A Worst Nightmare Avoided
My house isn’t totally electric, but everything from the central heating to the cooker relies on electricity.
So my heart sank, when the power went off this afternoon at about two-thirty. I was left with no heating, internet, landline telephones and lights. My trusty mobile wasn’t working as it looked like the ariel on the cell might be down, as I wasn’t getting a signal. I diodn’t have a battery radio, but I did have a wind up torch. I suppose too, there was enough heat in the AGA to keep me in hot food.
I was just trying to work out what I would be doing for the rest of the day, when it came back on.
So the nightmare was avoided.
The funniest power cut we had was when the power went off at eleven at night and we had to go to bed by candlelight. In the morning we found a massive Scania truck in the front field. It turned out, that the mains had blown near the prison and as we were on the end of the line, Eastern Electricity had installed the generator on the transformer for our house.
To be fair, in the perhaps week it was there, the generator was no trouble and it eventually sneaked away in the manner it had arrived. It even had an en-suite flat for the operator. He didn’t even ask for as much as a kettle of water.
In my new house, I’ll be very much prepared, as I can’t be doing power cuts in my paranoid state!
Returns at GAP
A couple of months ago, I bought a bag in GAP in Islington. Unfortunately, it had started to come apart at one of the seams. So I took it back yesterday and I was surprised to get a refund, as I didn’t have the receipt. So I spend the refund in the shop on a jumper for the winter!
Don’t be Conventional!
On the BBC tonight, they had a program about a pilot who in the Second World War used to insert and extract agents of the SOE into German-occupied territories. One of the aircraft they used was the remarkable Westland Lysander, which although it wasn’t too good at its original job of Army Co-operation, was a superb aircraft to sneak in and out under the noses of the Germans, due to its slow speed and superb STOL performance.
But then the Second World War had its fair share of what could be described as unconventional aircraft.
The Mosquito didn’t look unconventional, but who’d have thought that an unarmed bomber built out of wood, would have been so successful. It was just that because it was light, aerodynamically efficient and could carry the same bomb-load as a B17, it could get to its targets fast and return. In fact Mosquitos often bombed Germany twice in one day.
But the theory of the heavily-armed four-engined bomber prevailed and we lost 250,000 aircrew bombing the Nazis, as did the Americans. Mosquitos incidentally had a much higher return rate and it could also be argued that because they were so much more agile and fast, they could have hit strategic targets, like ball-bearing factories, morning, noon and night. So there was also a moral case for using de Havilland’s wooden wonder.
The Mosquito is probably the only Second World War aircraft, that has a legacy in modern designs. Bombers these days are not armed and British ones haven’t been for some decades. This is because de Havilland’s fast unarmed concept was shown to be so superior, to any armed one. But the biggest legacy is in the wings of Airbuses, which like the Mosquito are glued together, rather than riveted. You can trace the technology back through Tridents and Comets to the Mosquito and before that to the Albatross.
Supermarine is well-known for the Spitfire, but another of its products was the distinctly unconventional Walrus, designed like the Spitfire by R. J. Mitchell. It was an amphibious aircraft that could be lauched and recovered from naval ships like cruisers and battleships, but it found its major use in picking up downed airmen out of the sea. This maritime-rescue role has been taken over by helicopters, but perhaps the role could be handled better, by a modern fixed-wing aircraft of unconventional design. The Americans have experimented with using Lockheed Hercules and pick-up systems, but nothing sensible has emerged.
The Americans too had an unconventional amphibian, the Consolidated Catalina. Like the Mosquito, the Cat seemed to revel in every task thrown at it. But unlike the Mosquito, you can still see a few examples flying.
And then there is the Swordfish or Stringbag. This aircraft was probably obselete when the war started, but went on to sink large amounts of Axis shipping. The Swordfish also destroyed a large part of the Italian fleet at the Battle of Taranto. Was this battle the blueprint for Pearl Harbor? The Japanese certainly gave what the Fleet Air Arm did with a handful of obselete bi-planes more than a cursory glance!
I have always thought unconventionally! It has never done me any harm! Although it’s got me into a few scrapes.
Living Alone
This is not a moan, but today, I’m having supper from the freezer, as the fridge is getting empty. The reason is that the weather is so awful, that I really didn’t want to go into the shops today. I will have to tomorrow, as I’ll be out of bread and milk by lunchtime. As it happens, I won’t be here then, as I’m going to London, unless the weather is really bad again, in which case I’ll go to Cambridge and then take the train from there to the football.
It will be so much better in London, as I can walk to a couple of decent pubs and if it was raining, I can even take a bus somewhere warm and nice. Not that my kitchen isn’t warm and nice. It’s just that it’s lonely and I have to do the cooking.
But that is not really cooking tonight, as I’m just putting a Waitrose Indian meal in the oven.
Zopa and the Davids
According to their site, the most common name for both borrowers and lenders is David. Is that because it is the most common name amongst the general public.
When I worked as a consultant to Lloyds Bank, they always joked that most bank managers were called John, as they were so boring!
But then the only good one I ever knew was called David. Where is he biw, when the world needs him?
The Things You Find When You Turn Out!
C’s father was a bit of a collector and I know she was rather annoyed when her mother threw away a lot of his things, when he died.
However, I’ve just been going through some of his old books, as I really don’t want to take them with me when I move.
There were a few gems.
First editions of Winnie the Pooh and Now We Are Six! They are in good condition, but sadly there is no dust jacket on either.
First editions of five Neville Shute books including Requiem for a Wren!
First editions of two Hornblower books.
I’m now searching the rest!
Zopa and America
In some ways, Zopa illustrates the United States’ problems.
Zopa is an innovative financial company and you’ve have thought it would have gone down well, given the country’s history with credit unions.
But no! The legislators made it impossible for the company to operate in the same way as in the UK. Read Zopa’s view on this. It may have been a bad way to launch in the United States, but another company called Prosper doing peer-to-peer lending also had troubles with the regulators.
You can read what you like into all that, but I can’t help feeling that the US still gives the banks too much power to squash possible threats.
The Elephant Man
This fascinating tale about the war in Burma has just been saved for posterity. It is now safe in the hands of Cambridge University.
They had the widow of one of the men he saved on the television last night, who filled in a few more details.
I can see a film being made of this tale. It’s the lure of the elephants! After all isn’t the most loved film made by Michael Winner, Hannibal Brooks?
And after all we haven’t had a film starring elephants for many years!
Waking Up When The Clocks Change
The Knife and Shepherdess Walk Police Station
When we lived in the Barbican, C used to help look after a house for female ex-prisoners in Hackney. I can’t remember what exactly happened, but I think I went over to the house one day and removed a rather large knife from one of the residents, who did have a reputation for violence.
Today, I was reminded of this story, when I took a 394 from the Geffrye Museum to the Angel at Islington and it passed up Shepherdess Walk.
The reason was that we were uncertain about what to do with the knife, so in the end I took it round to Shepherdess Walk Police Station and dumped it on the counter. The sergeant was uncertain what to do with it and asked me to take it away. However, when I told him where I’d got it from, he agreed to do something with it.
What he did I do not know, but I did know that there was no trouble at the house C ran!
I wonder what would happen today, if you walked into a police station and dumped a large knife on the counter!
