Old Chestnuts

1. At the first Confest I went to in 2000/2001, I got talking to a vegan about the fertilizer quandary, that is to say organic fertilizers are animal based or to use chemical fertilizers that are not organic either as is kills the micro-organisms in the soil. His reply,
"You don't need fertilizer. Old growth forests have existed for thousands of years without ever being fertilized!"

2. On FB, I came across young man who was 100% certain about AGW; 100% certain about the efficacy if every vaccine made, past, present and future; 100% certain about LDL cholesterol being the one and only cause of CVD. In his words "There is no other plausible explanation."
I replied that science is about scrutiny and verification, not certainty.

3.
At a Confest (the biggest hippy festival in Australia) I watched a young woman a start nodding her head to the live music, her face broke into a smile, shaking her head , she lost control of herself and had to go and dance to the music.
A couple of Confests later, I was on the information desk . I asked her, she replied,
"That's me!"

4.
The Novocastrian.
A couple of decades ago before I dropped out of the rat race, I worked as a chef in motel. Karen who was a waitress-receptionist was an upside-down, back to front, sideways thinker. As Karen hailed from Newcastle, NSW, she acquired the nickname of The Novocastrian.
One night she was making up the breakfast trays and she told me she goes streaking. When the manager came into the kitchen, I told him and he looked nonchalant.
The next night when The Novocastrian was working and it was time to go outside for a break, I said,
"OK Karen when are you going streaking next?"
She looked up at the sky with a thoughtful Umm. Back in the kitchen she quizzed me and was astonished to find I had never been streaking. I had skinny dipped once before.

5.
For those of you who don’t know what Morton bay bugs are, they are a type of edible crustacean. Maybe the same species as the Balmain bug. Anyway back in the early 1980s I was working at a seafood restaurant in Brisbane. One day a waitress who had just arrived in Australia from Yorkshire, England started working at the restaurant. One lunchtime she came in the kitchen and asked, “Are the boooogs ready yet?” Everyone in the kitchen fell about laughing. She stopped coming to work after that. Some people are a bit over-sensitive.

6.A few years ago I ran a hotel kitchen. One night my young female assistant who was a bit of a tomboy, hated wearing skirts or dresses was normally quite chirpy but this night was unusually mopey. At 19.55 she burped and farted in synchronicity. Her face lit up and she was back to her normal self.
" I think you needed that."
" I think I did."
Her face beamed for the rest of the night.

To be continued.