Back when I was a kid, my favourite was called Lollipop (see illustration) and it was and is still made by DiplomIs. When I need a little flashback to my childhood days I still buy one from time to time .

My girlfriend on the other hand has a slight dairy intolerance so she eats them all the time. The strange thing is that how ever expensive and flashy ice-cream I eat as she does, I always get a little envious. Childhood favourites is a strange thing – Ted ;-)

My hair is longer than most of those poor hippie sod’s were back then – Ted ;-)

Remember when all those textured stockings first hit the market a year or so ago? Well, it’s pretty surprising to think that at the time Candy Martin was in no way interested in any of them. She thought they were the worst things she had ever seen and even went so far as to tell one friend that she wouldn’t be seen dead in them.

Read the whole article and see
the naughty pictures HERE

Warning: Nudity do occur in this article. If you are under age or live in a country where watching images of nude women for some reason  are against the law  I take no responsibility if you click the link above. In other words you’re flying solo from here on – Ted ;-)

I couldn’t find anything about this car except from what it says on the first image. But from what I gathered from posts on several message boards there has long been a discussion on whether any of them really excited to day – Ted

I must admit that I don’t post animated gif’s very often. I worked a lot with them myself before I discovered Flash. Few animated gifs impress or amuse me, this one on the other hand did both – Ted

Gif found on Un gif dans ta gueule…

Wells Coates, Radio Eco AD 65, 1932/34. E. K. Cole Ltd. England.
© Viktoria and Albert Museum

Image found at I live in the first trailer in the park…

The Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (shortened to "CIE. GLE. TRANSATLANTIQUE", or CGT, and commonly named "Transat"), typically known overseas as the French Line, was a shipping company established in 1861 as an attempt to revive the French merchant marine, the poor state of which was self-evident during the Crimean War of 1856. The company’s first vessel, the SS Washington, had its maiden voyage on 15 June 1864. Other than operating ocean liners, the company also had a significant fleet of freighters. The company survived both World Wars, but the development of jet travel doomed its mainstay passenger liner business. In 1977, the company merged with the Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes to form the Compagnie Générale Maritime. Then, in 1996, the company Compagnie Générale Maritime merged to form the CMA CGM.

History

In 1855, the Péreire brothers, Emile and Isaac, created the Compagnie Générale Maritime, which later became the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique. They were already the owners of the Société Générale de Crédit Mobilier, which became the main shareholder. Five years later they signed an agreement with the French government. The company contracted to create a fleet and to provide liner service and carry mail for 20 years on the following routes: Le Havre – New York with calls at Brest, Saint-Nazaire, and the Isthmus of Panama, with 3 additional services for Guadeloupe, Mexico and Cayenne. In return, the government would provide the company with an annual subsidy.

In 1861 Compagnie Générale Maritime changed its name to the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique. The Pereire brothers also established a shipyard at Penhoët, near Saint-Nazaire. The next year the first trip to the West Indies and Mexico was made by the shipLouisiane. Two years later the New York – Le Havre line service was begun, with the paddle-steamer Washington providing postal service. In 1867 the company switched from using paddle wheels to using propellers for its vessels, partly because they were more fuel efficient.

An economic and financial crisis in 1868 forced the Pereire brothers to file a petition of bankruptcy and to resign from the company’s board. However, the company survived.

Technical progress continued and the company modified its vessels to transport more goods. Still, in 1873 the line suffered its first major accident. The Ville du Havre collided with the sailing ship Loch Earn, with a loss of life of about 226 people.

In 1879 the French government awarded the company the concession for postal services for the Mediterranean. That same year the company incorporated. Between 1882 and 1884 the government renewed the earlier fleet and postal agreements.

In 1886, SS La Bourgogne traveled the le Havre – New York transit in a little more than 7 days. This gave the company first place in the New York postal service, and ignited a competition for the record in the trans-Atlantic run. In 1894 the company offered the first cruise for American passengers when La Touraine initiated service from New York to Constantinople.

cruise for American passengers when La Touraine initiated service from New York to Constantinople.

Between 1897 and 1904, European competition intensified and the company suffered two major maritime disasters. The Ville de Saint-Nazaire had to be abandoned at sea in 1897 and La Bourgogne sank with 568 passengers in 1898. Furthermore, labor strife developed as strikes came to affect all ports and all staff. The strikes continued until 1923.

In 1904, Jules Charles-Roux became president and instituted a reorganization. The company re-oriented its strategy to emphasize the quality of life aboard ship rather than racing against time. The next year it initiated Le Havre – New York cargo service.

The company did not become a major participant of the trans-Atlantic ocean liner trade until after World War I. During 1907 and 1908, when immigration to the United States was greatest, the company’s share of the market was a mere 10%. In line with its strategy, the company did not have ships of either great speed or size, but instead became renowned during the early 20th century for its luxuriously appointed liners. The most notable of these early ships was the SS France, which began service in 1912.

During World War I, the company transformed its vessels into warships, hospital vessels and troopships. By the end of the war, the company had lost a third of the fleet. Still, the company recovered during the post-war period, with several famous ships beginning service. In 1927, the SS Ile de France, the first ship to be styled in Art Deco, had its maiden voyage.

The company also diversified. In 1919, it introduced the first tourist motor car circuit in North Africa and in 1925 it created the Société des Voyages et Hôtels Nord-Africains (S.V.H.N.A.).

The Great Depression caused the company to suffer a significant decrease of profits as costs increased and passenger numbers plummeted The company responded by decommissioning vessels and discontinuing unprofitable routes. A generous government subsidy enabled the company, in 1935, to finance the construction its most famous vessel, the SS Normandie. At the time of completion, the ship was the largest in the world and also the fastest, winning the Blue Riband from the Italian liner, the SS Rex. Its Art Deco interior and streamlined hull design were famous. It won the Blue Ribbon trophy for its first voyage with a speed of 30 knots. However, it was never a commercial success and a fire in 1942 ended its career.

In 1939-1940, at the beginning of World War II, the company was subject to mobilization of more than a third of the staff. The Department of Shipping & Maritime Transport chartered or requisitioned the company’s ships. The company also received 95 vessels to manage for the war effort. By 1946, the loss of several vessels due to the war had diminished the company’s fleet, though the company was able to acquire several Liberty ships. The company also acquired Liberté, the former German liner SS Europa (1928), whichFrance had claimed as reparations.

Passenger traffic grew post-war, but the advent of commercial air travel in 1958 was a disaster for the French Line’s passenger ships. Despite the launch of a new flagship, the 66,000 ton SS France in 1961, passenger demand decreased as no ship could match the convenience of airplane flights that could transport passengers in a matter of hours over a distance that by ship would take several days. The ocean liner fleet became dependent on government subsidies, which were finally ended in 1974. The fleet was subsequently hulked.

France was laid up until 1979 when the Norwegian Cruise Line bought it and renamed it Norway. In 2008, Norway was beached at Alang, India and broken up for scrap.

In 1977, the company merged with the Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes to form the Compagnie Générale Maritime.

The Ship on the poster

SS La Provence was an ocean liner and auxiliary cruiser torpedoed and sunk in the Mediterranean Sea on 26 February 1916. She belonged to the French Compagnie Générale Transatlantique.

Known in peacetime as La Provence, the ship was refitted as a troop ship in World War I. She was designed to carry 1,960 people, and was transporting troops from France to Salonika when she was sunk by the German U-boat U-35, south of Cape Matapan. The ship listed so quickly that many of the lifeboats could not be used. There were 742 survivors. Nearly 1,000 people were killed in the sinking.

The Sydney Morning Herald for 8 March 1916, and several other English-language papers, reported:

M. Bokanowskl, a French Deputy, who is one of the survivors of the French auxiliary cruiser Provence, which was torpedoed and sunk in the Mediterranean, narrates that a battalion of the Third Colonial Infantry was aboard. There was no lamentation, and there was no panic, though the ship was sinking rapidly and the boilers exploding.

Captain Vesco, he states, remained on the bridge, calmly giving orders, and finally cried, "Adieu, mes enfants." The men clustered on the foredeck, and replied, "Vive la France." Then the Provence made a sudden plunge, and the foredeck rose perpendicularly above the water.

A British patrol and a French torpedo boat picked up the survivors after they had been 18 hours in the water. Many died or went mad before the rescue ships arrived.

Text from Wikipedia 

SS La Provence was one of the over 6,000 Allied and neutral ships totaling over 14,200,000 tons that was sunk by the U-boats of the German Imperial Navy (German: Kaiserliche Marine) and the Austro-Hungarian Navy (German: Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine or K.u.K. Kriegsmarine) during WWI

REGENT STREET – In this view one is looking down the street from the Oxford Street end towards the Quadrant at the Piccadilly end. Regent Street was originally designed by John Nash between 1813 and 1820 as a magnificent thoroughfare to link Carlton House, the Prince Regent’s residence between Pall Mall and the Mall, with Regent’s Park. The facades of Nash’s beautiful Quadrant were rebuilt in the nineteen twenties from designs by Sir Reginald Blomfield. Regent Street, which is now famous for its drapers, furriers, jewellers and other shops, was once also a residential quarter; it was in his ‘handsome suite of private apartments’ there that Lord Frederick Verisopht breakfasted (in Nicholas Nickleby) with Sir Mulberry Hawk at three o’clock in the afternoon.

From “Country Life Picture Book of London” with photos by G F Allen

Image found at 1950sUnlimited

Image found at 1950sUnlimited

Finalists for The Donnybrook Apple Queen, 1954

In Context

The Apple Festival has a long tradition. The first was held in 1954 in Donnybrook the brain child of Mr Alan Frost, councillor of the then Preston Roads Board and has been a cultural and social event since its inception.

Other fruit growing areas were invited to join and then the Festivals were held annually in rotation between Donnybrook, Bridgetown, Manjimup and Mount Barker. These festivals were known as the Southwest Festivals. Other districts gradually dropped out and then Donnybrook carried on until 1968, when it lapsed.

There was a ten year break until 1978 when Donnybrook Apex Club revived the Apple Festival and it has been held in Donnybrook ever since as a Bi-annual event. In 2013 the committee decided to trial the festival as an annual event to keep the continuity of the promotion of the town and the growers within its boundaries. As the festival is organised and run entirely by volunteers there has been difficulty in some years holding the event and so there are some gaps in the timeline.

The Apple Festival is promoted extensively throughout the state and raises the profile of Donnybrook as a fantastic fruit and vegetable growing region.

The Festival is a mighty opportunity to promote the town, the district and the diverse array of produce we grow.

We believe our Southwest is one of the cleanest, greenest growing environments in the world. Fruit production is one of the many agricultural industries that thrive in its fertile soil. Winemaking, olives and other gourmet fare are all increasing in production in the region.

Given the parlous state of fruit growing generally and now with the actual import of fruit & vegetables from other countries which don’t have our high standards of production, our industry is at risk of failure. Increasing costs and loss of younger farmers to the better income offered by the mining industry is becoming a matter of great concern and the promotion of the industry is important to help increase awareness of these issues. We continue to promote the idea that local produce should be the automatic choice over imported fruit.

The Festival creates a sense of community and belonging, showcases our town, and provides a focus for travellers on the Easter weekend to stay over in Donnybrook.

Being a two day event it ensures a more relaxed atmosphere where families and friends can enjoy the weekend.

A lot of this information and photos has been sourced from the late Doug Henderson’sbook "Apple Queens & Festivals". Doug was a keen photographer and kept photographic records of most events held in the Donnybrook region. The book can be purchased through the Donnybrook Information Centre.

We would also like to thank Neville Fry for the many hours work he has done in scanning photos and putting together much of the information in this online history.

Click on the year for more information including a brief summary of previous Queens, parade floats and significant events associated with the festival. If you notice any mistakes or can provide us with photos of previous apple festival queens and floats please contact us so that we can add to or update the information.

We hope you enjoy walking down memory lane.

Text and images from donnybrookapplefestival.com

In late 1945, American automakers started picking up where they’d left off before World War II. Pontiac was no exception. Introduction of brand-new post-war designs was some three years away for most companies, due to materials shortages and lack of time. General Motors was further hampered by a major strike that erupted in November.

But it didn’t matter. For the moment, getting back to civilian production was the industry’s top priority. The reason was pent-up demand. The public had gone nearly four years without new cars, and most buyers were happy to pay full list price or more for anything on wheels-even warmed-over’ 42s-as long as it was new. The result was an unprecedented seller’s market.

Pontiac weighed in with a car that many remembered as being pretty nice in pre-war form. Like its GM sisters, the division had acquired newly designed body shells for 1940. These got a minor facelift for’ 41 and a more extensive restyle for’ 42. That year’s main design innovation was . Harley Earl’s "pontoon" front fenders swept back into the door area for the first time. Predictably, this basic look was little changed on the 1946 continuation, which started coming off the lines in October 1945. Appearance alterations, devised by Robert J. Lauer, involved a more horizontal look for the full-width grille, parking lamps moved behind it, and elimination of the upper body side mouldings. The by-now traditional "Silver Streak" hood trim and Chief Pontiac mascot continued. Because of shortages, only the B-body Streamliner two-door fastback was initially available. The full line wasn’t in place until June 1946.

As before, Pontiac’s first post-war offerings were grouped into Torpedo and Streamliner series, the former with "trunkback" styling on the corporate A-body platform. Respective wheelbases were 119 and 122 inches; overall lengths were 204.5 and 210 inches.Each was available with a choice of two carryover engines, a 239.2inch L-head inline six with 90 horsepower or a 248.9-cid straight eight with 103 bhp. The eight cost about $30 extra. Also returning unchanged was the ladder-type 1942 chassis, with independent front suspension and a leaf-spring/live-axle rear end featuring wood liners to limit interleaf friction. Options also stayed pretty much the same. Among them were rear fender skirts, a choice of three radios, and white plastic wheel trim discs in lieu of the hard-to-get whitewall tires.

Also available were high-compression heads for both engines and a choice of rear axle ratios, a 3.90:1 "economy" setup or a 4.55:1 "mountain" gear set. Like its pre-war predecessor, the ’46 Pontiac was softly sprung and easy to handle. Gear shifting was almost effortless thanks to the standard vacuum assist linkage, and a strong first gear helped initial acceleration. Both engines offered impressive low-rpm torque that let the driver "lug down" in third and then pull smoothly away without downshifting.

Everybody did well in the booming post-war seller’s market, and Pontiac was no exception here, either. Its output of 137,640 units for the model year was good for sixth place in the 1946 standings. Pontiac held this position for ’47 despite a mostly unchanged group of cars that saw nearly double the sales volume. For 1948, the division carried out what was effectively a model realignment by offering most of its cars with a deluxe trim package as a $90-$120 option. It included chrome fender mouldings, gravel guards, and wheel discs. More significant was first-time availability of GM’s HydraMatic automatic transmission at $185. It was especially welcome by eight cylinder customers, who now far outnumbered six-cylinder buyers. Largely on the strength of this, Pontiac set a new production record of 235,000 units and moved up to fifth, where it would remain through 1953.

Though Pontiacs would become a lot more exciting in a few years, these early post-war models were mainly solid, reliable family cars that, per long-standing tradition, were a step up from Chevrolet. That may not make them great cars of the Forties, but it doesn’t hurt, either.

When starting to update the Soda & Soft Drink list for “The Softdrink Project” I realised that the page had crashed so I had to rebuild it. This is now done ;-)

Another thing I discovered when I had finished the list was that I am actually only two sodas away from my initial goal; 100 sodas and soft drinks. But for all fans of “The Softdrink Project” who now got afraid that the project is about to reach it’s conclusion I can now declare that I have upped the goal to 200.

You’ll find the rebuilt list HERE

Club Cola is the name of a cola soft drink once very popular in East Germany.

Originally manufactured at the request of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and other governmental organizations, Club Cola was created so that East Germany could have its own cola soft drink that was similar in taste and appearance to those sold in the western world.

Because the demand for coke in the population of the former East Germany became louder, the government announced in the framework of the Leipzig Spring Fair in 1966 a corresponding prestigious project in order.

In 1967 it had come: the Club-Cola was born and should offer the great East-Block its own Cola. How successful it would be there, but no one could have guessed at that time.

Although the Club Cola taste far different from their Western counterparts it was victorious – in part because mixed with spirits such as vodka or rum it was very popular, especially among young people.

It quickly became the cult drink number 1 in the Eastern Bloc and made the people proud of "our Cola" – a success story, which continued unabated until the fall of the Berlin Wall.

This soft drink was so popular with East German citizens that Club Cola was awarded with gold in the category soft drinks at the 1972 Leipzig spring fair.

Club Cola today

Club Cola was reintroduced to the German market in 1992, under the new management of Spreequell Mineralbrunnen GmbH and is still available. It benefited from Ostalgie, nostalgia for East Germany, but today is also being promoted as a youthful brand.

Columbus, Ohio • Aug 16, 2014

Columbus-based Frostop breathes life into root beer popular in the 1950s

Frostop will also bring its root beer and other sodas to your door through its catering service. Among the servers are, Eddie Karmia, Terri Levine and Andy Marks.

Vanilla ice cream mixed with root beer is a classic summertime treat, one that Columbus-based Frostop — a classic name in root beer — is hoping to restore to prominence.

Frostop is a name that dates to 1926, when the company was established in Springfield. It grew in popularity through the post-World War II period with Frostop stands located across the country, said Andy Marks, general manager of its catering and online sales divisions.

Read the rest of The Columbus Dispatch’s New HERE

Nottinghamshire (pronounced /ˈnɒtɪŋəmʃə/ or /ˈnɒtɪŋəmˌʃɪə/; abbreviated Notts) is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, andDerbyshire to the west. The traditional county town is Nottingham, though the county council is based in West Bridgfordin the borough of Rushcliffe, at a site facing Nottingham over the River Trent.

The districts of Nottinghamshire are Ashfield, Bassetlaw, Broxtowe, Gedling, Mansfield, Newark and Sherwood, and Rushcliffe. The City of Nottingham was administratively part of Nottinghamshire between 1974 and 1998 but is now aunitary authority, remaining part of Nottinghamshire for ceremonial purposes.

In 2011 the county was estimated to have a population of 785,800. Over half of the population of the county live in theGreater Nottingham conurbation (which continues into Derbyshire). The conurbation has a population of about 650,000, though less than half live within the city boundaries.

History

Nottinghamshire lies on the Roman Fosse Way, and there are Roman settlements in the county, for example at Mansfieldand forts such as at the Broxtowe Estate in Bilborough. The county was settled by Angles around the 5th century, and became part of the Kingdom, and later Earldom, of Mercia. However, there is evidence of Saxon settlement at the Broxtowe Estate, Oxton, near Nottingham, and Tuxford, east of Sherwood Forest. The name first occurs in 1016, but until 1568 the county was administratively united with Derbyshire, under a single Sheriff. In Norman times the county developed malting and woollen industries. During the industrial revolution also the county held much needed minerals such as coal and iron ore and had constructed some of the first experimental waggonways in the world, an example of this is the Wollaton wagonway of 1603-1616 which transported minerals from bell pitt mining areas at Strelley andBilborough, this led to canals and railways being constructed in the county, and the lace and cotton industries grew. In the 18th and 19th century’s mechanised deeper collieries opened and mining became an important economic sector, though these declined after the 1984–85 miners’ strike.

Until 1610, Nottinghamshire was divided into eight Wapentakes. Sometime between 1610 and 1719 they were reduced to six – Newark, Bassetlaw, Thurgarton, Rushcliffe, Broxtowe and Bingham, some of these names still being used for the modern districts. Oswaldbeck was absorbed in Bassetlaw, of which it forms the North Clay division, and Lythe in Thurgarton.

Nottinghamshire is famous for its involvement with the legend of Robin Hood. This is also the reason for the numbers of tourists who visit places like Sherwood Forest, City of Nottingham and the surrounding villages in Sherwood Forest. To reinforce the Robin Hood connection, the University of Nottingham in 2010 has begun the Nottingham Caves Survey with the goal "to increase the tourist potential of these sites". The project "will use a 3D laser scanner to produce a three dimensional record of more than 450 sandstone caves around Nottingham".

Nottinghamshire was mapped first by Christopher Saxton in 1576, the first fully surveyed map of the county was by John Chapman who produced Chapman’s Map of Nottinghamshire in 1774. The map was the earliest printed map at a sufficiently useful scale (one statute mile to one inch) to provide basic information on village layout and the existence of landscape features such as roads, milestones, tollbars, parkland and mills.

Text from Wikipedia

Aunt Mable’s 7th husband Conrad (he was German) was a naturist and Mabel was not hard to convert, she was no stranger to nudity as you may have noticed. Complaints from their neighbours in the posh neighbourhood where they lived made no impression on any of them so as long as the weather would allow they cultivated their love of nature dressed in only sandals and hats.

His mother tried to keep Young Johnny, who had reached the tender age of 19 by then, from visiting his aunt in the short period the marriage lasted. What she didn’t know was that Aunt Mabel had taken a fancy to naturism and kept it up till poor Conrad was just a defuse memory in her booze soaked mind.

His fair-weather visits build a taste for mature women in poor young Johnny that proved to last the rest of his life – Ted ;-)