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Last night I was watching a documentary about the 1980,s and it showed footage of the Mt St Helens eruption. The narrator made the statement that the blast was 5000 times that of the Hiroshima A bomb.

A totally useless piece of information as I have no frame of reference.

Another one on reservoirs or storage tanks, "can hold up to 85 Olympic swimming pools worth of ......."

Just put the volume in litres or gallons then I'll know how much it contains.

One used commonly here in Oz when referring to lakes or dams is "has xxx times the amount of water in Sydney harbor". How useful is that? if you have never seen Sydney Harbour or if the tide is in or out.

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That Mt St Helens blast was a real biggy. We were living in Calgary Alberta at the time. Not sure of the exact distance but probably at least 500 miles. We got a fine layer of volcanic dust on everything. Glad we were not any closer, but as you said such comparisons really don't mean much.

Just hope the Yellowstone super volcano doesn't blow its stack. You'll probably be shoveling volcanic dust in Nottingham if it does.

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loppylugs, re the super volcano..... I think it may be worse than that!

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Annoys me when they say "this wind turbine will supply 500 homes with leccy!" Means nowt to me as some houses use leccy for heating & cooking & some use gas or sumat else. It'd be better if the said so many kilowatts or one bar of an electric fire as everyone can visualise one bar of an electric fire as they are usually one kilowatt. Mind you our electric fire has three 666 watts bars + a 600 watts convector....

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The oil spill from the ruptured well pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico a few years ago was a bad one - went on for weeks before they plugged it. Someone calculated the amount of oil that spilled and compared it to the amount of sea water in the Gulf and said that the ratio was a spoonful of oil into an Olympic swimming-pool.

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I think you are right, Margie. As the old saying goes, you aint seen nothing yet.

Not sure of the proportional ratio in the Gulf spill, Chulla, but it sure made a mess and I doubt that the fishing industry will recover for many more years. Many folks lost their livelihoods.

Then we have a massive die off off sea life on the West coast. Many consider it a result of radiation from the Fukashima power plant meltdowns. I don't profess to know, but I do know that we hear nothing of it in the mainstream media. There is plenty about it on the Internet, however.

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Not wanting to distract too much from the topic but I believe Yellowstone is about due. 164,000 years since last time and and the time before that and the time before that, apparently.

Just received this months National Geographic in the post. This months topic is Yellowstone.

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There was one on telly last night. The leaves on a particular oak tree, if spread out and linked together would cover an area the same as X Tennis courts (I forget the number but it was a lot). I have no idea what an area the size of, say, 10 tennis courts looks like.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Perhaps we should have the irrelevant unit system where Land mass is always compared to Wales or Belgium, length is a number of double decker buses, height is the Eiffel Tower, distance is times round the earth or to the moon and back, small is how many on a pin head, explosive power is as you correctly say the number of Hiroshimas (not Nagasakis), light is number of times brighter than the sun and heat is the surface of the sun. Like we can all understand them!!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Hey Oztalgian,

I reckon Skippie would be in trouble also and he's about a million an' half double decker buses away.

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  • 2 months later...

Came across this website which claims to show the value of things in past years and then compares them to the cost of things today dependent on the area of the UK you were living in. (East Midlands is one)

Have a play and see how accurate you think it is.

http://www.hillarys.co.uk/back-in-my-day/

 

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I can't answer that but I do know house prices vary greatly dependant on what part of the county you look at. I do a lot of work for an estate agency and auctioneers based in Sutton. Its not unusual to see a Victorian terrace in certain parts as a for instance Forest Town go at auction for as little as 40k, same sort of house in Nottingham 100k plus.

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Hundred thousand pounds translates to approx' two hundred thousand dollars.  For that money I can get a nice ranch style, three bedroom house with double garage on about one acre of land here.  House prices in the UK are way up there.

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#17

 

House prices here can be ridiculous and are now way beyond most single purchasers, unless they happen to be the country's premier brain surgeon! I certainly wouldn't like to be starting out on the property ladder now.

 

My sister has bought a place in Spain for less than you'd pay for a terraced house here...and it has a pool! Looks a bit arid to me though. I like greenery and for that you gotta have rain!!

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1 hour ago, hippo girl said:

I am looking to buy in London, NIGHTMARE ....... A one bed box of a flat , not in a nice area , not near the tube 700k !!!!!!!!!

 

I don't understand how anyone below the level of Roman Abramovich can live in London. Must be cheaper to live a long way outside and travel in.

 

23 hours ago, Oztalgian said:

Came across this website which claims to show the value of things in past years and then compares them to the cost of things today dependent on the area of the UK you were living in. (East Midlands is one)

Have a play and see how accurate you think it is.  http://www.hillarys.co.uk/back-in-my-day/

 

 

They are fairly accurate with the housing figure I tried. First house I bought was in 1987 and it cost £30,000; they said they average was £34,400 so I'd agree with them on that.

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I have just done it for 1972 the year we got married and bought our first house

Average House $6008 - spot on what we paid.

Average Salary $1351,  it does not say if it was pre or post tax - I earned $2000 before tax

Average New car $1240 don't know could never afford a new car.

Petrol price - spot on we used to get three gallons for a quid.

With interest rates heading north of 14% and inflation at 10% had all on paying the mortgage. At the end of the first year I think I owned the door knocker.

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Not really Nottingham I suppose, but it gets to me that for the most part we remain debt slaves all our lives.  By the time we've paid 'em off we're too old to enjoy being debt free.  Even the prices I quoted here are beyond the reach of many.  Coming out of college they are carrying large amounts of debt already.  The job market is increasingly service oriented with low pay and benefits.      

O-k if you want to be a burger flipper all your life.  There has to be a better way.

 

College has become a 'must have'.  Whatever happened to a decent job on an apprenticeship?

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The problem here Loppy, is that after university, the jobs worth having are in London ...

Not only do the youngsters have to pay off uni fees, they are faced with high rental costs, long expensive commutes and never getting onto the property ladder .....

Post brexit has left gloom and doom in London and sometimes the life of a " burger flipper " seems rather more preferable !!!

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Sorry hippo, me again, Mr Grumpy. I'm afraid the world doesn't solely revolve around the enclave of the M25.

The referendum result clearly showed that.

There are many GOOD well paid jobs everywhere and not just around the Thames Valley.

Having said that, my eldest granddaughter lives in Balham and has outgoings of 2K pcm. Ludicrous ! 

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