Hobbies
Playing With Electricity – Part 4
Damn You Morus Nigra! ‘John Swerved as Mary, Queen of Scots, was busy with her throne but it wouldn’t flush so her face turned to stone when Jane put her hand on John’s gear stick [more…]
Science
Arts
Digitising Old Cine Films
Having modernised and saved the old family photos and audio recordings for ‘posterity’ by converting them to digital format, attention turned to the family cine films, shot in the 1960s and early 1970s: 24 reels [more…]
20th Century
Always Worth Saying’s Railway Review
One tires of the streetcars of Paramaribo, the mineral railways of the Amazon, and even of rural Albania in the 1980s. Railway Review’s roving reportage shall change continents and seek excitement (but not too much) [more…]
19th Century
Sir Joseph Whitworth and the Confederate Sniper
Introduction In March 2024 I purchased a first generation, Birmingham-made Parker-Hale replica of a Whitworth military pattern muzzle-loading rifle of the late 1850s. These iconic rifles gained legendary status following their use in the American [more…]
Hobbies
Playing With Electricity – Part 3
“Your nose will grow…” I’m sure that we can all recall some of these admonitions from our youth: “Keep looking like that and your face will stick!” – Why? To what? Surely that isn’t in [more…]
Computing
Digitising Old Audio Tapes
There were three tasks involved in modernising and preserving the family archive, the second of which was to digitise the audio recordings. Digitising the old photographs was covered in a previous article, while digitising the [more…]
Health
Why are we living longer
The statistics don’t lie. For some reason we are living much longer than previous generations, but why. Surely it cannot be down to rNHS, they seem to want us all dead as does this rubbish [more…]
Economics
The Case For SMR Hesitancy
As Energy Secretary Ed Milliband’s Net Zero cultural revolution gathers pace, this week he announced a nuclear renaissance. A new £14bn reactor is planned for Sizewell. Small modular reactors (SMRs) are being championed through a [more…]
Hobbies
Playing With Electricity – Part 2
T.I.B Or Not To T.I.B? PersonX: “Doc, can you just have a look at the vacuum cleaner it’s making a funny noise?” Doc: “Err…well..err…you see I’ve got…err…an appointment with the dentist…” PersonX: “There’s no mention [more…]