Quotulatiousness

February 12, 2021

Nock’s Volley Gun: Clearing the Decks in the 1700s

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 3 Mar 2018

The Nock Volley Gun was actually invented by an Englishman named James Wilson in 1789, and presented to the British military as a potential infantry weapons. This was declined as impractical, but the Royal Navy found the concept interesting for shipboard use. In 1790 the Navy ordered two prototypes made by the British gunsmith Henry Nock, and finding them suitable, proceeded to oder a total of 500 of the guns (thus forever associating Nock’s name with the gun instead of Wilson’s). A further 100 or so were ordered in 1797, and the guns were in fact issued out to various ships — although accounts of their use in combat are difficult to find.

Unfortunately for Nock, the guns presented a couple of substantial problems in use. One was simply the recoil of firing. A single 32-bore (approximately .55 caliber) round ball over 40 grains of black powder is not a very impressive load, but seven of them firing simultaneously add up to a recoil comparable to 4- or 6-bore rifles, and in a volley gun weighing just 13 pounds (5.9kg). In addition, the guns did not always reliably fire all barrels, especially when dirty. This produced a conundrum: how to determine which barrels had fired and which had not? The practical result was double-loaded barrels, which could be liable to bulge or burst. For these reasons, the weapon was declared obsolete in 1805, and never appeared to play any significant military role.

The gun did receive a new wave of popular awareness in 1960, when the character of Jim Bowie was outfitted with one in the movie The Alamo (against all historical evidence). His easy handling of the weapon and the waves of men he was able to mow down with it brought the gun back into the popular consciousness.

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February 10, 2021

One Advantage of Swiss Neutrality: LSD! – WW2 – Reading Comments

Filed under: Britain, Europe, Germany, Health, History, Military, Russia, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 9 Feb 2021

Another edition of Across the Airwaves, where Indy and Sparty look at interesting and unique comments from our videos. In this episode, they look at gentlemanly declarations of war, Partisan memories, and LSD.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Hosted by: Indy Neidell & Spartacus Olsson
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Edited by: Karolina Dołęga
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory​)

Colorizations by:
– Daniel Weiss
– Mikołaj Uchman
– JHM Color
– Julius Jääskeläinen – https://www.facebook.com/JJcolorization/​

Sources:
– Imperial War Museums: MH 1324, CH 1533, HU111054, TR 1468, MGH 4464
– National Archives NARA
– United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
– Yad Vashem: 4360-99, 2725-5, 4788-73,
– Bundesarchiv
– Picture of Soviet Soldiers with DShK-38 gun courtesy of Leduytoan2003 from Wikimedia Commons
– Picture of 19th Army troops storming Mogile courtesy of Mil.ru

Soundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
– “The Unexplored” – Philip Ayers
– “The Inspector 4” – Johannes Bornlöf
– “London” – Howard Harper-Barnes
– “Document This 1” – Peter Sandberg
– “Dark Beginning” – Johan Hynynen
– “Rubik’s Cube” – From Now On
– “Getaway Rock” – Elliot Holmes

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com​.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Trafalgar 1805

Filed under: Britain, France, History, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Kings and Generals
Published 5 Nov 2017

Napoleon Bonaparte fought all his battles on land, but no other battle influenced his military and political decisions as the battle of Trafalgar that was fought in 1805 off the coast of Spain between the allied Franco-Spanish fleet lead by the admirals Pierre-Charles Villeneuve and Federico Gravina and the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom commanded by the admirals Horatio Nelson and Cuthbert Collingwood. This is our first video on the War of the Third Coalition and second video in this series. We hope to have much more and cover all the Napoleonic Wars.

Support us on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/KingsandGenerals or Paypal: http://paypal.me/kingsandgenerals

We are grateful to our patrons, who made this video possible: Koopinator, Daisho, Łukasz Maliszewski, Nicolas Quinones, William Fluit, Juan Camilo Rodriguez, Murray Dubs, Dimitris Valurdos, Félix Gagné-Dion, Fahri Dashwali, Kyle Hooton, Dan Mullen, Mohamed Thair, Pablo Aparicio Martínez, Iulian Margeloiu, Chet, Nick Nasad, Jeyares, Amir Eppel, Thomas Bloch, Uri Sternfeld, Juha Mäkelä, Georgi Kirilov, Moe Mia, Daniel Yifrach, Brian Crane, Muramasa, Gerald Tnay, Hassan Ali and Richie Thierry.

This video was narrated by good friend Officially Devin. Check out his channel for some kick-ass Let’s Plays. https://www.youtube.com/user/Official…

The Machinimas for this video are created by one more friend – ltflak. Check out his channel for some great Let’s Plays and Machinimas: https://www.youtube.com/user/ltflak

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Inspired by: BazBattles, Invicta (THFE), Epic History TV, Historia Civilis and Time Commanders

Machinimas made on the Napoleon Total War

Production Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound and Total War Napoleon: http://www.epidemicsound.com
Songs used:

Epidemicsound:
“Slaves” – Gunnar Johnsén
“At The Front” – Johan Hynynen
“Battle Ostinato 3” – Valdemar Hansen

Total War Napoleon:
Richard Beddow – “Corsica, Humble Beginnings”
Ian Livingstone – “The Battle At Arcole”
Richard Beddow – “HMS Victory”
Richard Beddow – “The End”

February 8, 2021

Why Everybody Disagrees on the Efficacy of the English Longbow – A Video Essay

Filed under: Britain, France, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

SandRhoman History
Published 7 Feb 2021

Everybody quarrels over the efficacy of the English longbow. Many historians, reenactors and history enthusiasts alike hold the view that arrows piercing armor is a myth. Some base this view on testing as was done for example by Tod from Tod’s workshop. Together with his team, he provided an invaluable data point for this debate. Others, such as traditionalist historians are often open to the possibility of arrows piercing armor, even though they are aware of actual testing of the longbow. In general, the efficacy of a weapon is much more complicated than its mere armor penetration value. So, in this video we’d like to shed light on the whole debate and explain why it is so hard to find common ground on this issue. This is why everybody disagrees on the efficacy of the English longbow.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sandrhomanhis…​

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sandrhoman​

Tod’s Video: ARROWS vs ARMOUR – Medieval Myth Busting https://youtu.be/DBxdTkddHaE​

Tod’s playlist: MEDIEVAL MYTH BUSTING https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLI…​

Bibliography:
Rogers, C.J., The Efficacy of the English Longbow, 1998.
Devries, K., Medieval Military Technology, 1994.
Bane, M., “English Longbow Testing against various armor circa 1400”, 2006.
Soar, H., Gibbs, J., Jury, C., Stretton, M., Secrets of the English War Bow. Westholme, 2010, pp. 127–151.
Magier, Mariusz; Nowak, Adrian; et al., “Numerical Analysis of English Bows used in Battle of Crécy”. Problemy Techniki Uzbrojenia. 142 (2), 2017, 69–85.

February 7, 2021

Pearl Harbor Avenged! – WW2 – 128 – February 6, 1942

Filed under: Africa, Asia, Britain, Europe, Germany, History, Japan, Military, Pacific, Russia, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 6 Feb 2021

The Japanese advance in Burma and the Dutch East Indies, but they’ve reached the end of the Malayan Campaign- Singapore, which they have under siege. They now prepare for the final assault. The Allies are going on the offensive at sea, though, in the Marshalls-Gilberts Raids, while on land in the Soviet Union the Red Army launches another series of offensives against the Germans.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory​)

Colorizations by:
– Mikołaj Uchman
– Julius Jääskeläinen – https://www.facebook.com/JJcolorization/​
– Dememorabilia – https://www.instagram.com/dememorabilia/​
– Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/​

Sources:
– National Portrait Gallery
– Ministerie van Defensie
– Arrow by 4B Icons from the Noun Project
– Yad Vashem: 76BO2, 4331_21

Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
– Rannar Sillard – “Easy Target”
– Jo Wandrini – “Dragon King”
– Fabien Tell – “Last Point of Safe Return”
– Howard Harper-Barnes – “Sailing for Gold”
– Craft Case – “Secret Cargo”
– Rannar Sillard – “Split Decision”
– Flouw – “A Far Cry”
– Johannes Bornlöf – “The Inspector 4”
– Johan Hynynen – “Dark Beginning”
– Edward Karl Hanson – “Spellbound”
– Howard Harper-Barnes- “Underlying Truth”

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com​.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

February 6, 2021

From an improbable 1930s “death ray” to the radar network that helped defeat the Blitz

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Science, Technology, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In a story from a few years back, Tim Harford outlines how a British Air Ministry prize for developing a “death ray” to use against enemy aircraft eventually helped kick off the discovery of radar:

The Chain Home radar tower in Great Baddow Chelmsford.
Photo by Stuart166axe via Wikimedia Commons.

… sometimes inventions need other inventions to unlock their full potential.

For the aviation industry, that story starts with the invention of the death ray, or at least an attempt to design a death ray, back in 1935.

Officials in the British Air Ministry were worried about falling behind Nazi Germany in the technological arms race.

The death ray idea intrigued them: they had been offering a £1,000 prize for anyone who could zap a sheep at a hundred paces. So far, nobody had claimed it.

But should they fund more active research? Was a death ray even possible?

Unofficially, they sounded out Robert Watson Watt, of the Radio Research Station.

And he posed an abstract maths question to his colleague Skip Wilkins.

“Suppose, just suppose,” said Watson Watt to Wilkins, “that you had eight pints of water, 1km [3,000ft] above the ground.

“And suppose that water was at 98F [37C], and you wanted to heat it to 105F.

“How much radio frequency power would you require, from a distance of 5km?”

Skip Wilkins was no fool.

He knew that eight pints was the amount of blood in an adult human, 98F was normal body temperature and 105F was warm enough to kill you, or at least make you pass out, which — if you’re behind the controls of an aeroplane — amounts to much the same thing.

So Wilkins and Watson Watt understood each other, and they quickly agreed the death ray was hopeless: it would take too much power.

But they also saw an opportunity.

Clearly, the ministry had some cash to spend on research. Perhaps Watson Watt and Wilkins could propose some alternative way for them to spend it?

Wilkins pondered. It might be possible, he suggested, to transmit radio waves and detect — from the echoes — the location of oncoming aircraft long before they could be seen.

Watson Watt dashed off a memo to the Air Ministry’s newly formed Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Defence. Would they be interested in pursuing such an idea? They would indeed.

What Skip Wilkins was describing became known as radar.

February 5, 2021

Tank Chats #93 Humber Hornet | The Tank Museum

Filed under: Australia, Britain, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The Tank Museum
Published 24 Jan 2020

Here David Fletcher takes a look at the Humber Hornet, a specialised air-deployable Armoured Fighting Vehicle. It was designed to carry the Malkara, an anti-tank guided missile developed by Australia and the United Kingdom.

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February 4, 2021

The New World: A Beautiful Mess

Filed under: Americas, Britain, History, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Atun-Shei Films
Published 3 Feb 2021

A review of the Terrence Malick film The New World, a lavish and beautifully shot historical epic that nonetheless falls short in a few important ways.

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Original Music by Dillon DeRosa ► http://dillonderosa.com/​
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February 3, 2021

Fatah demands that Britain return Big Ben to its original Jerusalem home

Filed under: Britain, History, Middle East — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Daniel Greenfield unravels the historical misconceptions that informed the demand:

“Big Ben” by kev_zilla is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

“The Jerusalem Clock is hidden in London today,” Fatah, the political movement behind the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, asserts in a post titled, “Jerusalem Stolen Clock”.

It goes on to claim that the British military ordered the clock tower dismantled. Then the “British moved the clock first to a new tower across from the municipality of Jerusalem, and transferred it to the British Museum in London, to become the famous British icon, ‘Big Ben’.”

How did Big Ben, which was built in 1859, become a Muslim clock tower from the 20th century?

There are some other slight differences between London’s Big Ben and the “stolen clock” such as the fact that Big Ben is 316 feet tall while the “Palestinian” clock tower was only 42 feet.

But the story of the “Palestinian clock” is also the story of the entire myth of “Palestine”.

When you believe that the Jerusalem of King David and King Solomon was originally yours, you can just as easily believe that London’s Big Ben was originally the property of “Palestine”.

The “Palestinian clock” is as real as “Palestine”. The myth of a “Palestinian” people propounded by Fatah which has spent decades killing over it is also the story of the “Palestinian clock”.

There’s no more of a “Palestinian” people who were dispossessed by the Jews than Big Ben is a “Palestinian” clock stolen and passed off as London’s Big Ben. Both are fake history built out of resentments and garbled stories whose context has been lost, but whose hatreds remain real.

There were never any Palestinians. When the clock was built the region had been part of the Ottoman Empire, the last Caliphate until ISIS. The caliphates had settled it with Arab Muslim clans who dominated Christian refugees fleeing Muslim persecution, along with groups of other minorities from escaped slaves to gypsies, along with the indigenous Jewish population.

The Ottomans had become obsessed with clock towers as a symbol of their empire. But the Ottomans hadn’t invented them, they had adopted them from Europe, and planted them in major cities of the empire to create a common sense of time and belonging for their subjects.

Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the last real sultan of the empire, obsessively erected clock towers to show off how modern the Ottoman Empire was. But by then the Empire was anything but modern and Hamid’s clock tower craze was powered by his German allies. Kaiser Wilhelm II gave Hamid a batch of clocks at the turn of the century which the Turks put into clock towers.

The Ottoman Empire erected some of its clock towers in Israel. These clock towers utilized the talents and funds of the indigenous Jewish and the Arab Muslim settler population. The clock tower projects in Israel began in 1901 which is also the date when Wilhelm sent Hamid a whole bunch of clocks. One of these clock towers was stuck on Jerusalem’s Jaffa Gate which Hamid had previously cut a hole in so that the Kaiser could enter Jerusalem in his tall plumed helmet.

H/T to Kate at SDA for the link.

February 2, 2021

.38 ACP Webley-Fosbery Automatic Revolver

Filed under: Britain, History, Weapons — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 11 Nov 2020

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

https://www.floatplane.com/channel/Fo…

Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…

The rarest variation of the Webley-Fosbery automatic revolver is the .38 ACP model. Only 341 of these were made by Webley, in an attempt to compete with the new semiautomatic pistols appearing on the market — most notably the Colt Model 1900 and Model 1902. The Colt was chambered for .38 ACP, a remarkable cartridge for its time — high velocity and semi-rimmed. Webley figured that an 8-shot Fosbery-type revolver would offer the same capacity and ballistics as the new Colt, but in a revolver format familiar to the British market. The design could load cartridges individually, but also offered use of an 8-shot moon clip. Unfortunately for Webley, British legislation in 1903 hampered civilian handgun ownership and the military was not interested at all because the bore was too small. Of the 341 originally made, some were finally converted to .455 caliber after years of sitting unsold in Webley’s warehouse.

This model makes a notable appearance in Dashiell Hammett’s novel The Maltese Falcon, which quite specifically identifies it as an 8-shot, .38 caliber Webley-Fosbery. In the movie version, Humphrey Bogart mistakenly says it is an 8-shot .45, however…

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85740

February 1, 2021

Battle of Hong Kong 1941 – Pacific War

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, China, History, India, Japan, Military, Pacific, WW2 — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Kings and Generals
Published 31 Jan 2021

The first 100 people to go to https://www.blinkist.com/kingsandgenerals are going to get unlimited access for 1 week to try it out. You’ll also get 25% off if you want the full membership

Kings and Generals 3d animated historical documentary series on modern warfare continues with a video on the battle of Hong Kong of 1941. Japanese Empire is waging another Sino-Japanese war against China and decides that it is time to take over Hong Kong, as the British were using it to supply the Chinese. This battle is considered one of the first in the Pacific War within World War II.

Support us on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/KingsandGenerals or Paypal: http://paypal.me/kingsandgenerals. We are grateful to our patrons and sponsors, who made this video possible: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o…

The video was made by Leif Sick, while the script was developed by Ivan Moran. The video was narrated by Officially Devin (https://www.youtube.com/user/OfficiallyDevin)

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Production Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound: http://www.epidemicsound.com

#Documentary #HongKong #PacificWar

January 31, 2021

Fortress Singapore Stands Alone! – WW2 – 127 – January 30, 1942

Filed under: Britain, Germany, History, Japan, Military, Pacific, Russia, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 30 Jan 2021

The Japanese advance on Singapore has gotten close enough that the British have destroyed the causeway to Singapore Island. The Japanese are also making attacks in the Solomon Islands, Burma, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies — their threat to Australia is real. Erwin Rommel’s surprise spoiler offensive in North Africa takes Benghazi, and on the eastern front the Soviets break a hole in the German lines in the north even as the temperature drops to the -50s.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)

Colorizations by:
– Mikołaj Uchman
– Jaris Almazani (Artistic Man) – https://instagram.com/artistic.man
– Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/

Sources:
– JoJan, Berserker276 – from Wikimedia Commons
– National Portrait Gallery
– Termometer by Andi Nur Abdillah from the Noun Project
– Bundesarchiv – Bild 101I-811-1881-33
– Mil.ru

Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
– Rannar Sillard – “Easy Target”
– Jo Wandrini – “Dragon King”
– Rannar Sillard – “Split Decision”
– Craft Case – “Secret Cargo”
– Reynard Seidel – “Rush of Blood”
– Flouw – “A Far Cry”
– Fabien Tell – “Weapon of Choice”
– Johan Hynynen – “Dark Beginning”
– Gunnar Johnsen – “Not Safe Yet”
– Fabien Tell – “Last Point of Safe Return”

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

Adapting Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit for the screen – “The ensuring film has all the light charm and witty élan of a documentary about slaughterhouses”

Filed under: Britain, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

At The Critic, Alexander Larman is not happy with the latest attempt to translate a Coward play to the big or small screen:

Original theatrical release poster.
Wikimedia Commons.

Recently, the new film of Noël Coward’s masterly play Blithe Spirit was released on various streaming services, after its cinematic release was cancelled due to the irritating absence of open cinemas to show it. I had been looking forward to it for some time. It had a fine cast of hugely talented comic actors, led by Dan Stevens and including Isla Fisher, Leslie Mann, Julian Rhind-Tutt, and, in the great role of the fraudulent medium Madame Arcati, none other than Judi Dench. It was directed by Peter Hall’s talented son Edward, and its inspiration remains one of the most uproariously entertaining plays of the twentieth century, complete with some of Coward’s finest dialogue. It would be hard to mess it up.

Alas, “messed up” is an understatement when it comes to describe what has happened to the film. A clue comes in the credit: “adapted by Piers Ashworth, Meg Leonard and Nick Moorcroft”. The three of them were previously responsible for the mediocre sea-shanty comedy (not words one often writes) Fishermen’s Friends, and Ashworth and Moorcroft should be prosecuted at the cinematic equivalent of the Hague for their shameful bastardisation of Ronald Searle’s St Trinian’s series into two terrible films that bear as much relation to Searle’s illustrations as they do to Noël Coward. So it is little surprise that they have decided to “improve” on the original play. The writers throw out most of the original dialogue, retain only the bare bones of the storyline, introduce an irrelevant and mawkish subplot for Madame Arcati (who is now bewilderingly played mostly straight) and generally commit artistic vandalism.

The ensuring film has all the light charm and witty élan of a documentary about slaughterhouses. The cast do their best with the terrible material, but as Stevens manfully tries to make lines about erectile dysfunction amusing – “Mr Peasbody’s got stage fright” – the look of deep shame that occasionally comes over their faces cannot be disguised by the over-bright lighting and incongruously jaunty music. Had it been given a cinematic release, there may well have been indignant walkouts and outraged complaints at the box office. As is, I doubt that many disappointed viewers, expecting a more enjoyable film, will bother watching this travesty to the end.

January 27, 2021

Australia’s aboriginal people

Filed under: Australia, Books, Britain, History — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

On Australia Day, which progressives want to rename as “Invasion Day”, a look at the aboriginal culture(s) who had inhabited the continent for thousands of years before contact with Europeans:

Colour lithograph of the First Fleet entering Port Jackson on January 26 1788, drawn in 1888.
Original by E. Le Bihan via Wikimedia Commons.

Liam Hemsworth and others are spruiking nonsense which is also being taught to school children as they protest against “invasion day”:

    We are spiritually and culturally connected to this country.
    This country was criss-crossed by generations of brilliant Nations.
    Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were Australia’s first explorers, first navigators, first engineers, first farmers, first botanists, first scientists, first diplomats, first astronomers and first artists.
    Australia has the world’s oldest oral stories. The First Peoples engraved the world’s first maps, made the earliest paintings of ceremony and invented unique technologies. We built and engineered structures – structures on Earth – predating well-known sites such as the Egyptian Pyramids and Stonehenge.
    Our adaptation and intimate knowledge of Country enabled us to endure climate change, catastrophic droughts and rising sea levels.
    Always Was, Always Will Be. acknowledges that hundreds of Nations and our cultures covered this continent. All were managing the land – the biggest estate on earth – to sustainably provide for their future.

This statement is a work of poorly written fiction. All humans are descended from ancestors that roamed Africa. At some stage – perhaps 50,000 to 60,000 years ago according to archaeological records – some Homo Sapiens (so far as we know, Homo Erectus do not appear to have migrated to the land mass now know as Australia) moved to this continent during the Pleistocene (ice age) when sea levels were much lower allowing transit without seafaring. Later the ice age abated, ice melted and the Australian continent became separate and its inhabitants isolated.

In Jared Diamond’s book Guns, Germs and Steel – the Fates of Human Societies, he argues that circumstances (pressure on resources etc) lead to innovations and changes to society. On Australia he wrote:

    Australia is the sole continent where, in modern times, all native peoples still lived without any of the hallmarks of so-called civilization – without farming, herding, metal, bows and arrows, substantial buildings, settled villages, writing, chiefdoms or states. Instead Australian Aborigines were nomadic or semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers, organised into bands, living in temporary shelters or huts and still dependent on stone-tools. – (p. 297).

    Compared with Native Australians, New Guineans rate as culturally “advanced” … most New Guineans … were farmers and swineherds. They lived in settled villages and were organised politically into tribes rather than as bands. All New Guineans had bows and arrows, and many used pottery. – (p. 297-8).

    While New Guinea … developed both animal husbandry and agriculture, … Australia … developed neither. – (p. 308).

Isolated from other populations, and lacking little in the way of resources, Australia’s first inhabitants were not pressured into changing their ways of life and remained essentially hunter gatherers and nomadic societies. I make no judgement on whether this is good or bad, merely that despite the lack of competition over resources, life wasn’t always rosy and violence and skirmishes, murder and rape occurred as much among those humans as it did elsewhere.

It was inevitable that this isolation would not persist – it is perhaps surprising that it persisted as long as it did. But contact with other humans was inevitable and the outcome of that contact would be widely varying depending on whether the contact was made by the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese, British or others. The fact that Australia became a British colony is probably the best of the many alternatives that could have sprung from colonialisation. And we are all affected, mostly positively, by that contact – there would be few Aboriginal Australians (perhaps none) who today could say that they have no ancestry at all from settlers who arrived after 1787. We are all of mixed blood and we all descend from those original Homo Sapiens who evolved in Africa. It is time to talk about unity rather than division.

January 26, 2021

£760m to connect Bicester and Bletchley? That’s … very spendy

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Railways — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

At the Continental Telegraph, Tim Worstall looks at the economic case for building the East-West railway line — in “reverse Beeching” style — to connect Oxford and Cambridge:

The cash from the Department of Transport will be used to lay track along a disused railway line between Bicester and Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, with services beginning in 2025.

Excuse me? £760m to link Bicester and Bletchley? Other than the fact that that is £50m/mile, which should be the cost of rail lines made from crushed Faberge eggs and unicorn hair, how many people want to travel between Bicester and Bletchley by train? That’s roughly £10K/person in those small towns. OK,that then extends to Oxford, but that allows around 30,000 more people to go by train to Oxford. Which is not a particularly busy commuter metropolis anyway.

The aim is to complete the whole project by the end of the decade, according to the government minister overseeing it.

2 miles per year? Are they going to use canals and horses like Brunel?

[…]

Elsewhere, the new railway will shorten journey times between routes outside of London. Travellers from Oxford for example, will no longer have take a train into the capital and back out again to reach Milton Keynes, but could travel there via Bicester.

Again, what’s the demand for this? How many people want to do this, and would it be cheaper to just hire some chauffeurs to drive each passenger in a Ferrari from Bicester to where they want in Milton Keynes? I doubt it will be any quicker than a car because this only gets you to Bletchley, and then you have to get off a train to get to Milton Keynes, and then get where you want in Milton Keynes.

This used to be an active railway corridor before the Beeching cuts in the 1960s, which slashed a lot of uneconomic branch lines from British Rail’s network. If the land wasn’t sold off, then it’s just a matter of re-laying the track and ensuring that any existing bridges, embankments and drainage culverts are still capable of handling the renewed rail traffic. It seems unlikely that the mere engineering aspects of the project would require several hundred million pounds to complete, so perhaps there are some land issues that need to be re-acquired to allow the railway to become active again.

Here’s the route in question on Google Maps.

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