Adam88

A thread started by @Andy Kirkham will likely appeal to haunters of this one ... https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/179855-yours-sincerely-c-hamilton-ellis/

Geoffrey Hilditch was the one time manager of Halifax Corporation Passenger Transport Department in the post-war years. In his memoirs he wrote that they diluted the diesel fuel for the buses with creosote - I've not got my copy to hand but this may have been during the Suez Crisis. Diesel was expensive, supplies were unreliable and creosote was plentiful and cheap at the time. He said that you could definitely smell that you were behind a Halifax bus in those days.

At one time I was involved in analysing and modelling mechanical systems with rotating out-of-balance loads. After a lot of hard maths you can produce a frequency response diagram for your system which might look like this (example found from Google rather than from the actual cases I was involved with). We used to consider the systems we were looking at as rotating masses connected through springs and dampers. Here you see that at certain frequency (e.g. driving wheel rotational speeds) ranges you get a large response - these are resonant frequencies and for many purposes should be avoided through operating the system outside these frequencies/speeds or suitable design. This explains the why if you lose a tyre balance weight on your car wheel there are some speeds at which the car vibrates as though it's going to drop to bits but a little bit faster and you are through the resonant zone. You can observe similar effects with washing machines, especially when they don't manage to distribute the load evenly. In a coupled steam locomotive there are so many factors involved, each axle will have its own resonances and could no doubt be excited by forces transferred through the coupling rods, connecting rods and through the frames. It is not always possible to create the model but I was told that if you have the hardware you are interested in you can hit it with a hammer and find the resonances with tuning forks. I am sure there are sophisticated machines which can do this electronically.

I'm surprised that our man from the IWM did not comment on Lord Trenchard's appearance at 2:59. https://youtu.be/IwMhaXajdNM?t=179

It was seriously diminished in my opinion when one well-known person was 'knighted in the New Year Honours one year "for services to the Home Computer and Electronics Industry" '. This person single-handedly wrecked much of the nascent British home computer and electronics industry through the mass importation of poorly designed junk which he disposed of on a pile-it -high, sell-it-dear model but was a significant donor of funds to the party in power at the time. That was all right then, wasn't it?

Driving test ends with crash into lamp-post in Argentina What we aren't told is whether or not she passed the test.

FYI Chas, there is an illustrated, six-page article entitled: "LNER Sentinel-Cammell Railcars West of the Pennines 1929-1944" in the latest, June 2023, edition of Backtrack My copy only arrived this afternoon so I've not had a chance to read it yet.

Regarding Getty images, I went down a little rabbit hole and wondered whether the Thornycroft steam lorry might also be available via the Hampshire Cultural Trust archives since Thornycrofts were based in Basingstoke. No joy there, I'm afraid, but the consolation prize was: https://collections.hampshireculture.org.uk/object/photograph-black-and-white-showing-single-decker-paraffin-bus-midland-railway-ripley

I tend to agree with the majority of the comments given here about the major museums. However, on my most recent visit to the RAF museum I was more than pleased to see this picture prominently displayed on an information board. My total aviation uncle also had it on show in his study and as a 19 year old he travelled to Normandy on the evening of the 6th June 1944. He was a member of the RAF Servicing Commando - a unit which does not feature prominently in most of the Overlord histories (sometimes I think that applies to the RAF in general). They were principally aircraft ground-crew who had also been given commando training in the Highlands. On the way over a nearby landing craft was torpedoed and quite a few of them had to be comforted by their NCO who was probably not much older they were themselves. They set up a number of airstrips in the Bayeux area, the sites of which are marked to this day and you can still see the occasional fence patched up with perforated steel runway sheet. My uncle said that this picture was taken by an official Air Force photographer and shows him refuelling the first Spitfire to be turned round in Normandy. He said he's the one not wearing a tin hat and holding the funnel - the only one of them actually doing any work!

I had a friend whose sister suffered Pinks Disease in consequence of being treated with some sort of mercury-based potion to manage teething problems as a baby in the 1920s. Sadly this lady had to be institutionalised for her whole life.

If only they'd all taken my advice, freely given only last month...

There seem to be at least two traditions for marching. As you say the arms are swung back and forth but I knew an ex-PoW (no, not HM) who had been captured at Dunkirk and he told me of a couple of his fellow inmates who were picked up as they were trying to escape because they were swinging their arms in the British and not the Germans style. Goose stepping or not, German soldiers were drilled to swing their arms from side to side in front of their bodies. I remembered this years later when I saw some Polish soldiers marching in this style.

That's certainly been the case with my luggage. Whenever I get one of those little leaflets saying that my bag has been stopped for further examination then momentarily I have sympathy for whoever chose to do the deed, but only momentarily.

There was on the Radio 4 coverage.

Horses - for safety's sake just keep well clear of all the moving parts.

See, for example, https://papersdb.com/imperial/double-elephant or https://vintagepaper.co/blogs/news/traditional-paper-sizes . There are some very interesting snippets of less-than-useful information here. In art classes at school we were issued with sheets of half imperial but were always aware of other sizes, it's rather like slate sizes. Similarly, a standard sheet of file paper was always foolscap.

It's for sheets of paper.

The other evening I watched a classic 1960 comedy film, 'School for Scoundrels', in which an upstanding and most respectable s/h car dealer, played by Peter Jones, was seen painting new treads on a completely bald tyre.

The late, unlamented Thomas Kinkade would have been proud to have come up with that.

I don't remember that episode, in fact I didn't even think they were in colour.

Last week I attended/had inflicted upon me an on-line presentation in which it was stated that the work in question would be subjected to scientific rigger [sic] and that a prove of concept [sic] system would be built. It really was a bite-my-tongue type of experience.

Both Darwin candidates looked slightly desobered to me.

I would tend to agree but I imagine that it was more than Hodges' job was worth.

I remember parking in Keswick. I once spent a week in Borrowdale and got used to going into Keswick for shopping and eating. What I didn't realise though was that on market day, Saturday IIRC, the high street/market place was closed off for parking. This was indicated by those signs which had a semi-circular hinged plate which when lifted up and latched showed that day's parking rules*. Anyhow, on this particular day I drove up the high street without noticing that the signs had been changed over and was stopped by a traffic warden who wrote out and handed me a ticket - the shame of it. I was to report to the police station and pay my debt to society. That morning Keswick police station was heaving with fellow miscreants and harrassed desk officers apologising for traffic warden 'Hodges' who did this every market day until someone had turned up to cone off the market place. * Incidentally, I've not seen any for years but they had them where I grew up to swap town centre parking from one side of the road to the other on alternate days.