England, some time in the first half of the last century. Night.
In a boarding school near the Kentish coast, a ruffian sneaks along the corridor, hunting for the rare stamp that will make him rich. In a Home Counties village, a tousled-haired schoolboy lies awake, putting the finishing touches to his scheme that will win the war for the Allies. Many miles to the north, a boat pulls away from Wildcat Island, bound for fortune and glory. And far across the oceans, a group of schoolboys tremble in terror, as their South Sea captors prepare to sacrifice them to their idol …
Such is the world of the classic British children’s story: the world of Billy Bunter and his Greyfriars chums, William Brown and his fellow Outlaws, Titty, Roger and the rest of the Swallows and Amazons, Jennings, Molesworth and the Secret Seven. For more than half a century, such stories dominated the imagination of millions of readers. You can still buy second-hand editions of Richmal Crompton’s Guillermo el Detective, and wonder what on earth readers in General Franco’s Spain made of them.
When I was growing up, the books of Frank Richards, Arthur Ransome and Richmal Crompton were still everywhere, just about. Our local library groaned with stories in which middle-class British children spent their weekends in the barn across the fields and their weeknights sneaking out of the dormitory for some stolen tuck. Raised on the virtues of teamwork and courage, the boys grew up to become hunters, naval commanders and Spitfire pilots. I never found out what happened to the girls. For a boy in the early Eighties, to have been caught reading Mallory Towers would have been social suicide.
Dominic Sandbrook, “Children don’t need woke stories”, UnHerd, 2021-05-17.
September 13, 2021
QotD: Those classic British children’s stories
June 19, 2021
Airfix Catalogue 1962 Page by Page — The Very First Catalogue
MOS6510 Models
Published 29 May 2020Airfix Catalogue 1962 Page by Page — The Very First Catalogue
We turn back time and go through the very first Airfix Model kit Catalogue one page at a time. 1962 was the year of the first edition Catalogue of Airfix Constant Scale Construction Kits. Filled with 135 kits — planes, trains and automobiles the norm, with figures trackside OO/HO constant scale. There is lots in here to look at and enjoy.
As you flip through the pages of this Airfix Catalogue, you will see details of over 135 constant scale plastic construction kits. From the photographs and brief descriptions you will get an idea of the look and size of the finished models. Not until you begin to build them, however, will you feel the excitement and satisfaction of creating miniature exact scale models of famous fighter planes, tanks and ships. So put this video on HD 1080p and make it full screen … sit back and enjoy this catalogue page by page
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May 6, 2021
Il Duce and the Fascist Abuse of History | B2W: ZEITGEIST! I E.17 – Harvest 1922
TimeGhost History
Published 5 May 2021The modern age is an age of modern things. But it is also an age when people yearn for times past. One of the main men to weaponize this yearning is Benito Mussolini, and this season, he moves to recreate the Roman Empire in his fascist image.
Get your own Indy Neidell Tie here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4Mi…
Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Francis van Berkel
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: Francis van Berkel and Timothy Smith
Image Research by: Lucas Aimo
Edited by: Lucas Aimo
Sound design: Marek KamińskiColorizations:
– Daniel Weiss
– Mikołaj UchmanArchive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
TimeGhost History
2 days ago (edited)
The only thing more interesting than learning about history is learning about how people in history learned about history.For starters, it is just interesting in itself. Anyone with a passion for history will want to hear about the circumstances of how a new discovery was made or how certain historical narratives were preserved over time. But more analytically, looking at how a society understood its history can tell you a lot about that society understood itself and the contemporary world around it. That second point is particularly true of the modern age. Ironically, it is a very modern “thing” to be so aware of history. Indeed, the modern age saw the birth of the museum, of nationalist histories, and even the concept of what “History” itself was (note the capital H).
It’s such a massive topic and one that perhaps isn’t suited to a single pinned comment. Interested in learning more? Maybe we’ll do another video on it someday. In the meantime, you can read up the works of Reinhart Koselleck … that should keep you occupied.
April 23, 2021
QotD: Why the British despise the middle class
The aristocracy have always looked down upon the middle class. That gross and inelegant disdain for trade for example. The insistence that actually doing something for a living – even professionally – just isn’t as good as doing nothing off a rent roll.
From the other end we’ve that very bolshie – in the colloquial sense – insistence that the middle class are just parasites upon the toil of the workers. This being what also informs – misinforms – that idea that we’d be better off if we had much more manufacturing. Men in flat caps doing something physical etc.
That is, much of the society dislikes the very existence of the middle class. Actually, more than dislikes, from above they’re – we’re – despised and from below hated to the point that we bourgeoisie should be eliminated as a class.
The surprise that fewer claim to be of that section of the hierarchy than are is thus, well, it’s a surprise, right?
Tim Worstall, “Sociologist Can’t Do Sociology”, Continental Telegraph, 2021-01-19.
April 17, 2021
Can you build a Starter Set Model Kit using ONLY the included paints and glue?
Model Minutes
Published 10 Dec 2020Quite often I get asked if you can build a Starter Set Model Kit using ONLY the included paints and glue? Well, why not? What would it actually look like? I feel like there might be a bit of a CHALLENGE coming on …
Join me in this video as I build (and review) the Airfix Messerschmitt Bf109E-3 plastic model kit in 1/72 scale which comes as part of a starter set — with glue, paint and brush included. I will be building this kit with only these products to see how it turns out.
Unboxing review of this kit:
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Model Minutes holds no responsibility for any accidents, damage or injury that could occur as a result of attempting to replicate any steps depicted in this video.
All music used from the YouTube Audio Library.
#Airfix #Model #Modelkit #starterset #scale #bf109
From the comments:
Model Minutes
4 days ago
Before you leave a comment about thinning the paint or using extra tools/products, read this:I don’t think a lot of people watching this one quite “got” what I was going for here. My aim (if it wasn’t clear) was to see how good I could make this model kit using only the included products and a knife. I gave myself really strict rules to follow in an attempt to get a “best case” model out of a “worst case” situation.
Many people seem to think that beginners would instantly know that they are supposed to thin their paints, sand the plastic, fill the gaps, use extra brushes … and if, as a beginner you knew that, then you were so fortunate!
But this video is for those of us (me included) who knew nothing about model building, had no one to help us and nothing to look to for reference. When I started, YouTube didn’t exist (the internet wasn’t really a thing for me growing up either) and if I wanted to read up about modelling it meant buying magazines and looking for the information.
My build in this video is a throwback to my early days, where I built what I wanted, how I wanted, and usually with only what I had, could borrow, recycle or afford with my small amount of pocket money.
Ultimately though, I think the point of this build and video has been missed by some.
It’s meant to be fun, a light and entertaining look at our hobby. After all, isn’t this hobby supposed to be fun anyway?
I’d also like to think that some beginners out there see this one and realise that you don’t have to build a model kit with all these extra things that so many youtubers use these days. Although it’s good to have aspirations I think it’s unrealistic and can put newcomers off. If my video encourages just one new person to start building, then that’s a success right? We should be encouraging new members to the hobby because it’s in our interest too! If you agree, send someone this video and encourage them to start!
TLDR: I made this video for entertainment. It’s not a tutorial. I added extra restrictions because otherwise it wouldn’t be a “challenge” — it would be a normal build video.
March 18, 2021
The Hornby Story
Little Car
Published 27 Feb 2020Hornby Railways is a British model railway brand. Its roots date back to 1901, when founder Frank Hornby received a patent for his Meccano construction toy. The first clockwork train was produced in 1920. In 1938, Hornby launched its first 00 gauge train. In 1964, Hornby and Meccano were bought by their competitor, Tri-ang, and sold on when Tri-ang went into receivership. Hornby Railways became independent again in the 1980s, and became listed on the London Stock Exchange, but due to recent financial troubles, reported in June 2017, is presently majority owned by turnaround specialist Phoenix Asset Management.
The script for this video comes from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornby_…
If you find issues with the content, I encourage you to update the Wikipedia article, so everyone can benefit from your knowledge.To get early ad-free access to new videos, or your name at the end of my videos, please consider supporting me from just $1 or 80p a month at https://www.patreon.com/bigcar
#hornby #hornbyrailways
March 17, 2021
The long-gone economic framework of print newspapers
In The Line, Peter Menzies explains the economic underpinnings of the newspaper world back in the “good old days” before first radio, then TV, and finally the internet took all the profits out of their model:
“Newspaper Boxes” by Randy Landicho is licensed under CC BY 2.0
We will hear a lot in the months ahead about who’s making money from news, so let’s get something straight: Even in the profit-soaked heyday of Canadian newspapers, no one made money from news.
That all ended about 100 years ago when radio — and then television — began delivering it for free.
Oh sure, the occasional ongoing news story would inspire people to buy more newspapers. But in my 30 years in that business the only event that did so in any significant way was the death and funeral of Princess Diana. Even then, after the extra cost of newsprint and distribution, the financial return was insignificant.
But mythologies die hard. People in newsrooms believed news made money — and apparently some still do — even when year after year, surveys of readers showed that there were lots of other things that sold and sustained newspapers.
Some people bought them because they were looking for a job. For others, it was a house, a plumber, a companion, a pet, a car or, really, almost anything else you can think of that might be needed. Classified pages were every town and city’s marketplace. That’s where you found stuff you had to get and bought an ad when you had something to sell or tell people about. It was where you announced the births of your babies, the graduations, engagements and weddings of your children and the deaths of your parents. The lives of communities were recorded in the classified pages of their newspapers.
After a glance at the headlines, many other readers’ first and sometimes only stops were the horoscope, comics, crossword (an error there generated far more calls than a rogue columnist ever could) and other pleasant distractions. For still more, it was the stocks listings, sports scores or recipes to which they were primarily drawn.
There were movie and entertainment listings — even a TV guide so you’d know where and when to find Seinfeld. On Thursdays, you might buy a paper just for the Canadian Tire flyer. On weekends, specialty sections discussed books and told tales of travel adventures well-supported by the latest deals advertised by travel agencies. Housing developers pitched their latest home designs in special real estate sections. And there were magazines. Honestly, there were.
It’s been literal decades since we last subscribed to a print newspaper, and nearly as long since I picked one up from a news stand. My mother is the last person I recall still depending on buying a physical newspaper — she only stopped buying a Saturday Toronto Star in the last year or so — but that was mainly for the TV listings. Back when I still occasionally travelled on business (also more than a decade ago, now), it was a nostalgic treat to find a copy of USA Today at the door of my hotel room in the morning.
March 5, 2021
The Way We Live – A Railwayman’s Film Darlington 1960
Anthony Alexandrovic
Published 24 Jul 2015[Originally from] Tyne Tees TV
February 23, 2021
The Corgi Toys Story
Little Car
Published 4 Feb 2020Corgi Toys is the name of a range of die-cast toy vehicles produced by Mettoy Playcraft Ltd. in the United Kingdom.
The script for this video comes from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corgi_Toys
If you find issues with the content, I encourage you to update the Wikipedia article, so everyone can benefit from your knowledge.
To get early ad-free access to new videos, or your name at the end of my videos, please consider supporting me from just $1 or 80p a month at https://www.patreon.com/bigcar
Link to my other channel – Big Car: https://www.youtube.com/bigcar2
December 26, 2020
The Matchbox Car Story
Little Car
Published 27 Jan 2020Matchbox is a popular British toy brand which was introduced by Lesney Products in 1953, and is now owned by Mattel, Inc. The brand was given its name because the original die-cast Matchbox toys were sold in boxes similar to those in which matches were sold. The brand grew to encompass a broad range of toys, including larger scale die-cast models, plastic model kits, and action figures.
During the 1980s, Matchbox began to switch to the more conventional plastic and cardboard “blister packs” that were used by other die-cast toy brands such as Hot Wheels. The box style packaging was re-introduced for the collectors’ market in recent years, particularly with the release of the “35th Anniversary of Superfast” series in 2004.
The script for this video comes from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matchbo…
If you find issues with the content, I encourage you to update the Wikipedia article, so everyone can benefit from your knowledge.
If you like these video and want to support me from just $1 or 80p a month at https://www.patreon.com/bigcar
#matchboxcars
November 27, 2020
QotD: Popular music and survivorship bias
Man, I just {LISTENED_TO_ALBUM/WENT_TO_CONCERT} by {$GROUP_FROM_MY_TEENS/EARLY_TWENTIES} and they still kicked ass just like they did when they were new.
{$GROUP_LIKED_BY_KIDS_WHO_SHOULD_GET_OFF_MY_LAWN} just won’t have that same kind of staying power.”
Part of that phenomenon is that we’re less likely to form strong emotional connections to specific pieces of music the way we were when we were younger, and part of it is that the music that gets remembered from the good ol’ days is just the good stuff. The year 1968, for instance, had huge chart hits from The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, but also from 1910 Fruitgum Company and Tiny Tim.
The airwaves had plenty of crap in my teens and early twenties, but I prefer to forget that. Say what you will about the Kids These Days, but they aren’t listening to Milli Vanilli … of course, as it turned out, neither were kids back then.
Survivorship Bias is baked right into a lot of hobbies that interface with older things. “Man, they really knew how to build [cameras/pocket knives/watches/revolvers] in the old days!” is skewed by the fact that only the well-built stuff has survived. The handgun counter at the hardware store in a hypothetical Old West town had Colts and Smith & Wessons and Remingtons, and plenty of cheaply-made Victorian equivalents of Hi Points and Jennings, too.
Tamara Keel, “Survivorship Bias”, View From The Porch, 2020-08-24.
October 26, 2020
Kathy Shaidle tells the story of Hamilton’s 1970s cult children’s TV show
I still have fond memories of CHCH TV’s Hilarious House of Frightenstein and Kathy Shaidle clearly does too:
The Hilarious House of Frightenstein was produced in 1971 by our one and only TV station, CHCH. This hour-long, 130-episode kids’ show combined the mid-century sensibility of Famous Monsters of Filmland with the then-hip look and sound of psychedelia: kaleidoscopic “special effects” plus Top 40 hits spun by “The Wolfman,” an affectionate rip-off of legendary DJ Wolfman Jack.
The show’s “plot” concerned a banished count’s attempts to revive his comatose monster, Brucie, but that was just a flimsy excuse to mount a fast-paced series of corny sketches, semi-serious “educational” segments, and — years before The Simpsons and Pixar — “over the kids’ heads” jokes aimed at adults who might find themselves awake at dawn, or earlier.
The part that always puzzled me as a kid was that a local southern Ontario low-budget TV show for kids had international movie star Vincent Price in it. Kathy explains how it happened:
Older and “uncool” (despite receiving the imprimatur of another rising Hollywood director, Roger Corman), Price was out of fashion.
At the same time, CHCH had a limited budget, but wanted and needed some star power for their single camera kid’s show.
Who better to host this “monster mash” than Vincent Price, still one of the all-time great horror-movie icons?
Frightenstein‘s producer tracked down Price, who agreed to work for $3000 a day, one quarter of his usual per-diem appearance rate.
He loved children, he explained simply. And the gig sounded like fun.
CHCH checked their tiny budget. They could only afford Price for four days, tops.
Four days it would have to be.
Everyone signed on the dotted line.
I’ve heard the story of what happened next from different sources, and it never ceases to warm my heart:
Price arrived at the modest TV studio, got into makeup and costume and was handed reams of doggerel poems about some crazy characters he’d never heard of before.
He’d read each piece once, put his head down, then look up at the camera’s red light and utter his lines perfectly in one take.
Next!
New makeup, new costume, same perfect delivery, hour after hour.
Finally, it was time for a break. The weary yet exhilarated crew turned off the cameras and lights.
Then they looked around and realized that Vincent Price had disappeared.
Oh well, they said to each other, what do you expect? He’s a big star and all. Plus he’s, like, 60 years old, so he probably went for a nap…
The studio door opened a few minutes later.
It was Vincent Price and a cab driver, hauling “two-fours” of beer from the nearby Brewer’s Retail.
He handed cold stubbies out to the cast and crew and regaled them with tales of old Hollywood, his days working with Karloff and Peter Lorre and Gene Tierney and Cecil B. DeMille and all the other greats he’d known.
August 21, 2020
Geography works against CANZUK ever happening
Ted Campbell is a big fan of the CANZUK scheme (Canada-Australia-New Zealand-United Kingdom) to create an “anglosphere” power alongside the current economic big-hitters on the world stage like the United States, China and the European Union. I agree it has historical, nostalgic appeal, but as Aris Roussinos points out, geography is a big stumbling block to it ever being much more than an idea:
Since losing the empire, Britain has notoriously struggled to find a role on the world stage. Initial attempts to piggyback on the power of our successor as global hegemon, the United States, by acting as a guiding force — a Greece to America’s Rome, in Harold Macmillan’s phrase — faltered due to the total absence of interest ever shown in this arrangement by any American administration.
The subsequent attempt to remould Britain as a European power acting in concert with its continental neighbours through the European Union was an unhappy marriage, and has ended in a rancorous divorce whose final settlement is still to be determined. Adrift on the world stage, we are in need of good ideas.
Instead, we are offered CANZUK, a reheated Edwardian fantasy of a globe-spanning Anglosphere acting as a world power which excites the enthusiasm of a small coterie of neoliberal and neoconservative ideologues, if no one else.
In a recent piece for the Wall Street Journal, the historian and Churchill biographer Andrew Roberts argued that the CANZUK nations — Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK — ought to establish “some form of federation among them” as a “second Anglospheric superpower” combining “free trade, free movement of people, a mutual defense organization and combined military capabilities” , which would “create a new global superpower and ally of the U.S., the great anchor of the Anglosphere”.
One cannot fault Roberts for the grandeur of his vision, even if the details of how this would actually work are left to others to fill in. Instead, we are reassured, this would not be a centralising project like the hated EU; rather, “its program for a loose confederal state linking the Westminster democracies would be clearly enunciated right from the start.” Already, we see the harsh hand of reality ready to crush this initially appealing vision. On the one hand, CANZUK is a globe-spanning superpower ready to be born; on the other, it is merely a loose grouping of separate national governments, which would, like all national governments, act according to their own interests above all.
By totting up the different GDP figures of the various CANZUK nations, Roberts claims that his proposed Empire 2.0 “would have a combined GDP of more than $6 trillion, placing it behind only the U.S., China and the EU,” while “with a combined defense expenditure of over $100 billion, it would also be able to punch above its weight”.
Yet the flaws of this argument are obvious. As other critics have noted, only a minuscule proportion of the CANZUK nations’ trade is with each other, save New Zealand, an economic satellite of Australia. Australia is a great East Asian trading power, and will remain so. Canada is enmeshed in the greater North American trading sphere, as are we with Europe, whatever Brexiteers may wish. As always, the simple matter of geography trumps the affective bonds between far-flung kith and kin, whatever their emotional appeal.
July 11, 2020
QotD: Pop culture
That is the funny thing about pop culture in our Progressive paradise. It is a lot like the pop music of totalitarian paradises of the past. The Soviets manufactured their version of Western pop, but it was never popular. Just as we see at the Super Bowl, comrades can be forced marched to an arena and made to cheer, but no one really liked it. There’s a lot of that today, as every pop star has the exact same Progressive politics and uses their act to proselytize on behalf of the faith. That’s not a coincidence. It is by design.
The West does not have a competitor that embraces freedom and liberty, so the past has become the competition. Look at YouTube and you will see that old songs and bands have enormous amounts of traffic. Given that the people who listened to Sinatra in their prime are mostly dead, it must be younger people discovering and enjoying the old stuff from when the West was still in love with itself. I’ve often been surprised to see young people, particularly young men, into music that pre-dates me, but it is not uncommon.
“The Z Man”, “The Soundtrack Of This Age”, The Z Blog, 2018-03-15.
June 29, 2020
The End of the Line
NFB
Published 2 Sep 2015This documentary short offers a nostalgic look at the steam locomotive as it passes from reality to history. In its heyday, the big smoke-belching steam engine seemed immortal. Now, powerful and efficient diesels are pushing the old coal-burning locomotives to the sidelines, and the lonely echo of their whistles may soon be a thing of the past.
Directed by Terence Macartney-Filgate – 1959.
