Boxing the compass....
"Don Pearce" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 1 Mar 2006 16:02:50 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:
"Don Pearce" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 1 Mar 2006 14:13:47 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:
Last night we* learnt a few things....
We learned that, if you are stranded in a desert and your GPS gadget is
on
the fritz, you can determine Due North by pointing the hour hand of your
watch at the Sun and that bisecting the angle between it and the 12
o'clock
mark will point you Due South**. (Due North is 180 deg the other
way....)
Make the necessary allowances for BST &c., naturally....
Well, if you have any sense, while the sun is up, you are hidden out
of the way, not going anywhere and trying to stay cool. Once the sun
sets you have either Polaris or the Southern Cross to show you North
and South.
No, it's a bit more serious than that - the Tauregs are attacking the fort
and you've got get help before they overrun your comrades, steal their
watches and cut their bollies off!! (There's no time to lose - the
Commandant's already propping up dead bodies on the battlements and giving
them rifles as it is!!)
The best use for your watch is to flog to some passing
Bedouin to get him to take you to the nearest hotel.
They ain't Bedouin, they're Tauregs - see above....
Kinda depends which desert (and the plural of Tuareg is Targui).
Dictionary.com gives the plural of Tuareg as Tuaregs and Google references
say a Targui is a member of the Tuareg race, but if you Google on it also
says it is the plural. Both these references concern a board game (?), so it
passes into shrugged shoulder country, AFAIAC...
My
stomping ground is the Gulf, and in the empty quarter they are
definitely Bedouin. Still cut yer bollies off, though.
(They're all toerags to me, but I expect I could do time for even *thinking*
that.... :-)
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