Personal expertise.

[johnofgwent]

Maybe the question should be what would be your specialist subject if you were on Mastermind ?

I don't think I'd do very well on that show.

[Streetwalker]

I guess my skill would be proved by any of you giving me your body in a dance studio for a while! 

I think I may have mentioned this before but when the dance teacher took footy training when i was kicking people for a hobby I definately found a few mussels I didnt know existed 

[T00ts]

The point about statistics is not that you can prove much of anything, but that folk tend to use them to believe whatever they are most comfortable with

I guess my skill would be proved by any of you giving me your body in a dance studio for a while!  

[Borchester]

The point about statistics is not that you can prove much of anything, but that folk tend to use them to believe whatever they are most comfortable with

[srb7677]

Statistics.
I'm far from being an expert but most people don't have the level of education to understand them despite that they refer to them daily.
It is more than a little bit common that people can't even read a graph.
I'd say you know who you are, but invariably, you don't.

I'd engage you in a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed.

[Borchester]

Statistics.
I'm far from being an expert but most people don't have the level of education to understand them despite that they refer to them daily.
It is more than a little bit common that people can't even read a graph.
I'd say you know who you are, but invariably, you don't.

True.

Do you like beer, yes or no?

If you are going to run a poll you will need a sample of about 1000 ( to give an error of +/- 3%) and restrict the question to yes or no. And then you might be on the right track. But that isn't the way YouGov conduct their polls and the result isn't any better than reading the tea leaves. And the media treats the results as gospel.

[Streetwalker]

Statistics.
I'm far from being an expert but most people don't have the level of education to understand them despite that they refer to them daily.
It is more than a little bit common that people can't even read a graph.
I'd say you know who you are, but invariably, you don't.

That reminds me (I dont know why ) but Im an expert map reader . Back in the day before sat nav and the like I would get the guys to a remote golf course in the woods somewhere in Europe with not so much as a U turn . It was often commented that without stopping for a beer in the bar (i knew where it was )  a mile or so  up the road my senses would have failed . 'We are lost' they cried 'best stop for a beer ' said I

 

[Baff]

In what areas of knowledge would you say you have a personal expertise in, be it as a hobbyist or professional?

To be more precise - Expertise to the level that you think most people's common knowledge on the subject is inadequate, and therefore their opinions (whether in agreement or disagreement with yours) are founded on ignorance.

Statistics.
I'm far from being an expert but most people don't have the level of education to understand them despite that they refer to them daily.
It is more than a little bit common that people can't even read a graph.
I'd say you know who you are, but invariably, you don't.

[Streetwalker]

Maybe the question should be what would be your specialist subject if you were on Mastermind ?

[cromwell]

Oh blimey don't mention the war,all friends now pretend it never happened it's not like history ever repeats itself does it?

I find history very interesting but some people don't,it's not the done thing though to mention others past but us we are terrible people empire and all that all references must be eliminated unless we are apologising for what a set of bastards we were.

World is going mad again lessons never learnt but should we take a stand,oh dear me no.

[srb7677]

One of the worst examples of erasure of history by woke arseholes I ever saw personally was the animosity shown by people half my age to men and women who researched the history of the German equivalent of the UK Home Guard.

In 2017/2018 (not sure which year, but it was about then and before the pox) a group of ladies and gentlemen I would call amateur military historians gathered at Blaenavon Iron Works to put on not a re enactment, but a series of shows and talks and so on from the ww1 and ww2 era.

Some of it covered stuff like the medical knowledge of the time and I found the stuff on Ww1 absolutely riveting including the need for front line vetinary staff to deal with the problems the horses in use at the front endured.

But two other groups from ww2 caught my attention. The first was a chap giving a talk about the British Resistance, the men who were all in reserved occupations tasked with mobilising should the "keep calm and carry on" message be used. These men had the job of making life hell for Hitler's forces had operation sealion succeeded. My maternal grandfather was one of their number.

It was however a third group that particularly drew my interest. A number of people who had researched the equivalent of the Home Guard as it was mobilised in Germany against the invading Allied Forces. The duty that fell to those unfortunate German souls was miserable and their future bleak in the extreme.

They were for example sent out with armaments wholly unsuitable to make life awkward for advancing allied armoured vehicles and accompanying troops. A task I knew a little of from knowledge of my grandfather's role had boots been on other feet, so to speak

I found the details shocking and yet fascinating at the same time.

Yet a bunch of thugs and Yahoo's who have no idea what a bomb sure looks like chose to attempt to stop their participation in various ways including threats if, and acts of violence.

I can't begin to express my utter contempt for such scum.

I was not born until twelve years after the hostilities if WW2 ended, yet I remember as if it were yesterday the destruction in parts of Cardiff Docks and the old railway sidings at Llandaff and East Moors steelworks that nobody had got round to clearing away a full twenty five years after the Germans bombed it. We simply had no time and money to clear it away so built round it.

You are talking about the Volkssturm and yes I agree with you. People often praise the courage and readiness of our own home guard, aka dad's army, whilst denigrating the German equivalent.


With only rudimentary training they were often sent out on bicycles armed with panzerfausts - a low cost anti-tank weapon - towards Russian tanks charged with the task of blowing one up. And it could only be one because a panzerfaust was a one shot weapon.

I was born 20 years after the war but as a kid in the 70s can remember playing in an area of rough ground where houses used to be that we all called "the bomb site" without actually thinking about it. But upon later reflection I realised that it actually was a bomb site and what this meant.

[johnofgwent]

I have had a lifelong interest in World War 2 and also the overlapping subject of the Third Reich. I have read about and studied these subjects extensively for well over four decades now. No doubt there are professionals who know more than me and occasionally someone might hit me with a new fact I didn't already know.

But I have yet to discover anyone more knowledgeable about these subjects overall than me in real life, unless you include the authors of some of the books I have read.

I regard WW2 and the Third Reich as my areas of expertise.

One of the worst examples of erasure of history by woke arseholes I ever saw personally was the animosity shown by people half my age to men and women who researched the history of the German equivalent of the UK Home Guard.

In 2017/2018 (not sure which year, but it was about then and before the pox) a group of ladies and gentlemen I would call amateur military historians gathered at Blaenavon Iron Works to put on not a re enactment, but a series of shows and talks and so on from the ww1 and ww2 era.

Some of it covered stuff like the medical knowledge of the time and I found the stuff on Ww1 absolutely riveting including the need for front line vetinary staff to deal with the problems the horses in use at the front endured.

But two other groups from ww2 caught my attention. The first was a chap giving a talk about the British Resistance, the men who were all in reserved occupations tasked with mobilising should the "keep calm and carry on" message be used. These men had the job of making life hell for Hitler's forces had operation sealion succeeded. My maternal grandfather was one of their number.

It was however a third group that particularly drew my interest. A number of people who had researched the equivalent of the Home Guard as it was mobilised in Germany against the invading Allied Forces. The duty that fell to those unfortunate German souls was miserable and their future bleak in the extreme.

They were for example sent out with armaments wholly unsuitable to make life awkward for advancing allied armoured vehicles and accompanying troops. A task I knew a little of from knowledge of my grandfather's role had boots been on other feet, so to speak

I found the details shocking and yet fascinating at the same time.

Yet a bunch of thugs and Yahoo's who have no idea what a bomb sure looks like chose to attempt to stop their participation in various ways including threats if, and acts of violence.

I can't begin to express my utter contempt for such scum.

I was not born until twelve years after the hostilities if WW2 ended, yet I remember as if it were yesterday the destruction in parts of Cardiff Docks and the old railway sidings at Llandaff and East Moors steelworks that nobody had got round to clearing away a full twenty five years after the Germans bombed it. We simply had no time and money to clear it away so built round it.

[johnofgwent]

What sort of expertise do you have in mind.

I can convert 300 tons of horse shit into about £100,000 but so can any compost maker 

I have the real life abilities of the fictional bad guy from breaking bad, but so does any graduate chemist, or molecular biologist, with a research interest in the Krebs Cycle.

In short, I doubt today's A level students have the breadth of knowledge of dodgy things that when my age group studied chemistry were considered essential to keeping the class interested... And it shows.
 

[srb7677]

In what areas of knowledge would you say you have a personal expertise in, be it as a hobbyist or professional?

To be more precise - Expertise to the level that you think most people's common knowledge on the subject is inadequate, and therefore their opinions (whether in agreement or disagreement with yours) are founded on ignorance.

I have had a lifelong interest in World War 2 and also the overlapping subject of the Third Reich. I have read about and studied these subjects extensively for well over four decades now. No doubt there are professionals who know more than me and occasionally someone might hit me with a new fact I didn't already know.

But I have yet to discover anyone more knowledgeable about these subjects overall than me in real life, unless you include the authors of some of the books I have read.

I regard WW2 and the Third Reich as my areas of expertise.

[Streetwalker]

In what areas of knowledge would you say you have a personal expertise in, be it as a hobbyist or professional?

To be more precise - Expertise to the level that you think most people's common knowledge on the subject is inadequate, and therefore their opinions (whether in agreement or disagreement with yours) are founded on ignorance?

Depends on who the most people are but generally speaking given the halfwits I bump into most days I would say Im pretty much an expert in almost everything until told otherwise