BYTES & PIECES . . .

___________________ 

Caution: risqué content ahead . . . 

________________ 

Juliana was a medal-winning Great Dane who was awarded two Blue Cross medals. Blue Cross is a registered animal welfare charity in the United Kingdom, founded in 1897. 

The first medal was for extinguishing an incendiary bomb. In April 1941, two years into World War II, incendiary bombs were being dropped across Britain during The Blitz. One such device is believed to have fallen through the roof of the house in which Juliana and her owner lived. The dog is reported to have stood over the bomb and urinated on it, extinguishing the fire and preventing it from spreading. She was awarded her first Blue Cross medal for her actions 

The second medal, in November 1944, was for alerting her masters to a fire that had started in their shop. 

The second medal, along with a portrait of Juliana, was discovered during a house clearance in Bristol. The items were sold together at a Gloucestershire auction in September 2013, with the auctioneer describing Juliana as "a Great Dane with a great bladder". Initially expected to achieve £60, the sale reached £1,100 with the winning bid coming from an anonymous buyer. The discovery of the items and their subsequent sale brought Juliana’s story to attention. 

Juliana died from poisoning in 1946 after a substance was posted through her owner's letterbox. 

It's the only medal that I know of that has been awarded for taking a pee.

________________ 

Saint Lawrence or Laurence (225 AD – 258AD) was a Christian martyr. As deacon in Rome, Lawrence was responsible for the material goods of the Church and the distribution of alms to the poor. It is related that when the treasures of the Church were demanded of Lawrence by the prefect of Rome, he brought forward the poor, to whom he had distributed the treasure as alms. "Behold in these poor persons the treasures which I promised to show you; to which I will add pearls and precious stones, those widows and consecrated virgins, which are the Church's crown." The prefect was so angry that he had a great gridiron (grill in Australia) prepared with hot coals beneath it, and had Lawrence placed on it. After the martyr had suffered pain for a long time, it is said that he cheerfully declared: "I'm well done on this side. Turn me over!" From this St. Lawrence is the patron saint of cooks, chefs, and comedians. 

________________ 

No more Fucking: 

Before you condemn me for crudity, let me point out that the F word has a capital letter. That is because it is the name of a town in Austria . . . 

Despite having a population of only 106 in 2020, the village has drawn attention in the English-speaking world for its place-name, its road signs being a popular visitor attraction, and having often been stolen by souvenir-hunting vandals until 2005, when the signs were modified to be theft-resistant. 

It is believed that the settlement was founded in the 6th century AD by Focko, a Bavarian nobleman, and that the name “Fucking” means "(place of) Focko's people." 

But now the Fuckingers (which the residents of Fucking are called), have had enough. Tired of tourists coming to take pictures with their town signs (or worse, stealing them) and the ridicule their town received online, the Burghers of Fucking have decided that from January 1, 2021, the town will change its name, as shown by the change in signs: 

The good citizens of Fugging, who I presume will be called Fuggingers, can now lie (or whatever) safe in their beds knowing that they will no longer be the butt of low humour. 

Nor will Bytes descend into that cheap vulgarity for humour. Here are some examples of what Bytes will not post to get a snigger and a cheap laugh . . . 

Shitterton is a hamlet in Dorset, England. The unusual name of the hamlet dates back at least 1,000 years to Anglo-Saxon times. It was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Scatera or Scetra, a Norman French rendering of an Old English name derived from the word scite, meaning dung. This word became schitte in Middle English and shit in modern English.[4] The name alludes to the stream that bisects the hamlet, which appears to have been called the Shiter or Shitter, or "brook used as a privy".[5] The place-name therefore means something along the lines of "farmstead on the stream used as an open sewer". The stream which passes near the village flows into the River Piddle (also called River Trent).[8] Piddle is another name for urine. 

The hamlet's name has resulted in its sign repeatedly being stolen (a fate similar to that of Fucking, Austria), requiring costly replacements to be acquired each time, to the increasing reluctance of the local council. As Ian Ventham, chairman of Bere Regis Parish Council, put it: “Every two or three years somebody comes along and nicks our sign because, clearly, Shitterton is amusing. We think it was kids who would like to have it stuck on the wall in a den somewhere. I don't think it was malicious, they just did it for fun, but it was exasperating for us. We would get a nice new shiny sign from the council and five minutes later, it was gone.” In 2010, the inhabitants banded together to purchase a 1.5-ton (1.7 U.S. ton) block of Purbeck Stone to place at the entrance to Shitterton, carved with the hamlet's name. More than half of the 50 households chipped in £20 each and a further £70 was contributed by Purbeck district council. A truck and crane were hired by volunteers to put the stone in place, at a total cost of £680. Ian Ventham explained: "We thought, 'Let's put in a ton and a half of stone and see them try and take that away in the back of a Ford Fiesta'." 

Wankers Corner, Wilsonville, USA 

Arlene Fuchs Katz Drive, New York, USA 

Slack Bottom, Yorkshire, England 

Pig Turd Alley, Sacramento, USA 

Intercourse, Pennsylvania, USA 

Dildo, Canada 

From Wikipedia: 

Dildo is a community on the island of Newfoundland, in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. 

The place name "Dildo" is attested in this area since at least 1711, though how this came to be is unknown. The origin of the word "dildo" itself is obscure. It was once used to reference a phallus-shaped pin stuck in the edging of a row boat to act as a pivot for the oar (also known as a "thole pin" or "dole pin"). It was used as early as the 16th century for a cylindrical object such as a dildo glass (test tube), for a phallus-shaped sex toy, as an insult for a "contemptuous or reviling" male, and as a refrain in ballads. 

Titz, Germany 

________________

Whilst Australia is the 6th largest country by size, approximately 7.5m square kilometres (2.9 million square miles), the population is only 25.7 million (as at 2020).  

Whilst the closest American state in population is New York, which has 19.8 million people, Australia is more than 53 times its size.  Texas is the largest state in the continental United States, but the largest state in Australia, Western Australia is more than 3 times its size.  Texas has 13 times as many people as WA.