Trivia Question of the Day

[Capetonian]

Let's kick start this :

Who said ...

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”?

[Rossian]

I don't know but whoever he/she was - they were right on the button.

The Ancient Mariner

[ian16th]

Sounds like the sort of thing that Mark Twain would have said.

[EA01]

I was inclined to have said Mark Twain....but I didn't have the confidence to do so..

[Capetonian]

It was indeed Mark Twain
Well done.

Lifted from Trailfinders newsletter. An excellent travel company whom I would recommend to anyone

Mark Twain was a very well-travelled man, in a time before planes made it so very easy. By ship, raft, train and foot, he travelled widely and his comments remain true and relevant to this day – perhaps even more so with negativity so much in vogue.

[ian16th]

I was inclined to have said Mark Twain....but I didn't have the confidence to do so..

Confidence?

WTF it's only a game?

I wasn't confident, I don't like or read his 'great American' novel's, but it sounds like the sort of precocious crap that he is quoted as having said.

O.H.

[Rossian]

He actually did get it right Ian. I had a cousin who ran the post office in his village, was an elder of the Kirk and whose mother didn't let him get married until he was over 50! Really!
He had never slept out from under his own roof,in the same room and in his original bed in which he had been born. He was pompous and had a bad stammer and thought that the world revolved around him and his mother as "the pppppost offffffiicce ppppeople" - if they weren't at church the world would stop spinning on its axis!. He always had a "Jagwaar" and would occasionally condescend to visit my parents of a Sunday afternoon twice a year. The old bitch wouldn't come in to our house because we lived in a "council house!!!" - clutches pearls to her withered bosom and has an attack of the vapours. The post office people couldn't possibly be seen going into a "council house". She had to have her tea in the back of the Jagwaar and my mother god bless her cotton socks went along with it. When I suggested that she left the old bat in the car with no tea she scolded me for being un christian.
HE had his tailor in Edinburgh who came up once a year to measure up for a new suit. When it was ready for the final fitting the man brought up shirts, underwear, socks, handkerchiefs and ties.
Our house was about as far as he ever drove the Jagwaar, 60 miles-ish. He had never been ANYWHERE.
He was as bigoted as he was ignorant and had firm opinions on "Blackies", unions and Labour which he would expound at length. As a 14/15/16 year old I loathed him and his old bitch of a mother. "De mortuis nil nisi bonum" we are enjoined but I'll make a big exception for her (and him).

The Ancient Mariner

[ian16th]

I didn't say that he was wrong. I was criticising his (mis)use of the English language.

[EA01]

Confidence?

WTF it's only a game?

....well you know, 'better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you're a fool rather than open your mouth and confirm it'....

[ian16th]

Sorry guys, I thought this game was a bit of fun, but it seems that I should have treated it much more seriously.

I did declare OH.

I'll bow out now.

[Rwy in Sight]

Confidence?

WTF it's only a game?

....well you know, 'better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you're a fool rather than open your mouth and confirm it'....

If we keep our mouth shut in case we your otherwise accurate post might apply in a forum like here, the forum would go quiet rather fast. I have given an answer with I was almost sure it was wrong just to stop an argument.

[Ex-Ascot]

When you guys have quite finished, Why, generally speaking, do commercial flights not cross the Pacific Ocean?

[Rwy in Sight]

Something to do with the date line?

[larsssnowpharter]

Flying great circle routes.

[Capetonian]

Because nobody wants to get to the other side?

I can't think of a logical reason other than lack of passenger volumes or ETOPS restrictions, but until recently there have been plenty of 4 engined jets to operate routes.

[Hydromet]

They don't? Everytime I've flown SYD-LAX I've crossed tha Pacific Ocean.

[Rossian]

Sorrrreeeee chaps if I seemed to have put a damper on the topic, it was triggered by Ian's dismissal of Mark Twain as "precocious crap" that fired me to disagree,using an example (only one) that has been seared into my being since teenage years. I'll get get back down from my high horse.

The Ancient Mariner

[Capetonian]

Before we get back to Ex-A's interesting question, to which I look forward to the answer, who said?

better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you're a fool rather than open your mouth and confirm it'....

It's been attributed to various sages, including Twain, Hemingway, and Abraham Lincoln. Apparently it was Lincoln.

[Rwy in Sight]

Cape you don't help with asking other questions!

[Capetonian]

It was a rhetorical question and did not invite an answer, since I gave the answer!

Therefore :

Why, generally speaking, do commercial flights not cross the Pacific Ocean?