It's All Tooze Much

Be Patient, We Will Get Around To Doing A Little Musical Critique
That, however, will come later.  I know that you're thinking: "Ooh!  Ooh!  The tone-deaf old fart has gotten the lyrics to that Beatles song all wrong!"
     How little you know me*.
     First of all, that title is a pun.  A PUN.  I do seem to be using upper case a lot this week, don't I?

For the literalists amongst you

     Now, this will take some back and forth, so I hope you've got a pot of tea and some biscuits to hand.  First: "We Have Ways Of Making You Talk", the podcast run by James Holland and Al Murray, to which Conrad listens to on a regular basis.  They're really giving it some welly at the moment, thanks to be stuck indoors, communicating via video link, and both confessed on the "Summer Madness" episode that they were complete and utter chumps when it came to economics.  Secondly, they have both mentioned Adam Tooze's "The Wages Of Destruction" in the past, in laudatory terms, which Your Humble Scribe paid attention to.  Art?

The edition I have

     This is one of my recent purchases; it's won loads of awards because it was such a ground-breaking work, tackling the economy of Nazi Germany in a detailed analysis that completely destroys the myth of Teuton efficiency.
     Jim, in an attempt to make sense of the figures and tables within, went to his next door neighbour, who is come kind of whiz with economics, and asked him to explain it in simple English, which made sense for, ooh, at least half an hour afterwards.  Al never got that far; he did, amusingly, state that whenever he sits down with his bank manager or accountant, after ninety seconds his eyes glaze over and nothing goes in any longer.

One cannot blame him

     Thus it has been that Conrad is taking this volume seriously.  I am through the preface, the introduction and the first chapter, or about 10% of the overall total.  So far Adam has completely debunked the Nazi propaganda myth about job creation, which they sustained for their first year in power to create a good impression, and then dropped.  The program of autobahn construction did practically nothing to create new employment, either, although - surprise! - Herr Gobbels puffed it up immensely.  Art?

Herr Schickelgruber shovels.

     I may report back some overall conclusions that Adam goes into but I'm certainly NOT going to mention details, for we would all fall asleep.
     Motley, let us get out the theremin and hammer dulcimer and do a cover of "It's All Too Much"!

The Foxton Inclined Plane
SIT BACK DOWN!  I warned you about these engineering structures yesteryon, so you've got no excuse, and no way to back out of it.  
     Okay, one of the perpetual problems of moving goods by water is that the land said water flows through is frequently at different levels, meaning in times past that one needed elaborate, water-wasteful and verrrrry slow lock systems to move through. Art?

Like this

     Such was the situation at Foxton, where it took an hour and a half to get through the locks.  Some bright spark had the idea of building an inclined plane before the locks, allowing horizontal transport of shipping down to the Grand Union Canal, in the space of only 12 minutes.  Art?

A view of the caissons

     You can just see the top of a barge peeking over the top of that one.  The idea was fairly simple, in that the caisson would submerge, a barge would float in, then the whole enormous thing would trundle up or downhill, move into the canal and float the barge out.  Art?

In the drink

     The whole thing only ran for a decade as it wasn't very successful commercially, to which we say Yah Booh Sucks! as it was a splendid feat of Victorian engineering and an elegant solution to a problem.  In a rather ironic twist, it is likely to be renovated in the mid-future, as the Foxton locks are still a major bottleneck for all the leisure craft on the Grand Union Canal.  Art?

Caisson's dock at the top end; note hauling cable, engine shed and guillotine keeping water in.

     And now we are all better informed than we were five minutes ago.  Marvellous!


     Oh, by the way, I did mention about looking for that immense Belgian barge-lift being done in Lego.  Well there aren't any such creations.  In fact it looks as if Lego boat, barge or ship lifts are entirely out of the question, because - water.  Lego not watertight.

A Little Musical Critique
This is a little tenuous, so humour me.  Okay, we see the above Foxton inclined plane, don't we?  And which musical group had one Foxton in it?  That's right, The Jam <silently shakes fist at diabetes>.  Bruce Foxton.

Back in the day when Conrad could eat conserves.

     Let us then look at the lyrics to that Angry Young Man's Paean To Rage, " 'A' Bomb In Wardour Street", shall we?  I warn you, there had better be a bucket of gin to hand.

"Where the streets are paved with blood"

   Ah, right in there with the Dystopia, vision, eh Mister Weller?  Why couldn't it be meat-and-potato pies or gold leaf?  And - whose blood is it, exactly, because it's not necessarily human blood.

"With catalysmic overtones"

Not selling one's self short, are we?  All fire, gore and thunder!

"Fear and hate linger in the air"

Hmmm, perhaps a recourse to air-freshener, then?

"A strictly no-go deadly zone"

Hang on, are we talking about London or the streets of Caracas or a Brazilian favela? This is not Mega-City One!  

Mostly not Mega-City One

     I think we'll halt this breed of screed right here and think about fluffy bunnies and rainbows for the rest of the morning.

Finally - 
Because I miss huge Lego builds, here's an insanely vast and detailed one of the South Canadian battleship "USS Missouri", built by either a saddo or a genius, or a bit of both, in his garage.  Art?

But bear in mind it will NOT float.

     Is that an aircraft carrier I see behind matey?  Because he's not short of other marine bits of kits.  Art?

Hmmm.  Very WOW.
("World of Warships")

*  Also, it's because of all the vegetables I eat.