Lego, Legas, Legat?

This I like a lot... though perhaps not to the extent of the 9000+ piece Titanic that measures 1.35 metres. Unlike much else amongst Lego I suspect the demographic purchasing each differs considerably from the regular, not least because of price.

My own intro to Lego stretched only so far as plastic brick, window-frame, base and roof. And having been based flying from Billund as the museum was being built, I know that prior that the original bricks had been wooden.

Kind of ironic that what Lego produce now would be impossible without assistance from digital computers for both design and manufacture ~ whilst Concorde flew off the back of analogue computers that stretched to its fly-by-wire control system: the first fitted to an airliner, in fact.

A common misconception is the word was derived from Latin, but is actually Danish for 'Hurry up and invent the internet'.

New Sales Leeds

Wherever you go, whatever you do, be curious.

Here at Manchester's newest air terminal I spot from the gate lengths of polymer I'm sure I've seen elsewhere; and the elsewhere was watching it being loaded into a container for export to the US.

It stems from Leeds, a place which besides bequeathing us Grand Theft Auto was a place where a family man set up a factory in 1984 to produce rolls of plastic film.

Bouncing back from a flood five years later that almost literally sunk the business, they couldn't help noticing the cardboard rolls the film was stored on were prone to damp, which wrote off the entire product.

And so they created machines to extrude polymer (plastic) tubes instead. Meantime Coca-Cola asked them to supply 10,000 polymer pallets, which was how they found there were endless uses for plastic tubing.

And as ever it met a need, for the steel barriers protecting their own equipment and walkways were proving costly to repair and not tremendously good at sustaining impacts. The polymer version proved to be, to the extent it is now exported to 64 other countries beside the US.

It's used at Heathrow, as appears on the website, but they've omitted to include the use at Manchester ~ I'm guessing because the new Terminal 5 at LHR preceded T2 at MAN and they've yet to catch up.

So I've done that for them, haven't I?

A-Safe, it's called.

Parting Shot

Belatedly politicians here UK ~ most of whom can't change a light-bulb without the manual ~ have noticed UK-funded university researchers take the first chance they can to develop their ideas in the US. And who could blame them?

The government had a body it funded in the shape of the British Technology Group (or BTG) that underwrote such research besides funding ideas from the likes of me, albeit without the same sort of success as monoclonal antibodies or MRI technology.

In fact I met Margaret Thatcher's minister for technology off the back of it and may he rest in peace*. It did not stop her ~ or her devil's spawn in the shape of Tony Blair ~ from shutting it down.

Its piss-poor substitute was NESTA, which describes itself as a UK charity devoted to sustainable living, fairer starts and healthier lives viz. bollocks. It was funded at the outset by vice in the form of gambling revenue drawn from the National Lottery; whereas now despite advertising as a charity, it still draws upon government grants from the likes of us.

We R.I.P'd Graham Barker on these pages recently, and so we'll leave the last word to him regarding, shall we?

Funny how we live on in our digital traces, though...

* Ed. Although it sounds like he was killed in a drive-by shooting by the author, we should point out it was 'Big-Tech Tony' who fired the fatal shot.

Heart to Heart

And while we're talking engine efficiency, at the same time Heart Aerospace fly the largest electric airliner to date in the shape of this 30-seat regional aircraft. It began with two motors and has grown two more, and all of it in Sweden before decamping ~ as you must with these things ~ to California.

The founder did attend M.I.T. in fairness and some seven years ago teamed up with Y Combinator to develop what you see here. He does suggest in the promo vid that jet engines are equally as costly and burdensome to build and maintain compared to electric motors, which simply isn't true.

I say that because tiny jet-turbines have made remarkable strides in recent years whilst remaining relatively affordable, and turbo-propeller engines are as reliable and as fuel-efficient as ever... as witnessed by the ongoing success of the ATR-42 and -72 that I flew for a spell.

It'll be a while before they've the range to compete as well: in one ill-advised foray* I flew an ATR between Stansted and the Canaries on behalf of drunken oil-rig crew, albeit with a fuel-stop in Faro. Nonetheless in terms of economy and ease of maintenance electric airliners are looking inevitable going forward.

My one reservation relates to the under-floor battery-storage. Turbo-propeller types rarely include a central fuel-tank in order to simplify manufacture, therefore storing fuel in the wings. Any damage here and though you might get a fire it is at some remove; whereas battery fires once begun are practically inextinguishable. So it may get a little hot underfoot, but then we'll be used to that from cars by then.

At the end of the day however its a numbers game, and so we can afford a few fry-ups.

* Titan Airways, before they got posh, operated turbo-props on contracts that would include ferrying oil-rigs workers from work-base to home-base. Having spent three months dry they would stock up in duty-free to consume onboard i.e. during those eight hours we spent enroute the Canaries. The toilet was at the rear on the ATR, where I'd be told by any number of Rob C. Nesbitts that I was their 'best mate'. On arrival in Tenerife one of them stood on the top air-stair and perhaps thinking he was at home, stepped sideways onto the tarmac six-feet below.

In for the Long Haul

Although I failed as an airline pilot, the last type I flew clearly hasn't as United gets to launch it on long-haul services: like between Washington and Toulouse.

That's listed as an 08:15 hour flight and ~ at least when I was flying ~ a reserve of 00:45 minutes and diversion fuel for a 00:30 diversion is also required, in this case for an endurance of some 09:30.

That's largely down to ongoing efficiency gains on the part of turbo-fan jet engines, with a little thrown in by those winglets.

The farthest I flew ~ of an evening ~ would have been Shanghai to Phuket and as I recall that was in the region of six hours beside a diversion that would be Chang Mai or else Bangkok... although it's back in the mists of time. That was pushing it in the smaller A320, which did though have the same fuel capacity am thinking.

So we've all come a long way since then, and not least the Airbus 321 XLR.

Children, can you guess what XLR stands for?

Kit Cat #13

Kicking this around gives us a feel for what it most needs; first up a pair of wing-spars. I've extended the laths around the back end to suit, and up front I'll drive a dowel ~ or in time be carbon-fibre rod ~ through each lat and boom to maintain a level profile.

Intend to reduce the seat-back to make it flush with the decks, and I shall probably leave the 'parcel-shelf' off too because it's me who gets to say so.

Also I shall reduce the size of the seat by around half to effectively shift it forward, and cut the foot-rest in half to raise it clear of the waterline at a comfortable slant.

We're able to do that too because with the wing-spars in place the parcel-shelf and foot-rest are not so essential to lending a virtual box-section to the centre structure. 

Want each pontoon to be a separate module ideally, with own motor and ancillaries.

Ed. Then again, he might do none of this.

Don't Dodge this Viper

What more could you want from a video than a hand-cranked jet-engine in the back garden of an old man with his Austin 1100 in the background? *

What is great about it is why anyone would want an engine just to fire it up now or then; but that's a pastime that's going nowhere thankfully.

The Rolls-Royce Viper, co-opted from Armstrong-Siddeley, was used for nearly sixty years in aircraft like the Jet Provost and Hawker-Siddeley Dominie: each of which I shared circuits with around RAF Finningley.

Ed. Naked women?

Kit Cat #12

Immensely please with this back-end as it happens. There's a lot to be said for sloth and I've gone for the easiest and quickest means of mounting a pair of motors and pusher-props that takes away nothing from the practicality of the basic airframe.

I've borrowed this concept of partially overlapping propeller disks from my earlier work on aerial drones and in both cases it has been an attempt to make designs as compact as possible whilst still maintaining the best efficiency from each combo.

Accordingly both props run in the same direction here viz. clockwise from the rear, meaning overlapping portions of each blade operate in an opposite direction... which is what you'd want.

You can also see how the decks provide extra protection for carbon-fibre blades that are prone to damage, beside stabilising the centre-section that supports both a pair of hydroskis bedsides the eventual payload in the shape of me.

The motors are wooden blocks but will be subbed with the real thing as and when I am willing and able enough to launch this thing on water. The motors are the least powerful of T-motor's U-7 type and so I fear it'll run like a dog; though better a live dog than a dead lion, eh Gromit?

Seat-back will be lowered after the pics too, as it blankets the props more than I'd want.

The craft prior this addition weighed some 20kg or 45lb, which I know from having put the thing together can be improved upon substantially.

On the Numbers

It's a Geography study weekend because the president of Argentina is saying that the Falkland Islands ~ or Malvinas if you swing that way ~ will be returned to their natural home in due time.

Although the UK now has more than sixty marines stationed there, and in fact has four Typhoon fighter jets locally ~ combat still remains a numbers game. And that is not only in numerical terms, but in terms of the numbers of kilometres involved.

In 1982 during the last dispute the UK's military comprised 323,000 with 160,000 serving in its army. The figures now are circa 183,00 and 74,000 and to my mind that is roughly half.

Its navy still boasted some 90-odd fighting vessels as against a couple of dozen now and its air force had nearer 1000 aircraft compared to (a surprising) 700ish today.

But what the Ukraine has taught us is that the jets replacing those marines, or supplementing them, may be as useful as those deployed by Russia in 2022: which is to say more vulnerable to attack than capable of inflicting such in the long term.

At the end of the day it is all about distance. The UK operated Hong Kong for some 150 years until it became obvious that defending it from occupation no longer added up... as surely will be the fate of Taiwan a little further along the coast.

In 1982 we'd a Prime Minister too who as Steve Coogan has said, would now be diagnosed with a mental pathology; beside a supportive US president and logistical assistance that went with it.

I doubt many UK citizens could put a pin on a map that pin-pointed the islands, and now that its oil reserves have been highlighted the stakes are higher altogether.

I flew once with an ex-Navy man who'd a mountain on South Georgia named after him, tho' unhelpfully I've forgetten his name.

And I flew in China with ex-Hong Kong citizens who were required to adopt either UK citizenship or Chinese. He chose the latter, which given the fact airlines in China were racing to the top as those in Europe were racing to the bottom, any other pilot would have done too.

Increasingly war will involve drones or nukes, so let's hope we stick with the lesser of the two evils; whilst offering the good people of the Falklands free passage to the Isle of Wight.

Ed. This is probably a time to recall Lord Haw Haw was hung in 1946 in Wandsworth prison by Albert Pierrepoint, the go-to hangman for celebs at the time.

Empire of Dirt

The UK will now rightly appear as a blot on the landscape

There's a 'correct the map' movement out there pushing to ban Mercator projections of the world for inflating places like Greenland at the expense of the likes of Africa.

As one of the nation's leading geographers I was contacted recently by the native Emperor penguin community of Antarctica, who asked me to intervene in order to promote the adoption of a bird's-eye view of the world that recognises their right to self-determination.

They comment: 'For too long on whichever map of the world is foisted upon us we appear as a dirty smudge along the bottom. Our projection features you as a sort of tide-mark around a miner's bath. Like that do you? Hurts, doesn't it?'

The map of the world penguins are asking the UN to ratify

Ed. On the above map (1) marks his house, (2) where his brother drowned, (3) his parents' house and (4) the bonus ball.

Cage Flight

The BBC's Russian editor reports how keeping up with the neighbours now stretches to anti-drone cages like that here. They cost $70,000 each, but do come with a free monkey.

I've one fitted here in the UK, principally to keep people out moreso than drones. And as I live in a semi-detached property, the people next door are well pissed off.

All Alien to Me

A bag of shite

Loathe to go on about how things were better, but is it just me that feels UFOs are not what they were? They either look like fast-moving mints, or a bin-liner like the one here... whereas in my childhood we had proper ones with windows and stuff like the one below.

I understand NASA is trying to make first contact, and if it were coming from me then frankly it would be 'That the best you can do? Looks like a bag of shite.'

Ed. I had no part in this. I come in peace. Take me to your tire-fitter.

Aliens you'd be honoured to be abducted by for dissection

I Think, Therefore I Scam?

Went to load the 'blog on the phone and inadvertently searched the URL, and way up there in the rankings is a feeling among the populace that I might not be real or else an AI fiction.

So I took a needle and stuck it in the back of my hand, because there was a guy on the radio singing about how he'd hurt himself to see if he still felt, as it was the only thing that was real.*

So it was in a moment of madness I realised that it ranks ~ like me in work-clothes ~ for the simple reason that people are emailing links with cover notes like 'I think legal will need to see this' and that sensibly, recipients do not open the link for a fear of being Rick-rolled.

I'm delighted tho' to see the good people at scamadviser are giving me a ringing endorsement!

Not only are you reading Britain's best-loved blog, but an institution credited for its legitimacy and reliability in a way that was only last matched by the Tudor dynasty.

Thank you... leave this place today knowing you are blessed.

* Ed. He took it from a kitchen-drawer and put it back again, the way he'd look over the edge of a multi-storey and promise to do it next week instead... and this is the guy you all worship?

WIZZAIR: the Apology

Earlier today I posted to suggest the hamster in the advertisement faced the wrong way on the wheel, and asked ChatGPT to amend... which we can all agree, it made a great job of:

I now realise the hamster is in fact attempting to escape the wheel in order to book a flight with the airline.

Nonetheless I discovered it prohibits hamsters from flying on whichever route, and thus Hilton equalises from the edge of the box in the dying moments of this post:

Ed. Get a life.

Kit Cat #11

Bit of a mismatch at the prow between the height of each boom. Only amounts to a half-inch or so and something Boeing would surely sign off, but it offends my pride.

With a jig and better materials it would likely be brought within an acceptable range but here I went on to drive a dome-headed screw into the end of each boom so that a rubber band could be stretched between them.

This ameliorates the issue, and as you can see from the pilot-eye view it's not really a game-stopper.

Kit Cat #10

Backer-board used as a foot-well, which like the parcel-shelf subs for a wing-box.

Kit Cat #9

Single width of backer-board used as a parcel-shelf or battery-bay at the rear; while also stiffening the centre-section. There is no charge for storing a cabin-bag here.

A Word from the Author

The stats are in, and I can now confirm a total of 118,180 views for the month. If I have to be honest, it is down to a general loathing of humanity that we all share. My aim in all of this is simple. If during that time in the office when you're pretending to work over a cappuccino you piss yourself laughing so the boss is more inclined to let you go... then I've served my purpose.

Martin Parr's iconic portrait taken when the camera fell over

Kit Cat #8: The Venerable Bead

I've re-attached those accessory rails and to help secure the whole I've run a bead of adhesive along every crevice visible from this perspective, with the exception of my bum-crack. Once cured I'll flip it over for the same on the underside.

First impressions are the seat could be mounted a little further forward: the base is pitched here exactly half-way along those three-foot uprights.

At the same time to stiffen things up further I shall mount a foot-rest on the lower half of the uprights and a parcel-shelf high up at the rear to support battery-packs. It would benefit from a foreplane for the same reason, but I'd like it to be able to slide up to a drowning man so I get to appear on Saving Lives at Sea for a fat fee.

Were this destined to be a drone, a pair of X-braces front and rear of the centre-section would suffice, and were they collapsible the construction could be closed like an accordion for storage or transport ~ especially were the decks hinged to fold like a pigeon's wings.

It promises to be acceptably light, eminently scalable and fairly swift with sufficient power and sizeable airscrews ~ and as an airboat it'll negotiate the shallows better than Lady Gaga.

It could support a couple of electric outboards instead... though they're heavier, more expensive and prone to drag at speed. They would also ground whenever the draught proves insufficient, or else get clogged by debris and vegetation.

Signed prints of the above are available on our merch pages, each with an imprint of my bum-crack on the reverse.

A note from Prime Minister Andy Burnham: 'This morning the blog's author handed publishers Summersdale a note to say unless we heard from them by 2 o'clock that they were prepared to hand over the text of ebook 'Penis Pending', a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and that consequently I need a cup of tea.'

Kit Cat #7: Back Stop

Here's a rear-view of what on a scaled 16' watercraft will be ample accommodation of around 24" square. Big as an IKEA armchair it's likely a little too much, and if we reduce its proportions it allows decks and uprights to be a little longer as they are effectively cut from the same cloth.

Note at this stage that we do not insert the foam in the back-rest: step away from  the vehicle if you could, Sir? That will allow us to drive a screw into each side-bar to fasten the seat-back to either boom to reduce flexure further.

You can see the advantage of foam sheets as thick as the timbers, because then we'd be able to double-skin each element of the seat. As it happens, in a process of continuous improvement we could eliminate separate skins altogether because the backer-board is already double-skinned.

Note how I've included just a soupçon of recline in the chair for your comfort, and a cushion will of course be provided. The recline is done when all is fixed together, by applying sufficient force to bend the fasteners and brackets... a process that takes years to perfect, and which is handed down from one generation to the next.

Ideally the seat-back would be perforated to some extent to allow the fullest draft to pass through to the air-screws, but that's a job for another day or even someone else, isn't it Gromit?

Kit Cat #6: Please Be Seated

A happy consequence of us making each rail along the uprights both full-length and externally-mounted is that they can be removed so as to form the basis of the seat, which in turn will stiffen the craft along its length.

A catamaran sank in rough weather the other day north of Cyprus, and they are by no means a silver bullet. Trimarans are considered a better compromise altogether, but then they're a lot harder to design and build.

The principal weakness of the cat is the bending forces applied to the front-end of each pontoon, as the farther these are apart the greater the twisting force that they apply to the centre-section or bridge adjoining them.

Do you remember Pete Goss? No, I don't either but one of the prongs of the boat he was sailing snapped off in this way despite being made of carbon fibre:

Pete Goss after he'd snapped his member during rough handling

Graham Barker R.I.P.

I've to bring you the sad news that Graham Barker, whom we'd hoped was not dead, is.

Graham lived in Hebden Bridge, known as the lesbian centre of the north, although to the best of my knowledge he was not one himself.

It is wholly typical of the man that his efforts in co-authoring 'Penis Pending' should be hidden from plain sight, modest as he was and so quick to duck below the parapet.

We shall miss him, as co-author Colin Hilton says here:

This is not only a personal tragedy for friends and colleagues of Graham, but an extraordinary setback in hopes of tracing an original copy of the ebook that might serve as a lasting memorial to us both... hopefully not for a while. As with the bass belonging to Sir Paul, therefore, as a tribute to Graham we throw the search out to you, the public. Do you have a copy of the ebook in your loft, or know someone who might? Do it for Graham. Do it for me. Do it for literature and ask yourself, 'Have I seen Colin's Penis?'

Penis Pending

The only surviving image of the original cover

Inspired by the recent search for Paul McCartney's original Hofner bass, I've set out to see if I can find an original copy of my final ebook much as Harrison Ford might, but in Skelmersdale instead of Petra.

As a first step I unearthed the best image out there before forwarding it to some of the best antiquarians in Oxford at the university's Bodleian Library. They have made a magnificent job of restoring the cover, which if you print out you may only handle with the white cotton gloves available on our merch pages.

These guys are used to interpreting stuff like the Dead Sea scrolls else the Rosetta Stone, and they have pointed out that ~ in the way there are doubts about who wrote what in the New Testament ~ authorship is unclear.

What we do know is that the original ebook will have been published in Aramaic in the year 2007, having been dictated by Colin Hilton before he would be crucified in an inverted position.

Later it would be attributed to a Colin Barker as appears here:

https://search.worldcat.org/title/Penis-pending-:-world's-wackiest-sex-toys!/oclc/191856166

Later again, following errors in the original's restoration the work is attributed to a G. Bakerer and A. C. Milton ~ the latter possibly related to the Jacobean author of 'Gangsta's Paradise'.

As a part of our researches we are reaching out to Graham Barker, who is known to have co-authored the work, in the hope he is not dead as he may be in possession of the original text (if not a good fortune).

The restored cover appears below in every detail, though experts now agree on the following:

(a)    The coffee-stained outline of the base of Colin's mug is missing

(b)    The content of the Post-It note has been altered

(c)    There was no reference to a free condom on the original

(d)    The condom wrapper was open on the original, implying use.

(e)    The text 'Seal this in envelope' was likely added by Colin Barker.

The 'Bodleian Codex' restoration

A Letter to My Publishers

I have redacted the names to protect the innocent, although they will be available here upon release in thirty years time in line with our current policies... although I won't.