Castle Aching

[Hroth]

3 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Erudite readers with a copy of "The Meaning of Liff" will also know that "wetwang" is a word for a moist pen15.

 

A tome that has a proud place in the section of my bookshelf containing dictionaries, thesauri and so on.  I didn't directly mention it because I knew it would distress the -ing Net Nanny....

 

Inginging.   There, I feel much better now!

 

[Hroth]

3 hours ago, Edwardian said:

like Wagner's Ring, it's all about death.

 

Also like the Ring cycle, LoTR sometimes seems to go on for far too long too...

 

And there's the shouting and fighting and dragons and magical items and and and

[Regularity]

1 minute ago, Hroth said:

Also like the Ring cycle, LoTR sometimes seems to go on for far too long too...

And has far too much singing it it!

[Hroth]

2 minutes ago, Regularity said:

And has far too much singing it it!

 

Ruddy elves just don't know when to keep quiet!

[Regularity]

2 hours ago, Annie said:

Gosh Malcolm words fail me..............

Don't worry, Annie.

Some people like to live down to the worst extremes of their national stereotypes. (Which is different to yours, anyway.)

 

Best way to deal with them is to ignore them - they never have anything positive to offer, except their departure from the conversation.

[Edwardian]

3 hours ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

LoTR? By the time it became popular here I was an adult with problems more significant than dopey teenage angst and post hippy searches for the meaning of everything. I was working for a living. 

 

As far as the meaning of everything went I think I quickly decided that most of what we called problems were actually what one would now call first world problems like which restaurant to try, rather than will I have enough money tomorrow to have the first decent feed I've had in a week.

 

Or that now current nagging first world problem of what gender am I at the moment and how do I express the depth of my outrage that no one has sympathised with my eternal search for self-identity and what gender I am.  Apparently some UK pop singer is now claiming that he/she/don't know should be identified as they because he/she/don't know hasn't decided despite the fact they have incipient male pattern baldness and a beard. Personally I'd suggest a look in the mirror would help but perhaps I'm being insensitive.

 

So to me LoTR falls into that post late 60s period when fairy stories had some existential meaning for people who decided that growing up was not a career option, but smoking marijuana whilst carrying a dog eared copy of the book was considered to indicate you had a first class intellect while avoiding the reality of using that first class intellect to actually achieve something. In any case I prefer well crafted modern crime writing or a decent history or for light amusement a good dose of Trollope.

 

So from that you may see that I think LoTR is for poseurs. 

 

Crikey, I pop out for the morning and the Forces of Mordor threaten to cover West Norfolk with a Second Darkness!

 

New challenges come along in life in the form of concepts that may be new to us.  When they do, surely we should approach them with an open mind, a willingness to learn and, above all, with respect?  My generation, grew up with the idea, for instance, of the equality of men and women (all the more surprising to see how long it is taking for the practical consequences of that acceptance to work through, e.g. equal pay), so that's understood.  First Trans and then Non-Binary came as news to some of us.  This is not to say that these were new phenomena, but they simply weren't on the RADAR.  Now they are.

 

Gender identification is not done on a whim. My, admittedly still limited, understanding is that people have a profound sense of gender identity.  This can change over time, but it is innate, i.e it's not a free choice of the mind, but a reality dictated by the genes. Sometimes people need to undergo physical alteration in order better to align with their identity, but that identity is no less real; the identity dictates the changes, not the other way around. I suspect that gender identity is determined by innate factors and is analogous, therefore, to sexuality. I do apologise if any of that is wrong, and if I trip up during the learning process.  

 

However, my degree of understanding is not the point.  Regardless I should show respect for people's identities, which are real things. If I could change the reality of something merely by changing it's label, I could solve a lot of my problems simply by identifying as thin!   

 

Yes, Tolkien was taken up by Hippies as a literary Eco-Warrior.  I have rather more sympathy with them than with people who are twee enough to marry dressed in Arwen and Aragorn costumes.  I try to be tolerant, but confess that sometimes I find myself wondering if these people shouldn't just be slapped!  All this goes to show is that some works survive because successive generations find their new truths in it.  That is rather a point in the book's favour, in my view. 

 

Meanwhile, in Parliament, things take a Pythonesque turn as Boris-two borders-Johnson reveals his plans!

 

 

 

 

Edited October 3, 2019 by Edwardian
spelling!

[Compound2632]

Time to intervene with the factoid I've offered before, concerning the undoubted pre-Grouping roots of LOTR. The Tolkien family lived for a while c. 1901 at 86 Westfield Road, Kings Heath, Birmingham, backing onto the Midland's Camp Hill line. Tolkien recalled that his curiosity about language was first sparked by puzzling over the Welsh colliery names on the wagons at the bottom of the garden: Penrhiwceiber, Senghenydd, Nantyglo were names he recalled.

[Hroth]

3 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Tolkien recalled that his curiosity about language was first sparked by puzzling over the Welsh colliery names on the wagons at the bottom of the garden: Penrhiwceiber, Senghenydd, Nantyglo were names he recalled.

 

In later years, Tolkien was fluent in Medieval Welsh, though I don't think that would have been a help in deciphering the output of S4C!

 

6 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Meanwhile, in Parliament, things take a Pythonesque turn as Boris-two borders-Johnson reveals his plans!

 

And so we return to Looking-Glass land.

 

 

[Edwardian]

Anyway, I popped into the local metrop this morning in order to help take delivery of a 5' x 10' board and legs that will form a new layout to be constructed by the Club for display in the town centre.

 

The idea is for something simple - coin operated circuits -  with plenty of moving parts to delight the children and idlers of the parish. 

 

Where we, the modellers, get to have fun will be with the scenery. We have decided upon an Alpinesque/Mitteleuropäische scene, so, for me, a first foray into European outline HO, mit schnee.

 

Ruritania here I come! 

 

Below, a recent planning session in our club rooms.  Note that work on the back scene is already underway.

 

[sem34090]

I take it your club gets its uniform from the Chilean Army Surplus shop down at Evenwood?

 

And I take it the layout is to be opened with great ceremony?

 

 

Edited October 3, 2019 by sem34090

[Edwardian]

1 minute ago, sem34090 said:

And I take it the layout is to be opened with great ceremony?

https://images.app.goo.gl/C36AsN6cn5VdiZez6

 

 

I was thinking more ....

 

[Hroth]

41 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Below, a recent planning session in our club rooms.  Note that work on the back scene is already underway.

 

But Chancellor, if we take the line through Belgium.......

 

 

[sem34090]

The Nord and all the other companies will be subsumed easily enough, and we'll have five lines running into France by Christmas!

 

Edited October 3, 2019 by sem34090

[Compound2632]

Now what was that about stereotypes? 

 

Not exactly Alpine but there's a couple of lines of connection between the North Eastern Railway and the railways of the German states - specifically the Worsdells. Chronologically the second, and better known, is T.W. Worsdell's collaboration with August von Borries, chief mechanical engineer of the Hannover section of the Prussian State Railways, on two-cylinder compound locomotives. They jointly held several British patents. Less well-known, I believe, is their grandfather T.C. Worsdell's time as locomotive, carriage and wagon superintendent of the Leipzig-Dresden Railway, the first line in Saxony, from 1837 to 1841.

[Nearholmer]

Gender self-identification? I find the whole subject so astonishingly complicated, effectively impossible to draw generalised conclusions from, that I can only ‘study the individual’, draw conclusions about particular individuals, and only then the very, very few that i’ve met who self-assign in a way that seems at odds with what I can see with my own eyes (and, of course, there’s a lot that eyes can’t tell you).

 

Oh, and I don’t think that having (categorised as such by whom?) “first world problems” like exploration of gender identification is such a bad thing - the exploration of itself does no harm to anyone, although I accept that some people believe (and I can’t judge rightly or wrongly) that their interests are being harmed by the gender self-identification decisions of others.

 

What it does all point-up is that a lot of people think of themselves first or largely as ‘man’ or ‘woman’, rather than ‘person’, which is interesting, because that is a case of defining by difference, rather than defining by similarity.

 

Gender assignment is only important if genders are treated differently. If they aren’t, it ceases to be of any importance, and ‘person’ becomes a fine descriptor. Unless, of course, people start self-identifying as gerbils, in which case we must generalise to the next layer up, ‘mammal’ perhaps.

Edited October 3, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Annie]

3 hours ago, Regularity said:

Don't worry, Annie.

Some people like to live down to the worst extremes of their national stereotypes. (Which is different to yours, anyway.)

 

Best way to deal with them is to ignore them - they never have anything positive to offer, except their departure from the conversation.

Thanks Simon.  There were a great many things that I could have said in reply, but I decided silence was the better option to getting angry and being sent to the naughty chair by the forum moderators.

[Dave John]

Hmm, I have a very hazy memory of a coin operated railway from my childhood. Probably in an arcade or similar in some exotic sea-side resort. Skegness or Blackpool perhaps. 

 

Sixpence in, then you could push buttons for a time and things happened. A train went round, things moved or lit up. I seem to remember it as huge , but to a childs eyes 10 x 5 would be. 

 

I wonder if these were more common, but I only got to see the one ? 

 

 

 

 

[Edwardian]

1 minute ago, Dave John said:

Hmm, I have a very hazy memory of a coin operated railway from my childhood. Probably in an arcade or similar in some exotic sea-side resort. Skegness or Blackpool perhaps. 

 

Sixpence in, then you could push buttons for a time and things happened. A train went round, things moved or lit up. I seem to remember it as huge , but to a childs eyes 10 x 5 would be. 

 

I wonder if these were more common, but I only got to see the one ? 

 

 

 

 

 

Sixpence!  You'll be lucky!

[Compound2632]

I suspect this one will have to be activated by contactless card and have QR codes that link to information about aspects of the layout!

[Dave John]

Aye, well, sixpence was a lot of money in them days ........ 

 

I think it was the trigger which started my interest in train sets, so money well spent. 

[runs as required]

There was a model shop in Gilesgate, Durham City that used to charm my kids by a round-round in the shop-window display apparently powered by placing the palm of your hand flat upon the window glass

I do also remember from childhood a beautiful model in a glass case of the Rocket on the main express departure platform that appeared out of the hole at L'pool Street which would respond (quite satisfactorily) to a penny in the slot - in aid of one of LNER Convalescent Homes.

dh

[Hroth]

30 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Sixpence!  You'll be lucky!

 

Hmmm...

 

I was thinking that you might want payment via Paypal, but a £1 or £2 coin might be appropriate, though given the theme, perhaps 1 or 2 Euro coins?

[brack]

1 minute ago, Hroth said:

 

Hmmm...

 

I was thinking that you might want payment via Paypal, but a £1 or £2 coin might be appropriate, though given the theme, perhaps 1 or 2 Euro coins?

I suspect such foreign currency as we might acquire in the coming months and years should not be squandered so frivolously.

I myself am confident that my stash of 170 trillion Zimbabwean dollars will be more valuable than sterling this time next year.

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

I suspect this one will have to be activated by contactless card and have QR codes that link to information about aspects of the layout!

 

No, that would be the one in 'New Darlington - City of the Future', currently under construction on Alpha Centauri. 

 

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, decimal coinage represents the extent of our aspirations of modernity.

 

 

 

 

[webbcompound]

well if we are going into space this micro proposed on the late Carl Arendt's site shows a railway built on a small asteroid (so mining industriasl layout) but so small that the layout depicts the whole surface of the globe. (scroll to the end of the page at: http://www.carendt.com/micro-layout-design-gallery/strange-locales/

 

Edited October 3, 2019 by webbcompound