Horse Power

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Yes, That's A Tad Ambiguous

What else would you expect from Conrad The Tangential?  A short, succinct, to-the-point recounting of anything?  Because you're not going to get it.

     First of all, let me assure you what this Intro is not about, as is our wont.

     It is not about "Horse Power", that track by The Chemical Brothers.  Art!

     It's an age since I last heard it played, so indulge me a little as I trawl Youtube.  Hmmmm.  Yes, as I suspected, not one of their better songs.  Here's a sample of the lyrics:

Horse Power

Horse Power

Horse Power

Horse Power

Horse Power

Horse Power

Horse Power

Horse Power

     Bless them, I like the Chems but one certainly doesn't listen to their songs for delicately nuanced lyrics.

     What I wanted to mention was 'Horsepower' as a definition of power, normally used to measure the output of an engine or motor - we'll get to why in a minute.   I don't intend to go into all the calculations used to work out what an engine's output is, because frankly I don't care.  Art!

ENTER JAMES WATT

     James Watt - who must have heard every possible pun about his surname by the time he was 7 - invented the steam engine model above, which used a rocking beam to transfer it's see-saw action to a rotary one, as well as having a condenser.  This made it much more efficient than earlier designs, so much so that Watt, a canny Scot who knew the value of a golden guinea, proposed to customers that he would get paid a fee based on how much coal the customer saved as compared to their old steam engines.  Art!

Watty the Scotty

     This wouldn't work with customers who didn't possess a steam engine and used horses instead, so Watty sat down with pen and paper and came up with the concept of 'Horsepower' that would enable him to calculate power output.  It's nice to record that Watty died a wealthy man thanks to his invention of a new steam engine, rather than starving in a garret.

     Of course none of this is central to what I really wanted to yark on about, which was about the flying machines of the First Unpleasantness.  Yes yes yes, I know it's quite a shift, do keep up, it's good mental exercise.  Art!

     The reason I picked this up is that it's atop the pile of books next to my armchair, and I idly flicked through it.  You can tell it's not been opened in years as the leaves all stuck to each other.  As you can tell from the dustjacket, there were some weird and wonderful aircraft knocking about the skies.  I also wanted to show a quite compelling photograph.  Art!

An RAF FE2d

     Bear in mind that this is only a dozen years after the Wright brothers kicked the whole flying thing off.  The aircraft above is a 'pusher' design with the propeller at the back.  This means the pilot and gunner have an uninterrupted view ahead, the pilot having his own fixed machine gun firing forward, and the gunner having his machine gun mounted on a pintle, so he can cover an arc of 1800.  He also has a third gun mounted to allow him to cover the rear, as this was a weak spot for pushers.  One notable feature is that there are no enclosures, or even protective windscreens.  Yes, it may look like wires, fabric and wood - because it is - but the FE in numbers was a dangerous opponent.  Art!

     The specs here aren't clear so allow me to inform you that the FE2d was powered by a 160 horsepower engine, an upgrade on the original 120 Hp version.  Conrad hasn't paid any attention to engine output previously, so I was curious what later model aircraft of the Second Unpleasantness were rated at.  Hmmm the humble Hurricane had an engine of 1,800 Hp, so eleven times more powerful.  I wonder - hang on - just looking up the Eurofighter Typhoon and they only give figures in Newtons and Lbf.  Ah - about 12,000 Hp.

     Hmmmm this Intro is now over half the total count.  Time to wrap it up.

Seeing Stars

Welllll only kind of.  Actually seeing Jupiter, which is just as impressive.  Art!

     This is another image taken by the hanky spanky James Webb Space Telescope, treated to create a bit of false-colour to bring out the image.  Here you can just see Jupiter's rings - did you know it had rings? - and two of the Jovian satellites: Amalthea is the larger bright dot and Adrastea is barely visible at the rim of the ring.  Also visible are the aurorae at Jupiter's poles.  The Great Red Spot looks a little wan, however.

"The Sea Of Sand"

Our next instalment of the saga you must so love, as nobody's Commented on it, which I take as vindication.

"As I said, the Dias is a gigantic trans-mat platform.  My guess is that curved building the machines keep popping back into is a combined factory and energy station."

     Neither men quite followed this explanation.

     "I mean, the machines are manufactured there.  The factory uses geo-thermal energy to create and power them - notice that they return there, probably for re-charging, every half-hour."

     Which begged another question, realised the Time Lord.  If the complex here used geo-thermal energy - and there was no doubt that it did - then what did those repellent destructive machines at Mersa Martuba drain biomorphic energy for?

     Perhaps that fallen spire would have used the energy in some fashion.  Long destroyed, perhaps it now rendered the alien technology's operations redundant.

     "Gosh, look at that!" whispered Albert urgently.  "Those domes!"

     He referred to the two intact domes, which had slowly shed their smothering blanket of sand.  Suddenly, any dust left on the glossy black curves shot into the air uniformly, drifting down to ground level without settling back onto the curved surfaces.

     Hmmm wonder what's going to be revealed inside?

More Picturesquenessosity

That's a word because I just decided it is, so there.  If you don't like it don't read BOOJUM! because I ain't backing down.  Art!

"Spreading Your Wings" by Thomas West

     Not sure what kind of bird this is - hang on - aha!  A white egret coming in to land.  One wonders how many other pictures he took that never got to this level of detail, clarity and action.  Not sure where the picture was taken as the egret has been spreading from southern Europe into the north in addition to living in Asia and Africa.  

     Hang on!  Quickly!  Let us check whether that archetypal Grumpy Old Man Of Rock, Donald Fagen, is still alive.  Art?

A face made for scowling

     Phew, yes, he's still hale and hearty and a pooper at yer party.

     You can carry on now.

Finally -

I've been so busy creating this scrivel that I've not looked out of the window for an age.  Last time I did it was all cloudless blue skies and now - it's night.  As black as the inside of a coal-sack.   One two three altogether now "The nights are drawing in".  For your information, "Coal" is a hard black substance that people used to heat their homes with, and which is a bit of a treat for Art when he gets peckish.  I've tried it myself and it's a bit meh.

     Toodle Pip!