Greetings from the Future!

Well, the new year's been here for a couple of hours now, but I know some of you are still in 2009.

Clear Those Winter Miseries With a Little Steam

Some of you may remember me posting pictures of the National Railway Museum, in York, not far from my home.On that page there's a video of the first scheduled outing of a shiny new steam locomotive, built to the highest standards of 1940's steam technology, and coming into commission in 2009.
It was, of course, a crazy concept. A lot of steam enthusiasts raising money to build a giant toy.

The railway modeller's dream. A full sized locomotive. But still, the modern railway industry would say, a toy, not practical.... All this year, 6163 Tornado has been hauling steam excursion trains, in all the regions of britain, and countrywide. -Distances like the London to Edinburgh mainline run, faultlessly.
Then comes winter. The much vaunted super high-tech London to Paris expresses curl up and shiver, the Channel Tunnel is put out of action.
Across southern England, commuter trains fail, leaving many commuters stranded on snowbound stations, far from home.
But the Tornado is hauling the Cathedrals Express in the region, so they shovel a bit more coal on, and announce that they will call at the stations and take the commuters home. How's that for steampunk technology in the modern age? And they do, flawlessly, whilst the southern region's 21 st century trains shiver, whimper, and sneeze, impotent in a light snowfall.

And

BBC News "Passengers were rescued by a steam locomotive after modern rail services were brought to a halt by the snowy conditions in south-east England.
Trains between Ashford and Dover were suspended on Monday when cold weather disabled the electric rail.
Some commuters at London Victoria faced lengthy delays until Tornado - Britain's first mainline steam engine in 50 years - offered them a lift.
They were taken home "in style", said the Darlington-built engine's owners."

Photography for Potters (well, for rich potters)

I see lots of potters with photography angst, worrying about presentation of their works on the web. Here's the answer.



Okay... There's no price.
The cheapy, entry-level light box thingy, the photosimile 100 is a couple of thousand dollars.
This? Maybe the price of a car, who knows, they're a bit coy about pricing on their website.
Ortery site says, “We do not list pricing on this website due to international pricing concerns.”

My photos will continue to be taken with my camera phone.

Marjorie Wondered..

If she might just have had one too many rum-truffles.

Or had that last cup of tea at the Richardson's tasted a little strange?

The Sisterhood of the Pointy Heels' Tank Division

Has been on winter manoeuvres. Note the festive camouflage. These girls can hide a main battle tank in a crowded mall, or suburban residential street.
-Invisible!

Whatever Were They Thinking?

This picture, and other similar ones crop up every now and then on the net. Look closely. Look at the serious faces, the driver, we've seen his type a thousand times, he's a generic hero, we know, earlier that morning, the girls in the office at the top-secret works watched as he shook the hand of the chief engineer, and stepped out to the waiting car that would take him to the test-track, we know those girls dabbed tears from the corners of their eyes, with their lace embroidered handkerchiefs. We know, if he survives this, in a few years time, he'll be going ashore as a commando to destroy a nazi u-boat nest, or he'll be wrestling the controls of a shot-up fighter plane, he MUST reach allied territory to tell of the secret rocket-site hidden in the cliff, above the dam.... they have to know, and somebody must take it out before the bombing raid at the next full moon, or they'll be flying into a trap!

So. Here he is. The all-purpose 1930s hero, about to take a test drive in the X-23...
Beside him is Georgie, the all-purpose upper-class chap, always good for a laugh, courts danger with a whisky flask in one hand. Good old Georgie. He'll die, very bravely, just before the movie ends, and we'll realise, Georgie's not the dilettante playboy we thought him, all this time.

So here they are. At the closed down racetrack, about to take X-23 for a spin. Try not to think about Carruthers, and X-22. Took them four days to collect all the bits of Carruthers and Professor Peat. And at the end, they had one kidney too many in the bucket. That may never be explained.
This contrivance is the future of humanity, it will.......
Oh Bollocks! Any fool can see this thing's the stupidest idea ever. It doesn't take any sort of genius to figure out that it will not handle at all well even on the flat, that any bump will launch it into crazy wobbling disaster, that braking... oh no. let's not even ask about braking. Or downhill.
Or carrying loads. Or .....
Or indeed any way at all in which it would outperform a car or a motor-cycle. That thing obviously cost a load of money to build. How did its advocates pitch it to the money-men? Just how, how did they imagine, in their crazy opium dreams, this thing was going to improve humanity's lot?

I just found a whole heap more on monowheels at Dark Roasted Blend, a blog of the bizarre that never fails to amuse.

Anarchy:

 

(reposted, from a photoset of three years ago)

An Inconspicuous Beginning. Three Years Ago Today, Dec 26, 2006.

Three years ago today, I moved into my rented Blogspace at the cheaper end of town, rolled up the rusty, graffitied shutters, strapped on my surplus-store bargan blogachute, and jumped into the internet.
I'm still free-falling, somewhat uncontrolled, and of course, so long as I don't ever pull the ripcord, I can be confident that the blogachute will be in full working order.
Back in the first few days, I wrote more. I was probably trying to convince myself I wasn't as indolent as I really am, and trying to persuade myself I had something to say, but of course, in that very first post, I didn't really say much!

I've learned a lot, met some great people, had some fun.... Afer the first few tweaks I haven't messed with the colours, layout, or whatever much at all.
Funny really, You'd expect, if you saw my everyday garb, I'd be a green or blue blog.
I didn't use a sitemeter at first, then I got two, one you see, one you don't.
Activemeter says there are 75,000 visitors, Sitemeter is more conservative at 49,000.
Most of those people fell into here by accident and left after a quick muttered "What the hell is all this nonsense", but some stayed, some keep returning, and have done so from the early days, some of those constant returners are unknown to me, all I see is their identifier in the meter, so I know they're long-term visitors, but I know nothing of them. Except when I click on the "special tools" icon, and activate their webcam and microphone. Hey, Santa Monica! Nice wallpaper, I think your goldfish is dead.
Oops, look at the time! I have to go out now, so more musing on the why and wherefore and retrospection will have to wait.

Who are you, where from, when did you first drop by Grit in the Gears, and should I give up now ?

Tuesday, 26 December 2006
An Inconspicuous Beginning.

Damn... What have I done? And why?

First of all who am I?
For most purposes, these days, I am Ersatz Soubriquet.

I have another name, several, in fact, but Ersatz has been taking over in leaps and bounds. He first came into existence... A long time ago, I won't disclose how long just now, but it was before the internet, when he worked with a quill pen.
Stop that!
What?
Ersatz, you never had a quill pen.
I did!
Liar! You remember, you had a pen, like a wood stick, with replaceable nibs, that you used for carving the desk until Mr Dennis smacked you with a ruler. And then you had to ask Mr Dennis for a new nib and he was very cross.
And you had to dip the pen in an inkwell on the desk, full of Parker's patent Quink, blue-black, washable, for schools, refiller from the big bottle in the cupboard. And then you left a big blob of ink on your book, and then you blotted it with blotting paper, which was pink until it got blotty all over, and you always had blue fingers and..
What the hell is all this? What are you doing? ink and nibs indeed, you're supposed to be introducing yourself to the as yet, mythical reader.
But there isn't a reader, The reader is a myth, it's just me!
Look, this is the innertent, or as the rest of the world outside our fuddled head knows it, The Internet ! (ooh good! if you hit the keys harder the letters are bigger and blacker)(or whiter, in this case) and the innertent is full of shoals of aimless people who might happen along here and read this.
But why would they?
Stop asking questions, just trust me, they might, and if they did, they wouldn't want to read about your early school years.
They might.
Trust me, I'm your more sensible self, they don't.
So. You're me?
I am, only more sensible.
Oh. Do you remember Mr Dennis then?
Yes. He was very big, we were about eight years old, and he smelled of pee. And he had an old greeny coloured jacket and he could throw a piece of chalk so it hit you right between the eyes.
I remember that. He was very big on not day-dreaming, or looking out of the window, or bending nibs.
Bit of a tough task, then. me, us, never been good at focusing on the task in hand, the present, and so on.
Right. Lets try focus, get together in the same brain and get on with it, shall we?

I've just signed up for this bloggery and I've no idea how it works or who the hell wants to know what I think about anything.
Will I persist? who knows. time will tell. I'd better learn how to do it now, so don't hold your breath, unknown first reader, because it might take months to figure out... Like what happened there? fonts changing size? and there's no teacher in the room. Maybe if I pull out the computer's plug it will fix itself... shall I buy a new keyboard?

That's it, I'm intimidated now by the empty space, I'll just go read someone else's blog and pretend I'm clever enough to do it.

Now what? Preview button..... post... Labels?

Anyway, mythical first reader, If you do happen by, please leave a comment. Try not to wound me too much.

Posted by soubriquet at 7:03 PM