Castle Aching

[runs as required]

If, like me, you find the above arts and crafts manuscript drawn text difficult to read here is an enlargement

          

It reminds me of the typical sorts of poems I had to learn at all the schools I had to move around to in the latter years of WW II and until. after the RAF, Dad landed a steady job .... and we moved up to ... Whaley Bridge (of dodgy dam fame)

He wangled an old clinker built rowing boat out of Manchester docks and it died quietly, water-logged under the trees at the bottom of our sledging run over the years.

We used to bale it out and pretend we were in the Arthur Ransome books we were all swopping at the time. 

dh

 

Edited August 5, 2019 by runs as required

[St Enodoc]

9 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

Thanks for your helpful comments about folding. The worst pieceS, with one fold in 25 thou brass, are just 105 thou wide where it is not narrower, and about 200 mm long. Fortunately, I have worked out that i can use plastic strip instead of these TWO pieces, and we had already decided to use wooden strip where possible, to enable us to add the bevelling, in place of most of the U shaped pieces - about 80 thou by 80 thou. When folded these are too narrow to slip onto my steel rule.

So there seem to be just three etched pieces to fold for each side of the van, plus the solebars and steps and a few more possibly on the ends. Cur next problem. The solebars are again a U shape with embossed rivets - using my basic rivetting tool, so it is only possible to grip the flanges in my folding tool, and they are about 60 thou. Anyway, one done.

I do not have a "hold and fold" but shall certain;ly investigate. My folding tool is very reluctant to grip anything this narrow.

As a small token of thanks, a suitable and suitable clad (fur coat, of course) pre-grouping poster which I hope has not been seen here before, even if it is not British.

Jonathan

Hakuna matata.

[St Enodoc]

7 hours ago, ChrisN said:

Being a Londoner I have always wondered about building an Underground layout

One of my might-but-probably-never-will projects is Finchley Central in about 1962, just about the time I first remember travelling from Mill Hill East to and from "Town".

[runs as required]

15 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Hakuna matata ...

"Lakini bwana wangu amekula tu na simba"  

dh

[Annie]

I got into terrible trouble once when I had a South African supervisor and in a silly moment I called them, 'bwana'. 

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, runs as required said:

"Lakini bwana wangu amekula tu na simba"  

dh

My hovercraft is full of eels.

[Northroader]

That’s a really nice countrified poem, and I was intrigued to see that someone called “DMU Roger” had written it.

[Compound2632]

Samuel Rogers (1763-1855), a minor poet most valued nowadays for his recollections of his circle of literary and political friends, including Coleridge and Wordsworth. 

[wagonman]

6 hours ago, runs as required said:

"Lakini bwana wangu amekula tu na simba"  

dh

 

Sorry, my Kiswahili is not up to that!

[RedGemAlchemist]

8 hours ago, runs as required said:

"Lakini bwana wangu amekula tu na simba"

Wakanda?

[DonB]

At my grammar school we had a Classics educated Headmaster who would wander into the (lesson in progress) classroom and spout some Latin quotation and depart laughing..

I didn't understand any of them, any more than I do the furrin Quotes in recent posts. 

[Caley Jim]

36 minutes ago, DonB said:

 

I didn't understand any of them, any more than I do the furrin Quotes in recent posts. 

Ah canna mak heid nor tail o' ony o' them either!

 

Jim 

Edited August 5, 2019 by Caley Jim

[Annie]

Quick, - a railway picture to bring us all to our senses.

 

[Nearholmer]

I’m marooned in a place that has never, ever had a public railway, although this little Jung(?) loco from a salt-pan railway, the only ever railway, sits in a museum courtyard serving as a lizard-perch.

 

We haven’t been to visit it yet this time, and rumour has it that it might be away for restoration, so we shall see .......... manana train-spotting.

 

 

Edited August 5, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Hroth]

A compendium of responses....

 

12 hours ago, Annie said:

I got into terrible trouble once when I had a South African supervisor and in a silly moment I called them, 'bwana'. 

 

I used to copy the accents of people I worked with,  one very embarassing moment was with a rather nice young lady from New Zealand... 

 

11 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

My hovercraft is full of eels.

 

You should be so lucky, migale meas effugit!

 

3 hours ago, Annie said:

Quick, - a railway picture to bring us all to our senses.

 

 

But there's no trains.....  Ahhh.  Its a pre-grouping replacement bus service!

 

34 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I’m marooned in a place that has never, ever had a public railway, although this little Jung(?) loco from a salt-pan railway, the only ever railway, sits in a museum courtyard serving as a lizard-perch.

 

We haven’t been to visit it yet this time, and rumour has it that it might be away for restoration, so we shall see .......... manana train-spotting.

 

 

 

It must be a Jung 'un, it hasn't groan grown up yet!

 

 

 

Phew!  I feel so much better now! 

 

 

[brack]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I’m marooned in a place that has never, ever had a public railway, although this little Jung(?) loco from a salt-pan railway, the only ever railway, sits in a museum courtyard serving as a lizard-perch.

 

We haven’t been to visit it yet this time, and rumour has it that it might be away for restoration, so we shall see .......... manana train-spotting.

 

 

Is that formentera?

[runs as required]

20 hours ago, DonB said:

At my grammar school we had a Classics educated Headmaster who would wander into the (lesson in progress) classroom and spout some Latin quotation and depart laughing..

I didn't understand any of them, any more than I do the furrin Quotes in recent posts. 

 

         

Hope the above image atones for the "furring Quotes"

St Enedoc's original Kiswahili post  got me all nostalgic about EAR so I dug my 1971 purchased 2 vol "Permanent Way" history of EAR by M.F.Hill and have since wasted a good few hours recalling my years in Tanzania at the time of  Nyerere's "Self Reliance" Arusha Declaration

The above image is of the construction of the German Nordbahn from Tanga up around the southern slopes of Kilimanjaro. This wasn't popular with the Wachagga living around Moshi as the German settlers appropriated their lands.

 

Much of Vol 2  (about Tanganyika written in WW II) is taken up with the war of attrition in E Africa through WW I .

                   

 

Hill argues that it was the Brit's inept initial failure to capture Tanga and the Nordbahn in Aug/Sept 1914 that led to the newly arrived von Lettow-Vorbeck being idolised by the German settlers after being ignored initially as a  young Prussian "upstart" . 

vL-V succeeded in diverting Brit imperial military resources away from the Western Front using his African infantry whereas the Brits and Smuts were slow to acknowledge the E African Askari's superior ability to fight on through East Africa's rainy seasons, resisting sickness far better than the Indian, British and South African infantry. 

dh

 

 

Edited August 6, 2019 by runs as required

[Edwardian]

History repeated itself; in the Napoleonic period the British nearly lost their West Indian possessions as they were so slow in overcoming their fears about forming black regiments. Similarly, in East Africa in the Great War, the British would have benefited had they instituted what became the very large corps of the King's African Rifles earlier in more significant numbers.   As an example of our inability to learn the lessons of history, even those of a mere century ago, it is striking.

[Compound2632]

I put "Lakini bwana wangu amekula tu na simba" into Google Translate and got "But my master has just eaten a lion"... so there's obviously been some confusion. I no longer believe the tale of the maneater, clearly garbled - the bosses were dining on lion steak.

[Anotheran]

The perils of Google Translate...

 

But my master has just been eaten by a lion => Lakini bwana wangu amekula tu na simba
Lakini bwana wangu amekula tu na simba => But my master has just eaten a lion
But my master has just eaten a lion => Lakini bwana wangu amekula simba tu
Lakini bwana wangu amekula simba tu => But my master has only eaten lions
But my master has only eaten lions => Lakini bwana wangu amekula simba tu

 

Only the last two lines are consistent with clearly the biggest issue being between the first two. After that the problems are only tense and plurals; though one could say eating lions is more of a problem than eating a lion!

 

[Compound2632]

Does Swahili depend on stress rather than grammar or word order?

[runs as required]

I seem to remember that as a "trade language" on building sites it seemed mainly to consist of shouted imperatives down a hierarchy of command 

Wife passed the Civil Service exam in Kiswahili before she was able to work in social services; her thick textbook's longest chapter  was called 'use of Imperatives'. 

 

One thing that did amuse me was: if I was summoned into an old ex-German Ministry building on Azania front to talk to someone and the messenger would tell me "Wako safari/They are away on safari", I immediately had a vision of a dusty Gov Land Rover way out in the Serengeti, water bottles hung about it.

But it might equally mean 'they've just slipped out a minute down the end of the verandah to the latrine for a pee !"

dh

Edited August 6, 2019 by runs as required

[Nearholmer]

 “Does Swahili depend on stress rather than grammar or word order?”

 

It seems to depend mostly upon an infinite supply of edible masters and lions.

 

The circle of life?

[Edwardian]

Indeed, full circle to railways ....

 

[Caley Jim]

40 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

Need any help with that freezer load of meat?