Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905

[Compound2632]

I'm reluctant to attribute our woes to the malign influence of foreign powers - the causes lie in the way our own society has been allowed to develop - cock-up not conspiracy. I need to re-read The Duke's Children to remind myself what an honest and honourable politician, who understands the responsibility that comes with power, looks like.

Edited March 28, 2021 by Compound2632

[Edwardian]

2 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

I'm reluctant to attribute our woes to the malign influence of foreign powers - the causes lie in the way our own society has been allowed to develop - c**k-up not conspiracy. I need to re-read The Duke's Children to remind myself what an honest and honourable politician, who understands the responsibility that comes with power, looks like.

 

My history master was a subscriber to the 'cock-up' theory of history. 

 

Conspiracies need too many moving parts and require degree of efficiency, competence and secrecy that few organisations or governments are capable of achieving. 

 

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

the 'cock-up' theory of history. 

 

Interesting. I've amended my post. I'd been bitten by my inability to pimp my ride. 

 

EDIT: even more interesting: the noun pimp is allowed but not its gerund.

Edited March 28, 2021 by Compound2632

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

 

My history master was a subscriber to the 'cock-up' theory of history. 

 

Conspiracies need too many moving parts and require degree of efficiency, competence and secrecy that few organisations or governments are capable of achieving. 

 

Which fits with Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation is usually the correct solution.

[webbcompound]

I don't think we need ascribe everything to malign foreign influence, but when you add it to the existing poisonous environment it can help to tilt things, and this is precisely where the expertise lies.

 

As far as military strategy goes the proposal in  the US Military's 2001 Document "Understanding Infomation Age Conflict" succesful strategy is defined by a requirement to dominate three sectors: the kinetic terrain, the information domain, and the cognitive domain. In practice all major national players accept that they need to dominate all three sectors.

 

The cognitive domain incorporates all those earlier fumbling attempts to influence populations (psy ops, feeding information to sympathetic organisations and so on) but makes use of the information domain to do this much more easily. The American military has already accepted the existence of Russian activity in the cognitive terrain surrounding US elections. It isn't necessary for an opponent to originate a viewpoint, merely to assist and accentuate that viewpoint. Those on the receiving end who are in agreement will welcome such interference and be selectively blind to it. Once things are injected into the cognitive domain the rate of dissemination is rapid, and the original insertion ceases to be visible or indeed necessary, though it might beneficially recieve top ups to maintain momentum. So the stories in the media might originate from a cognitive domain presence, but once they are picked up and run they have a life of their own. It would of course be a mistake to imagine that the old superpowers, whose dominance relied on the perceived ability to dominate the kinetic domain, are the only players in this game. Israel is an example of a nation punching well above its weight in this area, as, in the context of the Middle East theatre, is Iran. 

 

Which leads to a fascinating model railway project stymied by a lack of international co-operation. Throughout WW2 the Trans-Iranian railway. run initially by the British and Soviets, and then by the US and Soviets, ran stock from Britain, the US, Germany, Russia and Austria. Modelling this is stymied because US/continental H0 and British 00 are clearly not compatible even if they use the same track gauge, and the same applies to British and US/continental N. Co-operation not competition, that is what is required, but the competing systems are too deeply engrained that even Thomas the Tank Engine is pulled both ways.

[Nearholmer]

7 minutes ago, webbcompound said:

It would of course be a mistake to imagine that the old superpowers, whose dominance relied on the perceived ability to dominate the kinetic domain, are the only players in this game.

A big mistake, given that it borrows some of its techniques from ‘radicalisers’ who aren’t states at all, and the advertising industry.

 

 

[rocor]

23 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

My history master was a subscriber to the 'cock-up' theory of history. 

 

Conspiracies need too many moving parts and require degree of efficiency, competence and secrecy that few organisations or governments are capable of achieving. 

 

 

The contemporary British approach to achieving a guaranteed 'cock-up', is to process projects in a half ars  hearted fashion and to do things on the cheap (which ultimately turns out to be anything but).

[Compound2632]

Just now, rocor said:

 

The contemporary British approach to achieving a guaranteed 'cock-up', is to process projects in a half ars  hearted fashion and to do things on the cheap (which ultimately turns out to be anything but).

 

... because if the true cost was understood, you'd never get financial authorisation. Hence, for instance, unpreparedness for the current pandemic despite the study carried out in 2016. 

[drmditch]

On 27/03/2021 at 13:53, Hroth said:

 

I was listening to Front Row on R4 yesterday evening, presented by female voices, interviewing female participants on subjects that did not speak to me at all, which is concerning as it shoudn't be part of feminist slanted output.

And your point is?

There come times when positive discrimination is the only way forward.

Which is not to say that I appreciate some of the, in my view, poor journalism of such programmes as Women's Hour in recent years.

 

Actually, I don't listen to R4 that much these days; not after the horrible 2016 'Brexit' period, when the BBC was stuck between being perceived to be partisan by one side or the other, and giving airtime to appalling arguments that weren't arguments but merely name calling. 

 

R3 has become my standard radio channel. 

 

 

[sem34090]

7 minutes ago, drmditch said:

And your point is?

There come times when positive discrimination is the only way forward.

This is something I have increasingly come to realise, though obviously as nobody likes to feel discriminated against it can be hard to accept it as 'fair', even though it is often justified.

[Edwardian]

Representation in the national media is always going to be a complex area, but I think should think that 'quota' type issues should be less controversial in the case of female voices, where,  according to the World Bank in 2019,  they represent 50.61% of the UK population.

 

That said, with the exception of my mother, I've yet to find one who can tolerate me.  

[Regularity]

39 minutes ago, sem34090 said:

This is something I have increasingly come to realise, though obviously as nobody likes to feel discriminated against it can be hard to accept it as 'fair', even though it is often justified.

There is a major difference between personal discrimination, and institutional discrimination, particularly the historical inertia which accompany the latter. For example, you and I still benefit from a worldwide bias towards white, educated, middle class males because that group of people set up most of the major systems, and their values (intentionally) and biases (unintentionally) have imbued such mundane things as benefit claims forms.

Whilst it is fairly straightforward to alter individual preferences via education to open-minded people with maybe negative or narrow past experiences, it is the systemic, unspoken bias which require attention. You and I are very unaware of these biases. Why would we be? It’s not that they are necessarily discriminating for us, just not against us.

That’s the whole point of “Black Lives Matter”. It isn’t saying, that black lives Matter more than other lives, just raising awareness of a situation where unconscious and sometimes conscious bias is endemic in our civil institutions (especially in large parts of the USA and their police departments), which makes them feel that black lives seem to matter a whole lot less than white lives: the number of fatalities during arrest, or just simple murders of “suspicious” innocent people, for black men in the USA is appalling.

 

It’s not that I get anything extra from the system compared to others (I am definitely a net contributor to it, in fact) but that I don’t face the same hurdles should I need to use the system to get healthcare, welfare, support, benefits, etc.

 

As a friend who has more melatonin in his skin than I said to me, when I asked what I could do to help as an individual, “Call out racism, sexism, etc, whenever you see it”. If that means some positive discrimination now and again, then so be it, but not to the extent that genuine talent gets wasted.

[Regularity]

16 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

That said, with the exception of my mother, I've yet to find one who can tolerate me.  

Out of the pushing 4 billion men on the planet, how many have you met who can tolerate you?

[Northroader]

So that’s what it’s all about.

https://peco-uk.com/blogs/industry-news/left-for-titfield-rapido-trains-to-celebrate-classic-ealing-comedy-with-new-models

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, Northroader said:

So that’s what it’s all about.

https://peco-uk.com/blogs/industry-news/left-for-titfield-rapido-trains-to-celebrate-classic-ealing-comedy-with-new-models

 How about some other anniversary sets:

 

It will be the 80th anniversary of Brief Encounter in 2025, so I'm looking forward to some LMS Period 1 non-corridor carriages, whilst 2026 will be the 60th anniversary of The Great St Trinians Train Robbery - WD 2-10-0 anybody?

 

For those of a morbid turn of mind, a couple of literary anniversaries offer the opportunity for models of some interesting prototypes: 2026 and 2028 will be the 150th anniversaries of the publication of Trollope's The Prime Minister and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina respectively.

[Nearholmer]

Only four years to go to the 70th anniversary of The Ladykillers, at which date will be released a r-t-r model of the entire approaches to King's Cross, the station itself, and goodness knows how many different trains, plus figure-packs (including miniscule parrot),  musical instruments etc., and the house. Or, maybe not.

 

That W&U coach could be very useful though, not to me, but to a host of others.

 

St Trinian's has already been "done" by Ace Trains, who made (and, honestly, I'm not making this up) a Schools class loco so named, in bubblegum pink livery, complete with figurines of hockey-stick wielding girls. Quite why, I'm not sure. Their Schools range also included 'Roedean' in navy blue, with HMS Vernon crests, crewed by sailors, and 'Fettes' (schmoozing the then PM) in CR livery. In a 1930s MRN, I saw an article by a chap who had scratch-built one, and named it 'Borstal' in celebration of his education!

 

 

Edited April 1, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

14 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Only five years to go to the 70th anniversary of The Ladykillers, at which date will be released a r-t-r model of the entire approaches to King's Cross, the station itself, and goodness knows how many different trains, plus figure-packs (including miniscule parrot),  musical instruments etc., and the house. Or, maybe not.

 

Perhaps just a tunnel mouth, signal gantry, mineral wagon, and figurines.

[CKPR]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

That W&U coach could be very useful though, not to me, but to a host of others.

Yay, Ebay will soon be full of affordable coaches suitable for the Kelvedon & Tollesbury as the bottom falls out of the market in un-made D&S W&U coach kits !

Edited April 1, 2021 by CKPR

[Compound2632]

42 minutes ago, CKPR said:

Yay, Ebay will soon be full of affordable coaches suitable for the Kelvedon & Tollesbury as the bottom falls out of the market in un-made D&S W&U coach kits !

 

I think that's a misunderstanding of the market in unmade D&S kits. They're bought as objets d'art not as models in potentia.

[webbcompound]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I think that's a misunderstanding of the market in unmade D&S kits. They're bought as objets d'art not as models in potentia.

 

It may even be worse. Perhaps they have become speculative currency.

[Hroth]

4 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

How about some other anniversary sets:

 

It will be the 80th anniversary of Brief Encounter in 2025, so I'm looking forward to some LMS Period 1 non-corridor carriages, whilst 2026 will be the 60th anniversary of The Great St Trinians Train Robbery - WD 2-10-0 anybody?

 

Bachmann have got the St Trinians caper covered, they also have an Austerity and a Wickhams trolley.  A set with a double oval and there's hours of fun recreating the chase scene!

[CKPR]

4 hours ago, webbcompound said:

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I think that's a misunderstanding of the market in unmade D&S kits. They're bought as objets d'art not as models in potentia.

 

It may even be worse. Perhaps they have become speculative currency.

I'm pretty sure my D&S NER clerestory auto-coach kit  (unmade, natch) is worth rather more than my M&CR share certificates. 

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, CKPR said:

I'm pretty sure my D&S NER clerestory auto-coach kit  (unmade, natch) is worth rather more than my M&CR share certificates. 

 

That will be because you neglected to take up the offer to exchange them for LMS stock in 1923...

[CKPR]

Ever since 1963,  I've had a nagging feeling that there's something important I had forgotten to do... 

[rocor]

Only five years to go to the 60th anniversary of The Wrong Box. So a boxed set could be produced for LSWR enthusiast.