Very good Rudolph you win the maths quiz. By the way it is an excellent book and covers everything FN did from day one to 1989 from milking machines to turbine blades as well as guns.
It’s interesting that the British and sorta-British say Maths instead of Math. Yes, I know Mathematics ends with an S, but it still sounds strange.
Sorta Brittish ! Gees Rudolph if you heard me speak like normal mate yed never reckon I could have any kind of Pommie attachment to the motherland. Regardless I am confident in your math ability. If you were no good you would have featured on an episode of air crash investigations.
Auzzie, I doubt one American in a hundred can tell the difference between Paul Hogan’s and Michael Caine’s accents. I just watched The World’s Fastest Indian. In it, a guy from New Zealand comes to the US. Everyone thinks he’s British and he says he’s not a Pommie. I had never heard that expression before, and here it is again, twice in one week. Care to elaborate?
Good movie and very factual. If you enjoyed check out Invecargill Hardware Store. That’s was Bert’s hometown hangout. All his workshop gear, lathe, ,piston collection , bikes and engines are on display in the shop which is still the small town functioning hardware. If you look at my avita I see bit of Bert and Wiley in lot of us down here in Aust and NZ . Isolation , Distance and not having things readily available brings on that creativity and the make it yourself out of nothing inventive spirit.
”Pommie” is Aussie and Kiwi (NZ) slang when referring to the Brittish. Most here originally stem from Brittish Colonial convict stock and early free settlement immigrants of which the Gentry Brittish Administration landowners and lawmakers treated pretty badly. Those directly associated or straight out from England were called Pommies, I was told it also has some origin reference to Pom Poms on a dress or beanie. It’s there, useless , sometimes annoying and serves no purpose. The saying “”bloody useless pommies” got weight when the Colonial forces from here and NZ got managed by the Brittish Military in South Africa and WW1 as cannon fodder. The saying has stuck through time ever since. As incentive after WW1 and Ww2 huge % of male population was wiped out or invalid so Brittish offered bargain that you could immigrate for a better life from the Motherland to Australia for a 5 pound fare by sea. That generation is referred to as “5 pound Poms”
I did enjoy the movie! It seemed pretty improbable that this guy from the other side of the world was going to run his 1920 motorcycle at the Bonneville Salt Flats. A quick look at Wikipedia showed that he really did it. Amazing. Pommie did make me think of the useless plume on British headgear. Thanks for the history!
Pommie has also been suggested as an acronym of "Prisoner Of her Majesty". ie Poms for short. This, of course, referencing our friends across the ditch. But Burt Munro was utter legend.
