Wandering Mentally, Conrad's Work Ethic Is Far Too Strong For Him To Meander
Unusually, there were a few spaces between phone calls this morning instead of one coming in hot on the heels of a previous one, so Your Humble Scribe was diverted by watching an excavator busy shifting piles of rubble in the direction of Strangeways. No, you don't get a picture, management are pretty hot on instantly sacking anyone wandering with a mobile phone. Instead - Art!
An excavator, just 'One Louder'
Naturally my keen and analytical mind focussed in on the practicalities of an excavator. Why did they come to be? Who invented them? When did they arrive on the scene?
Here an aside. I did think today's title had echoes of that album by Jefferson Airplane, "After Bathing At Baxter's", though I wasn't going to lead with a picture of it because it's probably at least 50 years old and nobody would know what I was talking about. Art!
Yup. 1967.
ANYWAY the impetus for creating a giant digger came from the engineering projects that came into being in the early nineteenth century, canals and railways to the fore. These were very labour-intensive efforts that required thousands of men to dig and carry the spoil, spades and wheelbarrows being the tools of choice. Art!
Enter William S. Otis, a South Canadian partner in an engineering firm, who were endeavouring to construct a railway, with all the attendant labour costs. You know South Canadian management, they hate paying for things if they can possibly be gotten cheaper. So, in 1835 Ol' Bill begot himself to inventing, and he came up with this. Art!
Possibly inspired by the railway engines that would be puttering down his railway, this beast was powered by a steam engine, that worked to raise and lower the bucket. The bucket could be lowered, then moved forward to scoop up spoil, at which point it was dragged to one side in order to dump the spoil into waiting barrows or wagons. Art!
As you can see, it ran on four dinky little rail wheels, mounted on a temporarily-laid track to where it needed to be. The idea took a while to catch on, with varying improvements being added: steel cables instead of chains, a rotating chassis that could move through 360ยบ, and mounting caterpillar tracks to allow free movement across ground. Art!
Since major urban metropoli of South Canada were expanding enormously in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, what were known as 'Steam shovels' were used to excavate foundations and basements.
And, also the Suez and Panama canals. One can only guess at the amount of man-hours that would have gone into these projects if they'd been done merely by hand. Even with these mechanical contrivances it still took a decade to excavate the Panama Canal; we'd still be waiting for the hand-dug version*. Art!
Panaman at work
Time marches on. By the Thirties the valiant coal-powered steamer had given way to the diesel-engined excavator, which maintains it's position of superiority, and it probably will continue to do so until they manage to build a safe and compact nuclear power plant that's not as big as a house. Art!
Conrad is minded of Marty T's virtuoso use of his battered yet hale excavator in removing flood spoil from a culvert. One man was able what would have taken a team of half a dozen by hand, and with a fraction of the risk. Art!
Conrad could probably find enough niche stuff about excavators to fill the rest of today's blog -
But I will be merciful and refrain.
More Fun With Tidal Islands!
Several years ago we had a long succession of articles about tidal islands around This Sceptred Isle, a subject Conrad found intensely interesting, because that's how his mind works. These are islands that can only be reached on foot when the tide's out.
What follows are less tidal islands than not-quite-flooded islands, namely the Halligens, ten islands situated off the North Teuton coast. Art!
Only five are inhabited, because they are very low-lying, and rising sea levels have already drowned a lot of them. When the North Sea has a storm, these people know about it in the most direct way. Art!
The islands have their own semi-Freisian dialect, quite distinct from normal Teuton, as with the inhabitants of Heligoland, which you can see to their east on the map.
I'm sure I've seen Tom Scott visiting one of these places because I seem to remember him taking a trip in the world's smallest railway train, as below. Art!
Visit while you can, because these places will be underwater in a couple of decades.
Hardly
Conrad is unsure if I'll be able to get the background article up again, so I shall at least put up the image I captured. Art!
This is the Daily Express being either disingenuous or lazy, because there's nothing 'secret' about it. In fact Quora had a question about it yesteryon. Art!
The Republic has an 'arrangement' with the RAF that is based on sheer practicality, because Ireland lacks a modern air force, anti-aircraft SAM systems, defence radar networks and all the paraphernalia that the UK has. Art!
The Irish Army Air Corps thus costs the state next to nothing, and the Brylcreem Boys in their Terror Typhoons get to practice intercepting Ruffian bombers and shooing** them out of airspace that doesn't belong to them.
It's hardly secret. More - discreet.
Are We There Yet?
Conrad has been valiantly parsing "The Magic Flute" in search of the titular instrument, to no avail. Let's get back to the plot. You remember, there was Tamino the fainting milksop, and Papageno the bird-catcher (not much of a promotion-structure but at least he's self-employed), the three female attendees of the Queen Of The Night and Queenie herself. Art!
The hat got a separate credit
Queenie promises Tamino that her abducted daughter, Pamina, will be his if he rescues her from the demon Sarastro, who h
HANG ON! This is the coward who went into an artificial coma when he was being chased by a snake. Queenie expects this jellyfish to save her daughter? Art!
Sarastro: half-demon, half-citrus fruit
FINALLY! The Three Attendees return and give Tamino a magic flute, which "turns sorrow into joy", and then th
HANG ON AGAIN! That's it? 'Turns sorrow into joy'? How about it shoots lasers when played, or kills people stone dead at a particular pitch, or even gives you five minutes of breathable oxygen underwater?
'Turns sorrow into joy'?
BAH!
I See The Beeb Is Having Another Themed Photo Exhibition
This one is on that of 'Spring', so one wonders how many bad puns are going to be expressed visually <sighs> that's my job. Okay, Art, let's have an inspect.
Courtesy Stuart Manktelow
I warned you. These gazelles romping around for the sheer fun of it are Springboks, apparently, at Damaraland in Namibia. They inspired the photographer to exclaim, every time he saw them "It's springtime!"
Finally -
I'm going to have to have a shower tonight, the weather has been exceptionally hot and I am a big fat sweaty blob. I also need to check and see if the Arena is having an Event, since there seemed to be one in preparation tonight (though I snuck through even with my unfeasibly large rucksack). In which case it's Dinky Manbag to the rescue!
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| Our Hero |
* "But it's so artisan!"
** Yes, SHOOING, as in 'To shoo someone out the door.' Not SHOOTING. That would be bad.
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