Malcolm 0-6-0

Which then brings us to the Fata Morgana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_(mirage) And then a reference to Arthurian legend (Morgan le Fay) which allows not only a pre-Raphaelite pic but one that contains a beard.

I keep getting this idea of newsagents keeping certain literature in plain brown paper bags under the counter.

Regarding the Coptic perspective I'd say your questioning was correct. And we have the tales of St Thomas in India, and also the early knowledge of Christian communities in India that certainly predate Justinian by a few centuries. The early Christian expansion happens at a time when there was no formalisation of the preferred texts (that comes later under Constantine) and some of the history tends to be confused because the period of the earliest Christian spread also sees other competing monotheistic religious activity. Many with similar ideas. It seems that the first and second centuries were pretty dynamic periods as far as religious philosophy is concerned. This expansion was enabled by the growing stable Roman empire coupled with the widening trade activity that stability allowed. And then coming forward a few centuries while western Europe was becoming, at least at the secular level, a bit of an intellectual backwater due to the breakdown of the western Roman Empire's control over civil security, at the intellectual level the increased opportunities for learning fostered in the great monasteries encouraged, preserved and interacted with the Eastern Mediterranean intellectual centres so none of the knowledge was ever really lost, including the concept of a round Earth.

I think the main error in the flat Earth concept ascribed to Medieval scholars is a product of the confusion of the Mappa Mundi geographical concept being translated as a mistaken assumption that scholars thought the world was flat. First the Vikings and then Portuguese had long been sailing the North Atlantic at distances that quite clearly ruled out that the Earth had some finite edge, and long before them the Phoenicians. Columbus' somewhat Johnny-come-lately "discovery" of the Americas would not have been possible without a body of information from the Portuguese sailors. The grand banks fishing grounds were well known and Canada is a Portuguese derived name. One could surmise that he sailed the course that he took because he was aware of Nth. America and was hoping to avoid it and go to China by sailing towards the south west, helped by the prevailing winds and so accidently bumped into the lower half of the Americas. But so much of that voyage has been rewritten into a romantic narrative of an accidental discovery, over the centuries, that the truth is obscured. The Mappa Mundi is the shape it is because European knowledge of the physical geography was limited in its depiction to the Roman influenced itinerary maps, which weren't actually maps as we understand them but simply basic diagrams of what to expect if travelling a road. More or less just a guide to where each important place was in relation to travel times, accommodation etc. Jerusalem lay at the centre because the Mappa Mundi is a Christian concept. If it had been the Chinese who created it no doubt Beijing (or whatever the main city in China was) would be at the centre. Once the Portuguese more or less invented international sea travel in the 15th century the Mappa Mundi model disappeared very quickly - people just started filling in the blanks as trade drove them further in their travels. After all there had been for several thousand years overland trade routes that went as far as the Orient. The Americas and later Australia were unknown simply because they were large islands and thus not connected to the Europe, Asia, Africa land mass which was traversed quite adequately on land by traders. Yet even Australia would have been known to the Malay traders, even if their knowledge was filtered out as trade goods moved westward. The Romans had colonies in India and would certainly have interacted with traders from China, Malaya and the indonesian archipelago. And there are some persistent traditions of Chinese interaction with the west coast of the Americas. How true the latter are is open to doubt, however the Chinese did have very sound sea going vessels. The myth of the flat Earth would persist in folklore as a medieval attitude simply because to the average peasant there wasn't really much need to have an understanding of the world outside of your village. How scholars understood the world was of little use when you had a dawn to dusk struggle to keep the farm going.

Now that pronunciation is just plain perverse ......

That was was in his salad days then?

Last week I had to get a new prescription for the inhaler I have been using to control an allergy driven cough I have at the moment . My doctors' surgery is doing this routine stuff over the phone in the current emergency and after a couple of routine questions they said they'd fax the local chemist the prescription and I could go down and pick it up. Fine with me as I had to grab some groceries anyway. I got to the chemist without showing any sign of coughing, however the moment I entered the premises I got this overwhelming desire to have a coughing fit. Damned embarrassing having to stand to one side stifling this nagging tickle in the throat.

That all sort of idyllic isn't it.

It appears some junior draughtsman seems to have attracted his beady eye. Either that or he's just realised that his beard has mysteriously caught fire.

Yes, however take heart for never have so many branch lines been so successfully surveyed and built to their destinations - congratulations.

Clearly a man who never had to contend with a jacket or jumper that had a zip-up front .......

Umm.... the municipal health inspector has pointed out to me that she is not wearing a face mask ..............

Well as the aristocrats of an industry that employed its labourers in gangs no doubt they had to lead by example .........

Personally I have no real problem as I just mentally convert it to yards. However this difference between imperial and metric can lead to odd problems. My house was built in the early 1950s and naturally is all in feet and inches. Now a couple of times I've found myself stymied by modern bookshelves either of the flat pack, or the built types, when buying them to fit in corners near doors. I find that the available space is just a few cms too small to properly accommodate the shelving without restricting the door. If the modern types were built in imperial measurements they'd fit. A couple of years ago I had to refuse the free offer of some really nice display shelving with glass doors because it simply would have been impossible to fit flat against the wall where I wanted it. Other than that I really don't have problems with metric at all. But then we have had it now for quite a while in Australia.

That must be a welcome relief ...........

Well in regard to our very own plague I have one of a young lady very clearly prepared for it.

Thanks - that makes sense.

What is the vertical pipe mounted on the left front corner of the loco next to the smoke box?

As an archaeologist I once worked in a place in Eastern Turkey where there was some outcrops of obsidian (volcanic glass) which was used until recently as a quick source of providing a sharp blade. I was looking at a piece which had turned up in the trench I was directing and one of the local hire workers we had explained to me in a mix of gestures and simple Turkish that the locals had used obsidian until recently as a means of shaving. So yes there is that, however the use of iron blades for shaving etc. was quite restricted in antiquity to the few who could afford them and bronze was altogether to costly. Fashionable Romans were in some periods clean shaven and others not - Roman art shows that. For those periods when shaving was fashionable the mix of implements would be blades, plucking or depilatory creams. In the early Imperial period Augustus was clean shaven in depictions, as was Julius Caesar but their successors wore or didn't wear beards as the mood took them. Nero at times was depicted with a stubble and in the 3 centuries following there is no uniform standard. The Roman Empire (whether in the Republican or Imperial periods) lasted longer than the British Empire and like that of the British Empire throughout both those periods the wearing or not wearing of beards is subject to many fashions. The common folk probably resorted to either cutting with knives or any sharpened implement. But in this we are talking about those who had the resources to follow fashions. Most probably just trimmed their hair as and when they felt it necessary. So I stand by my suggestion that the wearing of wigs as an item of male fashion is a relatively beardless period. Today we might accept a different coloured beard to our natural hair (mine went grey before my hair did) but that wasn't the case in the late 17th and throughout the 18th century. Wigs continued as a means to disguise age and baldness into the 19th and 20th centuries, however a noticeable difference between beard and wig colours are subject to derisory comments in the novels of the 19th century. Also the common discomfort from lice infections would be a factor in that. Imagine wearing an itchy wig and also an equally itchy beard. I've just finished reading Thackeray's History of Pendennis again and in one passage the elder Major Pendennis, normally impeccably aged proofed by his servant, is described after a very late night with his brown wig and a quite contrasting grey stubble on his face as a means to show that his age is catching up with him. Later a passage relates how his barber and wig maker has begun to introduce a few hints of grey into the wig. And of course there is the villain Colonel Altamont whose beard and hair colouring is regularly derided for its obvious mismatching.

However where in images from the period do we see people with fashionable wigs and also beards - they are usually clean shaven. So I rest my case.

I could be wrong but I suspect that was down to the fashion of wearing wigs which began in the Restoration period and continued in various forms through to the end of the Georgian period. The problem with wearing a wig was that it, or your beard, would have to be the same colour wouldn't they, unless you adopted a false beard as did the Pharaohs. Plus as one had to keep one's own hair short or shaven in order to wear a wig in comfort then it would be easier to regularly shave one's beard. The preceding Tudor and early Jacobean periods were noted for their beard styles - the Van Dyke for instance. Beards in the medieval period and earlier seem to have been worn as a person chose rather than as a fashion although some monarchs like Henry V were clean shaven as was Richard III. But again that may have been a result of having to wear chain mail or armour which could catch on a beard. But there is also the question of shaving in itself, until suitably sharp steel blades could be produced shaving was actually achieved by plucking rather than by what we recognise as a razor. So lot's of factors both utilitarian and fashionable are in play.

The Germans have had unfortunate experiences with leaders with distinctive moustaches - first the Kaiser then that Hitler chap.

And a further Coronavirus subsidiary pandemic, goats have invade a Welsh town - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-01/goats-running-wild-wales-town-coronavirus-lockdown/12111152

I'll have you know Sir!!! that I have worn a beard for the last 50 years - and I can safely now say that I've forgotten what I look like.

As the bishop said to the showgirl ........ boom boom Well someone had to say it