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Saturday, 18 February 2023

The Towering Infernal

Or, If You Like, Architecture And Morality

I had to get that one in there.  No!  Nothing to do with Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, although I do like their first couple of albums and their debut had an interesting sleeve, which you could do with vinyl re

     ANYWAY once again we are looking at the architectural underpinnings of Tolkein's 'Lord Of The Rings', because Conrad is a hair-splitting pedant of the very best variety.  We've covered the Mines Of Moria, and the Argonath, and now it's time for Orthanc.  Art!


     That gives you some idea of how large this structure was: five hundred feet from base to summit, surrounded by a circular wall a mile in diameter.  The actual material seems to be vitrified in an unknown way, which is the 'infernal' part of today's title.  Art!


     Peter Jackson's production designers did an excellent job of bringing it to the screen, so much so that it inspired a Lego kit, which I think we've covered as of long ago - it's a tricky build because all the pieces are the same colour and there are so many of them.  Art!


     There you go, complete with Ent, Gwaihir, Saruman and Gandalf.  Other amateurs have also been inspired, in epic displays of people with entirely too much time on their hands.  Art!


     Of course - obviously! - none of this has anything to do with my particular take on the tower, which is - how did they build it?

     Ol' Tolky gave no clues, whilst implying that the Numenoreans who constructed it in the Second Age knew how to make it almost invulnerable to erosion or armed attack, and that these secrets were forgotten by the time Gandalf has his spat with Saruman.

     'Magic!' I hear you reply.

     'An easy cop-out that won't work here,' is Conrad's response.  We will in fact restrict ourselves to medieval-level technology; you know, horses, pulleys and lots of wood.  Art!


     This is how medieval masons constructed large buildings; with lots of wooden scaffolding, and for really tall structures they used cranes atop the highest part in order to haul materials up.  Art!


     We can accept the cranes but NOT the scaffolding.  Why not?  Because calculate the amount of wood needed to build scaffolding for a building 500 feet high, and about 100 feet to a side*.  It would be enormous.  And where would the wood have to come from?  Correct!  Fangorn Forest.  Your Humble Scribe cannot see the Ents look upon tree-felling with any degree of approval, so the Numenoreans would have avoided that route, which is where the morality comes in.  

     Well, they may have used small amounts of scaffolding to help construct the base of Orthanc.  Then they would have built a 'cradle' around the top, rather like a crown upon a head, and gradually moved it upwards as the construction grew higher.  I doubt there's any pictures of this anywhere,  but I shall hopefully prod Art with this pitchfork -

Best I can get

     If you have a work-crew up there 24/7 then you can get by winching the workers up and down, with an emergency ladder just in case.

     Modern skyscrapers use concrete and high-tensile steel in their construction; Orthanc, limited to working with stone and wood, must have had an upper limit beyond which it was impractical to work, which is why it stopped at 500 feet - one-fifth the height of the Burj Khalifa.

     Of course, I could be over-thinking this ...


Either "How Very Bizarre" Or "THE MEDDLING FOOLS!"

Conrad has just come across a rather strange video on the BBC News website, about a co-operative project between China and the US to build a - it's easier to illustrate.  Art!


     Well it shouldn't have broken whichever of the 3 Laws, then, shouldn't it?



     The robot is made out of gallium, a metal with a very low melting point, and magnetic particles.  When subjected to an alternating magnetic field, the metal becomes fluid and allows the robot to 'escape'.  Art!

Note the title!  Note the title!

     It's a bit of a cheat, because the robot has to be put back into a mould to re-acquire it's robot shape.  On the other hand -

THE MEDDLING FOOLS!

"The Sea Of Sand"

A little bit of skullduggery is taking place well behind British lines in North Africa.

Major Hampson sighed and nodded.  Very well then, it came down to bribery.

          ‘Look, sir, a hundred men in Murraycol went off on my say-so.  We’ve heard nothing from them and can’t contact them ourselves.  The depot and staff come under my responsibility, and by second-hand information I know they suffered casualties.  All I want to know is what is or isn’t happening at Mersa Martuba.’

          With that, he put a four-gallon petrol tin on the Group Captain’s desk.  Wordlessly, he undid a catch at the base, releasing the whole upper part of the tin, which he removed.  A bottle of Caribbean over-proof rum occupied the inside of the tin.

          ‘My chaps are stretched pretty tight,’ continued the Group Captain, eyeing the bottle with appreciation.  ‘That’s my chaps.  We do have the GMC on Middle East Desert Air Force strength, and they aren’t my chaps.’

          Major Hampson tried to look interested.

          ‘ “GMC”?’ he asked.

          ‘Free French pilots.  “Groupe Mixte de Combat”.  Dour lot.  No sporting chivalry of the air for them – killing Bosche or the Eyeties is their idea of a good time.’

          The cover went back on the petrol tin and Group Captain Windermere took charge of it with the avid attention of a parent cradling a child.

          ‘They fly Lysanders and Blenheim ground-attack birds.  We’ll ask them to conduct a familiarisation flight, see what’s up at your depot.’

          ‘I expect it’s nothing, really.  I just want to make sure.’

     Yes, I'll bet you've never heard of the GMC.  Entirely real.


An Interesting Question

From Quora:  

What are the pros and cons of being an HR professional (personnel)? How do you deal with people at workplace who don't respect your opinion because you're from HR department?

     Having worked in HR for the past 10 years I do have a bit of insight.  Conrad worked in the HR department of 2 large UK retail supermarkets.

     The cons: non-stop work that got even busier towards Christmas when seasonal staff are recruited.  Management who do not understand how HR databases work and that there are hard system limits we cannot overcome.  Backlogs as we didn't work Sunday or Bank Holidays but stores did.  'Answer-shopping' from managers who got advice they didn't like from one adviser, and who would ring back repeatedly trying to get a different answer.

    The pros: in the latter organisation I worked in, the staff and management were a pleasure to work with.  You got to interact with managers who appreciated the work we did, a lot more often that ones who didn't.  Whilst the outline of tasks remained similar, every day was different.  And we didn't deal in 'opinions', we dealt with systems and processes.  If you came across a problem you'd no experience with, other staff were happy to help.

     I miss that job :(

That's me on the 17th floor

Finally -

All this done before 12 noon, how diligent am I!  Alas the earlier sunshine has vanished and the clouds have rolled in.




*  Guesstimate here, there are all sorts of values put forwar.d

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