Techo-Junk: An Electronic Slate

I bought a little LCD slate from Lidl: A5 size and only EUR 8. You can buy similar things for a slightly lower price direct from China (I've seen EUR 6, but with EUR 7 delivery!), but with such a low starting price it is hard to get much lower before the supplier would have to pay you to accept it. Very simple, like an Etch-a-Sketch (good heavens! Those are still being made.), or really more like one of the things with waxy paper and a clear front. You write on it with a stylus and it is powered by a button cell.

I was intrigued by how it worked, so I did a few experiments which I thought I would share with you. The stylus is not special, any similar object will do, like a ball-point pen or even a finger nail. The writing process does not require power. You can still write with the battery removed. However, writing seems to involve some "point effect": touching with the point of a ball-point pen even while not writing will sometimes produce a mark, but pressing with a fingertip or thumb will not, even if I press quite firmly. Erasure, absolutely does require power. You press a button which erases the whole screen and there is a switch which inhibits the erase function. Naturally the erase function does not work  with the battery removed. I've made an executive decision to leave erase enabled: the screen is not over-sensitive and a slider switch is likely to be the first moving component to fail.

My conclusions: the screen is not "point addressable" (there would be no point) and the writing effect is achieved either by pressure or by capacitance. I think it is capacitance. I'm afraid I can see no way of subverting it to some other use (either as an input or an output device. 

Within its limitations it's effective but not really much better than a tiny whiteboard or blackboard. It is designed so that the stylus can be used to provide a stand (but I already have a wire stand I use instead). The slate does come with integral magnets, so you can use it as a large fridge magnet. I find it handy as a supplement to my other To-Do aids and memory joggers.   

The Banishing of Huginn

I'm blessed by having many wild birds around my house. There are all sorts of birds, and as I live here longer, I am getting better at identifying the different species. There are wrens, wagtails, great tits and brave little robins; pigeons, blackbirds and magpies in various numbers from ominous one, through joy to silver, gold and dark secrets. And then there are the corvids: hooded crows, like capuchin monks and rooks, loads and loads of rooks. I lump them together as "crows". The rooks roost in the oaks and return home for sunset, squabbling as they settle for the night. 

My wife was in the habit of feeding the birds in the early evening. She would scatter seed and shattered fat-balls on the back lawn. You can't feed the smaller birds without feeding the crows, who are fiercely intelligent. A sentinel or two would be stationed on the ridge of the garage roof and within seconds of food being scattered on the ground, the sky would darken and the ground covered with raucous family groups: this year's spoiled fledglings demanding to be fed by over-tolerant parents scarcely larger than themselves.

One afternoon in early autumn, I was standing at the back door observing the crows. Many were picking away at the lawn, looking for seeds or scraps they had missed earlier. A few were strutting about, proudly grasping an acorn in their beak. When they found what seemed to them a suitable spot, they would put the nut down carefully, peck a hole, place the acorn in the hole and cover it up. They would then turn away, apparently satisfied with their work. I can't see the point myself, but I understand how oaks are planted.

I had some minor tasks to do, so I went outside and before I started I paused for a moment and surveyed the crows. They have grown used to me and after a brief fluttering of wings they settled back to their business of gleaning.

Suddenly, a single rook separated from the group and flew straight towards me. I stood my ground. I don't claim bravery, rather the slow responses of advancing years. The bird turned upwards, its wings spread and its feet extended towards me. It alighted on my right shoulder. I felt its weight shift as it adjusted its position and I turned towards it. I found myself face to face (or maybe nose to beak) with the bird. It seemed to be a juvenile, with a black beak, rather than the boney grey of an adult. As it turned its head from side to side I was looking into its eyes. I was entranced, frozen as if in the presence of great power. The bird was not hostile, instead it projected calm, but uncaring interest, a remote intelligence observing and noting my actions. Unbidden, I extended my right arm, until it was horizontal, my hand clenched in a loose fist. The bird walked calmly along my arm until it was perched on my hand. Its feet were scaly and cool. I put my left hand, palm upwards, in front of it and it reached across and gently gripped my fingers and the skin of my palm. This was not an aggressive act, not a peck, just a gentle caress and I could feel the serrations of his beak.

For the rest of the day, and the whole of the following day, I had a new companion. I decided "he" was a boy (though I cannot tell the difference, and it matters only to other rooks) and named him Huginn. He would come to me when I was outside, perch on my shoulder and fist and eat from my left hand. He took cat food from a small saucer I held in my hand and even half a hard-boiled egg directly from my palm.

On the third day he was gone: no more Huginn. There was no sign of him. He had disappeared without leaving a trace except in my memory, returned to the emptiness from whence he came. I missed him as one would expect to miss such a companion. I still miss him and mark his absence. Stories of talking birds and magical familiars now seem much more real and much more likely than they once did. Experience is a powerful tutor. 

The worldly explanation is that Huginn was probably a chick from the previous year. He had "imprinted" on one of the women who work at the garden centre which is associated with the COPE (Roughly the Irish equivalent of SCOPE) across the road. As he had become more confident he had begun venturing further afield and had found me. The reason he had disappeared was that unfortunately he had begun to become a nuisance at the Garden Centre, disturbing customers and the residents at the COPE home. As a consequence he had been tempted into a cage and then "re-homed" some distance away. We all hope that he is happy and will eventually find a mate.

Of course, there could be another explanation, one which if I'm honest, I rather prefer. In Norse and Germanic mythology Odin, the chief of the gods, who traded one eye for wisdom, was served by two ravens known as Huginn and Muninn (memory and thought) who brought him news of all they had seen in the world. There seems to have been uncertainty or dispute about whether Huginn and Muninn were simply messengers or whether they were extensions of Odin himself. Whichever they were, I like to imagine that I had an encounter with the numinous, the divine, and that Huginn has returned to Odin with the message that I had been set a test (which I do not fully understand) and that my response had been satisfactory. 

(I originally called this "The Murder and the Banishing of Huginn", to use the collective noun for a group of crows. When I read it, I thought it was a piece of unworthy click-bait!)

[Original Events: 13th and 14th July 2025]

[Date: 6th October 2025]                

Masquerades of Spring

 [Notes for my friend Mike on Masquerades of Spring from the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch]

Masquerades of Spring

I enjoyed it. Not Aaronovitch's best, but still fun. I liked how we learned just a little bit more about Thomas Nightingale without disclosing too much: so this is why he likes jazz.

One of the features of first person story-telling is that you have a relationship with the narrator. I recognise that I don't particularly like Gussie.

The story is written as pastiche PG Wodehouse, with Gussie as Bertie Wooster and Beauregard as Jeeves. Gussie doesn't appeal to me as a person but I don't dislike him.

It strikes me that Gussie is actually smarter than he acts (or he himself realises) but he has learned to be stupid or helpless because he's lazy and it allows him to stand back and let other people do the work - because he can.

I thought that Beauregard was underused as a character. There's more potential there if Aaronovitch choses to use it.

The story is classic McGuffin. We never encounter the magic saxophone and the magic trumpet is returned to the villain Jaeger without doing anything more than "a queer sort of harmonic buzz at the words 'let it out'" (p58). We never really learn much about the instruments, except that they 

are a distress signal from Maurelle. Nor do we learn how Maurelle is imprisoned. We know it is because of her daughter Oriande, and we learn that Jaeger is exploiting Maurelle's power. We don't know how someone as powerful as Maurelle can apparently be controlled so easily.

All this is actually quite clever. We make up our own partial explanations and we are always left wanting for more.

Talking of "wanting for more", there are some good peripheral/tangential details about Nightingale. IMO we will never learn much about Nightingale. 

He's a stock character, the man of mystery. He will remain: a superman with flaws, the last of his kind. In the main sequence he has (well managed) 

PTSD as a result of what happened at Ettersburg.

The new details I like are that Gussie secretly fancies Nightingale ("I might have thought the situation has romantic possibilities" (p47)). 

Gussie is also jealous of Nightingale, especially that Nightingale fancy Lucy ("I am not by nature a violent man..." (p41)). Nightingale is, of course, sexless - that is the nature of the stock character.

Another detail hinted at is the nature of Nightingale's relationship with Molly. We aren't told what it is, except that it is strong enough to make Nightingale drop what he is doing, risk censure from The Folly and cross the Atlantic.

Gussie is sufficiently stupid that he hasn't twigged that he has been set up with Beauregard. It takes him a while to appreciate that Cocoa/Amelia is more than just a pretty girl - he clearly doesn't appreciate how powerful she probably is.

There are some nice hooks into "The Virginia Company" and whatever magic there is in New Orleans. It would seem that The Queen of Joy, Beauregard, Cocoa and the midwives are all part of something.

Artistically, Aaronovitch may be using the novellas to give himself space away from the flow of the main series. The novella's introduce and explore new characters. He's also experimenting with different writing voices for the new narrators. If Masquerades of Spring was PG Wodehouse, then I think (not sure) that Winter's Gift's was Stephen King.

Out of universe, commercially the novella's provide an increased flow of product and Aaronovitch may be using them to fish for something from Hollywood.

And... Masquerade is being played for laughs more than usual, with Gussie cast as clown: note the spells "Crocker" (felt up and stripped of clothes (p149)) and "Treaclefoot" (p53).

Some good throwaway bits:

"Are you a fairy? My mama is a fairy" (p137) and Nightingale in drag (of course he looks good).

Not the best, but good fun.   

  

The River at the bottom of my garden: 3 inter-dimensional portals and a goddess

Rivers of Ireland? Story 1: The River at the bottom of my garden: 3 inter-dimensional portals and a goddess

Ok. Try this for size. I suppose you could say that the whole basis of Aaronovitch's world in that there is magic just out of sight for most of us and that you can sense it if you just take the time to experience the vestigial. The submerged rivers of London are both characters in their own right and a metaphor for the magic.

In that vein, I'm going to describe some stuff. I'm not going to say I believe in the magic (I don't) but I'm going to hint at the vestigia and sometimes give the prosaic explanations too. I'm not going to attempt to imitate Aaronovitch's writing. The experiences and places and people are real, even if I've made small adjustments. I could take you to the places, show you the sights and you would experience some of the experiences. Whether or not you experienced the vestigia would be inside your own head.

Story 1 - The River at the bottom of my garden: 3 inter-dimensional portals and a goddess

I remember when you were over, oh so long ago, I took you to look into the field at the back of my house. I don't remember if I took you down to the river. Getting into the field used to be inconvenient. I had to walk down the road a hundred yards or so to reach the gate and then walk back to reach the back of the hedge of my own property. Well, now there is a better way.

This is one of a few good things to come out of COVID. Every year I trim the hedges around the boundary of my plot. It takes me a while because there is such a long boundary and so much hedge. And of course, Leylandii is what Kevin McCloud describes as "a horticultural thug". At the back of the house, I trim the back of the hedge on the field side too, because if I don't, the bits I can't reach from my side become a straggly ugly mess. I used to do this last because it involved walking down the road to the gate etc carrying the petrol hedge-trimmer.

Mid Covid, I set about trimming the hedge. This was one of the things I was allowed to do. Nobody, ever said I couldn't wander around inside my own boundary. The hedge was a job which needed doing, so I did it. In the back of my mind I must have been thinking about the back of the hedge. 

You know how it is when you notice something which has been there all the time in plain sight? Well that's what happened to me. I was cutting the hedge in the far corner of my garden, next to the boundary with my neighbour on that side, when I noticed that the hedge was less dense that I expected. There seemed to be a hedge plant missing and I could see a concrete fence post, complete with diagonal to take the strain, which created a sort-of gateway with the corner post between me and my neighbours. I pointed all this out to Nnnn and said "you know, I think I could go through there and it would make access to the back of the hedge much easier".

So we agreed, and I cut away the hedge and removed a piece of chain-link fencing (there is a chain-link fence, fronted by the hedge), and Bob's your uncle, there was a gateway. This was a job which, amazingly, went much easier than anyone expected. The (prosaic) explanation is that when my house was being built, the builders put up the boundary chain-link fence but left a gateway (complete with concrete sill!) in the corner for ease of access (they didn't want the problem I had encountered with walking along the road to the gate). When they were almost finished they had sealed the gate with a separate piece of fencing and planted the hedge. They'd been a bit economical with hedging plants in that corner but eventually the branches from two plants reached out towards each other and the closed the gap. It became invisible. All I had done was expose something which had been there all along. Surprisingly, there was a short pathway through a piece of natural hedgerow (not Leylandii) outside my boundary, where my neighbours had been taking their dogs out to walk in the field. By that time we'd been in the house for about twenty years and this was the first time we had noticed! The hedge is that thick!

After I had removed the piece of chain-link fence and done a very little bit of trimming I was left with an empty gateway between two concrete posts about 3 feet apart leading through a thick Leylandii hedge which is about 6 feet high. At the foot of the gateway is a short length of concrete kerb which the builders had installed as a door sill. They had really gone to that much trouble to make a proper gateway before eventually sealing it up. I filled the gateway with a simple low wicket gate constructed from pallet wood, liberally doused in creosote and closed with a bolt. Simples! The gate opens onto a short pathway (barely 6 feet long) through a natural hedgerow, leading from my neighbours land, outside my boundary, into the field. 

With the gate finished, I cut the back of the hedge at the bottom of the garden. What a difference the gate made! No more lugging the petrol hedge clipper all that way, throwing a cable over the hedge and using electric tools practical and forgetting a pair of loppers and having to go back for them was no longer a disaster. The job got done very quickly indeed. Only, a man's work is never done. Nnnnn didn't like being able to see the neighbours going to and fro to walk the dogs, and actually neither did I. There was something obtrusive about it. I like them, they get on with me, but I didn't want to see them and I didn't want them looking into the back garden. After a little thought, I constructed a high but very lightweight hurdle to put in front of our side of the little wicket gate. I fronted the hurdle with a piece of trellis with artificial greenery. The effect was miraculous! The gate was now invisible. The plastic leaves blended in with the evergreen hedge.

Time passes. I now go through the hedge and walk down to the river at least once a week, often several times. The gateway starts by being "invisible". Even for me, it doesn't stand out from the hedge. From the field side it is almost invisible too, and the eye is drawn from it by the route into my neighbours garden. The neighbours don't mind, the farmer doesn't know and the agricultural contractors who cut the grass for silage don't care. The cattle, when they are there, don't even notice. There is something magical about the process of going through the hedge. I start in front of the plastic greenery, remove that, go through the wicket gate, unfasten and refasten behind me a flap of square wire fencing and then duck under a single, almost invisible, length of galvanised wire at waist height and I'm in the field. Four, barriers in quick succession, two of them almost invisible. It's like parting curtains, one after another.

Each walk down to the river is an experience because the field and the river are changing constantly with the weather and with the seasons. I'm a good boy, so I usually walk round by the field boundary. Even going that long way round it's a short slow walk, 5 minutes at most, down a gentle slope to the bottom corner where the ground gets soft. The margin between the river and the field is marked by native trees: rowan and alder. In the summer and autumn my view of the river is obscured by a screen of bracken. Now in the winter I can see across the river. The water flows clear (but not too clear, the summer day when the water flowed "gin clear" is a different, bad and sad, story). In May the air is filled with May flies and in high summer damsels dance and flirt. There are several places where, if I am fortunate, I may glimpse the goddess. There she lies, lithe and elegant, facing upstream, sinuous limbs and muscular back, emerald green hair streaming down her back. Her skin is golden, mottled dark like a toad or lizard. In the summer she wears white flowers in her hair. I have never yet seen her face. I long for and fear what I might see.

Walking along the bank the atmosphere changes. The air becomes calm. The sounds of the road, far away, always quiet are silenced altogether and replaced by the whispering of the river. If I look towards my house it is no longer visible, even thought the line of sight is clear. I have passed into another world adjoining our own but separated from it.

Continuing along the river bank I climb a gentle slope to a point where the river margin widens to become a riparian woodland. As I climb, unexpectedly, the house becomes visible again just as I reach the boundary of the wood.

The prosaic explanation of the strange and perfectly real effects of the change in atmosphere and sound and the house being invisible are due to the lie of the land. The slope of the field is sort-of "s" shaped creating an effect like a ha-ha. There is a flat area near the river which is completely obscured from the top and you are not even aware of what you cannot see. You could pitch a small tent, and a man standing would be invisible from the top. The goddess in the river is the light on the broken limestone of the river bottom, illuminated by dappled light through the trees. Her flowing hair is water-weed growing from the river bottom. 

The entrance to the woodland is another multi-layered gateway. First there is an electric fence wire to duck under, then a galvanised trip wire to recognise, avoid and step over, and finally the remains of a collapsed fence to avoid. This brings you into a vestibule or anteroom from where you can look down on the rapids which are quite loud or forward, through trees to a well-trodden pathway which forks down to the river beach or forwards along a terrace into dense woodland. And every gateway should have a guardian, and this one is guarded by Lala (yes, the Teletubby), perched in a tree, who has been watching over this path since before I have known of its existence. If I were remaking this as real fiction, I think I would replace Lala with an animal skull.

   

   

A book and a machine

Hi CCCC, How are you keeping? I was doing something and I thought of you.

We've had an eventful start to the year. The events were weather related. We got snowed in for a few days and lost our water supply for a day (maybe two) and we lost power for a different couple of days. On two occasions I walked down to town to top up on groceries ("there's no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate equipment"). I have "appropriate equipment"! I actually had to open the neck on my jacket to maintain the right temperature. One time I got a lift there and then back. The Irish are good like that. Then there was the wind and we lost power for another 24 hours. Lack of power knocks out the oil fired boiler but we're ok, because we also have an open fire, with plenty of smokeless fuel and logs.  Dress up warm, eat sandwiches, read until the light fades, go to bed early. All rather primitive. Doesn't bother me in small doses.

Book: That's the project at the moment. Remember the photo I showed you. I'm reconstructing a photo album of my sister's early life. It's for me, my daughters and my nephew deserves to know more about his mother than he does.

Machine: This was what made me think of you. As a short diversion I decided to make myself a "muffler" to go round my neck. Reason? I wear a dayglow yellow jacket when I'm cycling. The jacket collar was getting grubby from rubbing my neck and the jacket is not suitable for washing. Solution: muffler made from a new tea towel. I sewed it up using a sewing machine which belonged to my aunt. The serial number was allocated in December 1921 (at the Singer factory in Kilbowie, Clydebank), so the machine is comfortably 100 years old and still quite useable. It's a little stiff, but I'm reluctant to mess with it other than a little sewing machine oil. May (my aunt) married in 1924, so I like to imagine that the sewing machine is either a wedding present, of a young woman preparing her "trousseau" in preparation for marriage. Both ideas are rather romantic.

Doing the sewing made me think: am I unusual? Using a sewing machine isn't a hobby for me, it's just something I know how to do. If I need to make or repair something, then one of the first things I think of is the practicality of doing it myself. I thought I needed this piece of cloth (which by the way is very comfortable and warm) so I made it!

Anyway, must go and get on with the photo album. Keep well.

Regards,

Epilogue MAG

Epilogue for Mmm and Aaa (MAG)

Points I want to cover (see Journal 1st February 2025):

• Myself
• Aaa and Jjj
• Mmm 
• Ccc
• Shocks - Jjj
• Losses and Discoveries
• Points of view and start and end points

Writing a family history is a challenge intellectually and emotionally. I could compare it to detective work or as completing a jigsaw. Both of these convey something of my experience but completing a child's dot-to-dot puzzle gets closer to my emotional journey writing about Mmm Sss and Aaa Ggg. The clues for the overall picture were very limited. The "picture on the box" was at best indistinct. At the detailed level, ideally, each "dot" would associate person, place and time with an event and I would join the dots to construct the story. This turned out to be much harder than I imagined.

This was a puzzle where many of the dots were indistinct or missing altogether and the numbers which gave the sequence were sometimes muddled. Where there are two events, the natural, maybe the only thing to do is to join them with the equivalent of a straight line. Sometimes I could recognise a lacuna and make some allowance for it but often enough the discovery of a new fact, or the re-evaluation of a detail of existing evidence brought the realisation that there were events which I had not known about. Sometimes these discoveries were moments of epiphany, and just as often they were slow, extended periods of the realisation that something was not quite right.

My relationship with Jjj and especially Aaa Ggg has developed considerably. After the initial shock of discovery, Jjj has become a pleasant part of the story. I see his life, right up to the tragedy of his death, in a rosy glow. He was loved, he loved in return and he was happy.

My feelings about Aaa are more nuanced and ambivalent. His early life remains mysterious and it is impossible to tell if this is simply absence of evidence or concealment. There is a lot to admire about Aaa. He chose an adventurous path. There is no doubt in my mind that he and Mmm Sss were passionately in love. Sadly, in their case war and disease mean that passion led to anguish.

I wish that I could share what I have found with my sister Ccc. Looking back at the indistinct nature of my own early memories, I wonder how much she ever understood about the tragic circumstances surrounding her birth. I continue to believe that Ccc's early life on Islay was good and I would have liked the opportunity to tell me, as an adult, what she remembered. I like to think that knowing a more complete version of what happened to Mmm and Aaa would have been a comfort to her.

What I have learned during my research has rather changed my feelings about my mother, Mmm. I now know for certain that she had terrible experiences and did terrible things. The two sides balance but they do not cancel out. When she was alive I do not think she was able to tell me what happened and I'm not sure that as a young man I would have been able to receive the message. Now that I am old, I would like to hear her story from her point of view but of course her voice is silenced. I hope that I could listen with unconditional positive regard and sincere sympathy and that my listening would be helpful to her. Even after all these years I still grieve for Mmm.

Writing this tale has taught me some things about stories in general: the tone of a story depends on more than the content, the facts; it also depends on where the storyteller starts and ends their tale and what point of view they choose to use. If I had chosen to end in 1952 or 1953 then the tale would have been an unrelieved tragedy for Mmm but not for Ccc. By 1956 it becomes a triumph over adversity for Mmm but much complicated when you include Ccc and my father (). In 1957 I () add a further layer of complication.

And the story does not end there. There was more turmoil to come as together we all entered the Swinging Sixties and the age of the atom bomb and the space race.

[3rd February 2025] 

   

Start to 2025 was snow joke!

 Hi J, How are you keeping? Drop me a note (even if it's only a NAK) to reassure me that you are still functioning OK, because... I've had an interesting year so far. That would be "interesting" in the ancient Chinese sense, but not as interesting as the modern Californian sense. We're all fine and completely unharmed.

Christmas and the New Year themselves were the normal overeating and a little bit of drinking by me.

The problems were all caused by the New Year freeze. The first issue was that we had getting on for 6 inches of snow (btw I found a website called topographic-map.com from which I can say with a fair degree of confidence that my altitude is 97m and Halt Close is 217m). You probably had snow as well.

S was down in Cork and the rest of us were in K. S didn't fancy getting the bus back and neither N nor I fancied driving down to Cork in the snow, so everyone stayed where they were in the warm. Then we had a power cut which lasted 24 hours (not so unusual for me. Lots of overhead wires). We have an open fire so we could keep one room warm and we had plenty of bread etc for sarnies. We just reverted to the Dark Ages and went to bed early. The only thing I really missed was a hot drink. And after the power was restored the weather got colder and our water supply froze up. Not a burst pipe, but the supply branch from the main to the house is too shallow and it freezes sometimes (I don't know how deep it actually is, just "not deep enough"). The last time for me was 2010. Of course, while all this was happening, the roads weren't really driveable. First problem was me driveway. I cleared that and got both N's and my cars towards the front of the house. I only dug S's out yesterday (Saturday). She's still down in Cork. I walked to town on a couple of days to top up with essential-essentials: bread, marge, milk. It wasn't too bad a trip. I have proper equipment and a rucksack. One day I got a lift there and back!

Still the thaw is with us and we're getting back to normal.

How was it all for you?

And for your amusement, It seems that my idea of "The Vital Spark"/"The Electric Coaster" is not so mad after all. Behold the electric cruise ship:     

https://www.hurtigruten.com/en/about-us/sustainability/worlds-most-energy-efficient-cruise-ship

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/cruises/eco-conscious-cruise-ship-future/

I seem to be running one or two years ahead of the herd!

Christmas Wishes 2024

This is me winding down for Christmas. I hope the note reaches you before the big day, in which case I hope you have a good Christmas, but if you don't pick it up, then I hope you had a good Christmas. 

We've just had a couple of little bits of excitement which we could have done without. Nothing too bad for us, but unsettling. 

On Sunday (22nd) I collected Siobhan from Mallow (the neighbouring town). She had been staying down in Cork for the weekend. The bus service to Kanturk is not great on Sundays (and it's the last weekend before Christmas), so she caught the "intercity" bus which plies the route between Cork and Galway (via Limerick) and stops in Mallow. On the way home, shortly after we turned off the main road to the feeder to Kanturk, we were stopped in the road by the fire brigade. There was a young woman firefighter directing traffic onto a minor road. The sign said "incident" and it comes to something when I recognise the local firefighters (and I know the station fire officer, I even drink with him sometimes). The road we were diverted onto was very definitely "minor", literally "grass up the middle". I'm not sure I've explored that particular bohereen (bore-een, small road, track) before. We got home without incident, but I fear that someone's Christmas has been spoiled by either a road-traffic accident or a chimney fire.

And then on Monday (23rd, yesterday) we had a power cut after Sunday lunch. No power from 13:30 to 15:30. Again, no ill effects but a little unsettling. I was wondering about the possibilities of preparing food over an open fire and a camping gas ring!

Regarding "the vital spark", I had been thinking about the practicality of battery powered railway locomotives. Somebody got there first! Hitachi make them. Hitachi's idea, and mine is to use them for low-traffic lines filling the same ecological niche as diesel multiple units. I think they would work rather well, converting the infrastructure (or re-laying the tracks) would be much cheaper, safer and more resistant to bad weather than either electrified tracks or overhead cables. You could choose battery capacity on the trains and have charging points at the terminal stops and selected intermediate stations (or halts) to suit your needs. If you were really ambitious, you could also have integrated buffer storage built into the system. That would involve the novel idea of "thinking ahead" to give flexibility. Thing is, that wouldn't have to particularly expensive in the big scale of things. I think that battery-powered multiple units or railcars would be well-suited to the kind of lines which got axed under Beeching, for instance up and down the Welsh valleys. Single track working would be acceptable, and in some cases you might literally have a single train shuttling to and fro all the time. Obviously, you should have signaling, tokens etc, but colliding with yourself is something which would take some ingenuity! The track-beds or at least the routes are probably still there in many cases. I imagine that the cost of creating such routes would be a tiny fraction of the likes of HS2, could be done piecemeal and could be started and finished before a public enquiry got going.   

And to entertain you:

Here is Big Clive comparing 5 desiccants. He uses desiccants to keep his printing filament dry and had an air-frier dedicated to the task. I'm not sure you will bother with that!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rufg-Wa4Zr4

And here is a short documentary about the development of blue and then white leds. More your area than mine but still interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF8d72mA41M

And here is on of several videos of The Dragon of Shandon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv9_WQBUxBg

[Constructed from some personal notes 24th December 2024]

     

Luna the cat and a bloodbath

 Recently I was away from home for a short while. When I was away I received the following text. I found it again when I was clearing out the inbox on my phone. The text (or at least, the vision I imagined) is so good that I thought I would share it for posterity.

Luna is a cat.

Ok luna opened sachet tomato ketchup last night like bloodbath in kitchen!!!!

[7th October 2023 12:23]

Rendered into better English, with some punctuation. 

Ok. Luna opened a sachet of tomato ketchup last night. It was like a bloodbath in the kitchen!!!!

My mind boggled at the imagined image. I'll leave you to do the same. Fortunately our kitchen has a tiled floor.

[28th October 2023]

When you get to our age: ailments, lathes and the river

Hi Mike, Good to hear from you! Just recently, for the first time, I find myself wanting to prefix what I'm going to say with "when you get to our age..." (wygtoa). It feels strange, and is really a bit unwelcome. I hope I didn't sound like I was nagging but (wygtoa) several of my friends and acquaintances have been suffering from ailments both serious and minor and sometimes I become just a little anxious that someone is in a poor state and I don't know about it. With that said, the last thing any of us needs is someone else going "are we there yet?", or similar, particularly if you are feeling out of sorts.

Sorry to hear you've been poorly. The flu/Covid you describe sounds nasty. I understand what you say about "unable to concentrate". I've experienced that myself, though fortunately not recently. Another symptom I have experienced is a feeling of "not really being there/present". I think that fancy name for that is "dissociation". That wasn't actually unpleasant, but it isn't something I want to repeat either. On the other hand, on a couple of occasions I think I've experienced minor hallucinations - that was just weird, "dissociation PLUS strange sensations". People pay a lot of money for experiences like that! As far as I'm concerned they're welcome to them.

I particularly understand the "not being able to read" bit. There was a brief time in his later years when my Dad had a spell like that. At the time, I felt really sorry for him because it took away a genuine simple pleasure. Fortunately the effect was due to diabetes and got fixed, so it was all ok in the end. I think he was re-reading one of the Brother Caedfael (spolling?) stories the week before he died.

I'm still waiting to pick up Rivers of London again. I simply haven't been in a bookshop recently and my library haven't come up with the goods yet. I've been wondering (in general) about graphic novels. I may give one a go (maybe even a RoL one). I think they are a legitimate art-form (like comics, plays, TV etc) but maybe suited to a particular audience, so I note your comments and accept that graphic novels may not be for me. One of the things I like about RoL is the discriptive work and the backgrounds and, of course, that will likely be lost in a graphic novel. I think I'm someone who falls into the category of "I prefer listening to plays on the radio to watching movies - the pictures are better!" Talking of plays on the radio, I was speaking to Chris Freemantle over the internet yesterday and he said that he had been "...listening to a Radio Four play...". I don't think I was fully paying attention to him, or perhaps it was my dodgy hearing, because just for a fraction of a second, I thought I had heard him say "...listening to radio foreplay...". I'll leave your imagination to fill in the gaps, because that momentary misunderstanding certainly had my mind boggling.

Well done for venturing out "on foot"! It's something I don't do enough of. If I was over there, I would be tempted to offer to join you. My exercise is mostly my cycle down to town most days to pick up a newspaper and minor groceries. That, and the same trip to the Men's Shed and then the pub two nights a week. Purchasing the bicycle was one of the better things I have done since coming full time to Ireland, and it was a complete whim. 

Tomorrow, at the Shed, my task of the evening is to connect two pins inside a push-button on/off switch on a lathe. It isn't "latching" as it needs to and I think the problem was that I had misunderstood the details of the wiring (part of the problem is retrofitting cheap Chinese components to ancient British equipment, with little or no documentation for either. The lathe is a small Myford). Internet diagram to the rescue. At tea one evening I was pleased to announce: "Three bits of good news: the lathe motor runs in both directions, there hasn't been a big bang, and I'm still alive!" If the "latch" works, then all I have to do is re-route some of the wiring and thoroughly clean the lathe (it's in a terrible state). I'm sure there will be other things to do as well.    

My other exercise is walking down to the river behind my house. You couldn't really call that a proper walk, but I enjoy it, and it's so convenient. I remember telling you about it. Making the gateway was another whim. The original reasoning was simple enough, the gate gives me access to cut the back of the hedge, but the effect has been much greater. I now go down to the river several times a week (weather and inclination permitting). Regarding ground conditions: one of the effects of making the same walk regularly is that one becomes aware of changes. Topsoil where I am is clay and the underlying ground is some sort of limestone or maybe shale (my geology is a bit dodgy). It has been a wet winter, even my local standards. The ground was very squidgy, even waterlogged but is now beginning to dry out. The river itself is changing. It was surging and opaque, like milky coffee, but yesterday the surface was flat enough, and the water clear enough, for me to see the rocky bottom in places. And I saw one or two bees (good) and today I saw a pair of swallows outside my house (that's even better). I have still to go down to the river today.

I'm going to break off there. I have to pick up the newspaper and I have a couple of small purchases to make in town. Keep in touch, even if it's only to say "I feel a bit crap, but I'm still here". It saves me worrying and prevents me from being a nag. Tell me about  any future walks.

Regards,

Tom

(17th April 2023)

Redcar Coke Ovens - January 1980

I don't remember a saharan wind but I do remember the wind from another time.

In 1980 I was "doing the rounds" as a trainee engineer (Grade MM0, Middle Management Zero). It was three months here, and three months there and so on. "Here" moved about quite a bit, but in January 1980 it was the coke oven plant at Redcar. You can still find the remains of the Redcar blast furnace and coke ovens by selecting the birds' eye view on Google maps, just a little to the North West of Redcar town.

It should have been a good time (I'm perverse enough to have a soft spot for coke ovens), except that between January and April 1980 was the Steel Strike. It was not a good time. Each day started with 15 miles across the North Yorkshire Moors (which could be pleasant), then negotiating my way through a picket line and then a further mile through the sleeping works to the site. The works had been built on reclaimed salt marsh and there is nothing between it and the the North Sea but the dunes at Coatham. Fortunately it didn't really snow while I was there, but there was constantly snow on the wind. It was bitterly cold.

I can bore for 3 countries on coke ovens and blast furnaces, and I'll spare you the details. Both are strange things, like caged dragons or demons. One difference is that a blast furnace can be put to sleep and woken again. It is not a desireable thing to do, but in this case it was done for 3 whole months. Imagine waking a coke fire from the embers. Coke ovens are not like that - they cannot sleep. They can be "turned down" but if production stops then the ovens are quickly destroyed and have to be rebuilt. So, production continued on the ovens. Several times a shift an oven would discharge tens of tonnes of incandescent coke into the air. The inside of the ovens is extremely hot (up to 1400 deg C), and the outside is still hot enough to damage the soles of your boots if you stand still too long in one place. The atmosphere between workers and management was one of tension and resentment. To top it all, the ovens (which were almost new) were suffering from serious technical problems. The air stank and all the time the wind was blowing in from the sea, carrying snowflakes.

It was about then that I decided that, right or wrong, the politicians had decided that they didn't want a steel industry and that the best thing I could do was leave before everything came to a sad end.

On a brighter note, I enjoy my place down by the river. I wish I had found it years ago, but it wasn't the time. I don't expect to see kingfishers. I think the soil is wrong for them: clay rather than sand. On the other hand, I have found myself studying the water. I find the patterns formed by the eddys fascinating. They are both chaotic and predictable and they change from day to day with the state of the river. There is one place where a branch sheds little vortices and another where there is sometimes an area of turbulence like plaited hair. I'm pretty sure Da Vinci drew something like that in one of his notebooks.

On an even brighter note, Noreen and I are off for a couple of days in Bantry. Two nights in a fancy hotel. I'm looking forward to roasting myself in the sauna.

I've got another letter to write before I shut things down, so I'll end there.

Incident in O'Brien Street

Today is a day for interesting occurrences which I feel are worth noting down.

I was driving my car, waiting on O'Brien Street to turn into Earl Street (which afterwards becomes Freemount Road). A large earth mover (Volvo, 4 wheels, hinged in the middle) turned left out of Earl Street. A car on O'Brien Street moved forward and blocked my turn into Earl Street. At first I was a little annoyed, but then the driver started gesticulating wildly a the driver of the pickup truck which was just about to follow the earth mover. There was a large piece of metal, invisible to the driver, which I suppose had fallen from the earth mover. The driver and passenger of the pick-up got out, retrieved the piece of metal and moved it to the side of the road. I exchanged friendly waves with the driver of the car which had blocked my path. He had done the right thing for all of us. He only had a moment to make the decision too. 

(17th September 2022)

 The Grounded Star

I was standing outside on the drive, near the front outside tap, when something caught my eye. It was a bright light shining from the asphalt pavement. I could keep the light sparkling by walking towards it, keeping the sun over my shoulder. When I reached it, I stooped down and picked it up. It was a tiny fragment of glass, an irregular cuboid or spheroid. I am holding it between the forefinger, second finger and thumb of my left hand even as I write. It is pale green, transparent tinted glass, a remnant of the incident with the rear window of my car. When I looked on the ground nearby I could see other similar fragments, each one a little facetted shape. I had not noticed them before now except that I saw this one - barely 2 mm across. Each one is a tiny gem, a facetted jewel, a grounded star.

I thought about how this incident could be incorporated into a detective story: someone noticing a fragment of broken glass on a tarmac drive, noticing more fragments and deducing that a broken car window had been nearby. I'm going to throw the glass away and get on with my day.

(17th September 2022)

Floaters – Onward to Mars etc

Floaters – Onward to Mars etc

In an earlier exchange I convinced myself that a dirigible on Mars was simply not practical. The issue is the low atmospheric density. It is much easier to design something to float in a dense medium. You and I can swim quite easily in water, but have difficulty flying, well, I do anyway.

The reason I am in favour of gas balloons is that once they are in flight they do not need energy to maintain them there. That makes them economical. This does not rule out hot-air (or other gas) balloons or gliders but they are issues for another day.

I don’t give up easily, and I thought I would investigate the possibility of using balloons on other bodies.

Bodies I investigated briefly and rejected:

Body:            Atmospheric Density:    Composition:

Mercury        “tenuous”                        -

Mars            0.02 kg/m3                        95% CO2

Ganymede    “micro pascals”                -

Europa           “tenuous”                        -

Jupiter            90% Hydrogen.             “Hydrogen and Helium in roughly solar proportions”

All the data is sourced from Wikipedia or other basic websites because I’m lazy.

Balloons are favoured by dense atmosphere composed of gases with a high molecular weight. Low gravity helps too.

Balloons are not practical on Mercury, Mars, Europa or Ganymede because of the low atmospheric density.

Jupiter is an interesting case. The atmosphere is so deep that there will be a wide range of density. The composition being mostly hydrogen means that something relying on pure “gas buoyancy” will not work (because you can’t get less dense that Hydrogen). On the other hand, the pressures are so high that the penalty for solids is less. Jupiter needs its own special, radical approach. Jupiter is not really rejected, but it needs a completely different approach.

Venus

On the other hand, gas balloons may have real potential on Venus!

Surface Temperature:    464 deg C

Pressure:                        92 Bar

Gravity:                          8.87 m/s2, 0.904 g

Atmospheric Density:    65 kg/m3

Composition:                  96.5%

If we assume ideal gas laws apply and the Venusian atmosphere is entirely CO2, then the density of a gas is simply going to in ratio to the molecular weight of the gas relative to CO2 (the other conditions, temperature and pressure remain constant).

This gives us the following:

Density of Atmosphere:                                65 kg/m3

Lift from 1m3 of vacuum:                            65 kg

Density of H2 at same conditions (2/44)      2.95 kg/m3

Lift from 1m3 of H2 at same conditions.      62 kg

Density of He at same conditions (4/44):      5.91 kg/m3

Lift from 1m3 of He at same conditions:       59.1 kg

There you are! If my sums are mostly right, that means that the high pressure and CO2 atmosphere means that on Venus 1 m3 of enclosed Hydrogen can lift 62 kg of load.

The Venusian atmosphere contains Sulphuric Acid. I would propose manufacturing hydrogen “in situ”. Possible routes are: bringing a reactive metal like lithium with you and reacting it with sulphuric acid, or breaking down the acid with energy. Suddenly making this practical becomes a materials-science problem.

Next Steps:

I prefer “back of a beer-mat” to “back of a fag packet” but that exercise convinces me that balloons are worth investigating for Venus. Next stage would be “back of an envelope”.

Do you know anything about aerodynamics and lift? (because I don’t). Are you aware of any equations I could use in a similar way to screen glider devices for different bodies?

I think gliders will be impractical on Mercury/Europa/Ganymede because of the low atmospheric density. I think they will probably either have to move far too fast or be vast. I’d like to do the sums for Mars (just to “show it won’t work”).

On the other hand, hot-“air” balloons and gliders (or “fish”) might be really interesting for Jupiter, but I’m still working out where to start. Any suggestions?

(Original 5th June 2021)

Drain problem in Cork City - Titan, Ceres and Dwarf planets

 Hi, Yes I though the Titan thing was good. As for the moons… well, it’s understandable. Our generation called Pluto a planet – the category of dwarf planets didn’t exist then, and all those moons are simply too much to remember. 

Titan is one of several places which look well worth investigating. In a perverse way, all these moons and some of the dwarf planets: Ceres and even Pluto, may make better targets for human occupation than planets. They are deep space but with a surface and no gravity well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet) Actually, the Solar System is looking more interesting than it has, but not in the ways or in the places we expected.

And… it hasn’t been a good week for me, and though I’m through it ok, I may be distracted suddenly for a while. 

On Wednesday evening, Noreen got a phone call from Margaret to say “there’s sewage in the yard” of our cottage down in Cork City. A photo was enough to confirm the issue and in the time it took to collect a few tools (overalls, gloves, drain rods…) and a change of clothing I was on my way (40 miles to Cork City). 

By 01:30 I had the mess cleared and had established that while the loo and shower-room drains were working satisfactorily, the gulley for the kitchen (which was the source of the effluent), was blocked. There had been things in that effluent which had not come direct from any kitchen and certainly not ours, including an almost complete sausage! No, I do not know what variety; it was like a length of garlic sausage with a reddish skin. The mess cleared up and it being possible to use the loo (but not the kitchen sink) I washed and went to bed.  

The following morning, Noreen (who fortunately is on vacation from school) was down at 09:00. While I started trying to clear the blockage, Noreen started on the internet and phone. In not so short order she went through: Irish Water, Cork City Council, 2 drains companies and even the Gardai (police, because we needed to get access to the house next door). Everybody was very helpful, but there were issues all along the way. Meanwhile, I bailed and “plunged” and groped.

By a miracle, “plunging”, persistence, groping in the darkness and with the use of chemicals, there was water movement by about 15:00 and by 16:00 I had the gulley draining in a satisfactory way. We had managed to resolve the immediate crisis for about EUR 30 on parking, EUR 20 on drain cleaner and whatever we spend on petrol. After I’d demonstrated the results, I washed up, we all shared some tea and a bun, and Noreen and Margaret went home, while I remained, to enjoy a TV dinner and a single can of strong cider. I went to bed early and I slept like a log.

The following day, I did a survey of my drains and the area. Compared to the previous night I felt amazingly relaxed. In the early afternoon I had a visit from someone from our preferred drains company. The bloke explained that we had two issues: 1) No rodding/jetting access and 2) No vent to relieve pressure from the sewer. The solution is going to have to be removing the loo pan and using the access into the sewer for inspection with an endoscope and then digging up the yard (guided by  the endoscope results), and then jetting and fitting a small inspection chamber. Really what is behind all this, is that I have a house which is over a hundred years old and the foul drainage has developed by a process of accretion.

I’ve fixed the immediate crisis, but now I have to take control of the project (because that is what it has become). Of course, the screws holding down the pan are badly rusted. I’m going to investigate removing the bowl but I’m reconciled to hiring a plumber and I know that the usual solution in these cases is to break the bowl – it’s easier and cheaper. If I get someone else to do the work, I will get them to fit easily removable screws and a service valve on the cistern at the same time (to save the need for draining the cold water tank in the future).

I’ve now got an excruciatingly large scale map (stolen from the Irish Gas website) of the relevant houses, and the results of my survey. Tomorrow evening I will investigate the loo pan and then we will move on from there. 

I may be busy for a few days…

Cheers, 

Tom

Trying to stay out of the brown. Onward to Mars, or Titan!   

(Originally posted 17th June 2021)

From: pink582 [mailto:pink582@btinternet.com] 

Sent: 10 June 2021 10:54

To: Tom Gillies

Subject: Re: Titan

Hello Tom,

thanks for doc about Titan, I may watch others in the series. When it comes to the moons I get a bit hazy....when there were only a handful of moons knowing their names seem to make sense but when you get 53 confirmed moons plus 29 other likely candidates....well I lost the plot.

two things did come out of the doc for me...1) the magnetic field of Saturn itself is strong enough to protect the atm of Titan from solar wind for 90% of the time...I also guess the solar wind is less dense out there.

2) very thick atm...if you want a fast trip to Saturn slowing down won't be so difficult...reference ballute idea in 2010 movie.....may be you could rig a past both through Saturn and Titan.

All the best

Jeff

------ Original Message ------

From: "Tom Gillies" <gillies.tom@googlemail.com>

To: "Jeff Pink" <pink582@btinternet.com>

Sent: Wednesday, 9 Jun, 2021 At 19:32

Subject: Titan 

I’m sure you will be interested in this, and I’m going to check some figures tomorrow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGy4uyHVUYA 

Regards,

Tom 

Flying not Floating

 

Flying not Floating

The simplest formula for calculating lift that I can find is:

 ρ v² S C_L

Where:

·         L is the lift force

·         ρ is the fluid density – originally of “air”

·         v is the velocity or “true airspeed”

·         S is the planform (projected) wing area

·         C_L is the lift coefficient at the desired angle of attack, Mach Number and Reynolds Number

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_(force)

(The representation of the equation got mangled and I can't be bothered to fix it)

Typical value of C_L lift coefficient is 1.5

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/lift-coefficient

If I assume that I want Lift force equal to the downward force, then that means the Lift I require is (Mass * local Gravity).

Do some algebra and rearrange the equation to get (looks like super and sub-scripts don’t work properly in equations with fractions):

The first term is a constant for the body in question, the second term is the inverse of the density and the third term is the inverse square of the “airspeed” velocity. Everything varies as you would expect.

Physical Properties on various bodies:

Body:	Gravity (m/s2)	Atm Density (kg/m3):	Lift for 1 kg (N):	Temp (deg C):	Atm Pressure (Bar):	Notes:
Venus	8.87	65	8.87	464	92
Earth (Air)	9.81	1.2	9.81	20	1	*
Earth (Water)	9.81	1000	9.81	20	1	*
Mars	3.72	0.020	3.72	-63	0.06
Jupiter	24.8	1.2	24.8	-70	10	*
Saturn	10.44	1.2	10.44	-139	1	*
Titan	1.35	53	1.35	-179	1.5

 

Notes:

(*)          Atmospheric density on a gas giant can be anything you choose it to be, depending on altitude/depth.

Calculate the “factor” for all the different bodies

Body:	L/CL:	Inverse Density:	“Factor”:
Venus	5.91	0.154	0.910
Earth (Air)	6.54	0.83
Earth (Water)	6.54	0.001
Mars	2.48	50
Jupiter	16.53	0.83
Saturn	6.96	0.83
Titan	0.90	0.94

 

 (Originally 17th July 2021)