Malcolm 0-6-0

They're patiently waiting for the bomb squad to arrive .....

As someone else has previously drawn attention to LoTR is a bit like Wagner's operas. While there are some memorable bits it could have benefited from ruthless editing. To us who were working adults in the 70s its relevance to our then lifestyles was somewhat irrelevant. It was something occurring in the world of late teenagers rather than ours. I don't think the later film series helped it much because what was already a bloated work was inflated even more without actually offering any improvement. Mind you it probably did wonders for the Kiwi economy and their local film production facilities. Like the more recent Harry Potter series it became an industry rather than simply a fantasy novel and when that happens the fantasy takes second place to the reality of making money. Fantasy is all good harmless fun (e.g. model trains) but like other culturally accepted fantasies e.g. religion, the effect becomes rather tedious when people begin to take it more seriously than it warrants. But then compared with the ongoing chaos that religion has created for human society LoTR is far more preferable despite the need for editing. But then who am I to criticise - I like reading 18th and 19th century novels and they were written in a time when the more words used the more the author was paid. By modern standards three quarters of Trollope's works could have either been savagely pruned or not survived the first draft but his reputation would have been ensured by the Barchester Chronicles, the Palliser series or The Way we Live Now. Annie's comment about the 70s was interesting. Personally I found them to be a mixed bag. For me they started out rather ordinary verging on depressing as my then job became less and less attractive. In the middle years I started a restructuring of my career aspirations which then led to a complete sea change and a whole new more satisfying life, and by the time the 80s dawned the beginning of the previous decade was but a distant and happily long gone experience. Per ardua ad astra as the RAF might say. Oh and I built my first layout which of course was never quite finished as is standard operating procedure, while for the last six years or so I've been fiddling away with my current one, when work allows.

I congratulate your command of irony.

Well if you had read more closely what I posted you would have seen that I didn't attack people such as yourself, I attacked the idea that somehow this is a problem that needs airing in the media for the clear purposes of self publicity when the reality is that famine in Africa or civil wars and other life threatening strife transcend any such attempts at media grabbing self promotion in importance and impact. Personally I have no objection to how a person feels about themselves or their gender - that's their business not mine and as such I really don't need to either praise or condemn it. But when it is used as a form of self-promotion then it enters the area where I do have the right to comment as it thrust in front of me whether I asked for it or not. We lucky few who live in the developed world have the time on our hands to make large mountains out of very small mole hills and those mountains hide our view of the reality of life that the vast majority of our fellow humans face. To this I referred in my original post when I said "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." I think the same general meaning still applies. When the LoTR took off in my part of the world I was a working adult faced with the responsibilities that brings, I really didn't have the leisure time available to take what was essentially a fairy story (the Harry Potter series of its day) and turn it into some fount of mystical meaning which would have given it an importance its pretentiousness did not warrant.

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.

That would be uncharitable ...........

All that's missing is rack and pinion.

I used to have that problem, then I stopped wearing a hat that was two sizes too small.

I'm sorry but that was so confusing I went cross-eyed reading it. What does that mean in terms of eye etiquette?

Well perhaps if someone can find a connection between Slough and Staines then perhaps that might be a smooth flowing drain (or ditch).

I am very glad you made that remark, believe me I had been tempted but delicate sensitivities etc. ...............

Unfortunately a search of Youtube reveals no recorded music from the pre-Williamine period. But it does have a certain jollity and no doubt reflects the optimism of those at that fabled event.

Perhaps -

Was that bath as in Bath or was he like Archimedes in the bath?

Democracy is the very devil isn't it.

Is that the House of Commons?

And the irony of all this Brexiting nonsense is that one of its major proponents has seat in the European parliament - you'd think that would have given some of the more "informed" Brexiteers a reason to doubt his bona fides not to mention being a commodity trader which is the equivalent of being a merchant banker or used car salesman. But apparently not so so much for informed or even halfway intelligent decision making due diligence. And if you have dug yourself in to an impossible situation the key is to stop digging, not continue.

And speaking of sovereignty and the people, "Oi!!!, Just because you pair of so-called betters claim to have a plan it doesn't meant that we lesser souls won't still have to work to pay taxes to keep you in the style to which you have become accustomed"

And who said rock'n'roll was dead.

All right let's get back to ditches, which considering the latest events in the Mother Country (only joking just being a rude colonial) is strangely appropriate - look what I found in a local ditch

OI!!! You lot haven't been speculating again have you?

Oh how boering. Just when the essential smuttiness (snigger snigger) of the steam powered railway is revealed someone has to inject something sensible into this muddy stream of consciousness and ditches, Is it just me but does that horse in the pre-Raphaelite depiction of Lady Godiva look slightly taken aback.

Oh I see - we want less stream of consciousness digressions because it's getting all muddy and confused Well as they say, life's a ditch.

Oh there's nothing wrong with anarchy that a good management plan wouldn't fix.

Could I say that that appears to be fairly bolting along.