Ask a foreigner

[Mee]

Well. I know about all kinds of poop. I can often tell in a farm supplies store by the smell of a person what livestock they farm too ?. Strange talent.

I think any intensive farming smells pretty rank- so sheep are low on the list as they aren’t confined so much. I think
Poultry smells worst though . Even driving by an intensive chicken farm set back from a road and surrounded by trees is awful - you cannot heat or see it but by hell you can smell it.

Transported animals are experiencing stress and some of us might be familiar with why this might translate to heightened odour- not only the confined space etc but that if rates of stress hormones are elevated so is their proportion in excretia. ( I am reaching way way back to work I did twenty years ago) . This made me laugh at my self when I recognised I can smell my ‘PTSD body odour’ - My sweat smells of onions now, stronger and lesser depending on my mindset- and very occasionally it returns to a level I cannot smell.

I hope my neighbours can’t smell me and confuse it for a weird farm animal smell ?????

 

[somerandomguy]

Is voting mandatory where you live? (Is Australia the only country with mandatory voting?) What happens if you are obliged to vote, but you don't?

 

[bellbird]

Is voting mandatory where you live? (Is Australia the only country with mandatory voting?) What happens if you are obliged to vote, but you don't?

Not mandatory here. But you are definitely encouraged to.
Nothing really happens if you don't vote, aside from it being generally frowned upon.

Fun fact: We were the first country in the world to allow women to vote (thanks, Kate Sheppard!)

We had an almost 80% voter turnout in the 2017 election. Interested to see whether that statistic will increase in our election later this year.
What's the voter turnout like in other countries?

 

[blackemerald1]

In Australia if you are eligible to vote & enrolled and you don't you will be fined. $20 first offence & $50 thereafter.

One may stop voting in Council elections once 70 years of age... but voting is really still expected.

The typical Australian utility 'ute" might be the pick-up in US currency? Is that a vehicle over there?

 

[Sideways]

Yeah, voting is totally mandatory in Australia. If you fail to vote, look out! There's a whopping $20 fine on it's way!

Last election they ran a news story on excuses that were accepted as reasonable grounds for waiving the $20 fine for people that didn't turn up to vote.

One of the reasons that they waived the fine for: none of the nearby voting stations were having a sausage sizzle. So, if there's no Democracy Sausages on offer? That's apparently reasonable grounds to not bother voting (that isn't legal advice btw!).

Hehe.

We do postal votes here in a big big way, though. Which is where you get them to send you the ballot paper, and you snail mail it back to them (cute, huh!?).

And if there's a truck going by that stinks? It's gotta be a cattle train (cattle truck...with multiple trailers). Smell them a mile away.

 

[The Albatross]

Brit instructor wants "English tea sandwiches" for mom's party. She's emphatic. Mom has no preferences. Need recipes for three? UK peeps? HEEEELLLLlppppppp?

 

[Teasel]

"English tea sandwiches"

Classic would be thinly sliced white bread spread with butter and filled with thinly sliced cucumber. With the crusts cut off. Oh and peel off the cucumber skin.

Egg and cress - brown or white bread spread with butter. Filled with boiled eggs chopped up with mayo and cress.

Roast beef and horseradish - Brown or white bread spread with butter. Filled with thinly sliced beef and horseradish cream.

More suggestions here, some I've never heard of but hey. Or you could google 'Sandwiches for High Tea' classics that come to mind might be cheddar cheese and sliced tomato, smoked salmon and cream cheese, ham salad.

Oh yeah, and cut them diagonally both ways to form triangles. Serve with the long side down so they are sticking up like rooves. Or else in small fingers, as shown here

 

[Freida]

I hate the thought of fining people for not voting but damn - I would love for Americans to get off their asses and realize democracy only works if you work for it -- which means voting. There may be issues with the voting system, but most of it is just sheer laziness of people who aren't interested or want someone else to make the decision for them. That's how you end up with a 30% voting rate. They can't bitch about who won when they didn't bother to be part of the process

 

[Sideways]

Absolutely agree that there are responsibilities that citizens carry in a democracy. It's a privilege to live in a democracy and get a say in government. But it's also a responsibility.

In Aus, you don't have to show up on polling day. You can organise a ballot be sent to you in advance. And pre-polling occurs at a lot of venues where vulnerable voters are likely to be unable to attend on polling day (I've voted at a pre-polling booth in hospital several times, and my nan gets pre-polling support in her aged facility).

For people determined that they don't want a say, there's no penalties for casting a donkey a vote.

In that respect, by making voting compulsory, it's forced the Electoral Commission to make voting a dynamic, incredibly flexible process.

but most of it is just sheer laziness of people who aren't interested or want someone else to make the decision for them.

There's definitely more to it than this. For example, accessibility of polling stations is a big deal. Are polls held on weekends when the largest proportion of the population will have sufficient time in the day to get to a polling station?

And how well are those polling stations run? We periodically get vision in our news of queues at polling stations in the US that are mind-blowingly long. And there's a lot of reasons besides laziness that might prevent people from being able to stand in a queue for hours.

I don't know if that's accurate of the situation in the US? But it is a big ask for a lot of people to say "You have one chance to vote, we're going to pick the day, you have limited hours to turn up on that day, and it may involve standing in a queue for hours"...I couldn't do that. That would preclude me from participating.

 

[The Albatross]

This thread dead now?

Any unique foreign spring dishes to share from afar?

 

[bellbird]

Any unique foreign spring dishes to share from afar?

We've just gone into Autumn here, which means it's currently feijoa season!

Not really a dish, but I think it fits under "unique from afar".

Has anyone tried feijoas?

@Friday , I seem to remember you've been to NZ in the past. Did you manage to try some while you were here?

 

[somerandomguy]

Uhhh ... What is a feijoa?