I began this blog to natter about photography. As the mood takes me, I happily photograph anything, learning all the time. I specialise in scale model photography. I’d like to be a pro at the latter, but it’s proving a hard business to break into. As time goes on, however, I find I’m writing more about much that amuses, bemuses and causes me concern. I hope you enjoy my wander through life as I try to find some meaning.
The ongoing saga of my ancient laser printer entered a new chapter today. The network card has been squiffy for a while, essentially randomly disconnecting itself whenever it felt like it.
Fed up with marching to and fro, cajoling and applying percussive maintenance, I decided to get to the bottom of the problem. I reasoned the issue was with the RJ-45 connector alone, and I looked at the possibility of replacing the component.
That proved impossible, and another repair also looked unlikely, namely tweaking the little sprung contacts. After about an hour of further investigation, it became apparent that once connection was made, any movement of the printer—even just the movement made when the print engine kicked in—was causing the cable connector to shift micrometres and disconnecting.
In desperation, and not wishing to buy another used JetDirect card which may end up with the same “fault” I resorted to wedging the connector in the socket with folded bits of paper. This survived the "thump and bash” test to my satisfaction.
As I said, it ain’t pretty, but it works. Old Faithful lives to fight yet another day.
“It may not look very exciting, but the photograph above has an important place in history. Known as Photo 51, it’s an X-ray diffraction image of DNA and has at least a claim to be the most important image ever taken.”
We rely on traffic lights to tell us when to go. And when to stop. We should replace that with common sense, argues traffic campaigner Martin Cassini.
It was a day in Cambridge in 2000 at a road junction where normally I would wait for three signal changes to get through.
This time it was deserted and as I breezed through without incident or delay I saw that the traffic lights were out of action.
From then on I started thinking: "Are we better off left to our own devices and is this huge system of traffic control blocking our progress and making us 'see red' in more ways than one?"
Near where I live there is a confluence of two motorways and a major link road. If I wish to visit Maidstone, I have to negotiate at least five sets of traffic lights to cross the various junctions. Many times, I have sat in an impatient queue while the road ahead and either side was completely clear.
Indeed, on days when there has been a power outage and the lights are off, everyone treats the junctions as proper roundabouts—giving way to the right and filtering as necessary—and the normal hold-ups simply evaporate. I would argue that there is simply no requirement for traffic control lights in off-peak hours at all. Why hold me up at a red light when there are no other vehicles in the other direction?
Obviously, we can’t eradicate all traffic lights. Pedestrian crossings, for example, and places where the lights actually do help the flow of traffic. However, I do think many of the traffic light controlled junctions I encounter in my daily life do not really need lights at all.
I love to see papers campaigning on issues of civil liberties and freedom, and I was particularly impressed with the fact that Metro produced a simple layman’s terms explanation of photographers rights in a cut-out-and-keep format.
As the weather begins to improve—it will sometime, I promise—it’s always worth refreshing the memory about the rights and wrongs of being a photographer. Good on the Metro for holding out for our freedoms.
Another Dawn Raid. Another visit to Upnor, because it’s not too far from home and I hadn’t really planned anything further afield.
I was surprised to discover it’s been almost a year since my last visit, and you’d have thought I might have exhausted the photographic possibilities of the village. However, I found quite a lot to feast my lens on.
Lurking amid the detritus of my workbench, and taking about as long to emerge from its cocoon as the real thing, is TSR-2 serial XR219.
Did you know the real aircraft, if they had gone into production and squadron service with the RAF were to be called Eagle? TSR, incidentally, stands for Tactical Strike Reconnaisance, being the key roles for the aircraft in service.
The real world seems to be heading ever further through the looking glass, and the temptation to blog about and comment on all the lunacy going on is a hard one to overcome. I had intended this year to be one where I wrote more about happier things, so let’s see if I can redress the balance a little.
As you may be aware, I enjoy most forms of transport. I love the history, the stories, the tales of human endeavour to go ever bigger, faster and higher. Having had a run of railway models I have been working on for clients and friends, I decided my modelling bench needed something a little more high tech. While my aerial interests tend to be firmly planted around 1940 for the most part, I do have the occasional flirt with things a little more recent—if you can call the mid-1960s “recent”, that is! It is easy to forget now, but in the 1950s and 1960s, Britain’s aircraft industry was world-beating.
Currently on my workbench, and not in a particularly photogenic state right now, is a 1/72nd scale BAC TSR-2. I am trying to go to town with this model. Thanks to various after-market manufacturers, the model has authentic cockpit interiors, the correct ejector seats, lifted canopies, wheels that are suitably bulged to give the impression of weight, more accurate engine details and crew access ladders. I have added extra detailing to the wheel wells, given an impression of the hydraulic pipework around the undercarriage, and generally pimped the whole thing. It is currently in bits going through several coats of paint before the decals are applied.
I am never quite content to simply build a model in isolation. What I plan on doing with this bit of British aerospace history is to place it some kind of context. If you watch the following video (part of a four-part upload to YouTube), and head for around the six-and-a-half minute mark, you’ll see the only example of the TSR-2 to ever fly, serial XR219, surrounded by all kinds of ancillary equipment and vehicles on the apron at Boscombe Down. I plan to create a diorama to show the aircraft in just this situation—or near to it.
(Incidentally, if you can spare an hour and this kind of thing interests you, it is worth viewing the whole set of videos. It puts the story of the TSR-2 project in its historical context. The elderly chap in the glasses is Roland Beamont, who was the test pilot on the project and also a Battle of Britain fighter pilot.)
Amazingly, most of the vehicles and bits are available in kit form from BW Models. At one point, I reckoned I could spend over £100 from that source alone! I have reined back a little, and while I save my pennies and wait for paint to dry I am working out the best way to create the concrete apron.
I am not trying to recreate the exact scene in the grab above. I am sort of aiming for something that may have occurred a few minutes before the film was shot. The aircraft will have been towed into position, and I plan to have the tow bar and tractor having just unhitched. The protective covers over the engine intakes and exhausts will be in the process of being removed. The oxygen and power generator trolleys are being positioned. The refueller and the CO2 truck will be there, too, and probably a Land Rover or similar.
Now, quite what I am going to do with this diorama—which will probably be almost a metre square—remains to be seen. Once I've photographed everything, the vehicles and aircraft will end up in the display cabinet, but the rest will end up in storage. Perhaps one of the museums might like it for display…
Another might-have-been of the British aircraft industry was the Fairey Rotodyne. I have a kit for one of those stashed away somewhere. Current ideas revolve around the “what if” had the RAF adopted the aircraft as originally envisaged in the late 1950s.
