Put on your adventuring pants Matron!

Would you like to help me on a quest?

A vision quest if you will, like the bloke off of ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ used to do every time there was an episode about him. (Did you know, that Robert Beltran, the guy who played the enigmatic Native American character Chakotay in the program was in fact, half Mexican? Which just goes to show that if an ‘ethnic’ character is needed, any minority will do at a pinch.)

Anyway, back to my vision quest. Don’t worry if you’re in two minds about the use of mind expanding herbs and the ceaseless native rhythms, I’m not going to ask you to listen to Radio 1 or anything unnatural like that. I’d just like some of you to read a couple of my Blog posts.

It’s not hugely important, I’m being selfish and mercenary and I’m just trying to cheer myself up about because things have all gone a bit crappy today and it’s taking a few more muscles to smile than it does normally (Even if I am wearing a brand-new Jeff Banks shirt that makes me look a bit like a Vicar.)

The thing is, I am just 23 page-views short of hitting my completely made up and arbitrary target of 44,000 by the end of the week.

I’m not suggesting that you just go to my Blog and start reading random stuff, for that way madness lies – And most of you are borderline mental now.

So, I thought I’d give you some suggestions of a few of my favourite post that you can take a look at to cheer yourself up – They’re not my most popular ones by any means, they’re just ones I particularly like.

1. We’ll start with ‘Pandas, the Eastern Scourge’ – where I question the very nature of our ailuropodean planet-mates and try to discover if they’re just ‘Pulling a fast one.’
2. Then there’s ‘T-wit - who?’ – This describes the particular shortcomings of having a real, live, owl as a pet.  These are many and hugely unpleasant (Does contain a picture of the MiniDandy as a small child.)
3. Many of you know that I love ASDA, It’s mainly because of the people you can run into there, but I also performed the only recorded Melonicide in UK History (Also contains a small ladies chest reference, no, actually, it’s a small reference to a ladies chest) – ‘Boobs, Melons and Jumper Lumps’
4. In ‘Maybe they explained it badly?’ – I expose my complete lack of technical understanding to a waiting world… Mainly of how huge, metal aeroplanes can glide through the aether with an alacrity that would easily wound an armoured badger.
5. POWER! – It’s something we all yearn for, but do any of actually understand what it is? – I know I don’t, but I did have a go at explaining it to myself.  It didn’t go particularly well.  But judge for yourself in ‘Any way the wind blows’
6. I’m quite proud of the mixture of Terrorism and Time-Travel that I managed to ram into ‘We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity’ – Many people reposted this, but it’s not in the top-ten anymore.
7. Now, I’m cheating here, this one is actually in the Top-Ten, but it got favourited and re-tweeted by real famous people on Twitter. ‘Pogonophilia is for everyone, even the young.’ Contains my child-like wonder about why ‘a certain kind of lady’ finds Men with Manly beards very Manly. (Warning, contains a topless, Anne Geddes style photo of me)
8. I’m a great believer that you should wear clothes that make you happy… Wearing a kilt makes me happy (and freshens up my nethers like a man possessed) in ‘Let loose The Kraken Th'Noo’ I perform in what could be construed as a slightly racist fashion, purely so that I don’t have to wear any pants.
9. Some of you might know that on very rare occasions, I ride custom motorcycles. The thing about doing this is that you attract the attention of other people who do the same thing.  These people tend to have lives that are just as colourful as mine, here’s a few stories about my, now sadly demised, friend Jock, ‘No, chopper as in motorcycle - And Greeks.’
10. And the last post I’m going to recommend today also has a slightly Scots flavour.  Well, I could really do a list without including at least one ‘Scots Mick’ story, could I? ‘Then SMick said that Chap was a bad word’ talks about my first trip to the wonderful riverside town of Dumfries, where I nearly got my arms torn off and single-handedly chatted up a xenophobic bouncers girlfriend… Well, I say single-handedly…

Hope you enjoy this quick look at some of my favourite posts, there are a lot more if you’re interested.  Feel free to repost them, or spam links to people you think might be interested.

In fact, I think I’d quite like that.

Maybe they explained it badly?

You know what I've never understood?

How aeroplanes fly.

I mean, I used to work for the UKs largest manufacturer of Aero engines, and I had it explained to me, in great detail, sometimes with diagrams, by engineering zealots all the time and at the end of it, I just looked at them like the Grumpy Cat meme that is so popular nowadays, shook my head, said 'Nope' and walked off.

I mean, let's examine the facts. Air, the things that aeroplanes swim through, the stuff that surrounds us, is light - it's the stuff that lightness is measured against, things are either 'Lighter than air' or 'heavier than air'. (Although I guess, in fairness, things are also either 'Lighter than an elephant' or 'heavier than an elephant' - but that's not a very popular comparison, well, not in the UK at least, maybe they say it a lot on the Indian subcontinent... But in their local language, perhaps - I don't know.)

Aeroplanes, even what they laughingly call 'light aircraft' are pretty bloody heavy. You wouldn't want one landing on your head. They weigh anything up to five tonnes (Strangely, lighter than an elephant - who'd a thunk it?), and the big fellahs, the Jumbo jet for instance can weigh anything up to four HUNDRED tonnes on takeoff (about fifty-seven elephants if you wanted to willingly flog the analogy to death - Which is something I'd never do, especially not to an elephant ).

So, you've got something the weight of a medium sized zoo, floating in something that weighs effectively nothing - Can't happen, sorry... Just doesn't make sense.

The textbooks say that it's all to do with the speed of the air going over the top of wings travelling faster than the air going underneath the wing, generating low pressure and effectively 'sucking' the plane into the air. You're relying on, what Einstein called I believe 'The Weak Sucky Force' to keep a metal tube full of precious, precious human beings up in the air for hours at a time. (o.O)

If you ask a proper physics type if that would actually work, they look all sort of uncomfortable, fidget in their chair, pick their nails, and then say 'Err... Well.. Kinda.. but no, not really' They'll tell you that it's actually all to do with something called 'Angle of attack', which you can experience yourself if you stick your hand out of a car window when it's travelling at speed. Hold your hand flat, parallel to the ground, and it will just feel a bit windy. If you imagine it's a plane taking off and angle it upwards a bit, the wind will hit your palm and it will lift your hand up, and depending on the speed, and whether there's a lorry coming in the opposite direction - It may well get torn off in a horrificly bloody fashion (If this happens, remember to tell the nice policeman/paramedic that I told you not to do it, but you went ahead and did it anyway).

So, the really scientific types say that the wind 'blows' planes into the air. Shyeeeah, riiiight! Next time you find yourself next to an aeroplane, do me a favour... Blow on it really hard, see if it leaps into the air, in fact, get some of your friends to help you - if you can get it into the air even a little bit, I will buy you all a Yorkie (and Kit-kats for the girls obviously).

Would you trust your life to something that even people who say they understand them can't decide whether they work by sucking or blowing? I know I wouldn't. Does that make me a Luddite? Probably - Does that bother me at all? Not in the slightest.

I would trust aeroplanes a lot more if their wings flapped like a bird's, at least that's a technology that's been perfected over millions of years - And it would look totally cool!

-oOo-

And here's a quick story from the anals of my Engine Manufacturing Company history - I must point out that this happened 'before my time' and is one of those stories that everyone gets told.

Our final assembly building was due to be visited by one of the Royals, and as happens before such an occasion, Special Branch, or whomsoever it was who looked after Royal security at the time, came to site and poked their noses into everything that could have an impact on the visit.

They walked around with one of the management team and had things explained to them, asked intelligent questions and gave instructions about how we should prepare for the visit.

At one point, allegedly, the rozzer walked around the room where almost completed engines were hanging in gantries above the ground, awaiting some small but very important parts being connected to them. He noticed that they were fixed to their frames by just four bolts, and commented that 'I'm glad that that's not how the fix them to the wings!'

The employee looked at the bolts, smiled, and said 'You're right, when they're on the plane they're only held on by three, and they're smaller and designed to snap easily.'

'What?' asked the Five-oh,

'Well, if the engine gets hit by something solid, it'll start to vibrate, the bolt's will snap, the engine will fall away, and the plane keeps flying.'

'And if the bolts don't snap?'

'Well, once the engine starts to vibrate, the wing will start to vibrate, and then it will break apart, and they're full of jet-fuel...'

'Boom?' suggested the Poh-poh, making the expanding explosion handsignal with both hands.

'Aye... Boom!' Said the Engineer, doing the same.

He took a nonchalant step back, whistled nervously, and carried on with his inspection.