A panorama of Ghosts!

This delightful film, taken from the footplate of a tram in 1901, shows the harbourside of Morecambe in the UK.

A look at a typical day with ordinary people of all classes and occupations going about their business on a bright sunny day.

Also a little creepy to me because these are all ghosts, nobody in this film is still alive.




Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

"Just another minute" she said!


A month from now Calgary will be host to the world famous event called Beakerhead.
This five day extravaganza of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Music takes over much of downtown Calgary.

This is also where we will be having the Second Annual Parasol Duelling World Championships!

That is if we can get there barring a few technical difficulties...

Me and the talented Monica Willard working on the "Tin Fish"
Photo taken by the brilliant Neil Zeller at about 2:00am

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

A "mirror mirror" version of Steampunk

Recently I posted the following picture on our local Steampunk community's Facebook page.

My comment on it was "At least she is wearing her goggles!" which was meant to be ironic, because it is very rare to see Steampunks actually wearing their goggles!

welder by creativephotoworks

Needless to say it elicited a fair amount of comment!

Some were critiquing her badly adjusted cutting torch, others suggested that perhaps her safety gear was insufficient... One comment attracted my attention for two reasons, first it missed the intended irony entirely and second it said, "Not even sure why it was posted as it is in no way Steampunk related."

For this poster missing the ironic point was not a surprise, however the second point got me thinking.  This picture is not Steampunk in the traditional sense, BUT it illustrates several Steampunk aesthetic elements that are worthy of comment. The elements are displayed in the negative, much like the "Mirror Mirror" episode of Classic Star Trek!  

For starters there is the obvious element of the goggles actually being used as I mentioned. Then the lack of any overt Victorian dress, no corset, no lace, no leather, no brass, not even a hat. 

Being inappropriately dressed for a dangerous activity such as welding or cutting is pretty common in Steampunk imagery so in this sense it is not an opposite, although exposing this much skin when doing so is and would definitely run a foul of the local O.H. and S. inspectors!

The gritty industrial setting is common in Steampunk, but this one has no gears, no gauges, no steam even.

It is an interesting counterpoint to our "standard" Steampunk industrial imagery. So in that sense I think it works as a Steampunk illustration.

After all who didn't think that this version of Spock was a more interesting one?

  
Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ
 

Time flies when you are having fun!

Three years ago today I started blogging here.

It has been a great ride and I hope you have found it as interesting and fascinating as I have.

Thanks for coming along for the ride, lots more to come!

As always...

Keep your sightglass full your firebox trimmed and your water iced!
KJ

An Airship Technical Gold Mine

Previously I reviewed one of the only books ever published on real airship design.
The author Charles P. Burgess worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the NACA.

During the heyday of the great rigid airships, in the first third of the 20th century, the NACA commissioned and collected a series of technical studies, papers and technological reviews of airship design. These papers show just how seriously rigid airships were taken as the future of heavy lift and long distance aircraft.

Recently NASA (the direct descendant of the NACA) has made scans of these reports and analyses available through the Internet Archive.

If you are curious check out this simple search:

Airship Technical Gold Mine 

Here you will find yellowed type written reports, with hand drawn graphs, diagrams, plans, and old photographs, documenting in detailed analyses the state of the art in Airship design in 20's and 30's.

The files are available in many formats including plain text, colour PDFs, html, epub and other ebook formats.

The titles alone make this old Flight Engineer drool!

Here are some examples to "wet yer whistle":

THE PRESENT STATUS OF AIRSHIP CONSTRUCTION, ESPECIALLY OF AIRSHIP FRAMING CONSTRUCTION
By Hans Ebner
1938





FULL-SCALE TURNING CHARACTERISTICS OF THE U.S.S. LOS ANGELES
By F. L. THOMPSON

CONTRIBUTION TO THE TECHNIQUE OF LANDING LARGE AIRSHIPS
By 0. Krell
PART I
Part II is here
From Zei'tschrift f'.r FLigteohnik und. Motorluftschiffahrt
September 28, 1928

RECENT RESEARCHES IN AIRSHIP CONSTRUCTION I
Forces of Flow on a Moving Airship and the Effect of he Control Surfaces
By H. Naatz
1928

Many of these reports are translations of German reports. The Germans were the acknowledged world leaders in Airship design at the time. The first report listed includes a German paper written in 1933 while the Hindenburg was under construction and before the loss of the Akron, which is noted in a footnote. The full report was not translated and acquired by the NACA till 1938.

Since these reports were typewritten they often contain typos, to me these little errors bring these fairly dry technical reports alive. In a way they show them as being human made. Prepared to record important information not just display elegant formatting.

For anyone interested in the technical details of real airship designs these reports are truly a gold mine of information.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Here are some sample pages of the kinds of details included in these reports:

 

 

Ankling, bloomers and fanning oh my!

Here is Part II of my compilation of the very first time Parasol Duelling appeared in our Role Playing group The Airship's Messdeck.

In Part I  Madame Saffron Taxus-Hemlock, her maid Maddie Hatter, and the Comms Officer of the HMAS Velvet Brush Lt Beulah Bueckert (Miss BB) meet  Lady Mary Formingham at a Parasol Duelling event at the Savoy Hotel in London. Lady Mary is the wife of the former head of the Royal Navy's Experimental Airship Division (the EAD) now posted to the bleak and isolated navy base at Scapa Flow due to a scandal involving the design and construction of the experimental airship the Velvet Brush.

I have been serializing a set of stories from our adventures as crew and passengers on that ship. You can follow Lt Cmdr(E) Maxwell MacDonald-Smythe, aka Max (me), Miss BB and other members of the crew, in our adventures starting here. 

The events portrayed below took place several months before the events in my serial story.

We join the Ladies as the Parasol Duelling continues.

Enjoy
Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

At the Parasol Duels

Part 2
An episode from the Airship's Messdeck
Compiled by Kevin Jepson

While appearing to watch the elegant sweep and motion of the expert parasol duelists competing in the middle of the Grand Ballroom of London's Savoy Hotel, Madame Saffron Taxus-Hemlock ponders all that Lady Mary Formingham has revealed of her interest and knowledge in the designs of the HMAS Velvet Brush.

"Lady Mary,” says Madame, “you must have been a great help to your husband through his career. Or did your social life keep you too busy for dry science and technological advances?"

Mary, taking advantage of a lull while the judges argue a ruling, says, "I don’t have a great deal of social life. At school, I was the odd one out, always. When Sylvia came to the school, she too was left out, though that was because of her family. Or rather its lack. Girls can be rather beastly to those who do not fit the correct mold of young womanhood.

The duelling continues and then is suddenly stopped. Madame exclaims, "Gracious! Did you see that? The one in blue tried the Hungarian sideways stab. She'll surely be disqualified now."

Miss BB watches the commotion around the duel closely. "That lady in the stripy outfit is very fast to have jumped out of the way." Then, referring back to their previous conversation about pants, "I have some pants." says BB, "I got them in Africa. They are really good for riding camels."

"Ew camels, don't they spit?" Maddie says, once again a bit too loudly. Heads turn.

Miss BB says, "Camels are very spitty, and stinky. More stinky than spitty. I got a blister on my bum when I rode one for a whole day."

Maddie laughs, "I think that's what happened to the young queen when learning to parasol duel. The blister that is."

As the next pair of Duelists take their places and begin Maddie says, "Hmmm, very clever tactic. It's really a mind game, the parasol duel."

"When she pretended to move one way and then went the other?" BB asks, staring hard at the duel.

Madame claps her hands. "Oh, well played. Maddie, did you note that very forceful snub? And just where one would have expected a reverse twirl!” She leans back to Mary. “Did Sylvia share your interest in aeronautics?"

"Snubs, snubs, I could do a snub I bet," says BB.

Mary claps as a bout comes to an end with the loser weeping gracefully into a lacy hankie. "Sylvia? No. She thinks of nothing but the houses and keeping the lower servants in line. When she used to come out with us – me and Max and William Macleod – it was in part because I needed a chaperon. Then she fancied the Macleod, who returned her regard for a time. But nothing came of it in the end. She was not at all interested in anything to do with the ships they were on, or their dreams of joining the airship navy. The EAD was very small in those days, you see, and not all sailors were suited for it."

Maddie says, "My parasoling coach said my twirls were inspired."

"Can you teach me the twirl? I would love to twirl," says BB.

Madame is watching the crowd. "I say, is that Lady Grantham’s oldest daughter? I had no idea she was a duelist.” She looks at Maddie. “You’ve gone white again dear. Are you not well today?"

Miss BB looks at Maddie with concern. "Oh, you are very white. Like a sheet. Would a drink of medicine help you? Like the Doctor's Medicine?"

Maddie, slinks further behind the greenery. "Am I? Perhaps it's all the excitement."

Madame watches Maddie for moment, then calls, "Waiter! A very small brandy for the young lady. The excitement is too much for her."

Looking for the lady Madame mentioned, BB asks, "Do you mean the really tall one? With the ugly dress? Should we wave at her?"

“No!” gasps Maddie, grabbing BB’s arm.

"No." Madame nods across the room. "Miss Grantham’s the dark-haired one with the haughty expression."

Miss BB spots the lady in question and hrumphs. “Her dress is ugly too.” She puts her hand to her mouth. "But I shouldn't say such things. Maybe I need some medicine as well. We should all have medicine."

"I would benefit from some brandy as well," says Mary.

BB shakes her head. "I can't drink brandy, only medicine."

Again half hidden by fern fronds, Maddie says to herself, "I cannot believe that girl made it as a duelist, her prancing was dreadful and her twirls were weak at best."

"So Sylvia is still with you, Lady Mary?" Madame inquires.

Mary waves to the waiter in a manner more suited to a tavern than the Savoy Ballroom. "Yes, as my housekeeper. She travels between all the small farms and estates that Sir Gordon and I both have inherited, terrifying the staff into obedience. Just now she is off on the Welsh border, I think, worried that the kitchens there would not have prepared properly for any early lambs that must be raised by the hearth on account of being born into the inclement weather they have on those mountains. I’m sure the staff would have done it, being bred up in those very mountains and coming to us from those very farms and crofts, but Sylvia has a will of her own in these matters, and I long ago gave her leave to attend to the estates as she chooses."

Madame says to BB, "It's the same medicine, Miss BB. Only here they keep it in nicer bottles."

Maddie chuckles. "And charge a nicer price!"

Madame explains, "Crystal ones, like the chandeliers up there. No, don't point with your parasol, dear. You could have taken out the Duchess of Devonshire's eye."

Maddie, anxiously watching the crowd from behind her fern, thinks to herself, "Oh wouldn't that just be the thing, to be found out and found to be drinking as well."

BB looks shocked. "Oh no, it can't be the same stuff. I can't drink brandy, only medicine. They must be different. I would go to hell for sure if I drank brandy."

Maddie hoots from behind her plant. "Hey are you blind? That was intentional fanning!"

"Can you teach me fanning? That looked oh so clever." says BB.

Maddie explains, "Strictly against the rules, fanning is. It involves opening and closing your parasol quickly  to create a breeze. Also called bellowing. Dust could blow in your opponent’s eye, giving you an advantage."

All the room hushes as a particularly well orchestrated Free-Style duel begins between two past champions. After the Mayfair Duelist raps her opponent’s ankle and ladders her stocking, a move for which no penalty can be grave enough, the displeased crowd emphatically rattles their teacups in their saucers, and turns their backs until the disgraced duelist is removed from the ballroom.

The waiter, taking advantage of the rustle of shoulders turning, slips between tables with a crystal decanter and several elegant, though very small, glasses.

"I wonder where she got those stockings," says BB. "They sure are nice ones. Before they were laddered."

"There is a penalty for that laddering, Miss BB. The offender will lose her parasol AND her previous champion's glove," says Madame.

"Well! Bunch of wimps. They would never make it on the farm," says BB, shaking her head. "But I could learn fanning, and laddering. Just in case I mean. It could save my life one day. And maybe the life of baby sheeps."

"Have some medicine, Miss BB," says Mary. "They will start the next duel in a moment."

"Oooo. medicine. I don't mind if I do. These glasses are very small."

Lady Mary once more leans toward Madame Saffron, saying softly, "These documents. Please, can you advise me what to do with them?”

Madame leans in close. "I don’t know if the Commander passed along this suggestion, but I could readily arrange for the documents to be ‘found’ aboard the ship by an EAD worker, as if they had been shoved into a corner and forgotten, perhaps while the ship was being repaired after the Portsmouth explosion."

A city of ghosts.

Previously I mentioned the odd effect that colorized historical photos had on me.

This delightful film of Berlin in 1900 has been colourized and edited for Facebook by Paul Hardy.

It is a city of ghosts indeed, since every single person shown has passed now.
Seeing black and white photos and the grainy old movies sometimes brings on  a bit of "memento mori" but this film with its muted colours, showing street scenes from a bustling metropolis is moving indeed.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ


https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10153303691386248&set=vb.769001247&type=1

SOMEWHERE IN TIME 1900.
A HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN YEAR OLD FILM MADE NEW. MAINLY BERLIN & MUNICH, GERMANY.

Over a Million FB viewers have been moved by my film, experiencing a surreal mixture of emotions that few have been able to fully describe.It was coloured about 10 years ago but I've now digitally sharpened it as well as removed dust and grain to give an even better experience.Truly magical, moving footage that I've cut and edited to my favourite piece of classical music. The original film which I took the footage from is very much darker and also depicts a large amount of military segments.I wanted to edit this however to show the positivity and pride of the everyday people in their day to day lives as they embrace all the splendour of that time period on a human level.Clearly, like today, some seem richer than others, yet all of them seem to display a sense of dignified purpous often missing in todays world.

All these forgotten souls are left rotting on old grainy dark films often with sombre depressing music thrown over. It's my belief that they deserve better. Beautiful music and beautiful images presented in the right way can be incredibly emotive and powerful and I felt that this was needed in order to properly transport the viewer back through time and really ''feel'' what it was like.I've worked hard to convey that sense of splendour and make people see and feel that a sunny day then looked just like a sunny day today. These people lived, loved, laughed and cried and had real lives. They did not live in darkness with grey skies and grainy mist as we are often used to seeing on decaying films.

The wonderfully emotive music I've used is the soundtrack from the movie 'Somewhere In Time' and was written by Film Composer John Barry, not to be confused with 'The Eighteenth Variation of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini' which also runs throughout the film.Savour this as you watch it. All these people whose lives were just as important to them in their time era as we think ours our now. I noticed how happy they seem to be going about their business and I tried to study different characters.... who were they?... what was their story? Watch the woman adjusting her hat for example at the end of the film. She seems very concerned about her image as she proudly sports the latest fashion..and notice how happy the kids are playing in the street.The more you study these people the more it will fascinate you. Their lives are less complicated than ours in terms of technology but you can clearly see the overwhelming community spirit here without video games, TV or computers. Somewhere in time, all gone forever..all just ghosts....yet frozen here for you to glance upon as if through some magical time machine window.

Enjoy, The Time Guru.
Posted by Paul Hardy on Thursday, 30 April 2015