Foolish Virgin
I got two letters today addressed to the occupier from Virgin Media today in addition to a prioperly addressed piece of junk mail.
As they still haven’t transferred my old number from my previous house to this one, I suppose I’m now 60% of the way to changing to someone else.
Operation Crossbow
I’m just watching this fascinating program on BBC 2, about how we used photographic intelligence during the Second World War.
It is a program, that points to not only what we got right in fighting the Germans and the Japanese but what we got wrong.
We certainly got photographic interpretation correct, as we were able to unlock the secrets of Pennemunde and the V-1. This led to Operation Crossbow itself, which helped to neutralise the weapons. As I said in an earlier post is our photographic interpretation as good today?
Most of the aerial photography was done by Spitfires, stripped of guns and painted blue, so they couldn’t be seen. But what surprised me that some were flown by American pilots and carried USAAF markings. I hadn’t realised that Spitfires actually served in the USAAF.
Search the Internet and you’ll find two pages; Uncle Sam’s Spitfires and Spitfire 944.
The first describes how the USAAF had to use Spitfires in Europe because Lightnings and Airacobras were not suitable to be used as fighter escorts.
This is an except.
Uncle Sam’s Spitfires had written a little-known chapter in US fighter history. Though the USAAF used over 600 Spitfires during the war, the aircraft was never given a US designation, and little publicity was given to the exploits of the 31st and 52nd Fighter Groups – nothing like what they would get in the summer of 1944 during the wild air battles over Ploesti when they flew Mustangs. This is most likely a good example of the US military’s overall dislike of having to admit to using “NIH” (Not Invented Here) equipment.
In the end the Spitfires were replaced with Mustangs, which although they were an American aircraft, they were designed to an RAF specification and had a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine like the Spitfire. But did the Packard-built Merlins have Tilly Shillings Orifice?
The second is a film made about John S. Blyth, who was a USAAF pilot who flew the photo-reconnaissance Spitfires. He appeared in the program.
There was also rare footage of the Mosquito being used as an airliner to bring equipment out of Sweden for the photo interpreters to use. There is very little about this use of de Havilland’s amazing aircraft, where it used nothing more than its speed to ferry important war materials and people to the UK from places like Sweden and Northern Russia. In one case Marshall Zhukov was the passenger and as he had only two words of English, “Betty Grable”, these were to be used if he wanted anything in his cramped seat in the bomb bay.
Up until I saw the program tonight, I thought that the Mosquito had been the only British aircraft to wear USAAF markings, where it was used for weather research, as it could fly higher than any other aircraft.
They also showed pictures of Barnes Wallis’s Tallboy bomb, which was used with great effect against the sites.
I sometimes wonder if had the Americans used Tallboys and the later Grand Slams against Japan, then they might not have needed to resort to nuclear weapons. After all in the B-29 Superfortress they had a bigger delivery aircraft than the Avro Lancaster. They also modified the Tallboy to create the Tarzon, which was used in the Korean War, so they couldn’t have been totally against the technology.
Sometimes Everybody Wins
I was getting out of a tube at Oxford Circus tonight and I was away of something low running across the floor of the platform rushing towards me.
I put out my right foot and whatever it was hit me right on the toe padding. A couple of metres away sitting on a seat were two young ladies; one black and one oriental. The black lady was laughing as she had picked up the pound coin she’d dropped , which had then rolled and hit my foot, but luckily had bounced right back to her. She thanked me for my efforts.
I explained it was just luck and we all laughed together.
So sometimes everybody wins.
Is Eurovision Promoting National Stereotypes?
I don’t usually watch Eurovision, but hey, what else is there to do tonight, after the awful Mancunian double?
But are countries promoting their own sterotypes?
After all the Irish entry was about humour! The Greek one had no chance of making any worthwhile sales! The Russian one was all about male machismo and was probably written by someone with lots of talent like Vladimir Putin. I did like the singers for Hungary and Estonia and if they played their cards right ….
The French entry was calling out for someone in the orchestra to open a bottle of brown ale at the right moment, to enliven the proceedings. You may laugh about that, but a friend once played in the 1960s in the backing orchestra for such high-brow touring productions as The Desert Song. You quickly learned what was the best time to get a drink.
But quite frankly Eurovision isn’t the same without Terry Wogan.
The 400th Anniversary of the Opening of London’s New River
You don’t get too many four hundredth anniversaries in the world, but in 2013, there will be an important one for London.
Melvin Bragg did a program on the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible this year and he has been on television talking about it. But where is the program about the New River, which brings fresh water to London? And has done since 1613!
I was brought up in Southgate and cycling around the area as a child it was something you couldn’t avoid. I now live near its southern end and every time I go to the Angel, I see the statue of Hugh Myddelton on Islington Green.
The story of this great undertaking gets a good mention in Wikipedia, but surely the 400th anniversary deserves something more.
For a start, how many schools along the river are doing projects or having parties to celebrate the anniversary?
In some ways, the history of the river has lessons for the modern world, where water is such a precious commodity.
Surely, this anniversary is something that should interest someone like Griff Rhys Jones or Adam Hart Davis.
3D Photography Is Not New
I found this fascinating article on the BBC website. It describes how 3D photography was used by the RAF in the Second World War to unlock the secrets of German missile sites.
I hope that those in the military use drones or high altitude aircraft equipped with such cameras for their reconnaissance today in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The technique might also be useful in assessing things like earthquake damage in remote areas.
The Garage Problem Solved
One of the things that has irritated ever since I have moved in has been the non-working door to my garage. Like many of the things in this house, the previous tenants had broken it. Several people have come to look at it and have usually suggested a new door at a cost of several hundred pounds. After e-mailing the manufacturer’s of the door control, Hörmann, they suggested I try their London distributors, Garage Doors Ltd.
I arranged a visit and yesterday, a guy came on time and an hour later, I had a working door. He also explained what had caused the problem and how I could put a remote control on the door. I like professionals like that, who do the things they are good at, explain what you do in words of one syllable and don’t try to sell you things you don’t or won’t need.
So if you need a garage door, and especially an automatic one, repaired, I would recommend the company.
So when I had a delivery a few hours later, it was just open the garage door and put everything inside.
Byron Hamburgers
I ate in Byron Hamburgers at Islington Green tonight. It was good and it made a nice change for me to have a real gluten-free hamburger and chips.
I also got to thinking about the similarities between my father and Lord Byron.
For a start they were both poets, although my father’s output wasn’t very large and was much less famous and was meant to be spoken with a Cockney accent. But then my father was probably a better printer than the noble Lord.
They both married women with the surname of Millbank, although Byron’s wife had a spelling of Milbanke.
And then just like I am a computer programmer, so was Lord Byron’s daughter; Ada, Countess of Lovelace.
But that’s as far as the links go.
Credit Where It is Due!
It is difficult these days to find what you need and when you do I think it should be rewarded by a small plug.
When I needed some pictures framed, an old friend of nearly forty years recommended that I try A + B Glass in Stoke Newington High Street, who do windows, mirrors, tabletops and picture framing. I’ve had quite a few reframed and they have certainly done as good a job as I’ve found and at a price that is very competitive to what I used to pay in Newmarket or Cambridge.
I would point to their web site, but they don’t have one. If you need A + B Glass, they are at 124, Stoke Newington High Street, N16 7NY with a phone number of 020-7254-4541. Here’s a picture.
A + B Glass and Framing, Stoke Newington
Since they have replaced three of my double-glazed panels in my windows, that had been broken when I bought the house. Again, friends said the price was very reasonable. They also came and measured one week, giving me an estimate at the time and then delivered and installed the new panes late the next. It was completely hassle free.
One thing that they do is give you a bill immediately, so you can do a transfer immediately over the Internet. I often think that one of the causes of bad cash flow in small businesses is their tardiness in sending out bills. So if it takes three months to arrive, you feel entitled to wait another three.
As I said in this post, if it’s a direct transfer and it fails, it usually isn’t your fault. Cheques have this amazing habit of getting lost in the post. Thatb is if you can find your cheque-book. But it seems that bank transfers are very difficult to lose on the Internet, unless someone makes a typo and then the system hopefully flags it up.
How Not To Win Friends and Influence People
If you read this blog regularly, you’ll know that I hate junk mail and have a sticker on my letter box to discourage people to not fill it up with unwanted paper.
But some people obviously can’t read.
Two were from a new grocery store down the road. As they don’t take my Times vouchers, I think it highly unlikely now, I’ll ever use them.
The other was from a gardener and judging by the number that were blowing around in the road, because he put them under car windscreen wipers, he wasn’t very popular either.
The Anonymous Widower 