My Love Affair With Ducks...

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I am thinking it is hard to come here and learn proper English after years of speaking Britain English with all its errors...

One thing about the internet and all the choices we have for movies and TV shows is learning the slang of other English speaking countries.

However, because of my hearing loss, I find I need the closed captioning on to pick up the words on most British shows and movies. The accent makes understanding the words hard for me.

I had a colleague of me from Boston who was on a project in New Orleans, calling me on the first day to ask if i could come over as a translator! His own words were »I was under the impression the people here would speak English. I was obviously wrong!«

 

[HalfWayUpAMountain]

I too learned the »King's English« and occasionally drive everybody mad, talking about "Aluminium Foil" and "colourful flowers", for example.
And saying sentences like "Its nice outside, isn't it?" are always good to confuse people here!
See also Stewie Griffin and Eliza Pinchley

I actually wrote out the whole al-oo-min-um v alu-mini-um thing in other post and then took it out !!

We are more than a little weather obsessed too

Even Brits wants to be Stewie !

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I have come to realise / ze that my spelling is not all it should be now I am here

I hope the captioning in the US is better than it is in the UK - I've seen some comedy gold courtesy of the BBC's rather crap attempts to caption.....

As for the telly thing - is it just me or are Brits a lot more creative with their swearing than our American cousins ? Not the best thing to be good at obvs !

You obviously have not heart a HillBilly cursing yet. - Very colourful language!!!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Are yours bickering too ?

Ours have managed to stagger their moult as well so some are through it and some are still in it - makes it feel like its been going on for ever as there is constant shouting and shedding !

Multiple cat food riots every day, ducks biting the drakes, drakes charging at me… - You could call that bickering…
It is just funny to see a White Layer duck jumping into the pool and covering the whole surface with down feathers in an instance. Fortunately it is still warm here 25°C + so they won't be cold.

 

[HalfWayUpAMountain]

Multiple cat food riots every day, ducks biting the drakes, drakes charging at me… - You could call that bickering…
It is just funny to see a White Layer duck jumping into the pool and covering the whole surface with down feathers in an instance. Fortunately it is still warm here 25°C + so they won't be cold.

Lmao at the charging thing - mine have been doing that as well as only ducks can when their top speed is actually still a walk

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Well done on that weight loss ! Do you feel any other benefit from dropping the sugar ?

I don't drink sugar either - I also don't like avocado and am allergic to nuts. So now I am eating vegan (even with the chips/fries and vegan mayo) its difficult to overdo it on the fat other than olive oil (pretend dairy isn't nice enough to binge on).

I think thats why I am losing weight - in volume terms, I am eating more than I ever have.

Going vegan was for the inflammation - losing some chub has been a happy side event.

Here in the U.S. it is not only about the "sugar", it is about the kind of sugar that is added to the industrial food. - In the 60's, the government placed an embargo on Cuba to fight the evil communists, including a ban on cuban cane sugar. Corn-Syrup was introduced as a substitute for cane sugar at that time and the farmers in the mid west were granted huge subsidiaries for growing corn. Now between Corn-Syrup and Cane Sugar there is not much of a difference, both are about a 50:50 mixture of Glucose and Fructose,
Fast forward to the mid 80's and some genius discovered that Corn Starch can also be converted into a syrup that contains more Fructose than Glucose 80:20 and is therefore tasting much sweeter than cane sugar, so the "Fructose Corn Syrup" was developed.
Then during the 90's the industry developed the "High Fructose Corn Syrup" (HFCS) which contains almost no Glucose anymore.
Now there is a fundamental difference between how these two sugars are processed in your body: Glucose is broken down by the enzyme insulin, whereas Fructose is processed in the liver and doesn't need any insulin.
Guess what happens to a Humon, when you replace all the cane sugar in the food with HFCS, starving that individual of Glucose? - The pancreas will stop producing insulin, as it is no longer needed to digest Glucose! - And the Liver will start to grow, due to the higher workload of digesting all that Fructose.
The result is a disease called »Diabetes Type II« - of which millions here in this country suffer!
If you look at the ingredients of most foods here, you will either find "High Fructose Corn Syrup" or "HFCS" in the list.
Of course everybody believing in this "conspiracy theory" is also wearing a hat, made out of Aluminium foil and had been kidnapped by aliens at least twice…
But since we have started to avoid HCFS as much as we can, our health has increased significantly, visible in our blood-work. I am about to get off some medications soon.
I don't say HCFS or Fructose is some kind of poison, but if the balance between Glucose and Fructose in your food is tipped to one side, it is just bad.
And i still drink a soda from time to time, when i'm eating out. It is all about the quantity.
Oh, and guess what: The food industry got wind of the subsidiaries that the farmers receive from the government, so they have forced the farmers to hand over the corn for the production price, meaning that the subsidiaries are now the only profit for the corn-farmers.
Sorry @Mimi13 for stealing your thread!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Lmao at the charging thing - mine have been doing that as well as only ducks can when their top speed is actually still a walk

Well, i have three drakes here, that are a mix between Fawn & White Indian Runner and Buff Orpington. They are tall, they can reach up to a 1m table and grab your sandwich and they can run really fast. Faster than i could ever run here on the uneven ground!
And these three thugs are charging at me and try to eat my shorts.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Oh, almost forgot to mention it: The 2020 Fall Ducklings are here…

 

[HalfWayUpAMountain]

Here in the U.S. it is not only about the "sugar", it is about the kind of sugar that is added to the industrial food. - In the 60's, the government placed an embargo on Cuba to fight the evil communists, including a ban on cuban cane sugar. Corn-Syrup was introduced as a substitute for cane sugar at that time and the farmers in the mid west were granted huge subsidiaries for growing corn. Now between Corn-Syrup and Cane Sugar there is not much of a difference, both are about a 50:50 mixture of Glucose and Fructose,
Fast forward to the mid 80's and some genius discovered that Corn Starch can also be converted into a syrup that contains more Fructose than Glucose 80:20 and is therefore tasting much sweeter than cane sugar, so the "Fructose Corn Syrup" was developed.
Then during the 90's the industry developed the "High Fructose Corn Syrup" (HFCS) which contains almost no Glucose anymore.
Now there is a fundamental difference between how these two sugars are processed in your body: Glucose is broken down by the enzyme insulin, whereas Fructose is processed in the liver and doesn't need any insulin.
Guess what happens to a Humon, when you replace all the cane sugar in the food with HFCS, starving that individual of Glucose? - The pancreas will stop producing insulin, as it is no longer needed to digest Glucose! - And the Liver will start to grow, due to the higher workload of digesting all that Fructose.
The result is a disease called »Diabetes Type II« - of which millions here in this country suffer!
If you look at the ingredients of most foods here, you will either find "High Fructose Corn Syrup" or "HFCS" in the list.
Of course everybody believing in this "conspiracy theory" is also wearing a hat, made out of Aluminium foil and had been kidnapped by aliens at least twice…
But since we have started to avoid HCFS as much as we can, our health has increased significantly, visible in our blood-work. I am about to get off some medications soon.
I don't say HCFS or Fructose is some kind of poison, but if the balance between Glucose and Fructose in your food is tipped to one side, it is just bad.
And i still drink a soda from time to time, when i'm eating out. It is all about the quantity.
Oh, and guess what: The food industry got wind of the subsidiaries that the farmers receive from the government, so they have forced the farmers to hand over the corn for the production price, meaning that the subsidiaries are now the only profit for the corn-farmers.
Sorry @Mimi13 for stealing your thread!

I remember reading something on HFCS but it didnt have this much easier to understand explanation !

HFCS was just picking up speed in the UK when we left - I have to say the food here in italy is waaay better than the UK. In fact, there is not a lot of ready made meals at all compared with the UK (apart from Pizza obvs !). In the main, they cook from scratch which of course means you are in control of what goes in. Even the sugar aisle in an Italian supermarket is about the quarter of the size of one in the UK.

Finally - congrats on getting off those meds !!

 

[HalfWayUpAMountain]

Well, i have three drakes here, that are a mix between Fawn & White Indian Runner and Buff Orpington. They are tall, they can reach up to a 1m table and grab your sandwich and they can run really fast. Faster than i could ever run here on the uneven ground!
And these three thugs are charging at me and try to eat my shorts.

Pleeeeeease try and get a pic or a vid !