Hi Vivian! Sorry for the late reply. I just kept my seeds in a sealed envelope. I did not expect any germination, but surprisingly all of it did. This year i have more space so i figured i grow them again as my wife liked the Russo Bruno for her cooking. Most of the stuff we grow now are heirlooms but like many have posted the vigor and production on the Russo Bruno is pretty impressive. The first time i grew it (in the picture) was in our balcony and we only had maybe 6 hrs of sunlight.

sshrivastava, ok, great. Look, nobody has ever claimed that the OP would "benefit by people clicking on her thread" in any hard + specific way. It's just that the person does things that call out for more attention. We know "there is certainly no financial or monetary reward". Attention is a reward that billions seek. Something psychological can be hard to explain, if you aren't researching the phenomenon in the abstract general case first. You may be trying Too Hard to wrap your head around this one case. Step back and learn about the phenomenon that I described generally. Take a few days. There is nothing gained by saying that in the last few hours you didn't get it. The fact that you didn't get it, (not so far) is A-OK, perfectly permissible. And some people will say it's all no big deal. Some will say the opposite. OTOH, if you opened new threads and had a dozen highly qualified people all helping you, and if you didn't get it still and kept on hammering in various weird ways, well, ummm, then some would say you have a problem... (which is not the case). -- New topic. The better and better this forum becomes, the more you will see people arriving on your doorstep asking for help in self-centered ways. (Reminds me of immigration). But we are all participants, not customer service staff. When you consider how much thought went into the OP's thread before it even got created, it makes reasonable sense to ask that the thread title be a bit less "fishing for all to come in out of curiosity" and a bit more precise about the concern. But this factoid alone is worth nothing. Taken in a long series, it can be evidentiary accumulation. Some will say it's no big deal. Game playing behaviors are a detectable trend, but exposing the trend is difficult if one is called upon to list specific items that are each one hard enough to be cited as disruptive or offending. I hope this makes sense.

Kath, I wasn't familiar with Mackellar's poem, thanks for posting it. UK book titles are the same as the Australian ones. Downunder is still a a recognised term for Australia here though I don't suppose they call England 'Upover' anymore than they used to refer to us as home. BTW I felt that Downunder was rather thin on substance. I don't think BB had spent long enough there. I never realised that A Town Like Alice had an American title. I remember when I first heard the book mentioned, as a child, it sounded 'unusual' but can't see why US readers seem not to be expected (by editors/movie folk) to be capable of dealing with the occasional oddity. Whatever the title I think it is still a cracking read. On the Beach is another one with a most unusual 'plot' that works surprisingly well . . . for a story dealing with nuclear fall-out. re Fuller's book. I think the title is Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight which has been well-recommended over here. I haven't read it but usually the expression 'going to the dogs' or if you are from London 'going down the dogs' means spending the evening at the local 'dog track' ie greyhound racing. I think the book is set in Rhodesia and I have no idea if there were any 'dog tracks' or if white people would have been seen there. 'Going to the Dogs' also means a deterioration in ones circumstances/business/way of life. Mary does any of the above appear in the book?

Blfenton, there are ways to shorten names that you think wouldn't be shortened. My other son's name, which I'm not going to put here b/c it's not that common and someone who might know me IRL could possibly figure out my identity if I posted it here, is not one that is typically shortened. But his friends have figured out a way to shorten it and that's what they often call him. I don't really care, and ds doesn't mind, but where there's a will to shorten it, they will find a way. When on the sports field, they don't want to be yelling a teammate's 3 syllable name, trust me! After they started using that name on the field, they eventually started using it all the time. Now even his coaches call him the nickname. I don't care for it, but even I occasionally find myself using it when I'm texting b/c it's easier! But I don't ever call him that in conversation. And same with my given name....my friend's gave me a nickname that is not a shortened name for my given name, but it is a nickname that is sometimes used, though not one that my mother had ever heard in her generation. It is also not at all feminine. When in h.s, some of my friends started using it and in college, that is all I was known by, but it drove my mother CRAZY. She had no idea my name had a nickname so it really bothered her when people called me that. I don't go by that name at all now but occasionally someone will use that nickname with me. Doesn't bother me at all, and I don't mind when my old friends use it but it certainly wasn't one I wanted to use professionally so once I moved away from college friends, I only introduced myself with my given name. Coincidentally, when I told the woman at Starbucks the name for my order, she immediately put the nickname down and asked if that was ok. As for me, I don't care if people shorten any of my kids' names, as long as my kids don't care or prefer it. In fact, my youngest dd only ever goes by her shortened name. If I could have named her that, I would have b/c I prefer it, but I felt that people would always assume it was not her formal given name. So as not to confuse things, the formal name is what is on her birth certificate but she is almost never called that.