General I. Zun Dew Lee was a Malaysian general during the Borneo crisis. Military historians criticized his leadership as unimaginative, with repeated use of "textbook manouvres" in complex circumstances. He died during a freak accident when his jeep lost control and ran into a tree that an elderly sun bear was sleeping in, and his head was crushed by the falling beast.
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AH Run-downs, summaries and general gubbins
- Thread starter Sideways
- Start date
Usborne's Northern Powerhouse was an illustrated children's educational book about power generation in northern England, first published in 1985
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Scottish and Southern Energy was a term coined by Manchester Mayor Andy "Stark" Burnham for the unsuccessful parliamentary opposition alliance between the Conservative Party under Suella Braverman and the Forbesite SNP, in attempt to create a power block larger than the Liberal Democrats and take the office of Leader of the Opposition.
- Location
- Toronto, ON, CA
be still my beating heart
Goblin mode, more propely GOBLIN mode, was an experimental scheduling approach that National Express trialed on the Silverlink service on the Gospel Oak to Barking line (often abbreviated to GOBLIN) in the early 2000s. Officially named Request Surge Scheduling, the approach required 2 car trains to remain at the terminus until they either achieved 50% capacity or an equivalent threshold number of requests were received from customers pressing a button at subsequent stations. Despite being presented as offering "greater convenience to the greatest number", the unpredictability of the service made it unpopular with the travelling public and extremely unpopular with railway staff, especially signallers (RMT held several one day strikes). The unpopularity of Goblin mode was a major factor in the cancelation of Silverlink in 2003.
Goblin fishing was the practice of trying to trick trains in Goblin mode to leave the terminus early by pressing the request button multiple times. Silverlink staff were ordered to prevent this, but Goblin fishing was never completely prevented, especially at unstaffed platforms.
Note: for Goblin fish, see Glyptauchen panduratus
Goblin fishing was the practice of trying to trick trains in Goblin mode to leave the terminus early by pressing the request button multiple times. Silverlink staff were ordered to prevent this, but Goblin fishing was never completely prevented, especially at unstaffed platforms.
Note: for Goblin fish, see Glyptauchen panduratus
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Stop the Steel was a slogan popularised by Aberavon MP Stephen Kinnock during the 2020 campaign to save Port Talbot's steelworks, and was targeted at restricting steel imports through further strengthening of UK's steel safeguards.
I didn't inhale, is a popular phrase on fire safety wrongly attributed to New Orleans jazz legend Willy J Blythe, supposedly said after he survived the Preservation Hall fire (the words were actually said by a young drummer in Blythe's set)
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Labour isn't working was a controversial slogan of the protest group Fathers for Justice, campaigning against the "birth bonus" child credit that the Milliband government introduced for new mothers in 2025.
JesterBL
Gastronaut
- Location
- Flyover Country, USA
- Pronouns
- he/him
Kaubōi-zoku ('Cowboy Tribe')- a term for a rowdy youth subculture in post-War Japan obsessed with the iconography of the Cooperative Commonwealth and adapting it to (offend) post-War Japanese sensibilities. They would commonly wear exaggerated cowboy attire (or boilersuits, instructions unclear) adorned with socialist symbols (so as to claim political affiliation and make it more difficult to break up their public gatherings, in one interpretation). Later adapted as an ironic term to refer to Japanese companies and businessmen trying to do business with the Industrial Unions in the late 1980s.
High Speed, later High Speed 1, British infortainment anti-drug film from 2003, designed to inform youth about the dangers of Speed, but for some reason only screened on Kent local television
ICE, German film of the same era, using the same EU grant, focussed on the risks of Meth, and widly viewed across Germany.
High Speed 2, in development British infortainment anti-drug film, designed for Manchester youth, delayed due to grant cancelation from Brexit and expected to be screened on West Midlands TV in 2024, despite the actors having Mancunian accents.
ICE, German film of the same era, using the same EU grant, focussed on the risks of Meth, and widly viewed across Germany.
High Speed 2, in development British infortainment anti-drug film, designed for Manchester youth, delayed due to grant cancelation from Brexit and expected to be screened on West Midlands TV in 2024, despite the actors having Mancunian accents.
Note on production: all "northern" scenes were actually shot in the environs of Old Oak Common.
- Location
- Sheffield
- Pronouns
- she/her
"The gritty, derpived, post-industrial Northern town of Watford."
Willesden Junction isn't Watford, although you can get there, was a rejected slogan for the London Overground
Video Nasties are an infamous brand of films from 1980s South Africa, often compared to Cannon. The end of apartheid in 1976 and chaotic churn of governments led to an absence of censorship at the same time that the film industry broke open and international trade went up, and a multi-ethnic alliance of cynical filmmakers started making trashy horror for the nascent home video markets.
Many of them were sloppily made but provided the gore and sex audiences wanted, as well as standing out internationally for their ethnic diversity and post-apartheid politics. Dracula in Pretoria is a modern version where the Count is one of the Western investors rushing back into the country (a demented Tom Baker), Harker et al are Afrikaner elites hoping to keep their wealth, Quincy Morris is replaced with a nouveau rich black stocktrader, and Van Helsing is a Coloured doctor who has performed his trade in the outskirts. The politics keep it talked about even though their budget means 'the rich' clearly aren't and a 'mansion' is a local hotel.
Many of them were sloppily made but provided the gore and sex audiences wanted, as well as standing out internationally for their ethnic diversity and post-apartheid politics. Dracula in Pretoria is a modern version where the Count is one of the Western investors rushing back into the country (a demented Tom Baker), Harker et al are Afrikaner elites hoping to keep their wealth, Quincy Morris is replaced with a nouveau rich black stocktrader, and Van Helsing is a Coloured doctor who has performed his trade in the outskirts. The politics keep it talked about even though their budget means 'the rich' clearly aren't and a 'mansion' is a local hotel.
- Location
- Toronto, ON, CA
This is very, very,
I mean it's all insanely inspired, I love these kinds of snippets of an ATL. In a lot of ways pop culture tells us more about a time and place than any historical account ever could.
This is brilliant.
Also, I have a brand new idea for repurposing* the derelict Pretoria West Power Station. I mean, it worked for Ian McKellen
*autocorrect wanted repossessing, which also works
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Centrist is a term in Europe from the 1980s and 1990s, referring to people who wished to retain a version of the Warsaw Pact and develop a former-eastern-block trading group rather than either turn to the EEC & NATO or remain close to the reforming USSR. The principle was that Central Europe - deciding Russia and the Balkan states were the true east - needed to stand for themselves and not be swallowed up by a Western block so soon after gaining more autonomy. Often, "centrist" would be used as a derogatory term by the Westophile youth and academics. While the Budapest Pact proved relatively easy to establish as the militaries were already linked and their chiefs of staff liked the idea of being big fish in this small pond rather than work for Brussells, the failure to agree on common trade policy and the wealth of the EEC defeated the rest of the centrists plans and the nations went westward after all.
So far, the Budapest Pact is most famous for turning evil in 2010s video games and films when the West wanted to sell more to the Soviet market and felt using the Red Army was bad for business.
So far, the Budapest Pact is most famous for turning evil in 2010s video games and films when the West wanted to sell more to the Soviet market and felt using the Red Army was bad for business.