Talk About Tennis 2.0

He he, good

posted by @deaconblues

From the Live and Learn files


Judianna
@Judianna
Monopoly - I didn't know this!

(You'll never look at the
game the same way again!)

Starting in 1941, an increasing number of British Airmen found themselves as the involuntary guests of the Third Reich, and the Crown was casting about for ways and means to facilitate their escape...

Now obviously, one of the most helpful aids to that end is a useful and accurate map, one showing
not only where stuff was, but also showing the locations of 'safe houses' where a POW on-the-lam could go for food and shelter.

Paper maps had some real drawbacks -- they make a lot of noise when you open and fold them, they wear out rapidly, and if they get wet, they turn into mush.

Someone in MI-5 (Similar to America 's OSS) got the idea of printing escape maps on silk. It's durable, can be scrunched-up into tiny wads, and unfolded as many times as needed, and makes no noise whatsoever.

At that time, there was only one manufacturer in Great Britain that had perfected the technology of printing on silk, and that was John Waddington, Ltd. When approached by the government, the firm was only too happy to do its bit for the war effort.

By pure coincidence, Waddington was also the U.K. Licensee for the popular American board game, Monopoly. As it happened, 'games and pastimes' was a category of item qualified for insertion into 'CARE packages', dispatched by the International Red Cross to prisoners of war.

Under the strictest of secrecy, in a securely guarded and inaccessible old workshop on the grounds of Waddington's, a group of sworn-to-secrecy employees began mass-producing escape maps, keyed to each region of Germany or Italy where Allied POW camps were regional system). When processed, these maps could be folded into such tiny dots that they would actually fit inside a Monopoly playing piece.

As long as they were at it, the clever workmen at Waddington's also managed to add:
1. A playing token, containing a small magnetic compass
2. A two-part metal file that could easily be screwed together
3. Useful amounts of genuine high-denomination German, Italian, and French currency, hidden within the piles of Monopoly money!

British and American air crews were advised, before taking off on their first mission, how to identify a 'rigged' Monopoly set -- by means of a tiny red dot, one cleverly rigged to look like an ordinary printing glitch, located in the corner of the Free Parking square.

Of the estimated 35,000 Allied POWS who successfully escaped, an estimated one-third were aided in their flight by the rigged Monopoly sets... Everyone who did so was sworn to secrecy indefinitely, since the British Government might want to use this highly successful ruse in still another, future war.

The story wasn't declassified until 2007, when the surviving craftsmen from Waddington's, as well as the firm itself, were finally honored in a public ceremony.

It's always nice when you can play that 'Get Out of Jail' Free' card!

Great story. Txs

George Takei :verified:
@georgetakei@universeodon.com
Ask and you shall receive.

Friends of Anthony Bourdain
@bourdainpodcast
"I don't want to wait for my coffee. I don't want some man-bun, Mumford and Son (expletive) to get it for me. I like good coffee but I don't want to wait for it, and I don't want it with the cast of Friends. It's a beverage; it's not a lifestyle."
–Anthony Bourdain

What an interesting character study.

The tweet says Mexico but there's a guy in what posters say is a government jacket from Colombia. Be that as it may it shows what a cultural phenomenon Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z was and is.

ti-amie wrote: ↑Sat Mar 09, 2024 11:08 pm

So swan are like geese, and they will grab you with those beaks and twist? Growing up around farms, I was more afraid of geese than anything.

meganfernandez wrote: ↑Sun Mar 10, 2024 1:57 am

ti-amie wrote: ↑Sat Mar 09, 2024 11:08 pm

So swan are like geese, and they will grab you with those beaks and twist? Growing up around farms, I was more afraid of geese than anything.

I said that geese are mean here and everyone wanted to argue with me that they're not.

Mike Sington @MikeSington

International news agencies are killing the first official photo of Kate supposedly after her surgery because “the source (Kensington Palace) has manipulated the image”.





AFP kill order.


This was posted showing the questionable parts of the manipulation.



As I'm sure everyone here is aware this story has been strictly in the realm of, let's call it idle chit chat. With these kill orders from international agencies the story has moved into news. I don't want to speculate about what happened to her. All I know is, as someone who has had a hysterectomy you are not wearing skinny jeans so soon after the surgery.

I hope she's well.

Tenille Clarke
@tenilleclarke1

So just to be clear here - in the Public Relations industry, a “kill notification” is the coup de grâce of the media circuit. For AP to issue this update, means that something is TERRIBLY wrong. Think of it as a Cat. 5 cyclone. This is literally a death blow to any press source.

ti-amie wrote: ↑Sun Mar 10, 2024 2:28 am

meganfernandez wrote: ↑Sun Mar 10, 2024 1:57 am

ti-amie wrote: ↑Sat Mar 09, 2024 11:08 pm

So swan are like geese, and they will grab you with those beaks and twist? Growing up around farms, I was more afraid of geese than anything.

I said that geese are mean here and everyone wanted to argue with me that they're not.

Geese are bastards.

ti-amie wrote: ↑Mon Mar 11, 2024 12:38 am Tenille Clarke
@tenilleclarke1

So just to be clear here - in the Public Relations industry, a “kill notification” is the coup de grâce of the media circuit. For AP to issue this update, means that something is TERRIBLY wrong. Think of it as a Cat. 5 cyclone. This is literally a death blow to any press source.

I always learn on this site.

Will say "kill notification" must be an old term because it seems extreme !