What if you lived in Australia?

[bloke57]

Originally Posted by effCup

Yet those critters could also help vastly improve one's life.

Indeed!

Without Skippy, the bush kangaroo, we'd have never known all you Aussies were trapped down that old mineshaft.

I watched that documentary and was amazed by how those noble marsupials can master language with such breathtaking facility.

[Hikarufan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcHJ4EC2nCM

[palo5]

Originally Posted by loosegoose

Well not unless you're that Russian chap who gets around bare chested.

Yes, but he masters them and doesn't have to fight

[Estreeter]

Originally Posted by loosegoose

That's all well and good Kevin, but we've already paid the hitman and he doesn't do refunds.

We have I'd do it for Mates Rates

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by bloke57

It's a frame-up.

Apparently it was a perfectly innocent Russian snake who was there merely to indulge its passion for church architecture.

Its a pity they didn't use a photo of a proper seas snake-that is definitely a non venomous python in the photo (also quite good swimmers, BTW)

The guy who died was dead unlucky (!)...most species of sea snakes are quite small-and their mouths have too small a gape to actual bite humans-except in a few limited places like the web between the forefinger and thumb.

I once-in the early 90s had the interesting experience-during my science days-of carrying round a sack of hundreds of them! This was on a field expedition in New Caledonia, and we were collecting the banded variety-red, blue and yellow -for studies by the University of Grenoble on the venom variations. I wasn't game to actually catch them-but was happy to hold a bag of them. The banded ones are remarkable docile for such a venomous reptile-though they get pretty upset when forcibly milked.....well I guess you would wouldn't you! .....

Finally the funniest bit of the whole affair-we collected these from various uninhabited islands and atolls around New Caledonia -they come out of the sea and rest up on land overnight-and returned to Orstom, in Noumea to do the labwork. We transferred them into large plastic rubbish tins for storage and spent the day milking them-it was a very slow tedious process....well overnight the damn things managed to get out....and the lab was overrun with hundreds of sea snakes crawling everywhere-which brought things to a halt big time-as quite apart from the effort required to recapture them-we now had no idea which ones had been milked and which hadn't.....

The best laid plans.....fortunately the first days milking had obtained enough venom for the principal researcher, Prof Andre Menez, to continue his work.....a quick check on google reveals he died in 2008-he was a world authority on animal toxins.

[Sir Honkers]

Originally Posted by bloke57

Indeed!

Without Skippy, the bush kangaroo, we'd have never known all you Aussies were trapped down that old mineshaft.

Oh don't talk rubbish bloke, you had Lassie long before we dreamt up Skip....'Wat's that lass?...there's trouble tuppit mill!'

[blondifan]

Obviously the Commonwealth bank must've been 'handling' the fines.

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by blondifan

Obviously the Commonwealth bank must've been 'handling' the fines.

You mean to say they rip you off in the afterlife as well.....??

[blondifan]

Originally Posted by Dr Pepper

You mean to say they rip you off in the afterlife as well.....??

It's part of an ongoing Royal Commission into banking, which of course our government did not want.

Anytime anything is made compulsory or mandatory, such as cashless transactions, superannuation or voting of course you're going to get corruption.

[Tmee2020]

Originally Posted by Dr Pepper

You mean to say they rip you off in the afterlife as well.....??

That is pretty much it, DrP.

From the banking Royal Commission:

"Not even death stopped some Commonwealth Bank customers being hit with fees for financial advice they did not receive, the banking royal commission has heard.
The commission has been told advisers at a CBA financial planning business continued to charge fees to customers they knew had died, including one instance where fees were charged for more than a decade.
Counsel assisting the inquiry, Michael Hodge QC, outlined several instances of advisers working for CBA subsidiary Count Financial billing customers for ongoing service after their deaths."
(ABC)