[high speed trains] best of luck on your journey

Last night's Lambrigg crash:

Morning light revealed the front two carriages of the train, which has a special tilting mechanism that enables it to reach speeds of 125 mph, had been hurled off the track and down a verge. Seven other carriages snaked along an embankment, with one twisted on to its side.

Long ago, I ran a post on high speed train crashes and commenter ScotsToryB answered me …

James, are you being ironic? Maglev is magnetic levitation i.e. the train is raised by magnetic force thus moving with least friction possible. If the power(to create the magnetic field) failed the train should roll to a stop. I am not an engineer but suspect a failure in the infrastructure.

Devil's Kitchen also put the overly fearful Higham straight …

James, as you can see from the picture, it isn't held on by magnetism; it is levitated and propelled by magnetism. Information here.

Thank you kindly for patiently explaining that and I'm sure my fears are unfounded but one thing is for certain - I'll only ever take the slow train to York, Manchester or Edinburgh, thank you very much, if it's all the same to you.

[blogfocus sunday] just for this week

Laze and Jem, Blogfocus will be out on Sunday, hopefully around lunchtime. There are certain festivities late afternoon today, Saturday and I can't vouch for being compos mentis at the end of them. Therefore any late evening post should prove a trifle embarrassing. I might even propose marriage to one or two of you. Look out, for example, Tin Drummer and Tiberius.

[self-congratulation] a game every nation plays

Cecil Rhodes fatuously stated: "Ask any man what nationality he'd prefer to be and 99 out of 100 would say they'd prefer to be Englishmen."

John Updike said: "America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy." Bob Hawke spoke of what made Australia great. I'm sure the Canadians would have their own too.

Since time immemorial we've all been guilty of saccharin sweet, national self-congratulation. Where the problem arises is when you truly start believing your own rhetoric.

The German Schlieffen Plan in World War 1 relied on the effective deployment of resources, the French Plan XVII relied on the concept of 'elan', the idea that in one-on-one battle, a Frenchman will always prevail because of his greater spirit and fighting power. These people went to war in that frame of mind, blissfully ignoring 1812 and heading for 1939.

If the Americans are firm believers in 'good ole American know-how', then what of the Russians? Over here, self-congratulation is of the Python Yorkshireman syndrome - that we're tougher than anyone else. For example, this was sent to me by one of my Russian friends:

+20 Greeks put on sweaters (if they can find them).
+10 Americans shake, Russians are planting cucumbers.
+5 Italian cars don't start. Russians drive with lowered windows.
0 Water freezes in America, in Russia it thickens.
-5 French cars don't start.
-18 New York landlords turn on the heaters. Russians make their last seasonal picnic.
-35 Too cold to think. Japanese cars don't start.
-42 Transportation stops in Europe. Russians eat ice cream on the street.
-45 All Greeks are dead. Politicians really start doing something for the homeless.
-60 White bears start moving south. Hell freezes.
-114 Ethyl alcohol freezes. Russians are unhappy.
-273 Absolute zero, atomic movement stops. Russians wear boots.
-295 90% of the planet is dead. Russian soccer team becomes the world champion.

And the thing is, we really do picnic in the forest in minus 10. Gloves are donned around minus 8. The last time I wore a jumper was in minus 37. We end up with the flu, of course. The pharmacies do a roaring trade over here.

By the way, it's currently minus 16 outside. No more icecream for now.

[oscarmania] tim's little quiz

Laze and Gem, once you're done here, get yourselves over to Tim Almond's for a little quiz on the Oscars. How much do you know? In my case - not much.

[ghosts] and things that go bump in the night

On Dec. 19, 2003, a costumed figure stood in a doorway at Hampton Court Palace and this image was caught on closed circuit television and released by the Palace some days later.

“We’re baffled too — it’s not a joke, we haven’t manufactured it,” said Vikki Wood, a Hampton Court spokeswoman, when asked if the photo the palace released was a Christmas hoax. “We genuinely don’t know who it is or what it is.”

Wood said security guards had seen the figure in closed-circuit television footage after checking to see who kept leaving open one of the palace’s fire doors. In the still photograph, the figure of a man in a robe like garment is shown stepping from the shadowy doorway, one arm reaching out for the door handle.

“It was incredibly spooky because the face just didn’t look human,” said James Faukes, one of the palace security guards. “My first reaction was that someone was having a laugh, so I asked my colleagues to take a look. We spoke to our costumed guides, but they don’t own a costume like that worn by the figure. It is actually quite unnerving,” Faukes said.

A live vote was then taken by the BBC on what people thought it was, which received 38504 responses:

A prank being played on unsuspecting authorities. 29%
A publicity hoax ... and the authorities know it. 22%
A truly supernatural happening. 41%
None of the above. 8%

King Henry VIII’s third wife, Jane Seymour, died there giving birth to a son, and her ghost is said to walk through one of the cobbled courtyards carrying a candle.

Her son, Edward, had a nurse called Sibell Penn who was buried in the palace grounds in 1562. In 1829 her tomb was disturbed by building work, and around the same time an odd whirring noise began to be heard in the southwest wing of the palace. When workmen traced the strange sounds to a brick wall, they uncovered a small forgotten room containing an old spinning wheel, just like the one Penn used to use.

Henry’s fifth wife, Catherine Howard, condemned for adultery, was held at the palace under house arrest before her execution at the Tower of London. An 1897 book about the palace says she was reportedly seen, dressed in white and floating down one of the galleries uttering unearthly shrieks.

[This is another article from the pre-blogging days - can't be attributed, unfortunately. Probably BBC.]

Forward, not back - Mr. Eugenides guest blogs this evening

What do Scotland, Greece and Russia have in common? Mr. Eugenides explains:

On Calton Hill in Edinburgh, not too far from where I am writing this, sits the Parthenon. Well, a replica of the Parthenon – the “National Monument”, constructed in the nineteenth century as a memorial to the dead of the Napoleonic War , but never finished due, so it is said, to lack of funds (say what you like about the Greeks, but at least we finished ours). It stands today, overlooking Princes Street, frequented by gawking tourists by day and moustachioed homosexuals by night, mute testimony to the ambition of a forgotten age, and known now as “Edinburgh’s folly”.

Nor are the links between Scotland and Greece limited to ersatz monuments and questionable sexual practices. We also share a national saint; indeed, St Andrew divides his attentions between Greece, Scotland and mother Russia, from where James writes.

One hesitates to draw out such a flimsy thread too far, but it is worth noting that each of these three countries is, in its own different way, in thrall to a glorious past, and each is struggling to recapture some of that lost glory.

Read the rest here…