Castle Aching

[sem34090]

You phrase my view somewhat more eloquently than I could. That said, I think we can go some way to remedy it without largely destroying human life...

 

People ought to be allowed to dress in however a manner they choose. That doesn't necessarily mean that they ought to do so.

Edited November 25, 2019 by sem34090
A footnote to comment that I think the thumbnail of that video also clearly demonstrates the simplicity of many men that they would probably choose that one over one that actually told them the best way of using a Photon...

[Edwardian]

So, last night.

 

Interesting developments in WotW.

 

The focus seems to be switching to the aftermath.

 

In Wells's story, the legacy of the invasion was largely psychological. We lost some of our complacency and kept a wary eye on Mars. Wells did not support the BBC's view that we would forget it was our microbes, and boast it was our guns, that killed the invaders.   

 

The physical effects of an Earth made permanently Mars-like are not found in Wells.  After Johnny Martian keels over on Primrose Hill, it's very much business as usual.  Logically not that much of the fabric of Britain was crisped in the war Wells described, and it seems that, returning to his Primrose Hill vantage point at the end of the book, six years after the invasion, the narrator overlooks a restored urban landscape.  

 

Not so with life under the BBC.  No, here we remain complacent and delusional and, so, must be further punished!  Given the age of the child, I suppose we are here, too, some six years on. The Martians have stopped coming, for now, but we are no longer, in any meaningful sense, the possessors of the Earth, which is now inimical to us.

 

Interestingly it is the black smoke - terrifyingly portrayed by the BBC - which seems to be the polluting agent.  Wells saw it merely as a means of killing humans.  The BBC sees it as the means of propagating a Martian eco-system on Earth. Yes, the red weed took over in the book, too, but doesn't seem to have outlasted the Martians.  Planet Earth, as Wells saw it, was resilient. 

 

A century later and we fear for Earth's fragility. There seems to be some clunky climate change metaphor going on here.  We are shown that, in the face of near annihilation by alien invaders and the death of our planet's eco-system, we draw all the wrong conclusions and remain deluded and complacent.  What could the BBC be trying to tell us?  

 

Maybe Greta Thurnberg will turn up in episode 3 and save the day. 

 

Climate change, caused by the agency of our abuse of the environment is not something that Wells, for all his visionary powers, anticipated in WotW.  At the end of the book, his streets are teeming with people and London - "dim and blue through the haze of the smoke and mist" - is merrily burning up as much fossil fuel as it ever was.  Mars, he reckons, is rendered uninhabitable by the cooling of the Sun.  The Martians must seek a new home - which, by the way, is reckoned at the end of the book to be Venus instead of the bacteria-ridden Earth - because they are victims of an environmental disaster not of their making.  Wells describes Mankind's realisation that we ultimately face the slow cooling of the sun making Earth uninhabitable.

 

Obviously we know better thanks to our belated understanding of climate change.  The BBC would need, somehow, to reflect our knowledge of the ultimate fate of our planet and its causes.  The BBC must, therefore, depart from Wells, who did not imagine this.  If he had known of climate change, I wonder, though, if even Wells could have imagined that the leader of the most powerful nation on earth could remain in denial of the problem!  Perhaps that is what the Beeb is really all riled up about, and why it insists on giving WotW such a transparently anti-establishment stance?  

 

Still don't understand the significance, if any, of choosing 1905!

[Hroth]

5 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Still don't understand the significance, if any, of choosing 1905!

 

According to "The Art of Coarse Acting", productions and the period in which they are set is mainly driven by the Wardrobe department.  Perhaps some drone in production had been reading WotW on their Kindle (other e-readers are available) device and put it forward in a future productions brainstorming meeting. 

 

This was picked up and run by Wardrobe and Equality, resulting in 1905 (we've clothes and props for that) and the change in emphasis regarding characters (too many dead white males).. Finally the Attenboroughites pushed the climate change agenda and what would have been a period adventure story ended up as... this...

 

I didn't watch it last night as I watched the "His Dark Materials" episode (Good stuff!) and didn't want to go to bed depressed by the apparent mangling of WotW.  Its recorded so I'll watch it, again with my finger on the skip button for whenever the anguish is too much to bear, and see if there's anything positive to take from it!

[RedGemAlchemist]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

I watched the "His Dark Materials" episode

 

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

too much to bear

This serendipitous choice of words did make me chuckle. 

[Compound2632]

Re. Naomi Wu. It's complex and thought-provoking*.

 

*The right sort of thoughts, please.

[Regularity]

If someone feels they need to use sexual attractiveness to advertise their (unrelated to this) wares, then I feel sorry for them. The same might be true of their customer base, of course.

But if someone dress in a provocative or alluring manner because that’s just how they are, then it’s none of my business. Same is true for non-binary gender and sexual fluidity, religious or political views - just as long as people don’t force their views on me, then it’s none of my business, either.

 

(That raises a whole can of worms over things like gender-neutral pronouns, etc, but as I am fairly relaxed about that, not an issue for me.)

[Allegheny1600]

 

 

 

1

33 minutes ago, Regularity said:

But if someone dress in a provocative or alluring manner because that’s just how they are, then it’s none of my business. 

 

Back when I was a mere twenty-something (& physically fit through lots of cycling, running, swimming etc [I only mention this so you know I wasn't a "dirty old man"!]), a female friend of a female friend once wore a very skin-tight bright pink top that hugged her rather ample figure, rather well.

She then told me off for looking at her!

Now, I am male and I wasn't staring but she was certainly inviting me (and any other male from 9 - 99!) to do just that.

 

Was I in the wrong or was it more her fault for dressing that way? I'm intrigued by the consensus, please.

[TheQ]

If you don't want it looked at, don't show it...

[sem34090]

I would also like to state here that I feel the same about men who dress in such ways - It's not a gender thing, it's just something of which I am generally critical.

 

On another note, I have been pleased to note recently how despite the controversial nature of some of the subject matter we have discussed here recently, it has remained ordered and generally reasoned. We have had people of entirely opposite beliefs here, and yet the discussion has not deteriorated to mere name-calling and outright insults. It gives one hope that there are still reasonable people in the world. 

 

Perhaps there are the beginnings of a political party in this thread?  Or is the discussion too reasonable? 

[Regularity]

39 minutes ago, Allegheny1600 said:

I only mention this so you know I wasn't a "dirty old man"!

Saying you weren't back then implies that you think you are one now!

 

35 minutes ago, TheQ said:

If you don't want it looked at, don't show it...

I generally agree with that.

Which has a corollary: if it ain't on show, don't look!

[Allegheny1600]

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Regularity said:

Saying you weren't back then implies that you think you are one now!

 

Well, I still admire the opposite sex now as I did then, it's just that my body has not stood the test of time! So, for them, which would you rather have - a handsome*, fit bit looking at you or a decrepit, plump, balding older bloke!?!

 

*Rules me out then, even when I was young!!! (my wife would take exception to this but she's very kind!)

[RedGemAlchemist]

1 hour ago, sem34090 said:

Perhaps there are the beginnings of a political party in this thread?  Or is the discussion too reasonable? 

Nah, we're all too sane for government. 

[Regularity]

35 minutes ago, Allegheny1600 said:

 Well, I still admire the opposite sex now as I did then, it's just that my body has not stood the test of time! So, for them, which would you rather have - a handsome*, fit bit looking at you or a decrepit, plump, balding older bloke!?!

Given that (a) I'm spoken for, (b) you're spoken for and (c) are you sure you aren't describing me, I think I'd rather not have you looking at me at all!

[Regularity]

12 minutes ago, RedGemAlchemist said:

Nah, we're all too sane for government. 

Not sure about sane.

Sensible, maybe, but sane... ?

[wagonman]

To add to Simon's point, Look but don't Touch.

[nick_bastable]

3 hours ago, sem34090 said:

I would also like to state here that I feel the same about men who dress in such ways - It's not a gender thing, it's just something of which I am generally critical.

 

On another note, I have been pleased to note recently how despite the controversial nature of some of the subject matter we have discussed here recently, it has remained ordered and generally reasoned. We have had people of entirely opposite beliefs here, and yet the discussion has not deteriorated to mere name-calling and outright insults. It gives one hope that there are still reasonable people in the world. 

 

Perhaps there are the beginnings of a political party in this thread?  Or is the discussion too reasonable? 

To much  work required at CA parish council keeping the mayor on track  to become involved in such vulgarity's

 

 

Nick

[TT-Pete]

7 hours ago, Edwardian said:

So, last night.

 

Interesting developments in WotW.

 

"Final episode next week" said the announcer.

"Good." quoth the wife. :^)

[Martin S-C]

On 20/11/2019 at 22:19, Skinnylinny said:

Much in the same way that some modern-image modellers don't depict graffiti, or other, grittier aspects of day-to-day life

But they do, all the time, as a quick walk around any decent model railway exhibition will demonstrate.

For me though, modelling railways is an escape. It is a vehicle that transports me from this existence to another, much more to my liking. A psychologist might determine I am mentally weak to take this course. If that is so, I couldn't care less what drives my hobby. It just so happens that my focus is on a place far from where I live, set in a time long ago and wearing a very fictional hat and coat. If my interests were, however, to model the current railways I feel confident in saying that I would not model graffiti and the detritus and grime of our modern world because that would not be any escape at all. It would be a grim reflection of the existence I am struggling to escape. Its also possibly why modern railways (and to me this covers any period once I was old enough to become discerning about the technical details of such things - in my case the start of the BR blue era) that I am simply not interested at all in replicating such a scene in miniature.

[Andy Hayter]

I have much regard and in common with that post Martin.  I consider my modelling as an impressionist painting of the scene and eradicate all inconveniencies that do not fit with my impression - that would be graffiti or the worst of industrial grime.  I admire those that can do those things well, I cannot and when I see many representations it is just depressing.  Who needs depression in your modeling.  There is enough in the real world.

[Martin S-C]

On 23/11/2019 at 20:39, Edwardian said:

The other establishment figure (unkindly) portrayed is the Astronomer Royal.  Here, again, the BBC offers us a rather unsympathetic one-dimensional character. As we know we are specifically in 1905, this must be Sir William Henry Mahoney Christie, who evidently survived the events of Horsell Common (and the failure to spot the coming invasion), remaining in office until 1910, and on earth until 1922.

 

 

The character introduces himself as "Stent" which was the fictional name Wells gave the Astronomer Royal in the book and it was to him that the famous line "the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one" was attributed.

The politics aside I was struck by the use of the powerful British Empire as a device to emphasize the humbling of human efforts under the Martians.

I was a little disappointed with the CGI effects regarding the first deployment of the heat ray which struck me as an unnecessary change and the fighting machines looked too much like those that terrorised Tom Cruise; slow, lumbering and very un-steam punky, which I think they ought to be. I supposed for this Wellsophile to be happy I'll have to make my own film or TV series...

[sem34090]

1 hour ago, Martin S-C said:

Quote

Much in the same way that some modern-image modellers don't depict graffiti, or other, grittier aspects of day-to-day life

But they do, all the time, as a quick walk around any decent model railway exhibition will demonstrate.

For me though, modelling railways is an escape. It is a vehicle that transports me from this existence to another, much more to my liking. A psychologist might determine I am mentally weak to take this course. If that is so, I couldn't care less what drives my hobby. It just so happens that my focus is on a place far from where I live, set in a time long ago and wearing a very fictional hat and coat. If my interests were, however, to model the current railways I feel confident in saying that I would not model graffiti and the detritus and grime of our modern world because that would not be any escape at all. It would be a grim reflection of the existence I am struggling to escape. Its also possibly why modern railways (and to me this covers any period once I was old enough to become discerning about the technical details of such things - in my case the start of the BR blue era) that I am simply not interested at all in replicating such a scene in miniature.

23 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

I have much regard and in common with that post Martin.  I consider my modelling as an impressionist painting of the scene and eradicate all inconveniencies that do not fit with my impression - that would be graffiti or the worst of industrial grime.  I admire those that can do those things well, I cannot and when I see many representations it is just depressing.  Who needs depression in your modeling.  There is enough in the real world.

 

Modelling (Including the 'other' sort that I revelled in on the MHR the other week despite my camera-shyness a lot of the time), for me is a form of escapism. So is volunteering as a porter at a station which, in my opinion, achieves a greater degree of authenticity than any other on that railway. They say that the past is another land (they do things differently there) and to escape to a pastiche of it is a pretty good way of escaping from normal life. However, I also find historical research a form of escapism and can read for hours on end about given bits of history. This is possibly one of the things I enjoy most about railway modelling, actually, and in turn possibly explains why I have never been drawn to model anything recent. Research, however, will often reveal the less pleasant as well as the more pleasant aspects of history and of late I have found myself drawn to remaining more faithful to that by reflecting both.

 

I have been pondering on when to set Blackstone West. It was always going to be set in autumn, winter or very early spring and I have settled on Winter 1939. From a railway perspective this is good, as it allows the use of Hornby's excellent 2-HAL (Also, therefore, adding further variety to the EMU formations), increased livery variety (as later grouping-era layouts depicting one company go) as the early pre-war malachite can be used on a couple of locos, alongside the first couple of wartime black machines (I think - need to check) as well as the pre-war olive and black liveries. There would also be potential for some limited inter-regional troop traffic as Blackstone is supposedly located immediately to the West of Lydd Camp, as well as slightly more frequent traffic generally, and some more interesting goods traffic in the form of military hardware.

 

Away from railways, however, there is a war going on, and it's winter. I am thinking of the latter part of November, into December before the heavy snow came in. Frost and signs of heavy rain will be the order of the day - A change from the 'perfect summer' and 'snowy winter' layouts that one usually sees, and also perhaps reflective of the slightly dark times generally. We are still only in the 'phoney' war at this stage, but there is no doubt still an air of tension and the most noticeable changes from previous years would have been the implementation of blackout and ARP precautions (implemented from September 1st). Rationing has begun, and despite the generally calm war thus far there have still been some engagements. This is not a gloriously happy scene, though not an entirely depressed one either - The Blitz, Battle of Britain and the Fall of France are still in the future, albeit the near future and the threat is still apparent. There are all manner of relatively unpleasant/negative aspects of that time which I may or may not include, but I need to conduct some more research (basically trying to find some more photos from that time) to get a better grasping of what was typical.

 

If it makes more sense, I hope for the layout to be a realistic depiction of the period, though it is not a depiction of any real railway prototype. I am taking some liberties with some fictional locomotives, but I think those are justified (they are, I like to think credible, absorbed locomotives, from a fictional company, rather than ones the main-line companies never built). I intend to remain as faithful as I can to the railway practices, but also to the wider context of the period.

 

Anyway...  

Edited November 25, 2019 by sem34090

[Martin S-C]

On 24/11/2019 at 06:56, Edwardian said:

This one's even got the bl00dy fish oil wagon, as you say!j

Regrettably, in my view, it had a bad case of "unusual-wagon-itis" with nowhere nearly enough vanilla vehicles. It was nicely done though, plus DCC sound.

[Hroth]

Well, there's a period of my time that won't be repeated!

 

Just finished watching ep2 of WotW, the anguish has been great and I fear for the longevity of the skip button on the PVR remote control.  At least I didn't lose the hour that it would have been if I had watched it straight after "His Dark Materials"; it was more like 30 minutes at the most with skipping and even then far too long.  From what I did see, it bore very little resemblance to the book!  BTW Has anyone sorted out what the "sepia" segments are all about?

 

They could have made a decent stab at telling the story.  Instead they produced a heap of carp.

 

Factoid 1: That bit of Formby Beach they used for filming had the dunes stabilised in the 1930s using discarded bales of substandard tobacco from the cigarette factory in Liverpool and was later used as a dumping ground for rubble from the bombing of Liverpool and Bootle in WW2. Recognisable fragments of Liverpool Customs House have been identified.

 

Factoid 2: If they had gone a couple of miles down the coast, they could also have shot on Crosby beach and included Anthony Gormleys cast iron figures embedded in the foreshore as heatrayed corpses....

 

 

 

[brianusa]

A veritable mélange of many topics that defy Castle Aching and its intended content!  So to add to the mix and in this case Martins remarks which I found interesting as although into tinplate, I like every thing neat and tidy on the layout up to a point.  There is scenery to contend with so how does one keep scenery neat and tidy?  Also my locos and stock are not mint, rather gently used but then, when did you last see a wagon that was perfect on the real thing?  So a compromise has to be made and it usually represents one own opinion.  After all, as has been mentioned before, our trains are an escape from reality which in todays world is more important than ever.

[Donw]

I think it would be difficult for us to form a political party as we hold some very confilicting views. We could form a council (of any sort) where the purpose is to try to achieve a concensus of what is the best way forward.  This is something that is prevented by the party system. In a sane system the governing body could discuss and agree on an acceptable level of taxation and then agree how to divide it into the various needs of the country. Obviously this might take a few goes as most of us want rather more spent than we want to contribute. Typically people think extra tax should be levied on other people not ourselves. One cannot pretend that the current round of spending promises have been sensibly discussed to achieve a consensus on both the spend and the necessary taxation to fund it.

 

Don