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Incredibly pat historical occurrences

Lady Gaga - how akward that sounds, either in english or French. Gaga actually mean "nut / nutty" "T'est gaga ou quoi ?" = "are you NUT ?"
So Lady Gaga = Lady nutty. But there is worse. IT also sounds like "Les dix cacas" which exactly means (drums rolling) "the ten poo" "the ten dong"

In Spanish “gagá” is a pejorative way of saying someone is senile. So Lady Gaga would be Lady Senile.
 
Actually when her great-grandparents arrived at Ellis Island the family name was changed from Ga Ga to Gaga by immigration officials.

oreally.jpg

(I like this Internet meme, because ORLY is actually Paris second airport. I can imagine the faces of the geeks that land at that airport.)

It is just like Condom village in the Gers, except it is an airport.
 
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Here is a truly excellent one that is hardly believable.

So you may have heard that the French Minister of Ecology, François de Rugy, has just thrown the towel and resigned after a major scandal.

Let's reel back the whole thing...

It happened that De Rugy threw lavish dinners that included LOBSTERS, a pretty expensive meal, and in those days of Yellow Jackets riots, he was shot down in flames, Marie-Antoinette "La brioche" style. He was bashed by a social media firestorm, and people dug out giant inflatable lobsters (no kidding, send me ROTFLMAO) everywhere he go, until he resigned two days ago.

Where it goes EXTRAORDINARY FUNNY is that there is a famous french recipe of lobster called "Le homard THERMIDOR." (homard = lobster)

Now you may ask, what the heck is THERMIDOR ? Well, wikipedia has the answer, as usual.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermidor

Thermidor was the second month of the summer quarter (mois d'été). It started July 19 or 20. It ended August 17 or 18.

Which exactly mean (drums rolling) that De Rugy resigned the first day in the MONTH OF THE LOBSTER. :eek::eek::eek::eek::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:

It is a french fellow prankster at France Fights On forum that tell me that good one yesterday evening and it just made my night and my day, today. I'm actually laughing like an idiot typing this (trying to type, actually)

As the italians say in their own, unique way

se non è vero, è bene trovato
 
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Johnny Depp drew inspiration from Keith Richards to create Jack Sparrow. Which is already hilarious considering the character... excentricities. Where it goes beyond weird is that Keith Richards loved it, to the point he pressured Depp to get him a role. In the third movie, job done: Keith Richards become Jack Sparrow father and essentially a carbon copy of him, except far older. As for the mother... well, you know. Jivaro head.

How is this “incredibly pat” or an incredible coincidence or, now that I think about, incredible in any way?

I’m struggling to see how it even qualifies as “interesting”.
 
How is this “incredibly pat” or an incredible coincidence or, now that I think about, incredible in any way?

I’m struggling to see how it even qualifies as “interesting”.

I have no idea what you are talking about...
 
Oh, I mean as in Lobster Thermidor(the recipe) is a thing here in the US as well although it's old-fashioned and somewhat hard to find.
 
Chuck Yeager in 1958 was told he couldn't be an astronaut per lack of an engineering degree. He shrugged his shoulders and kept flying aircraft. Surely enough the movie "The right stuff" got it completely wrong (there was no biterness, he did not cared, and accomplished great things until retirement in 1975).
Yet he is still alive and kicking today, aged at least 96 (born 1923 !), having buried
- the entire Mercury 7 from Shepard to Schirra
- the first spacewalker Alexei Leonov
- Neil Armstrong and most of the Apollo crews plus those that transitioned into the shuttle era.

Reminds me of De Gaulle learning he had NOT been invited to Yalta. He shouted "those three ! I will outlive them all". and surely he did: Roosevelt three months later in 1945, Stalin 1953, then Churchill put up a good fight but surrendered in 1965. De Gaulle died in November 1970. Mission accomplished.
 
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In 1974 the National Academies of Sciences, tired of all the hype around the coming Viking Mars mission that was to find life on the Red planet... there was zero doubt really !!

Published that little paragraph in a report that nobody red, of course - neither Carl Sagan nor NASA.

understatement of the century.png

The twin Vikings landed on Mars on July 20, 1976 amid a storm of NASA and Sagan PR.

And guess what happened next ?

Exactly the above.

1 experiment (Levine) "we found life !"

2 experiments (Oyama, Horowitz) said "NO"

and then... Biemann experiment found no organics.

End result:
- Such had been the immense hype,
- Such had been the huge cost of Viking ($4 billion from the era, = ten billions today)
- Such was the controversy between the four scientists

That
- the next Mars lander had to wait 21 years, and 1997
- the last of the surviving scientist, Levine, still claims he has find life (in 2019: 43 years after !)
- we still have no clear cut idea of what did the freakkin' Viking ovens and scoopers exactly found or processed (!)
 
More insight is derived from OSINT than any other source to this day. It's not glamorous because collection is risk-free and almost effortless, but analysis is more important than collection by a massive margin (says the former collector).
IIRC the standing joke was that thanks to leaks the KGB Resident in Washington collected half their intelligence simply by reading the newspapers and various special interest magazines.
 
How 2002 France become mirror universe France 1998.

In 1998 zidane and the black.blanc beur soccer team were master of the universe. Meanwhile Le Pen FN was at rock bottom split by Bruno Megret rebellion it nearly imploded.

4 years and another world cup later...

On April 20 (Hitler birthday for fuck sake !) 2002
Le Pen went to the finale against Chirac.
The world cup happened the next month in South Korea.
Zidane screwed his tight, forfeited, and the 1998 heroes sunk to nothingness. Eliminated no goal nothing.
A finale for Le Pen and nothing for Zidane.
And black blanc beur died for the 2nd time in one month.
Whatever, was cool in 1998 instantly sucked in 2002.
Zidane become mirror Spock with the goatee and France got through the tantalum field.
Hell of a year.
OUTCH
 
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During the Battle of Britain the Germans were using a navigational device for aircraft that used a single radio beam for said navigation. They named this system 'Wotan,' another name for the Norse god Odin. Odin only has one eye; this rather descriptive naming is how the British figured out that it was a single beam system, and from there the RAF developed countermeasures.

The book The Battle of Britain by James Holland says that the an RAF officer bought a book on Norse mythology from a London bookshop which helped immensely.

On a similar note to the last sentence, before the war, a German operative in London bought a book on the RAF which the Luftwaffe used to devise countermeasures for RAF planes.
 
During the Battle of Britain the Germans were using a navigational device for aircraft that used a single radio beam for said navigation. They named this system 'Wotan,' another name for the Norse god Odin. Odin only has one eye; this rather descriptive naming is how the British figured out that it was a single beam system, and from there the RAF developed countermeasures.

The book The Battle of Britain by James Holland says that the an RAF officer bought a book on Norse mythology from a London bookshop which helped immensely.

On a similar note to the last sentence, before the war, a German operative in London bought a book on the RAF which the Luftwaffe used to devise countermeasures for RAF planes.

German codenames were amazingly bad at hiding what they were describing. Far too in love with being meaningful or symbolic.

Which is one of the reasons why post-war Britain just went for 'Colour+Noun' random lists.
 
All five of the Pittsburgh Pirates World Series victories (1909, 1925, 1960, 1971, and 1979) took them seven games to accomplish.
 
During the Battle of Britain the Germans were using a navigational device for aircraft that used a single radio beam for said navigation. They named this system 'Wotan,' another name for the Norse god Odin. Odin only has one eye; this rather descriptive naming is how the British figured out that it was a single beam system, and from there the RAF developed countermeasures.

The book The Battle of Britain by James Holland says that the an RAF officer bought a book on Norse mythology from a London bookshop which helped immensely.

On a similar note to the last sentence, before the war, a German operative in London bought a book on the RAF which the Luftwaffe used to devise countermeasures for RAF planes.
R. V. Jones in "Most Secret War" as referenceD in Wikipedia says that he though German codenames gave information away. Do he asked a scholar In German at Bletchley Park who suggest Witan might refer to a single eye.

So not a piece of luck by a British officer but good work by professionals and bad work by the Germans.

Even before the colour codes Britain used random code names eg overlord torch etc. I think us codenames were a bit less random.
 
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