I've said it before and I'll say it agian, those Limeys do not screw around!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEjGBgBxSNM
But this,designed only a year later, gives much more of the Trevithick flavor:
All this time, I had not realized his name was pronounced tre-VITH-ick.
Holy smoke, how cool is that?
I'd love to have one to drive around the block and be the envy of all the neighbors!
It's been said before, and I'll say it again, next to parliamentary democracy and penicillin the steam engine is Britain's greatest gift to the world!
OK, the Beatles come close. So does Jenny Agutter. And Charles Dickens.
And that Trevithick steam carriage is a hoot! Imagine that tooling around the streets of London with the new 19th Century only 2 years old.
And I thought it was pronounced TREV-i-thick.
And leave us not forget Diana Rigg. Tre-VITH-ick. I had no idea. I was at a heritage railway and there was a side show of traction engines and steam tractors, lorries and such. They all had license plates and two insurance disks (British proof of insurance mounted in a round brass holder- a neat little item,) one for the road and one for the boiler. There's as much interest in steam road vehicles as rail vehicles over there. Carry on, chaps!
Diana Rigg. Oh baby....
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
Diana Rigg
Ada Augusta Lovelace
Emma Hamilton
and let us not forget that most famous original railfan
Fanny Kemble
That steam carriage was indeed an advanced design for the time, using (relatively) high-pressure steam for locomotion. The machinery must have taken quite a battering, though. Most of it looks unsprung, feeling every rock and crack in the street. The driver and passengers had it better, the driver's seat and passenger carriage sat on leaf springs.
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Actually, Parliamentary Democracy comes from the Greeks, and that is why it is a Greek word. But let us not forget Shakespear, G. Donald Harrision, Churchill, Benjamin Britain, Jacqulin Dupre, Sirs John Bararolli and (?) Beecham, Gustov Holts, and double-decked trams.
Then we can talk about Scotland and wiskey.
Will the Moderator mind if I inject the Balfour Declaration?
But the courage to hold out during the most critical years of WWII is possibly the greatest gift the UK gave N. America.
Actually, Dave, the Greek experience with parliamentary democracy only dates to 1843, which is why the operative word here ... parliamentary, not democracy ... is Norman, not Grecian. Representative government with separation of powers IS largely British and we should honor that for all that it is.
i appreciate Barcarolli and Sir Thomas, but why no Gilbert and Sullivan?
Just don’t get started on the food.
Also, there's Reginald Mitchell, designer of the Supermarine Spitfire, to me the most beautiful aircraft ever built. AND- Real ale on cask! Ever have a pint of Dark Star Partridge Best Bitter? You'll never drink lager again! Speaking of food, having that to wash down a bacon sarnie is without a doubt, one of my ideas of living in an English heaven!
54Light15 (and all)-- Living in Toronto you should know better than most that at Italian wedding receptions they always have a seperate "monge-cake" table ( "white bread") for those Anglo friends in attendance that abhor anything tasty.
That's Mangia-cake. For the "Mayonaissers" as Tony Soprano called 'em. Really, English food is different these days. London is full of top-notch stupidly expensive restaurants with grub from all over the world. They have more pretentious "foodies" than Toronto which has a train load of them. I was in a pub where Gordon Ramsey designed the food. I ordered a hamburger. It was two long sticks of finely ground beef on a very thin piece of bread. Whisky Tango Foxtrot was all I could say.
But for good unpretentious inexpensive food I eat in pubs and a steak-and-ale pie with a side of mash and peas with a nice pint is good eating. Also the curries are outstanding. There is a chain of fish and chips places called Superfish- everything is fried in beef tallow, Yorkshire style. You can feel your arteries shutting down but man, it's good!
Do ya really think the Spit is prettier than the S6b?
And I don’t mean to imply there aren’t good British things to eat; just that the vast majority of the stuff tends to be ... well, there is a reason that in European heaven...
the Germans are the engineers...
the Swiss are the bankers...
the Italians are the lovers...
the French are the cooks...
and the British are the police
Whereas, in European hell, the British are ... ???
Italians/French Lovers/Cooks are interchangeable unless you want to start a war between who is the better cook and who the better lover.
In European hell the British are the cooks, and all hell would break loose.
MiningmanItalians/French Lovers/Cooks are interchangeable unless you want to start a war between who is the better cook and who the better lover.
Yes they are. But then the rest of the joke doesn’t work as well. There are at least SOME respectable French bankers...
[I am tempted to add that if hell broke out over the cooking the police would put a quick and final stop to it, ja ‘stimmt]
Just in case anyone does not recognize the other half of the punchline:
in European hell
The Swiss are the lovers...
the Italians are the bankers...
the French are the engineers...
the Germans are the police...
and well, that leaves the British. Most definitively leaves them, as the Goons (another Britannic cultural treasure) would probably have said.
(The joke is no longer quite as stinging, with respect to the French, as it was in the ‘70s when a French girl told it to me.)
In Hell the French are the engineers? I resemble that remark! I have owned a 1954 Citroen Traction Avant since 1983. It has the following:
All steel unit body
front wheel drive
Torsion bar suspension
rack and pinion steering
Wet-liner overhead valve engine
A "step-down" body long before the post-war Hudson
The first modern car and the basis for most cars built today. You can drive every day in normal traffic, it handles like a sports car and is a lot more reliable than any Mercedes I've ever owned.
Not bad for a car that came out in 1934 and over 700,00 were made. Production stopped in 1957 and it was still the most modern car on the road.
French engineers in Hell? Fooey to you, sir!
54light15French engineers in Hell?
They screwed Chapelon over, then scrapped the 242 A1 as an excuse. For that alone, they deserve what I give them and more.
Well there is always the exception to the rule hence the successful Citroen model, but, French Engineering is an oxymoron! As for German police, don't even go there. Swiss lovers?..ha ha ha good one, Italian Bankers, yeah ok, say goodbye to those funds! British cooks?..sure, have a chip. Also British lovers....no thanks, please we're British. Hey this is fun!
Maintenance guy "Eric" was in my office today with another oxymoron...a spray can of "dry lube"...probably use it on Overmods "high level subway bridge" submission.
Thats enough, it's Friday evening. Milankovitch cycles today twice to 2 different classes, 4 hours face time...I'm done.
Penny Trains
Holy smoke Becky, where did you find that?
Overmod Diana Rigg Ada Augusta Lovelace Emma Hamilton and let us not forget that most famous original railfan Fanny Kemble
And don't forget the late, lamented Elisabeth Sladen, the best companion The Doctor ever had!
French engineering? I don't know, there was nothing wrong with the SPAD 13, the "French '75," the Model 1916 155mm "Grand Puissance" field gun (the US Army liked it so much they bought a bunch of 'em, called it the M1917, and it became the precursor to the 155mm "Long Tom" artillery piece of World War Two) and that cute-as-a-button Renault FT-17 tank!
Oh, and those German guns the Rangers had to knock out at Point Du Hoc on D-Day? French Model 1916's. They weren't German at all, but apparantly the Germans were impressed enough with them to put them to use. Says something, doesn't it?
OK, some of you might say "What have they done lately?" but I'm sure you see my point.
Firelock76 Penny Trains Holy smoke Becky, where did you find that?
It's a Minicraft 1:38 scale model on a Standard Gauge 117 caboose frame. I added flag holders, brake wheels and removable fencing to turn it into a sort of "museum car".
Great job! It's fantastic!
Yeah. Thats pretty good Penny...Kudos!
Overmod Actually, Dave, the Greek experience with parliamentary democracy only dates to 1843, which is why the operative word here ... parliamentary, not democracy ... is Norman, not Grecian.
Actually, Dave, the Greek experience with parliamentary democracy only dates to 1843, which is why the operative word here ... parliamentary, not democracy ... is Norman, not Grecian.
Oldest Parliament is the Althing in Iceland, dating to 930AD. Viking influence was pretty strong in Normandy, so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that Parliaments were a Viking innovation along with trial by jury. As Overmod said, the British innovation was separation of powers as codified by the Magna Carta.
As for European hell, one version had the comedians being Swedes (e.g. ROSMT).
I go along with respect for the British with the Magna Carta. And yes, I do love Gilbert and Sullivan. There is a group in Israel that gets together to sing through the repertory, but it meets in Tel Aviv at a time inconvenient for me. I had lots of G&S LPs, Iolanthi, Pirates, Mikado, Yoemen of the Guard (my favorite) and others, and sang once in a performance of Trial by Jury in the Boston area, when I participated in an amature G&S group. You reminded me that this is one thing I do miss.
Can the story of Nathan and King David demonstrate step toward a separation of powers?
Just to make this railroad related, the song from the Mikado, the Mikado does not believe in separation of powers, and states:
My project all sublime; I shall achieve in time; to let the punishment fit the crime, the punishment fit the crime.
And make each prisoner pent, unwilingly represent, a sorce of innocent meriment, of innocent meriment.
The people all in railway carriages, who scribble on window paines, shall only suffer to ride on a buffer, in Parliamentary Trains.
Each railroad in England was required to run one passenger train each way that "called" (stopped) at every station, no matter how unlikely any revenue passenger would be served. These were Parliamentary trains.
I'll let someone else explain British classic coupling cars and the use of buffers.
I am in London twice a year and work in a garage on old Citroens. I get a free place to stay, too. My boss told me that the original head of the business which was a machine shop before it was a garage played nothing but G & S all day long. He said 3 peopel quit after two days! All I know from G & S was what Sideshow Bob sang in "The Simpsons" in a Cape Fear parody.
Oh yeah- Wet Lube? Gluten-free bread? Fat-free cheese? Alcohol-free beer? Why not adhesive-free glue?
British coupling is moving away from the hook, turnbuckle and buffer combination. They use either a knuckle type or what I think is called a Scharfenberg type with a pin and socket alongside each other. Freight cars and vintage passenger equipment have buffers, either round or oval in shape.
daveklepper Parliamentary Trains
Parliamentary Trains
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_train
54light15 Not bad for a car that came out in 1934 and over 700,00 were made. Production stopped in 1957 and it was still the most modern car on the road.
If I recall it was replaced by the Citroen DS21
With the DS21 around, nothing else was "the most modern car on the road"....
Peter
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