Suzuki MC

Forthcoming, and nobody does it better, Suzuki's 4-wheel drive mini-camper. I'd like to sell up, bid the UK farewell and drive off into the sunset. Except it'll never happen, the sun setting in the West and beyond us only sea.

David Hockney Post, Mortem.

Died recently and what I found most inspiring the fact he'd just two people attend his funeral ~ partner and nephew in his case ~ which I like the idea of for my own.

My favourite tale concerning was the time Billy Connolly and mother, born and bred in Glasgow, visited him and from the patio admired a San Fernando valley sprawled out below under the sort of sky that appeared in his paintings.

Mother's only observation: 'A drying day like this and not a washing-line in sight?'

Faulty Towers (Ref #13374406) Update

Did in fact get back to me a fortnight ago with promise of a refund (thanks Gemma) and free tickets (thanks Stevie), and whilst these are as yet unforthcoming we live in hope... and have promised a blog post with a positive spin greater than Nemesis.

Happy days tho' because chancellor Rachel Reeves has taken time out from kissing prospective PM Andy Burnham's ass to scrap sales tax on kids' meals and theme parks in summer.

It'll benefit VCs in the US bankrolling the rollers more than it may our dear children, but does divert us from the daily shit-show of politics in the UK.

And of course we're still enjoying the ride here on Britain's Best-Loved Blog*.

* Unsuitable for those under four feet in height except Nicola Sturgeon.

AC DC Bus

We wish the Swindon and Cricklade Railway well in their five-year restoration of the AC railcar pictured here.

You likely know little or nothing about railcars, but in the 1950s or 1960s it became clear that railways were being abandoned for roads and reducing cost on the former meant replacing locos and carriages with such as this: a coach that did rails as well as roads.

Some were literally adapted from an original chassis, like that Leyland introduced in the mid-1980s, which were replaced hereabouts just forty years later as part of the UK's effort to build Europe's worst rail service.

Readers in the US will be surprised, as I was, that the example being restored was originally built by AC of Cobra fame. Even more surprising, and this the joy of the internet, learning that AC was best-known until late for the 'Invacars' provided free by the government to those known as invalids until relatively recently.

The people driving them were truly invalided as you'd have no reason for driving it otherwise... though the head-boy had a Messerschmidt scooter that we'd fly around Ormskirk at an altitude of two feet on occasion.

As a part of successive governments efforts to expand the welfare state, people at a rate of a thousand a week are applying for disability benefits that as often as not include a regular car, ex-showroom, on a three-year recurring basis.

Nice work if you can't get it?

I accompanied our good friend Karl, at death's door during Covid, to apply for such a concession viz. PIP or Personal Independence Payments. Most passing through the waiting room appeared compos mentis, although our good friend was refused... and dead inside six months. I'd take him again to see if he qualifies now, but doubt his family would approve.

Carroll Shelby's Invacar led the pack at Le Mans in 1964 and 1965

On the Contrary

An example of how computing is revolutionising flight, here are single-bladed props running in opposite directions that can steer the drone in any direction by the motor being speeded up during one half of each revolution, and slowed in the other half.

Huge amount of sensing, intelligence and signalling to perform; bit then it's where all else is headed these days.

The only downside with single-bladed propellers ~ as nature found with sycamore seeds ~ is they require a counterweight and as any cyclist knows, wherever weight is being spun there's a loss of efficiency.

Ed. the sycamore's counterweight is the seed, Nature as ever providing the answer.

Axe to Grind

A British success story in the making, and unusual in so far as failure-redundancy drifts from the norm in not simply having fitted eight contra-rotating motors and propellers. It does have eight motors, though how they drive the propellers is not revealed... the website as so often with eVTOLs being light on technical details.

Nonetheless it is standard practise with helicopters to drive a single rotor from a gearbox connecting to turbine engines: where as here the blades themselves are viewed as the least-likely point of failure. As a pilot and world-renowned influencer I am comfortable with that, not least because this can be glided to a safe landing in extremis.

I'm less comfortable with the £150,000 price tag, although that's wholly reasonable in view of the price inflation affecting general aviation these days.

It does beg the question of how the founder progressed the project under Starmer's regime ~ where you're more likely to get a grant as a collective staging happenings that explore the meaning of gender, and which toilet we should use ~ whose answer is the fact that a pair of angel investors stumped up the required (and substantial) cash. I recall ~ and it won't surprise anyone ~ that they are both based in the US.

Am almost tempted to do a Joe Rogan on their founder, but can't be bothered.

Give a LIDL respect, toooo-oo-oo me...

Been giving the 'blog a lot of thought, and what it is you I might want from it and on reflection aside from boat-building it has to be making fun of the unfortunate, loathing humankind in general and above all, entertaining us (me mostly) over our morning coffee.

So we're going to touch on our lives as the living dead truckers, as we do that from time to time to pay the bills, don't we?

I once took an Indian flight-crew after training them in the simulator for a curry and a beer nearby Gatwick, and suggested to the lady captain it was perhaps not done to snap her fingers whenever she required the waiter's attention. It was however a simple reflection of the caste system, I guessed, in which everyone has their place.

It's as true in every society, not least here in Britain where truckers (a) keep your every need supplied and (b) are rightly viewed as the 'untouchable' caste, not least among the warehouse operatives who ~ being just one rung above ~ will often be determined to make the most of it and especially so at 01:34, as when I arrived in the early hours of the morning of 24th June:

Stark contrast to a pleasant late-evening traverse of the Woodhead Pass, as visits to LIDL's distribution centre rank among least favourite, principally because they expect you to do much of the unloading and rearranging of goods that used ~ and still so often is ~ by warehouses themselves. It's why German supermarkets are able to undercut British... by exploiting suppliers in much the same way.

Thus it is that before going anywhere I'd to scan two dozen pages of invoices from suppliers, so that LIDL didn't need to, before being provided with 'training' on an electric pallet-truck that consisted of a tick-box hand-out that no, I couldn't retain for the purposes of reference because it had to be filed away. I was told through that I would be met at the door of Bay 90 (circled) for training on opening the door and lowering the ramp.

Except they don't let you in. The door marked GOODS INWARD DRIVERS DOOR is no longer in use except for egress, but they don't tell you that, and nor do any of the pushbuttons connect except to an engaged tone. You are expected to use the unmarked door farther along instead, where the pushbuttons are equally ineffective and drivers kick the door hard enough to hope one of their number will let them in.

In view of this: no lady to meet at Bay 90 where, it not being rocket-science, I raise the door and drop the ramp myself. So, health and safety, LIDL O and Colin 1.

I had though been given a driving lesson with the electrified pallet-truck, which are quite entertaining to use except that here in Runcorn (unlike Lutterworth) they're old and rusty, and work only intermittently or left uncharged ~ your problem at 02:00 a.m. and not LIDL's... so shut the fuck up and remember who you are.

Nice ginger-haired lady I do look for, who advises me to leave the (two) pallets of frozen food nearest the bay door. Remember this for later.

I then proceed eventually to unload two-dozen chilled pallets of food from a variety of suppliers who've done their best, although prior the final frozen pallet the pallet-truck that has been sub'd repeatedly dies a death. I'd gone to get gloves meantime to handle goods kept at -22C, but this being LIDL couldn't get back in for a further fifteen minutes. But hey, it's only my time isn't it?

I therefore approach the guy with piercings everywhere ~ nose, ears, tongue and brain ~ and say I'd like to speak to a manager. He wheels out the modern litany of workplace responses, 'I thimply find your attitude not overly helpful, and thlightly confrontational...' before dropping the Newspeak and telling me to fuck off, when I know I'm making progress.

His manager, driving a long-fork truck deigns to step down from his or her mount, as 'they' look like an effeminate Andy Burnham and I wonder what the biological sex might be. Tourette's Colin is asking, 'You a girly bloke, or a fucking ugly girl?' and being ugly myself, I forgive him it.

I invite him/her/they to take a look at both pallet-trucks and warehouse means of ingress, but she refuses. I mean, who takes time out to respond to complaints from a greasy trucker?

Meantimes piercings-man ~ definitely a man ~ interrupts looking at his phone from time to time with telling people what to do and directs me to move the frozen pallet to the far end of the line, whereupon I let him know at a distance of twenty metres that that is not what LIDL previously requested.

Previously he'd relished the oppo to tell me too ~ seeing I'd nothing better to do ~ to split some of the pallets of food by supplier onto separate pallets, and here's me wondering why it wouldn't be simpler just to take a warehouse job instead?

It's why the bulk of warehouse operatives and drivers are East European, because capital (or should I say Das Capital?) knows they're wholly expendable. Well they're drifting back to the places set to overtake the UK in terms of per capita wealth, so what will LIDL customers do when ageing British drivers (average fifty-five) figure out it'd be easier to join everyone else on benefits instead?

Things getting a little heated now at the refrigerated warehouse, so I suggest 'they' give me the keys as it's GAME OVER. Am told this is not possible without me placing a 999 call to say I'm being detained against my will here at Cold-itz... and you see the thought flicker momentarily across the face. So instead I'm told that I can go, and that they'll instead trash all twenty-five remaining pallets of food.

So, Ryan McDonnell, CEO of LIDL's GB operation, we'd all like to know whether you or your staff really are bloody-minded enough to have ditched thousands of pounds worth of food instead of splitting a few pallets on a night-shift (when to be fair you could be watching YouTube instead)?

The pic's of Ryan taking tea on the terrace at Westminster, as per his LinkedIn blog. 

No cream teas for us, eh Ryan?

Ed. The URL has been provided Ryan, whose response to contact ref #134554601 is to appear here. To androgynous or pierced warehouse operatives everywhere, we salute you getting out of bed to pursue what's a fairly shit job. And for reasons of transparency, Colin does enjoy a cream tea.

Re: Iteration

And this the advantage of learning by doing, improving the speed and efficacy with which things can be manufactured. Here's the 6mm laminate, and I notice that if I score just one side without an incision that spans both, the material can be folded relatively intact and filleted with adhesive along the inside joint.

In fact you could go one further and arrange for all four sides to be foldable like an origami kit, with the three sides set as here and the fourth separately so prior to the addition of the two end-caps that support the assembly between the pontoons.

From the Sublime...

... to the rigidcoolness.

We'll stick with the outline we have after all, after something of a 'long dark night of the soul' on June 21st, which was more of a long light day it having been a solstice.

What we have though in 20mm laminated foam is sufficient to support the 79 kilos I am trying to reduce in an effort to fit into a suit in time for a wedding. That's twelve and a half stone, on someone who for decades hovered around ten and a half.

Backing-board foams now come, as we saw lately, in 6mm, 10mm, 12.50mm and this one here; so let's build in the thinnest of these to see what we'll get away with.

S'kier Starmer

A politician's but a walking shadow,

A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Apologies to Shakespeare but as good a description of the state of democracy as any.

Ed. Kier Starter resigns as Prime Minister, the sixth to do so in barely more years.

Cloud Appreciation Society

High pressure sits over northwest Europe and much of the UK, resulting in ~ if any at all ~ clouds like these outside my front door this morning.

The society boasts over 60,000 members and could only have been conceived in a country like Britain, which has a society for anything you could think of... the notion of naming types of cloud at all could only really have sprung from hereabouts too.

I've read the book, but have yet to join not ever having been much of a joiner. I do know though that these are cirrocumulus, forming what's known as a mackerel sky.

Gary Robert Gress

Was at the GoFly challenge finals with us and a dozen others, and unlike us goes on to the GoAero challenge currently underway; each focused on scaling drone science to transport humans from one place or circumstance to another.

What I like about this man is that aside from being at an age when, like me, he may be forgiven for life of quiet contemplation: is instead still designing eVTOLs, artwork and tee-shirts.

Current focus appears to be on two-motored means of aerial support using motors that can be tilted in order to provide three-dimensional control throughout hovering and forward flight.

It begs the question as to what happens should one motor fail, but the problem with aviation regulation in this century is its undue reliance on failure redundancy. If you are flying to Australia I can understand you wanting to arrive in one piece, whilst in contrast the chances of one of these falling from the sky and doing you any sort of damage is on a par with your winning the Euromillions jackpot.

You're probably a billion times more likely to be mugged for your phone in Paris or London as you have being struck by an errant electrical flying machine, and nobody appears to be doing anything about that or the electrical scooter used in its pursuit.

The diminishing power of politicians and civil servants however does mean that that which is most easily regulated ~ flying machines ~ is so obsessively in the way that cancer becomes the preoccupying pathology of a mortal frame facing certain death.

Ed. Sorry that couldn't be more upbeat, Gary.

Kit Cat?

Drafted a sizeable model of this same day, and came to wish I hadn't: it's intriguing and stupid at the same time.

Wickes-epedia

Friday evening last returning from work swung by Wickes where I find the range of laminated foams growing by the month; and help myself to these quarter-inch viz. 6mm sheets. They are aimed at under-flooring heating, but provide a perfect means of modelling boats.

Long-term prisoners of the blog will recall how there was a time when we'd jump in the car and drive for an hour in search of super-thin laminated hardwood sheets to use as a waterproof backing for foam... and now it's been done for us. So all things really do come to those who wait.

We must however stick to the knitting and get back to designing and building boats, which is after all what we're here for. Been in the slough of despond ~ distinct from the Slough of Berkshire where once I worked ~ as to which direction to steer a blog in, and the conclusion I came too was that the world has too many opinions, but too few flat-pack catamarans.

The Cat and Financial Fiddle

We interrupt this blog with an urgent message for the Cat and Fiddle, late of Macclesfield... 

This last bank holiday in the UK, the vast readership of this weblog joined us in a visit to the Peak District of Derbyshire and its surrounds, a visit only marred for us by (a) the power failing at the family's beloved Alton Towers and (b) a fine local ale proving more bitter than expected by a request for £100 for the privilege of parking at your historic hostelry between the hours of 14:09 and 14:31, whilst proceeding in a westerly direction.

I understand this operation has been contracted out to an outfit best described as Ozzies-on-the-Make, and am sure that a mutual love of the amber nectar stands me in good favour in relation to this matter?

On the day in question I was wholly unaware throughout the visit that charges were levied against free-riders there for less wholesome pursuits like hiking. In fact if we look at Exhibit A in the illustration (ringed in red), you will appreciate that it's wholly possible to arrive ~ and leave worse the wear ~ at the spot without cognisance of the signs provided. As indeed, your lordship, would happen to us on this occasion.

In fact looking again at the handout, I have located our own vehicle (captured here by your own camera and framed in yellow) at the spot I think it occupied. Imagine yourselves if you would, walking from thereabouts and whether you too might miss the signage provided?

Happily however examination of Google's own photographic record, provided here by their little orange man, shows how customers of the facility ought not suffer a charge should they register a vehicle upon arrival. Might the barman in your opinion not put that to customers in order that they do not end up paying £110 for a round? I think so... as I may you, members of the jury.

For indeed, there it is... the 'smoking gun' in the form of evidence framed in blue that I did in fact purchase a pint of ale (and shandy for a fourteen-year old who was only there to drive me home in the circs).

Ed. The Cat and Fiddle was among the highest pubs in England, located on a pass beloved of bikers. The above is a heartfelt appeal for withdrawl of Parking Charge No. SP60807464 and has been forwarded to the proprietors in the shape of Forest Distilleries, besides those thieving Ozzy bar stewards. If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this post, don't bother me.

Bit of a Wall-y

Captain Geoff Wall has been removed from operations at Air Canada after flying for seventeen years without a licence.

The airline has said that he's not a captain, he's a very naughty boy.

In my considered opinion as a one-time airline training captain, I should like to say that the lack of a licence matters not a bit; with two pilots up front it's soon obvious to their opposite number if either's short of the full ticket.

I'd a friend who joined the A330 operation servicing an RAF transport requirement... as a captain, despite never having been one. After a period I recall of some three weeks, closer examination showed that the reference on his CV was Jabba Desilijic Tiure ~ better known for appearing in Star Wars than for his exploits in airliners*.

Occasionally people walk around in white coats and get to become surgeons, and as with people like Geoff Wall, they're usually more motivated than the average NHS employee instead of less.

One was even tasked to operate on my own brain, which is why this blog is as it is.

* My friend made The Sun newspaper under the headline 'Jobba the Hutt' and later went on to infiltrate the KGB dressed as Darth Vader.

The Angel of the North

I wish to send waves of positivity to whoever handed my wallet ~ formerly of the first cubicle at the gents' toilets, Birch Services Eastbound on the M62 ~ to Costa Coffee for safekeeping, wholly intact.

I cannot ever sit on a public lavatory seat ~ a cross I bear throughout life, so hit the donations button below ~ without recalling a time I relieved myself at Brussels Airport of more than I expected.

I transferred my wallet from rear trouser-pocket to toilet-roll dispenser in the time-honoured fashion, only to leave it there subsequent. I did tho' realise what I'd done prior to leaving the airport, and when retracing my steps am sure I passed someone I shall forever view as the world's luckiest lavatory-cleaner.

Wallet and cards were as they were, minus the 500-Euro note which for a reason I still cannot fathom I'd withdrawn from an ATM some days prior. The EU is likely the only institution to print so large a denomination, which is designed to make the money-laundering at which we excel so much easier.

When in China, I could not help noticing that their own largest note was worth just ten pounds for precisely the reverse... it would mean that I left the country passing through the scanner like Michelin Man on steroids. Other pilots were smarter, simply converting cash into gold coins that would barely register at the security section.

The value of that note from 2005 in today's terms is $900... enough for the guy to have bought his 'forever' toilet-brush.

Ed. The halo above the signage is not photo-shopped but a reflection of the lighting above, and now attracts pilgrims from all over the world who seek to cure their prostates.

Scrappy Mondays

You won't believe it but influencers like me are actually paid to spend time at places like this while you have to go to work. Was a bad start tho' because I came across a low bridge enroute and had to reverse a 40-foot trailer back to the intersection in the rush-hour. British motorists are indulgent in such circs, whereas in the US you'd be shot dead... leaving a semi in the way and no-one to move it.

This though is where your tinnies go to their final resting place before being shipped to India now that we'd be struggling to smelt a Mars bar here in the UK. The place is full of flies though, attracted to whatever was left in the tins, and on a happier note this actually attracts swallows... a long way here tho' from the setting for Swallows and Amazons.

On an unhappier note the cab is now full of flies, a pair shagging on my dashboard.

English Lit Set Text 15 Jun

Examine the following to discuss a deterioration of language due to smartphones:

William Shakespeare: The wren goes to it, the gilded fly doth lecher in my sight.

Colin Hilton: There's a couple of flies here shaggin' on my dash!

Straw Poll Man

This simply lowers the tone of the debate, and the British should bow their heads in shame at including Carol Vorderman. I've no idea who James O'Brien is, Bonnie has fucked a thousand of us, and Kier Starmer 69.940,978 at the last count.

The Salt Path-ology

I listened to the podcast ~ not having gone near the book, film or tee-shirt.

Scandalous the way this pair of chancers has been treated though. In a country that looks more fraudulent by the day, we should celebrate this salty couple for doing a runner at every opportunity except perhaps along the path itself.

What I most enjoyed, as I told the Times Literary Supplement, is the way it made shysters like the UK's publishing industry and piss-poor press look equally stupid.

Ed. And where's OUR invite to Hay-on-Wye's literary festival?

Trial By Firestick

It's high-school exam season and I thought it wise to subject followers of the 'blog to similar strictures, designed to separate the transport top-guns from those short of the full ticket.

Accordingly, examine the hand-out on your desks, which is the content Google's AI thinks that a good friend of mine might be interested in on a Friday evening after a hard day lying on the bunk of an articulated tractor-unit... like my good friend.

Select the vid of your choice, and then sit back and listen to what our own native AI program ~ DeepShit ~ has to say about your choice and whether you're a good fit, or need to leave the room quietly and take the bus home like me at RAF recruitment.

Do this before scrolling further down beyond this line, because I can't be bothered with a separate results page.

Now hand in your papers please, with the four most-watchable vids in sequence.

(The examination board is not going to analyse the permutations involved, as that's too hard and we love a quitter.)

Accordingly, simply examine your first choice and read on to discover whether you shape up, or feature at the invertebrate end of the spectrum:

The Bra-Less Ladies of Turkmenistan: no escaping the fact your a disappointment to the blog, not least because they've spelt 'uncensored' wrong but also because that cleavage looks to our minds to be AI-generated and not worth the feeling. It is also Google's highlighted choice, which is decidedly suspicious and embarrassing should your parents be in the room... as will be the case with most of our readers.

Unseen Vintage Photos: it's a pass, but you've barely scraped through.That woman is not vintage, has been seen often at Wetherspoons in Ormskirk and borrowed the SS uniform from a fancy dress-shop. The composition was also staged in a section of IKEA, where she was briefly arrested for nudity and impersonating a member of the UK's special forces.

The Andoni Iraola Problem: go home and enjoy the summer because you made the cut with this analysis of the new coach at Liverpool FC, but we want you back before next term for remedial training.

Why It Failed: or why we don't use hydrofoils anymore. The perfect Friday-evening fare, and you've aced the test. You are invited to the blog's summer-camp at China's Shaolin Temple, where the monks will demonstrate how to terminate a Ted-talk in short order.

(Whilst working in Shanghai the airline treated us to a jamboree and banquet during which there was a Kung Fu demonstration by a man dressed in loose black clothing. Having imbibed several litres of Tsingtao I was minded to join him on stage and naked from the waist up, to say 'Come over 'ere if you think you're hard enough.' Though it's one thing I regret not doing in my flying career, at least I'm still alive.)

Ed. A reader has asked if that's a 1:1200 scale RMS Titanic on the mantelpiece, and qualifies for a free ticket to our summer-camp.

Conflict Resolution Set

We come here, don't we, to our 'anti-social media' site to avoid the doom-scroll and look for creative ways in which to bring the world together, and accordingly we are delighted to include among our merch pages this attractive set of die (baize surface not included) to use to keep a populace abreast of how things are going peace-wise.

Simply roll as leader on waking prior to the business of the day, and announce:

    P,P & P       'All we are saying, is give peace a chance.'

    P, P & W     'Deal is expected to be announced in days.'

    P, W & W    'Expect we'll hit them very hard, very hard.' 

    W, W & W   'We'll be bombing them back to Blockbuster.'

I render thanks to Google's Gemini for the render, the result of foundational work in London by Demis Hassabis, Shane Legg, and Mustafa Suleyman... so blame them.

Ed. Yeah, thanks for nothing and there goes my ESTA application.

Surrey, What?

As we celebrate Elon Musk's elevation to trillionaire-hood, spare a thought for these people if you would, in whom he once invested a 10% stake. It's the people at the research park in Guildford who make commercial satellites of the sort powering the Starlink network.

Musk was intrigued at how they had reduced the cost of building satellites by orders of magnitude, which in turn inspired him to do the same with rockets. As a result a Space X rocket will soon be able to lower the cost of launching a kilogram into orbit by a factor of forty... in a virtuous circle that circles the planet.

Ed. Staff are required to use caps because they also make the sandwiches at lunchtime.

More 'Zing' Becomes Electra

This you've got to like and as we've seen how individuals can turn pages, so too can a small number of students at M.I.T. who went on to build a company around 'blown wing' take-off and landing performance.

Concept's not new, but able to be practically implemented by distributed electrical propulsion backed by an onboard generator. They point out that 30 airports serve the USA's commercial airline network, but with an ability to operate inside 300 feet, their Electra extends the number of those nodes to nearer 30,000.

Great things apparently come in threes.

The title a riff on Mourning Becomes Electra, last used mostly to reference a number of losses of the Lockheed Electra to wing flutter. I sat in one once at Edinburgh as I ran the night mail... must be the only flight-deck wide enough to require a separate flap-lever within the reach of each pilot.

In the Navee, you can put your mind at ease...

If you don't think individuals make a difference ~ and it's trendy not to in the UK ~ the results of a YouTuber's months-long effort to build a DIY ground-effect machine has seen the design being marketed as a commercial product... the world's first and naturally from China.

As that nice man from New Zealand points out on his channel it is what anyone who has watched ground-effect videos at 0200 a.m. (and who hasn't?) wants; although at this point in time you'd need to find circa $100,000.

That cost, as with EVs, will doubtless fall in time and this really is one more regime that electrification is making possible following decades of effort in which individuals as stupid as me have lost fortunes trying.

All the action in ground-effect is taking place in the US, China, South Korea and in fact Singapore... with rearguard efforts still underway in Germany and Russia where much of the foundational work took place.

In the UK if you found the wherewithal to do any of this without being shot down by taxes, regulation, scepticism or anywhere to test it without complaint... then no-one would be at all surprised.

In fact apart from the outline I built at scale and uploaded to Boat Design's website in the US, I see no evidence of anyone doing anything whatsoever in the field.

All in all though it adds another layer to China's much-vaunted strategy to dominate the electrification of transport both on land and in the air (inset).

We're trying to do something similar with drones in and around Swindon, but as you can imagine, with products developed elsewhere.*

* By NEROS, STARK et al.

Rescue Bot

This is what, in the first inst, rescued two downed crew from an Apache helicopter in the Straits made famous recently by US efforts to bring peace in our time. It is thus the first rescue at sea by robot, and a red-letter day for drone-lovers a world over.

Look at the RNLI's website in contrast and ~ despite constant pleas on morning TV to leave them a legacy ~ there is nairy a drone of any sort in sight. I suspect it is because, unlike the lady who founded the institution with only a rowing-boat and a sore arse, it is a lot more fun riding around the seaside in an expensive RIB than to sit in that lookout wearing a pair of Mark Zuckerlump's 3-D spectacles.

Ed. Do consider the author's bravery too, in view of the fact criticising the RNLI in the UK is up there with drowning kittens.

Route 66

With leftovers from what I used for a bath-panel I knock up a couple of 66% scale sections of the cats I figure we'll be able to float in the eBay bath-tub I've to set up in the garage, and I put one on the floor and ask it were it able to speak then what would it be saying to me?

For we're at a crossroads and I realise that as your captain, you're relying on me to bring you to safe harbour. What do we want from this, what do we REALLY want?

In fact what do we really really really want, zig-a-zig ah?

In WW2 if you'd ideas like bouncing bombs then the MoD would set up a task force and you'd all dress in a khaki coat and drive down to the south coast to build and to test it, to film it in 8mm, to shout 'hurrah!' and go for a pint of ale.

Nowadays you have to form a company for a government that only wants to screw the tax out of it like lemon juice, all presented on a plate... but that's not us, is it? We don't want to run a company, do we, at our age? We've no need of money, for we know life is essentially a vale of misery and the blog an illusory veil that merely postpones the inevitable date of our death.*

(I planned on a round-table here to discuss all of this, but couldn't find a round one and so had to make do with an oblong discussion instead.)

For at the end of the day, do we go down the thoroughbred drone route and confine ourselves to sailing from armchairs using headsets that only make Mark Zuckerlump even richer than the rest of us?

'No, no, no, no, no!' as Margaret Thatcher was most famous for saying beside 'Fuck the miners.'

For we want something we can sit in too, or at least something we can sit in and sail digitally together into a sunset. And so tho' I've drone designs up my metaphorical sleeve, we'll persist with the flat-cat but continue to refine it to the point where it is as feasible to chimpanzees as to you and I with our extra 1% of DNA.

So do join me now if you would in telling the cat we're not quite finished with it yet?

After all you can only get sectioned for it.

* Ed. He puts that on application forms.

iMigration

People in the UK have become quite exercised this week with issues of immigration, legal or illegal, which is worth looking at in the cold light of a laptop's screen over a flat white and a flat biscuit.

I can't recall whether it was travel writer Wilfred Thesiger or King Charles' favourite explorer Laurens Van der Post who wrote it, but I'm quite sure it was the legendary Colin Hilton who read it ~ the suggestion that the car and aeroplane were what had destroyed diversity in the world from one country to another.

Put that into context: Thesiger arrived once at a village in some or other desert-ified place and seeing his Land Rover the locals brought hay (or the equivalent) to feed it with, not having seen one before. Before you question whether that were possible in the twentieth century, consider that not that long prior when horses were first seen in the Americas the locals figured horse and man were together a species of human being... which would have delighted the ancient Greeks, who did the same to goats and bulls, albeit more often in stone.

Migration is therefore simply a networking issue to which we've to add smartphones as the cherry on the icing when it comes to lubricating the process. The lifestyle we most enjoy ~ and wish to continue enjoying ~ is thus the one that most persuades and enables people in moving vast distances from A to B.

The car, for instance, is King and governments like our own do all in their power to ensure that life is practically impossible without one; an effort replicated throughout the West.

The aeroplane is effectively subsidised and operates as a tax-free Nirvana in which a population is moved seamlessly in pursuit of work, leisure, friends and relatives. It's the Queen, of buckets and Spades.

The phone, which our lives revolve around, ensures that the comparative paradise the UK is can be communicated elsewhere in order that ever-expanding networks on the ground and in the air can be exploited to the greatest extent: the Jack, of all trades.

Given this, in view of the fact we're voluntarily fuelling the process, what politicians of any colour are able to do is likely to be as effective as King Canute in claiming to be able to defeat the tide: running around the room shouting 'Smash the gangs!' all they're really missing are the party-hats.

Here on the blog we're interested in the physical world moreso than the human, and the whole thing is fascinating only so far as its parallels with processes of osmosis or diffusion.

Isn't it, Gromit?

My friend who arrived via inflatable joined a weekend in the Peak District and seeing video of me at a parkrun or a drunken BBQ in the summer sun, who wouldn't want the chance to share a sausage with an influencer?