Biographics
Published 19 Mar 2021Dive into Discworld.
September 12, 2021
Terry Pratchett: Discworld And Beyond
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September 10, 2021
The Channel Dash / Operation Cerberus — How to win through refuge in audacity
Drachinifel
Published 9 Jan 2019Today we look at the Channel Dash, also known as one of the few times Hitler was right, the British were asleep and the Germans succeeded in spite of thinking they were all doomed. An operation made up purely of rolling natural 1’s and 20’s.
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September 9, 2021
When you mess around in a software testing environment … make sure it actually is a test
A British local government found out the hard way that they need to isolate their software testing from their live server:
A borough council in the English county of Kent is fuming after a software test on the council’s website led to five nonsensical dummy planning application documents being mistakenly published as legally binding decisions.
According to a statement from Swale Borough Council, staff from the Mid Kent Planning Support Team had been testing the software when “a junior officer with no knowledge of any of the applications” accidentally pressed the button on five randomly selected Swale documents, causing them to go live on the Swale website.
After learning what had happened, the council moved to remove the erroneous decisions from public display, but according to the statement: “Legal advice has subsequently confirmed they are legally binding and must be overturned before the correct decisions are made.”
Publishing randomly generated planning decisions is obviously bad enough, but the problems got worse for Swale when it was discovered that the “junior officer” who made the mistake had also added their own comments to the notices in the manner of somebody “who believed they were working solely in a test environment and that the comments would never be published,” as the council diplomatically described it.
So it was that despite scores of supportive messages from residents, the splendidly named Happy Pants Ranch animal sanctuary had its retrospective application for a change of land use controversially refused, on the grounds that “Your proposal is whack. No mate, proper whack,” while an application to change the use of a building in Chaucer Road, Sittingbourne, from a butchers to a fast-food takeaway was similarly denied with the warning: “Just don’t. No.”
The blissfully unaware office junior continued their cheerful subversion of Kent’s planning bureaucracy by approving an application to change the use of a barn in the village of Tunstall, but only on condition of the numbers 1 to 20 in ascending order. They also approved the partial demolition of the Wheatsheaf pub in Sittingbourne and the construction of a number of new flats on the site, but only as long as the project is completed within three years and “Incy Wincy Spider.”
Finally, Mid Kent’s anonymous planning hero granted permission for the demolition of the Old House at Home pub in Sheerness, but in doing so paused to ponder the enormous responsibility which had unexpectedly been heaped upon them, commenting: “Why am I doing this? Am I the chosen one?”
For their part, Swale Borough Council’s elected representatives were less than impressed by the work of their colleagues at the Mid Kent Planning Support Team and wasted no time in resolutely throwing them under the bus.
“These errors will have to be rectified but this will cause totally unnecessary concern to applicants,” thundered Swale councillors Roger Truelove, Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance, and Mike Baldock, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Planning in a shared statement. “This is not the first serious problem following the transfer of our planning administration to Mid Kent shared services. We will wait for the outcome of a proper investigation and then consider our appropriate response as a council.”
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Tank Chats #123 | Oxford and Cambridge Carriers | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 16 Apr 2021Tank Museum Historian David Fletcher presents a Tank Chat on the Carrier, Tracked, CT20, otherwise known as the Oxford Carrier. This unusual vehicle was an early post-Second World War British Armoured Personnel Carrier and Gun Tractor, which saw service in the Korean War. David also touches upon the Cambridge Carrier, built by Rolls-Royce as an updated and improved version of the Oxford, which never got out of the prototype stage.
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September 8, 2021
Making Hitler Transgender? – Early Operations of the CIA – WW2 – Spies & Ties 08
World War Two
Published 7 Sep 2021World War Two gave birth to a new American centralised intelligence agency: The OSS (Office of Strategic Services). Led by “Wild Bill” Donovan, it is the cradle of many outrageous plans, spy stories, and gadgets.
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September 7, 2021
How William Fairbairn Created the Modern SWAT Team in Warlord Era Shanghai
Forgotten Weapons
Published 1 Jun 2021William E. Fairbairn is best known for his work with Eric Sykes and their “Commando” knife design during World War Two. However, Fairbairn spent some 33 years in the Shanghai Municipal Police, working his way up from a beat constable to Assistant Commissioner. There he was responsible for the SMPD adopting truly forward-thinking fighting methods, and he essentially invented the modern SWAT team (the “Reserve Unit”, which Fairbairn led for 10 years). He combined expertise in formal marksmanship, instinctive practical shooting, and hand-to-hand combat schools (including jiu-jitsu and judo) into a comprehensive training program like no other on earth at the time.
Book references:
The World’s First SWAT Team, by Leroy Thompson:
https://amzn.to/2TrYiNvGentleman & Warrior, by Peter Robins:
https://amzn.to/3vuODn9http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
https://www.floatplane.com/channel/Fo…
Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.forgottenweapons.com
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle 36270
Tucson, AZ 85740
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September 6, 2021
Why the British Rail Modernisation Plan Failed
Ruairidh MacVeigh
Published 27 Feb 2021Hello again! 😀
Back to trains, and for this week we discuss one of Britain’s most audacious but ultimately futile projects to revitalise the network in the wake of World War II. However, rather than undertaking a comprehensive rebuild of the network, British Railways was short-changed time and again, ultimately resulting in a facelifted but largely unchanged system that dated back to the Victorian era, though it was much smaller and crippled by far more debt than ever before.
This video was actually a suggestion from an American viewer, who was curious as to why British Rail had such a vast array of diesel locomotives during its early years. 🙂
All video content and images in this production have been provided with permission wherever possible. While I endeavour to ensure that all accreditations properly name the original creator, some of my sources do not list them as they are usually provided by other, unrelated YouTubers. Therefore, if I have mistakenly put the accreditation of “Unknown”, and you are aware of the original creator, please send me a personal message at my Gmail (this is more effective than comments as I am often unable to read all of them): rorymacveigh@gmail.com
The views and opinions expressed in this video are my personal appraisal and are not the views and opinions of any of these individuals or bodies who have kindly supplied me with footage and images.
If you enjoyed this video, why not leave a like, and consider subscribing for more great content coming soon.
Thanks again, everyone, and enjoy! 😀
References:
– Railways Archive (and their respective sources)
– RMWeb (and their respective sources)
– Wikipedia (and its respective references)
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September 5, 2021
This War is Three Years Old – WW2 – 158 – September 4, 1942
World War Two
Published 4 Sep 2021As the war turns three there is is no slacking in the fighting. Erwin Rommel launches another Axis attack in North Africa, but it is foiled in only days, though the Axis are advancing in the Caucasus as well as on Stalingrad, where the fight for the suburbs is now beginning. They’re also advancing in the South Pacific, as the Japanese fight their way along the Kokoda Trail.
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September 4, 2021
Recreating the original India Pale Ale
In The Critic, Henry Jeffreys discusses the rebirth of the original IPA:
From an early age Jamie Allsopp had wanted to bring back the beer that made his family name. It was his ancestor Samuel Allsopp who made the very first Burton IPA, and created a style that is now a global phenomenon. Hell, there are even brewers in Germany making IPA these days.
Though IPA is most associated with Burton-on-Trent, it was originally brewed in London by Hodgson’s, the nearest brewery to East India Dock. Here East India Company servants would buy beer to sell at a vast profit in India. The beer of choice was a strong, heavily-hopped ale designed to last through the winter months. On the six-month voyage through the tropics, it was found to have matured splendidly, rather like wine from Madeira did. Shipped in the early-nineteenth century, this was the first India Pale Ale, though it wasn’t known as such.
Frederick Hodgson then got greedy and tried to cut out the East India Company by shipping directly. So, Campbell Majoribanks, a director at the Company, approached Burton brewer Samuel Allsopp to make a rival beer. Allsopp brewed a sample in a teapot which met with approval and the beer was shipped to India from 1823.
Burton-on-Trent had an advantage over London in that the water contained gypsum, calcium sulphate, which made the beer brighter and clearer with a pronounced acidic bite. It suited a pale crisp beer, made possible by the recent invention of pale malt, very different to the heavy dark porter that London was famed for.
Other Burton brewers such as Bass & Ratcliff got in on the act. This new beer wasn’t just a hit in India; it became all the rage back in Britain. Railways meant that Burton beer could be sent to London cheaply, and the porter that had dominated the capital began to die out, displaced by this new refreshing beer. Some time in the 1830s the name IPA began to be used.
It was the drink of the aspirant middle class. It would have sold for twice as much as ordinary beer. So popular were Burton beers that by 1877 the Bass brewery was the largest in the world. Bass had the red triangle trademark whereas Allsopp’s symbol was the red hand.
The Allsopp family, like many of the great brewing families, moved into politics. Samuel’s son Henry was elevated to the peerage as 1st Baron Hindlip. In fact, so great was the political influence of brewing families that they were known as “the beerage”. Gladstone attributed the liberal defeat in the 1874 election to this powerful faction: “We have been borne down in a torrent of gin and beer”, he wrote.
But the Allsopp’s brewing heyday did not last long. According to Jamie Allsopp, in 1897, the family “built a big lager brewery and nobody wanted lager and it finished the company”. They were pushed out in 1911 when the firm went into receivership. It soldiered on before merging with another Burton brewer, Ind Coope, in 1934. Following waves of mergers and acquisitions, the name and the famous red hand disappeared in 1959.
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September 3, 2021
Anti-Slavery Patrols – The West Africa Squadron
Drachinifel
Published 1 Dec 2018Title says it all really, we look at something that was definitely worth doing, which really should have been done much sooner.
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September 2, 2021
Road to WWII: A Basic Causal Analysis
Thersites the Historian
Published 19 Nov 2019This video is a primer for undergraduates in broad history survey courses that will hopefully help make sense of the interwar years between World War I and World War II.
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QotD: The Boer War
The last event in Queen Victoria’s reign was the Borewore, or, more correctly, Boerwoer (Dutch), which was fought against a very tiresome Dutch tribe called the Bores, because they were left over from all previous wars.
The War was not a very successful one at first, and was quite unfair because the Boers could shoot much further than the English, and also because they were rather despicable in wearing veldt hats and using PomPom bullets.
Numerous battles were fought against the Bore leaders (such as Bother, Kopje, and Stellenbosch) at Nek’s Creek, Creek’s Nek, Knock’s Knee, etc., and much assistance was given to the British cause by Strathcoma’s memorable horse (patriotically lent by Lord Strathcoma for the occasion) and by the C.I.D., who fought very bravely and were awarded a tremendous welcome on their return to London after the war.
Finally, the people at home took upon themselves the direction of the War and won it in a single night in London by a new and bracing method of warfare known as Mafeking. Thus the English were once more victorious. Memorable Results The Barwar was obviously a Good Thing in the end because it was the cause of Boy Scouts and of their memorable Chief Scout, General Baden Powell (known affectionately as ‘the B.O.P.’), and also because it gave rise to a number of very manly books, such as 40 Years Beating About The Bush, 50 Years Before The Mast, 60 Years Behind The Times, etc.
Death of Queen Victoria
Meanwhile Queen Victoria had celebrated another Jamboree, called the Diamond Jamboree (on account of the discovery of Diamond mines at Camberley during the Borewore) and after dying of a surfeit of Jamborees, Jokes, Gladstone, etc., had been succeeded by her son, Edward VII.
W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman, 1066 And All That, 1930.
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September 1, 2021
1893 Lee-Metford Trials Carbine (One of Only 100 Made)
Forgotten Weapons
Published 17 May 2021http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
https://www.floatplane.com/channel/Fo…
Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.forgottenweapons.com
Once Lee-Metford rifle production was in place, the British began working on a carbine version of the same action for their cavalry. In 1893 a trial run of 100 carbines were made, and today we are looking at serial number 32 of that batch. These carbines are different in several ways from the ultimately adopted pattern. They had exposed muzzles like the Martini carbines, instead of the heavy snub-nose muzzle that would be adopted (similar to the muzzle of most early Mauser carbines). These trials carbines also had no safety, no sling attachments, and no barrel band. The did have the bent bolt handle of the final pattern (albeit not flattened down) and the short 6-round magazine.
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle 36270
Tucson, AZ 85740
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QotD: The power of nationalistic feelings
They do not feel any enmity against me as an individual, nor I against them. They are “only doing their duty”, as the saying goes. Most of them, I have no doubt, are kind-hearted law-abiding men who would never dream of committing murder in private life. On the other hand, if one of them succeeds in blowing me to pieces with a well-placed bomb, he will never sleep any the worse for it. He is serving his country, which has the power to absolve him from evil.
One cannot see the modern world as it is unless one recognizes the overwhelming strength of patriotism, national loyalty. In certain circumstances it can break down, at certain levels of civilization it does not exist, but as a positive force there is nothing to set beside it. Christianity and international Socialism are as weak as straw in comparison with it. Hitler and Mussolini rose to power in their own countries very largely because they could grasp this fact and their opponents could not.
George Orwell, “The Lion And The Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius”, 1941-02-19.
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August 31, 2021
Isambard Kingdom Brunel: The Genius of the Industrial Revolution
Biographics
Published 23 Mar 2020Check out Brilliant: https://brilliant.org/biographics
Check out Business Blaze: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYY5…
This video is #sponsored by Brilliant.
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Our companion website for more: http://biographics.org
Our sister channel TopTenz: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ-h…
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Host – Simon Whistler
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Source/Further reading:
Oxford National Dictionary of Biography: https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.109…
Interesting podcast on his life: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04n…
Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/biography/…
History Today: https://www.historytoday.com/archive/…
The Thames Tunnel: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histor…
The atmospheric railway: https://www.theguardian.com/science/t…
SS Great Britain accident: https://www.ssgreatbritain.org/about-…
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