

The dangerous bit was when you explained where Mr Jamieson put his hand and aboot the glass tube containing the semen (no plastics then) which could very easily break inside the cuw. This was seen as undiluted filth comin’ from the gob of somebody like mesel (CD) who blew the organ, tolled the bell and took the collection at St Cuthbert’s chorch!

There were many folk in those days who genuinely believed that the whole process of not letting nature take its course, by letting bulls do bull’s work, would do some irreparable genetic and psychological harm to cattle as a species. And then to explain that semen could be frozen and be kept for EVER was totally ower the top and would be the end of farmin’.

But probably the biggest embarassment for the daft laddie was phoning from a very public phone box to order the bull. Few farms had phones in those days so you had to go to the nearest public phone box with all the trauma of having the right money, pressin’ button A and not B at the right time, and then deliverin’ your message.

Then the biggest shock came when you got through to the Milk Marketing Board in Hexham, and a WOMAN answered! That was bad enough but then she started askin’ you questions:

MMB: “Good morning Sir, Milk Marketing Board Insemination Service”
Laddie: “Helloa, Aye – am caalin’ aboot a cuw from Nettle Hill.”
MMB: “Yes, I have the farm details, sir”. Is the cow standing, sir?”
Laddie : “Wey no, she was lyin’ doon in the byor when Aa left.”
MMB: “No sir, is she in standing heat or is she just coming on?”
Laddie: “Oh Aa see. By heck no, she’s stannin’ allright. The boss was just sayin’ she’s stannin’ like a dyke. She’s fair mad a bullin’.”
MMB: “What breed of bull do you want, sir?”
Laddie: “Oh, the boss wants Shorthorn but the missus likes them new Friesians they hev doon at Acomb.”
MMB: “So what’s the decision, sir?”
Laddie: “Well, the row was still ganin’ on when Aa left on me bike to phone up. Mebbe wise to bring baeth bulls’ juice, eh?”
MMB: “Has the cow been inseminated before sir?”
Laddie: “Oh aye – this will be the fowerth time. The boss was just sayin’ that if she doesn’t haad this time, she’ll gan te Archie’s Galloway. He’ll stop owt, Aa tell ye.
MMB: “Thank you for calling sir, Mr Jamieson will be there this afternoon.

It was all ower much for some folk and after escaping from the phone box on a hot summer morning after a grilling like that, and gollarin’ doon the phone so the lass cud heor - as Hexham, remember, was 12 miles away or more, the sweat was just dripping off you. It was a relief to get back on the hard iron seat of the hay turner.

Then followed the air of expectancy, waiting for Jamieson’s arrival. The poor cuw tied up in the byre was equally excited and to show this she bellowed all day, decorating the newly whitewashed walls in half circles of liquid green.

Sure enough, late in the day a little white Ford van came chugging into the yard and out popped Mr Jamieson in spotless Wellingtons and riding britches carrying a white box and a waterproof coat. Here indeed was “the bull with the bowler hat” as many farmers dubbed him. It was unbelievable for some – whaat in the wide woorld was he ganin’ dee?

The mystery deepened and was made no less enlightening when he asked for a bucket of warm water, a towel and bit of soap, and somebody to hold the cow’s tail oot of the way. Then he put his coat on back to front! Ye beggor o’ Hexham – what next?

Can you imagine how these details were received by good folk with puritanical views and sceptical about so-called scientific progress? Explaining that the cow’s cervix was palpated through the rectum wall and the semen deposited just through the cervix by the glass pipette, were details they begged to be spared from. That was just ower much filth for decent lugs, and was typical of the “modreen rubbeesh young folk larned at them farmin’ colleeges”.

The ultimate argument against AI was that a cow mated by AI wad nivor haad again tiv a bull. And the sceptics always had examples of folk they kenned from Deadwater down to Acomb with this awful experience. “The cuws wor rruined man, an waadn’t even haad te the Galloway bull efterwards”, they declared. The Galloway bull was seen as the ultimate in bovine impregnation – “if he cudn’t stop a cuw, nowt wad”.

Other doubting Thomases had seen these AI-bred calves and they were “nivor ony geud, man, and just blow’d rrubeesh”. I remember once viewing one of the early AI-bred calves in the presence of some sceptics, and, in an atmosphere of near wonderment, the comment was made – “Eeeh man! leuk heor, leuk whaat the bull wi’ the bowler hat’s gitten. Aye man, an’ it kindo leuks like Jamieson an’ aall.”

Imagine if they’d known about the recently discovered evidence that we humans share about 90% of our DNA with cattle. Aa knaa whee’d git the blame for this shock horror – owld Jamieson from Hexham!

Potted History: the BC Years

• Dinosaurs bite dust 10m BC
• Lucy 2m BC
• Cave paintings 50,000 BC
• Pyramids
• Confucius
• Mesopotemians
• 1500 BC Early Greek civilization
• Babylonians & Egyptians
• 1000BC Ionians develop basic geometry, mathematics & astronomy.
• Euclid
• Plato
• Aristotle
• Etruscans
• 753 (21.4) Romulus & Remus found Rome.
• 550 (approx) Buddhism originated in India by Gautama.
• 479BC Confucius died
• 323 Death of Alexander the Great, aged 32, after conquoring most of the East.'Living God'. Major influence on Eastern & Western religions.
• c300 Roman republic
• 221BC First united Chinese Empire under Qin Shi Huangdi.
• Cleopatra
• 49 Roman republic becomes Empire under Julius Ceasar
• 44 Julius Caesar killed by Brutus
• 44-31 Triumpherate, Mark Antony. Octavius. Carassis rule empire.
• 43 BC Cicero, orator, writer + Statesman dies.
• 31 Gaius Octavius (Caesar Augustus - J.C. nephew) becomes Roman Emperor after defeating Mark Antony at Actium.

Potted History: 1900 to 2000ad

• 1900 (30.11) Oscar Wilde dies in Paris
• 1901 (1.1) Australia becomes a Federation. Before each state was seperate colony.
• 1901 Marconi sends S from Newfoundland to Cornwal.
• 1901 (21.1) Death of Queen Victoria-accession of Edward vii
• 1901 Picasso's 1st exhibition in Paris.
• 1902 (July) 1st Tour de France
• 1903 Wright brothers fly
• 1904 Puccini's opera Madam Butterfly premieres in Milan.
• 1905 Einstein theory of relativity.
• 1911 End of Chinese Empire.
• 1910 Chanel opens salon in Rue Cambon.
• 1912 Titanic sinks.
• 1913 Apolphe Pegond jumps from aircraft at 200m & becomes 1st to successfully use parachute.
• 1914 WW1
• Klimt
• 1916 1st battle of Somme. Lasted 5mths, 1million dead. Gained allies just 325 sq km.
• 1917 (oct) Tzar Nicholas of Russia executed.
• 1925 A.A. Milne writes Winnie-the-Pooh.
• 1928 Mickey Mouse debuts in Steamboat Willie.
• 1928 Philo Farnsworth invents electronic TV
• 1929 Stock market crash.
• End of Raj in India?
• 1929 Arthur Ransome writes Swallows and Amazons
• 1930? George Orwell writes 1984.
• 1939-45 WW2
• 1941 Orson Welles directs Citizen Kane.
• 1941 (7.12) Pearl Harbor
• 1941 (11.12) Hitler declares war on USA.
• 1944 Allied forces liberate Paris after 4yrs of Nazi occupation.
• 1945 (7.8) U.S. drops atom bombs on Hiroshima - 117 000 casualties.
• 1945 (30.4) Adolf Hitler commits suicide.
• 1947 Christian Dior introduces the New Look.
• 1950s Eniac 1st computer.
• 1951 Catholic church permits discussion of evolutionalist principles.
• 1952 Coronation of Elizabeth 2nd
• 1952 Edmond Hilary climbs Everest.
• 1953 (25.12) Tangiwai disaster kills 151.
• 1954 Roger Bannister 1st under 4min mile.
• 1957 USSR launches Sputnic satellite.
• 1959? Louis de Bernieres born.
• 1961 Oral contraceptive becomes available in UK on national health.
• 1961 (12.4) Uri Gagarin in space.
• 1961 (13.8) Berlin Wall erected.
• 1963 (28.8) Martin Luther King gives 'I have a dream' speach.
• 1963 (23.11)JFK shot in Dallas.
• 1965 First large unit of U.S. troops arrive in Vietnam.
• 1967 Dr Christiaan Barnhard preforms first heart transplant.
• 1968 Apollo 8 is launched on its way to man's 1st orbit of the moon.
• 1969 Neil Armstrong on moon.
• 1971 Coco Chanel died (b19.10.1883 Saumur, France)
• 1972? Stanley Kubrick makes 2001
• 1973 (8.4) Picasso dies age 92.
• 1974 Nixon resigns after Watergate.
• 1979 Margaret Thatcher becomes 1st female P.M. of Britian
• Berlin wall falls.
• 1980 John Lennon murdered in New York.
• 1984 Labour Government under David Lange defeated Muldoon's National government.
• 1985 Rainbow Warrior bombed in Auckland harbour.
• 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
• 1993 U.S.A. enters war in the Middle East.
• 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union - 11 of 12 former Republics proclaim birth of Commonwealth of Indep. States
• 1997 Britain hands over Hong Kong to the Chinese.
• 1999 (1.6) Estimated world popn. 6 billion.

Potted History: 1800 to 1900ad

• 1800 Population of the world estimated at 1 billion.
• 1814 Napoleon exiled to Elba - Burboun reign restored.
• 1815 Napoleon defeated by British & Prussian forces at battle of Waterloo.
• 1818 (to 1848) Emily Bronte.
• 1819 Factory act passed in Britain - no children under 9, under 16 less than 12hrs per day in textile mills.
• 1821 Napoleon Bonaparte dies in exile in St Helena.
• Napolean III crowned.
• 1831 (27.12) Darwin sets sail on Beagle for 5years.
• 1837 Queen Victoria take throne. (1819-1901)
• 1840 The Treaty of Waitangi signed.
• 1840 Potato famine in Ireland begins (lasts through to 1851)
• 1840 Deportation of convicts to Australia officially ends. ?
• 1843 Hong Kong proclaimed a British crown colony.
• 1844 Samuel Morse sends message from Washington to Baltimore.
• 1846 Anesthetic 1st used in a Massachusetts Hospital.
• 1851 (12.8) Isaac Singer granted patent on his Sewing Machine.
• 1859 Darwin publishes 'Origins of the species'.
• 1860 Paris commune.
• 1861 - 1865 American civil war.
• End of slavery in the USA.
• 1864 Waikato Wars
• 1865(26.5) end of U.S. Civil War.
• 1867 Alfred Nobel demonstrates dynamite in England
• Louis Pastor.
• 1874 (b.30.11) - 1965 Winston Churchill
• 1877 Edison records + plays back sound.
• 1879 (1.1) Edison demonstrates light bulb.
• 1880 Ned Kelly is wounded & captured.
• 1881 (25.10) Pablo Picasso born in Malaga, Spain.
• 1887 (12.8) Edison makes 1st sound recording of 'Mary had a little lamb'.
• William Morris
• Liberty opens in London.
• Bell conducts 1st successful telephone experiments.
• Charles Worth goes to Paris.
• 1889 Eiffel Tower opened in Paris.
• 1893-7 Penny Farthing the rage.
• 1896 Marconi makes prototype radio

Potted History: 1000 to 1800ad

• Richard Lion Heart comes to Rule Britain (French)
• 1066 Battle of Hastings
• 1066-87 Rule of William the Conqueror
• 1076 Irnerius rediscovers the Roman Digest of Law in Bologne.
• 1086 Doomsday book compiled for William the Conqueror.
• 1098 after 5mth siege Antioch falls to Crusaders.
• Ghengis Khan sweeps across Poland,Hungry defeating Europe's best.
• 1215 King John signs Magna Carta granting more liberty to his barons.
• 1314 Robert the Bruce crushes the English under Edward 11 at Battle of Bannockburn.
• 1347 The Black Death hits Europe. In less than 20 years 1/2 popn. of Europe dead.
• 1397 Medici start lending money internationally. Begins Italian Renaissance.
• 1429 English are defeated by French forces lead by Joan of Arc at seige of Orleans.
• 1450s Guttenburg develops 1st printing press.
• ? First books printed in English by Caxton.
• 1490s? Leonardo di Vinci
• Templars stamped out by the French
• 1492 Columbus discovers the Americas
• 1509 Henry 8th ascends the throne.
• Catherine of Aragon(d1536) - Mary1
• Anne Bolyne(ex1536) -Elizabeth1
• Jane Seymour(d1537) - Edward.vi
• Anne of Cleves (d1557)
• Catherine Howard (ex1542)
• Catherine Parr (d 1548)
• 1514 Copernia proposes that the earth rotates around the sun.
• 1515? Luther nails list on church door
• 1527? Death of Machiavelli.
• 1531 Henry 8th breaks from Rome to form Church of England.
• 1533 Atahualpa, king of the Inca, executed by Pizarro, after paying ransom of 1 room gold + 2 of silver
• 1547 Death of Henry 8th (b1509)
• 1547 Edward vi takes throne (1537-53)
• 1553 Rule of 'Bloody' Queen Mary i. (1516-58)
• 1558 Elizabeth i. reign. (1533-1603)
• 1564 (21.4) Shakespeare born
• 1566 French astrologer, physician & prophet Nostradamus dies.
• 1587 Mary Queen of Scots beheaded
• 1558 (23.7) British forces assemble to combat the Spanish Armarda.
• 1591 Galileo takes up of Prof. of Mathematics of Padua.
• 1603 James i (vi Scotland) takes crown. (1566-1625)
• 1611 Henry Hudson, famous for trying to find Asian route via Arctic, set adrift in Hudson bay by mutineers.
• 1613 The Globe Theatre burns down.
• 1616 (18.4) Death of Shakespeare (51yrs)
• 1619 First Africans brought to America by Dutch, the beginning of slavery.
• 1620 (21.12) Pilgrims go ashore from the Mayflgwer at Plymouth.
• 1625 Charles i. to throne. (1600-beheaded 1649)
• 1644 Cromwell's forces defeat British royalists..
• 1649 Charles ii.-restored 1660. (1630- 85)
• 1653 (16.12) Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of England Scotland + Ireland.
• ?Reformation in England.
• 1666 Fire of London.
• 1688 William + Mary offered joint monarchy over England + Holland.
• 1687 Isaac Newton publishes Principia Mathematica, 20 years after apple.
• The Mayflower
• 1720s onward - good weather in Eng. for 30yrs.=popn. increase + slave trade money +.technology = industrial revolution.
• 1753 Benjamin Franklin flew kite to prove lightning was electricity.
• 1759 m2 chronometer perfected
• 1765 Watt patents steam engine
• 1767 James Hargreaves invents spinning jenny.
• 1769 Cook 'discovers' New Zealand
• American Declaration of Independence.
• 1769? Napolean Bonaparte born in Corsica.
• 1773 (16.12) American colonists stage Boston Tea Party.
• 1775-1817 Jane Austen.
• 1780s? Alessandro Volta produces 1st battery in Italy.
• 1789 (14.7)The storming of the Bastille marks the start of the French revolution.
• 1789 George Washington inaugurated,
• 1792 (30.11) British & Americans sign peace articles in Paris ending American Revolution.
• 1799? Napoleonic era
• Victory in northern Italy , Austria
• Victory (?) in Egypt.
• French lose almost entire navy to English near Alexandria.
• Napoleon named 1st consul
• Crowned as Emperor.

Potted History: 0 to 1000ad

• 14 Augustus dies aged 75 years.
• 14 Tiberius becomes Roman Emperor. Died 16.3.37 aged 78, loathed by his people.
• 33ish Ben Hur
• 37 Gaius (Caligula) Roman Ruler aged 24 - assassinated 24.1.41
• 37 Paul converted from persecutor of Christians to Missinary on the road to Damascus.&
• 41 Claudius (b1.10.10bc)
• 54 Death of Claudius - succession of his stepson Nero.
• 60 Uprising against Romans in Britian lead by Boudicca.
• 68 (8.6) end of Julio-Claudian line when Nero kills himself. Galba becomes Princeps.
• 68-69 The year of 4 Caesars. Nero, Galba, Otho, then Vespasian.
• 70 The great Temple in Jerusalem sacked by Roman troops, lead by Titus (son of Emporor Vespasian.)
• 79 Vespasian dies & is succeeded by son Titus. (First time 'natural' succession)
• 79 (24.8) Mt Vesuvius erupts.
• 138 Hadrian dies.
• 158 Taupo erupts
• 408 Roman legions withdraw from Britannia.
• 410 Collapse of Roman Empire with the sacking of Carthage.
• 500 King Arthur (regional leader) resists invaders at battle of Mt Badgn (Dorset).
• 622 Mohammed begins his flight from Mecca to Medina.
• 700ish? founding of Islam
• 711 Moors invade Spain.
• 750 Charlemagne ressurects standards of learning through monasteries with 7 principles of learning
• 860s onward. Beginning of the Viking invasion of England - which lead toward unification of kingdoms in resistance.
• 900(approx) Invention of the plough.
• 973 Edgar claims crown of England, Scotland & Isles. First United Kingdom.