Observations from a Hill

I suppose I really shouldn't be surprised, given the way things have panned out in the ending of the twenty-year war in Afghanistan; but for God's sake, why have the US abandoned such an enormous quantity of kit and ordnance on their way out? Billions of dollar's-worth of planes, helicopters, vehicles and guns have just been abandoned. The initial story was that it was all de-commissioned: now we're told that it will rot away through the lack of expertise and technical support, and that the US might just disable the stuff with drone strikes. Come on! The Taliban have funds and political & technical support in abundance, from the Middle East and Pakistan at the very least. Then there's the threat from the more(!) extremist groups that really don't like the 'new' Taliban Lite. It really is the shit-storm from Hell that most sane commentators have predicted for quite some time. Don't come down too hard on Joe Biden, remember: he inherited this agree...

As a child of the generation that witnessed and were awed by the NASA space missions of the sixties and early seventies: particularly the Apollo Moon missions - specifically Apollo Eleven - I can't help having a sinking feeling about current space flight enterprises. It would be naïve at best and I would say disingenuous to believe that space exploration was anything more than a willy-waving contest: then between the dominant superpowers of the US and the Soviet Union; now between über rich corporates who have run out of ideas on how to best each other on terra firma. Where once I was a star-struck boy with Arthur C. Clarke-fuelled dreams  of a Dan Dare-like exploration of space - itself in truth an extrapolation of Kipling and Haggard's imperial visions of Empire and dominion - now I see things pretty much for what they are, and take a more pragmatic view of such ventures. Fact is, all the useful, practical science we can garner is in near-earth orbit; the rest is just confect...

A depressing newspaper cutting from 2002; a jest of a book, given in jest; a serious book, bought ironically; and the daddy of all apocalyptic texts. Given the events of the last very few years, one might be forgiven in taking a good deal less than a pinch of salt with it all. In any case, the Pale Rider has already shown up; the fires are burning and winds and pestilence are taking their toll as we speak. Apocalyptic? You betcha: if we don't get our collective act together. If you want a laugh, read the book on the left. A reality check? Read the book on the right: there's so much crap that can happen to us if our veneer of civilisation slips even slightly, let alone after a nuclear holocaust. Want to know what goes on behind government secrecy laws across the world? Research the background to the Independent on Sunday article shown. Or you could just go down the God's wrath route: The Revelation of St. John the Divine; put your head between your knees and kiss your arse g...

Two pieces from this weekend's FT Weekend bylines stand out for me: 'Markets' with Merryn Somerset Webb on central banks, and 'Lunch With The FT', an interview with the great Michael Holding. In the former, Somerset Webb argues that central banks are suffering what she feels is regrettable 'mission-creep' as they seek to enter wider debate on politics, society and climate-change. In the latter, Holding, who I hold in the very highest esteem as a sportsman, commentator and outspoken advocate of Black Lives Matter; a fast bowler probably still never equalled in cricket; argues pretty much the same about the sport of which he was most definitely a pivotal participant in the first-class game's finest era. He considers the short-form of the game: one-day, T20 and now The Hundred (which he dismisses out of hand, having not bothered to even engage with it) as debasing the true game of cricket. I totally agree: the three-day county and five-day test match format...

Greetings from Café Paradise, here in Fairview Heights - another diary post as we're both knackered from yesterday - even given the wealth of stuff happening out there to pass comment and vent spleen on. Tonight's repast: lamb kebabs (Lidl and good), salad, two types of hummus, sun-(blushed?) tomato and mozzarella; Sicilian Nero to wash it down in the late summer - and what feels distinctly like early autumn - sun. A joy to be alive.

Again, just a diary post: today is number one son's thirtieth birthday, so the afternoon and evening have conflated into a sort of come & go soirée, starting in the garden and ending in the conservatory. All have now departed and we await the return of number one son and husband from collecting a third party and drinks at some point this evening! The photograph above I took on a stroll last night and represents nowt particular, and should be taken as such.

Just a diary post tonight - the news from Afghanistan is too depressing to contemplate: what on earth did we collectively expect would happen? Anyhow, we'll see what transpires over the coming days. Freshly-lit BBQ, late August evening sun and the old garden shed: slightly overcooked kebabs, freezer-rescued naans and Greek salad - all to the the soundtrack of Michael Brecker, issuing from the studio sound system. Nice... Have a good evening!

I suppose it's inevitable I have to write something about drummers and drumming, given the news that the great Charlie Watts has died, aged 80. Much has been written about his signature, sparse style of playing, which allowed the rest of the band space in which to play: enough rhythmic information to propel a tune without overcrowding it: essential particularly in the days of 7" single records aimed at the radio and the domestic record-players of the sixties and early seventies. Listening to drummers talking about other drummers is always instructive to the lay-person or musicians who inhabit the melodic/harmonic worlds, rather than the rhythmic: the mantra is always that someone has 'time' or just not. Charlie Watts had it in spades, despite the apparent simplicity of his approach to the Stone's backdrop, along with - in the old days - Bill Wyman's equally spare bass lines; time. The swing's the thing: not being quite in the centre of the beat like a metro...

The saga continues - I think there will be a book in this one. I mentioned before that I needed to fabricate a second stud for the [as it turns out incomplete] change-wheel set, so I could set appropriately slow powered feed rates. So I ordered a six-inch billet of 20mm mild steel, which arrived this morning. This highlighted a couple of issues: the jaws of my chuck really need grinding true (it's old, after all) and the chuck wasn't seated exactly true on the [as it turned out, butchered] back plate. After much messing around, I finally got the thing running true, and decided the only way to deal with the billet was to use a centre support (which I didn't have) in order to get an accurately drilled centre on the thing. So I jury-rigged a support out of a couple of 5/16th" tee-bolts, a piece of wood appropriately worked into a lower saddle and a thin piece of aluminium shaped to make a collar for the top (shown). Having got the billet spinning true, I then moved to get...

It's been a welcome return to summer this afternoon and evening, and while the temperature has stayed down around twenty celsius, it's a pleasant bit of settled weather, nevertheless. Pictured is the first of the Gladioli planted earlier this summer to finally emerge into flower, and a rather lovely sight it is too. This week has seen the return of the more colourful of the butterflies to our garden, rather later than usual: hitherto this summer, the Cabbage White has been the predominant species, unusually prevalent this season. But in the last few days, we've had Peacocks, Painted Ladies and Tortoiseshells in abundance. The Lavenders in the front of our conservatory are teeming with Brown Bees, and the Bumblebees are still in evidence. Very bucolic, very welcome.

Our current email round between the surviving Lads, has lately taken a sombre political turn. The issue facing us is the rising tide of populist, media-driven and corporate-funded fascism. Sounds like hyperbole? Not a bit of it: it's on the move again, fuelled by the inequalities and myths propagated by the likes of our cuddly bear of a twat prime minister, whose agendas are worn so far up his sleeve as to be practically flown at full mast, as brazen and cocky as he is. The general concensus amongst our shrinking number is that our party of choice - The Labour Party - is no longer a credible force of opposition to it all. Sadly, at present, that appears to be the case, with Johnson's cabal seemingly able to do anything and everything they want, say anything and everything they want; in the full knowledge that they will simply double-down when called to question on anything: the privilege of an overwhelming mandate. Those of us struggling to come to terms with the death of the d...

We've been going through the old boxes of photographs with the lads this afternoon, and this one popped out of the hundreds. I've written about my family's Hereford side and in particular Fromes Hill before: the photograph above is of the original Taylor family house, 'Fairview'; on the top of the hill there. This is one picture I can definitely lay claim to being the youngest featured in, and I'm the only one wearing a hat. Back row left to right are my Great-great Aunt Lizzy Taylor, my Grandad Southall and my Great-great Aunt Annie Taylor, Lizzie's sister. Seated are from left to right, my Uncle Edgar; my Mom Joyce Harvey, née Southall; your humble author; my Grandmother Elsie Southall; and someone I assume to be the then current girlfriend of my Uncle Godfrey Southall, to her right. This photo must have been taken around Summer 1955. I'm the only living member of that group, and it feels particularly strange looking into that 1/125th of a second slice...

Following on obliquely from the Kevin White Mystery, and going back  to the seventies [yet again], there are more connections that need to be made. Talking about The Beat [The English Beat if you're in the States], you have to mention Dave Wakeling, the lead singer and guitarist, who now lives in the States and has a YouTube channel. I first knew Wakey [as he was always known to us] as a precocious fourteen-year-old who turned up at a party in Moseley, Birmingham, when I was sixteen, in 1971. The seventies wore on and Wakey eventually ended up in a small commune in Bearwood, a minutes walk from the Talbot pub which all and sundry, myself and the Lads included, frequented practically constantly. I used to stay over at the house often and walk home to Winson Green down City Road to get back for breakfast, having spent the night jamming and listening to music [J.J Cale and Bob Marley being the artistes du jour at the time], smoking weed and generally getting extremely mellow before ke...

OK - politics it's going to have to be then, despite having posted already tonight: I've just read in the Guardian online that upwards of a hundred guards at the British embassy in Kabul have not only been given 'informal' notice that their services are no longer required, as they are indirectly employed via outsourcing firm GardaWorld, but that they are not even 'eligible' for UK government protection, despite some having worked in the service of the embassy and by extension the UK government & its electorate for over a decade. They even helped to get British diplomats safely to the airport for evacuation, before effectively being told '...you're on your own now.' Out-bloody-rageous. Nota bene, the US duly and rightly got their similarly employed guards (same outsourcing company) out of the country with their diplomatic staff. This government of ours simply makes us look crass in the extreme to the rest of the world: uncaring, self-interested an...

It was going to be comment on the Afghanistan debacle tonight, but yesterday an enigma raised itself from my past; a modern mystery in the making: cue diabolical laughter and plate reverb. I was making some sourly ironic remark on Twitter - a platform I actually think is complete crap, and to be honest I only follow a few interesting people and organisations and seldom contribute myself - and I tapped some icon and the following transpired. I was guided back to a tweet aimed at my good self way back in March, which I had obviously missed amid the blizzard of digital confetti that is a normal ten seconds on the platform - I really do have better things to do than monitor all this stuff in real time as some people seem to do - only in this case, I'd rather that I had been more attentive on the day. I was being quizzed as to whether I knew someone's father, based on the label on an old box of reel-to-reel tape (Google it, post-boomers) that had obviously been unearthed from someon...

Got the back gear working today, the inspiration being a YouTube video of a guy getting it wrong: but seeing it 'in the wrong' made me flash on how to do it 'right': more Zen... As you can see, or well not, as this is a still photograph of moving bits; the chuck speed on the lowest belt setting is now around 80 RPM - as indicated by my recently-purchased and rather ancient tachometer [posts passim]. With the range available via the three belt steps, I can cover most speeds necessary, so all good there. Still struggling on parallel alignment, and have decided that a trued set-up bar might well be needed: more outlay...Notice the little bendy work light: a six quid LED torch from B&Q that has a strong enough magnet to hold it to the slide and keep a good light on the tool and cut! Keep you posted - politics tomorrow, I fear...

History is a thing, right? Stuff happens, people record it and later on other people not born to witness it directly get to learn about what happened before they were around. Yeah, well; to a large extent that's true, but like politics, histories have bias, depending on the recorder and interpreter of those histories. And sometimes history is completely fluid and mutates to suit rapidly changing political expediencies: flip-flopping from one state to another and back again, just like Schrödinger's moggy. Take the Bible - there's a thing in itself - the Word of God, right? Actually no: it's a historicist curation of largely oral histories that omits anything remotely bothersome to the collective bishopric of the established church which might just undermine their rather less than spiritual powers on Earth. The same could be said of just about any organised religion bar Zen Buddhism, which isn't exactly organised anyway: politics and the secular pretty much always tak...

I read with great sadness today that Ken Loach has been expelled from the Labour Party. Ken Loach. Of all people. For the offence of failure to disown those already purged from the party as being 'incompatible' with its values. Since when have socialists been incompatible with the values of a socialist party? If it wasn't glaringly obvious that the party is drifting back towards the centre-right of New Labour's ethos, I'd say that the whole thing had a rather Stalinist air to it, albeit with less bloodshed. But Ken Loach, for God's sake. He's been on the side of the angels all his life and has single-handedly done more to bring issues of social injustice to the general conversation and into the mainstream of political action than generations of politicians. To exclude a figure such as he from our party is crass in the extreme, and can only damage the credibility of what, and I'm beginning to think unfortunately, is the only practical opposition to the cu...

I was going to rail on about the absolute shitshow that is, and practically always has been, Afghanistan: that poor benighted political football of a country that has been abused serially by governments of all stripes, over the centuries. But I won't - it's too anger-inducing & upsetting and in any case the situation is real-time fluid; so back to the trivial microcosm that is my studio workshop. Above is pictured the current stage of my finishing something my Dad must have started twenty years ago. If I've read the thing right, it was going to be the clamping screw for the lathe's top slide quadrant, which I've mentioned previously. He'd turned the ball-end and centre-drilled t'other and cut a 1/4" Whitworth thread on it. So far, I've turned back the shaft behind the threaded portion to the thread height, and shouldered the collar seen at about halfway along. This will act on the washer when tightening down the the slide - tomorrow I'll be ...

I did say it would be back to normal ranting today - and God knows there's plenty to rant about at the moment - but I've just made one of those mad synchronistic connections that happen inexplicably from time to time. Pictured above is one of the photos of an eBay lot I intend to bid on, as I always liked the Pentax ME, although I've never owned one: it was a kind of 'sweet spot' camera that wold make a good 'daily carry' - small, light and very easy to use, with great performance to boot. Scanning the photograph pictured (I've rotated it for clarity) I noticed the purchase receipt sticking out of the bundle of manuals on the right. Bought in the early eighties (? I can't quite make out the year) from a branch of Photomarkets, the company I worked for as a salesman for six months after graduating college in the late seventies. Indeed, the ME was one of my favourite cameras to sell, it was so good; and I sold a good few, too. But the synchronicity thi...

Well, that's it, we're sounding taps on our all-too-brief sojourn in the blue remembered hills of Shropshire: my first visit here since pre-pandemic times. On balance, some semblance of normality has actually returned to the [staycation] tourist experience, and the pub/restaurant thing has been much less than strained, to be honest. The weather's been a tad patchy, but given the climate Armageddon that's been unleashed on other parts of the world recently, I really can't complain. I came here with three books to read and will be leaving with a dozen, as is usual: the book fair to blame this time, rather than our usual haunt, Yarborough House. Back to political ranting tomorrow, then: I've got a lot to catch up on.

'Doll Me Up - Shropshire Americana' ©2021 Kel Harvey -- Today a book fair (second & third visit) at Bishop's Castle Town Hall, the building which overlooks the town's High Street from the top of its hill: bought half-a-dozen or so books, went for a wander by the livestock market and took the picture shown - Americana-in-Shropshire - then drove over to Clun for lunch. Slow time. And small town Shropshire evoked as small town America: I guess the style of composition, texture and light; the corrugated iron roof, tarmac and cars; all call to mind the tropes of American urban landscape photography: for me it's the stillness - the slow time - that fascinates.

Pictured is a little gadget I picked up yesterday at the indoor antiques market in Church Stretton, along with the patience cards I mentioned in Deck of the Week, for the princely sum of eight quid. Since the failed experiment with the flaky digital tacho I got off the 'net which lasted precisely one hour before dying, I've been looking for a reliable way of determining the rotational speed of the bench tools in the workshop. I was aware of the type of tacho shown from articles in the Model Engineer mags that I've been triaging - a simple mechanical solution to a basic mechanical problem. This particular model is by Moore & Wright of Sheffield, which judging by its style, construction and the 'spectacle' case, is around sixty or seventy years old. The method of use is simple: you just select one of the two removable 'ends', shown left and place it over the end of the rather beautifully ground shaft of the device. The pointy one is to locate in the centre...

The cottage where we're staying here in Shropshire, and have stayed in on and off since 1998, is owned by a chap called Gerry Kennedy, who we always knew lived in London and had connections with the BBC and writing; although the specifics weren't known to us. From the decorative style of the cottage - Conran cottage, circa 'The House Book' (our favourite style, by the way) we always guessed he'd be a fairly middle-class intellectual a bit older than we were. I'm not disparaging middle-class intellectuals of a certain age here: we sort of fit into that mould ourselves, and that's also not to deny my extremely working-class roots in the Green: rather than to admit that my education and temperament tend to the former. Gerry's father in fact came from Sunderland where he worked in the shipyards, 'emigrating' south to the suburbs of London: Gerry being born and raised in those very suburbs. This I've only since discovered this trip, as amongst the...

After pottering around Bishop's Castle for a couple of hours this morning, we repaired to the White Horse in Clun for something to eat. A light lunch of haddock and chips washed down with a pint of their own Clun Pale Ale, still only £3.10 a pint and a very nice drop of ale to boot. This is the place I mentioned back in February that my great-great uncle Job Graves used to run back in the late nineteenth century and the turn of the twentieth. I've yet to beard the current, excellent landlord Jack with the tale, but I'm sure I'll have the opportunity at some time during the week! So nice to be able to order from the bar at last! A tiny tip towards the old 'normal', but still very welcome.

Well we're here in Shropshire for a few days now, at our long-standing cottage of choice (pictured) - we've been coming here on and off for over twenty years, now. We came through a lot of rain on the way, but the evening looks set fair with some pleasant sunshine at present. Covid-regs confusion apart (being on the Welsh Marches doesn't help as the rules in the two countries are still subtly different) - cover, don't cover; bar-service, table service - it all looks pretty familiar here. Still it's early days yet and it remains to be seen if this latest phase in the great experiment pays dividends or goes horribly wrong. Still, this is a holiday and such considerations will be on hold till next weekend - diary posts only for the duration, folks...

Pictured is my Nikon F2 Photomic [camera], it's 50mm f2 standard lens (centre), and a 35mm-105mm Macro zoom lens that I bought cheap on eBay last year. The lens unfortunately came sans the lens aperture coupling shoe, which you can see on the standard lens (AKA 'bunny ears', top front in the photo). You can just make out the two tiny tapped holes for the screws that attach it, on the barrel of the zoom lens just to the rear of the aperture ring on the lens mount itself. Without this simple mechanical coupling, the lens won't interact with the exposure meter built into the viewfinder, and whilst not rendering it totally inoperable, would make it a bit of a pain to use with the camera. Behind the gear on my laptop screen is the only eBay entry I could find for a replacement - from the USA for the slightly daft sum of US$15.60 plus US$20.70 postage - in GBP a total of £26.19 for a tiny piece of aluminium worth in material terms a couple of pence at the outside - not a viab...

So, tomorrow is 'Freedom Day®', as the gutter press would have it, (here in Wales, slightly less so, but we're OK with that) with the relaxation of Covid rules: I hesitate to say the final relaxation of said rules as I think that maybe the virus and its yet to be mutated cousins might have another agenda altogether. Freedom is what we say we hold dear, cleave to and espouse - quite rightly - but exactly what do we understand the concept of freedom to be? Throwing off the shackles of enslavement, surely; beating back the artifice of social and gender boundaries, yes: but given the removal of constraints imposed by one group of humans over another, what results? Liberty and libertarianism are two very different faces of the same coin. One supposes and expects freedom of opportunity, the other expects freedom from rules. Here lies the eternal rub of our species: freedom of expression, movement and ambition conflated with the freedom to exploit and control - I think anyone that...

I decided the only way to resolve the issue of the of the top slide's accuracy (see Tuesday's post) would be to bite the proverbial and break the thing down and work out what thread screws I would need for the quadrant locking: you can see the two pairs of smaller diameter holes in the cross slide, one pair for each of the two possible positions of the top slide. It turns out that my initial guess of 1/4" Whitworth was right, and I do still have a die and a couple of taps left in the small collection inherited with the lathe, but I will probably get some 1/4" Whit threaded bar online and make something to suit. As to the question of setting the top slide square, I'll jury rig a stand for the little quadrant test indicator that I still have with the lathe, fifty odd years on from Winson Street. I can set the slide roughly with this and then turn a piece of bar stock and use the indicator to check it for true, adjusting as I go. I'll work it out, anyway. I suppo...

As I've said, I've been going through Dad's collection of old Model Engineer magazines recently and one thing of note is that it often ran articles on a broader range of engineering subjects than simply building live steam scale model locomotives. One such article was in the edition of 28th June 1956, entitled 'Britain's Largest Dam', the subject of which we learned about in school in Birmingham as it was one of the complex of dams that supplied the water to the metropolis we grew up in. In common with Liverpool, Birmingham draws its water supply from Wales, via aqueducts from reservoirs created by damming Welsh rivers. I vividly remember the large, scale model of the Elan valley complex that supplied us, on display at Cannon Hill Park when I was a child: no mention, as in the ME article of the collateral cost of the development. The most infamous example of fallout from English water supply schemes was the flooding of the Afon Tryweryn valley in 1965 to supply ...

 Shown is a little experiment I tried yesterday afternoon on the lathe. After realigning the tailstock the other day and thinking maybe it was a few thou north of centre, I wanted to try centre-drilling something and turn it centred on the tailstock. The result was none too shabby from the centre point of view, but the observant will notice the taper in from the faced end to the the stock of a few thousandths, which leads me to the conclusion that the tool slide isn't running quite parallel to the bed. Now this has been locked off in that one position for a very long time and I've been planning to re-instate the locking pins on the quadrant that allow you to alter the angle of the slide for a while; so I think it's about time I bit the bullet and did just that: then all I've got to do is get the parallel movement set up...more larnin' to do - fun innit?

To paraphrase Marcellus, something ain't quite right 'ere.  According to today's  i , '...the [DHSC]... has signed a two-year contract with blood test  startup  (my italics) Thriva [the deal is worth £124m]...to deliver home Covid antibody tests. The company was incorporated in 2015 - (possibly the longest startup in history?) Check out their Companies House listing under Thriva Limited; millions of shares issued to the principals and sundry others at a unit value of £0.0001. Now I know sub-penny shares are a common instrument, but really... At their last filing (year end 2018) they had fixed assets of less than twenty grand. The main founders both have previous company directorships listed (one apiece), both companies lasting but a short time and trading little or nothing in their lifetime, neither having filed accounts before voluntary registration for striking off. Not exactly pedigree for a government contract of that size, methinks. With the current test ki...

Prior to Brexit, Wales was largely supported and subsidised by the EU. A country, culture and language marginalised by the UK government for centuries, despite the singular fact that the Welsh were and still are the indigenous people of what is mainland UK, kept alive economically by the larger strategic grouping of Europe. Despite the EU's manifest faults, it nevertheless kept our country alive. Fast forward to 2021 and we are now faced with a financial hole left by Brexit that is unlikely in any real sense to be made good by the UK government: the interim funding plan for the UK regions has a total budget some £155M less than the EU subsidies Wales has enjoyed hitherto. We're looking at a short-term(?) deficit in funding of some £365M annually - a million quid a day, folks; which is some big deal for a country as small as ours. As far as I'm concerned, the argument for an independent Wales is stronger than ever - secede from the UK and rejoin the EU; hopefully alongside S...