The Night Mail

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

 

That's a matter of perspective. As well as changing over time I suspect that the reasons which led to war in 1914 reflected the interests of some but probably not the men killed in vast numbers. I suspect that the co-incidence of interests of 'the state' as defined by the great and good and what really matters to the average person is quite low unless those people are convinced otherwise by clever information management.

I very much doubt that the interests of the great majority of the actual fighting troops, were greatly represented in the decision to fight. 

 

However it's clear that large numbers, on all sides were ready and willing to fight, at least at first. 

 

The great exception being America, with its vastly destructive Civil War then still within living memory 

[Willie Whizz]

13 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

I suspect that is true of many countries.

Oh yes - but few of those others are in the position to cut you off at the knees so effectively. 

[DenysW]

13 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

in the 1930s when the LMS tried skimping by using a lubricant of poorer quality than that for which the axleboxes had been designed

Around the same time as the same design of axle box failed on the first test when the LMS tried one of their Garratts with coaches at passenger speeds.

[Tony_S]

Looking forward to a photo of @polybear ‘s “Twin” trundling along his layout soon. Here are mine from a 2021 photo. 

 

[iL Dottore]

34 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

The great exception being America, with its vastly destructive Civil War then still within living memory 

I have only the barest knowledge about the US Civil (when I was living in the US - in a Southern State - when the Cvil War was referred to at all, it was referred to as “The War of Northern Aggression” or some such thing), and it’s not really one of those periods of history I’m interested (I essentially skip over 1801 to 1901).

 

But there’s one thing I did read that rings very true: the US Civil War was the first industrialised war. And it was the North’s unquestionable industrial superiority over the essentially agrarian South, that won it the war, perhaps more so than having great generals (the South had great generals as well and look where it got them…)

[Tony_S]

I have just realised I posted a photo of a bridge (even though it is just a temporary structure awaiting completion) without a bus. 
So here is a bus without a bridge. 

Tony

[jjb1970]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

I very much doubt that the interests of the great majority of the actual fighting troops, were greatly represented in the decision to fight. 

 

However it's clear that large numbers, on all sides were ready and willing to fight, at least at first. 

 

The great exception being America, with its vastly destructive Civil War then still within living memory 

 

That's kind of the point, wars may be fought for what rulers see as national self interest and countries act out of national self interest,  but that self interest is probably not the self interest of the typical person in the street. However it's very easy to manipulate group emotion and instil certain ideas. Despite advances in technology the basic principles really haven't changed much and are still used.

[jamie92208]

Just had a kit delivered that requires assembly pdq.  Sadly not a railway related one but some swimming pool steps.  A happy afternoon is ahead.  Given a good run I may finish in time to work on the lighting rig. 

 

Jamie

[Tony_S]

Some friends are coming for lunch  next week. They have asked if it can be a late lunch as they have an appointment at the Singapore High Commission in London earlier that day. Experience with another Asian High  Commission would suggest that afternoon tea or supper would be more appropriate but I suspect Singapore is more efficient!

Edited August 6 by Tony_S

[jjb1970]

1 minute ago, Tony_S said:

Some friends are coming for lunch  next week. They have asked if it can be a late lunch as they have an appointment at the Singapore High Commission in London earlier that day. Experience with another Asian High  Commission that afternoon tea or supper would be more appropriate but I suspect Singapore is more efficient!

 

I dunno, I wouldn't expect miracles if it's an appointment for consular services🫣

[Compound2632]

39 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

 

But there’s one thing I did read that rings very true: the US Civil War was the first industrialised war. And it was the North’s unquestionable industrial superiority over the essentially agrarian South, that won it the war, perhaps more so than having great generals (the South had great generals as well and look where it got them…)

 

It would have been over much quicker had not the Union generals been too appalled at the slaughter they had created at each battle they won to press home their advantage.

[Northmoor]

11 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

 

That's kind of the point, wars may be fought for what rulers see as national self interest and countries act out of national self interest,  but that self interest is probably not the self interest of the typical person in the street. However it's very easy to manipulate group emotion and instil certain ideas. Despite advances in technology the basic principles really haven't changed much and are still used.

Tony Robinson's programme a few years ago, recreating the effects of The Blitz, put this into sharp focus.  It was noted that the so-called Blitz Spirit which is still trumpeted today as something uniquely British, was largely a (government-encouraged) media invention of the time and has passed into mythology.  After being battered by bombing for night after night, many if not most people in cities like London and Liverpool were really just begging, "Mr Churchill, please just make it stop"; negotiating a truce with Germany would have a quite satisfactory outcome for them.

[Tony_S]

1 minute ago, jjb1970 said:

 

I dunno, I wouldn't expect miracles if it's an appointment for consular services🫣

I am sure we will find out. Our friends are a married couple  with a baby. He is a UK citizen, she is from Singapore. They have already travelled to Singapore for a holiday  so the baby must have a passport. 
Our nephew who lives in Zurich is now married. His wife is an Austrian citizen so their new baby automatically gets Austrian citizenship. I think my nephew may be starting the process for Swiss citizenship. 

[Hroth]

33 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I have just realised I posted a photo of a bridge (even though it is just a temporary structure awaiting completion) without a bus. 
So here is a bus without a bridge. 

Tony

 

Good placing of the corpy dustcart next to the ice cream vans!

 

[jjb1970]

Sometimes the....ahem.....less efficient Asian consular and diplomatic posts are a lot easier.

 

Those like Singapore and Japan are efficient and straight as a die, the disadvantage of that is every tee has to be crossed and every I dotted. 

 

Others like Indonesia kind of lurch along in their own crazy way but can be very helpful in not standing on rules and procedures. I am not talking about graft either, but often if there are issues with documents and stuff they'll just help to resolve it without going back to square one or throwing everything back at you.

[jjb1970]

9 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I am sure we will find out. Our friends are a married couple  with a baby. He is a UK citizen, she is from Singapore. They have already travelled to Singapore for a holiday  so the baby must have a passport. 
Our nephew who lives in Zurich is now married. His wife is an Austrian citizen so their new baby automatically gets Austrian citizenship. I think my nephew may be starting the process for Swiss citizenship. 

 

Our kids have dual nationality, however Indonesia doesn't allow dual nationality after they leave education (I think the cut off is 21 for those who go into higher education). Until recently I would have called it a no trainer for them to choose UK nationality but now I really don't know. 

[rockershovel]

36 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Tony Robinson's programme a few years ago, recreating the effects of The Blitz, put this into sharp focus.  It was noted that the so-called Blitz Spirit which is still trumpeted today as something uniquely British, was largely a (government-encouraged) media invention of the time and has passed into mythology.  After being battered by bombing for night after night, many if not most people in cities like London and Liverpool were really just begging, "Mr Churchill, please just make it stop"; negotiating a truce with Germany would have a quite satisfactory outcome for them.

See Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy on this account. Monsarratt's The Cruel Sea also has something to say on the subject. 

 

 

[Tony_S]

18 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

 

Our kids have dual nationality, however Indonesia doesn't allow dual nationality after they leave education (I think the cut off is 21 for those who go into higher education). Until recently I would have called it a no trainer for them to choose UK nationality but now I really don't know. 

I think Singapore doesn’t allow dual nationality after the age of 21. When Aditi’s family became British citizens in the late 1960s they had renounce their Indian Citizenship and surrender their Indian passports. Dual citizenship can have difficulties especially with countries that have national service requirements. Also my brothers fiancée has a British passport but was from Venezuela which doesn’t allow people to renounce their Venezuelan citizenship. So she had to get a Venezuelan passport to leave Venezuela after a recent visit. This was accomplished, with some difficulty but the real problem occurred at Madrid when she was on her way home. The Spanish border authority tried to stop her boarding a flight to London using her British passport. The Venezuelan passport didn’t physically exist (shortage of materials) but they had issued her with all the exit documents she needed. She didn’t think a flight from the EU to the UK was going to be a problem. At one point she thought the Spanish officials were going to send her back to Venezuela. 
Another issue that occurred here is that even if you have had a British passport issued the UK Government can decide you are really a citizen of somewhere else and can be deported to a country you have never been to. Not all of these people are alleged terrorists, some didn’t even know they were weren’t British. 

[rockershovel]

42 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

It would have been over much quicker had not the Union generals been too appalled at the slaughter they had created at each battle they won to press home their advantage.

The Civil War was basically won by Sherman and Grant, who acknowledged that the quickest way to win was to destroy the Southern economy and resource base. 

 

Sherman was given to remarks like "my opponent has chosen war; well then, we will give him all the war we can" or "war is hell" 

[rockershovel]

7 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I think Singapore doesn’t allow dual nationality after the age of 21. When Aditi’s family became British citizens in the late 1960s they had renounce their Indian Citizenship and surrender their Indian passports. Dual citizenship can have difficulties especially with countries that have national service requirements. Also my brothers fiancée has a British passport but was from Venezuela which doesn’t allow people to renounce their Venezuelan citizenship. So she had to get a Venezuelan passport to leave Venezuela after a recent visit. This was accomplished, with some difficulty but the real problem occurred at Madrid when she was on her way home. The Spanish border authority tried to stop her boarding a flight to London using her British passport. The Venezuelan passport didn’t physically exist (shortage of materials) but they had issued her with all the exit documents she needed. She didn’t think a flight from the EU to the UK was going to be a problem. At one point she thought the Spanish officials were going to send her back to Venezuela. 
Another issue that occurred here is that even if you have had a British passport issued the UK Government can decide you are really a citizen of somewhere else and can be deported to a country you have never been to. Not all of these people are alleged terrorists, some didn’t even know they were weren’t British. 

The EU really haven't forgiven Britain for leaving, and closing the cashbox while they were about it. Nor do I think they ever will. 

[rockershovel]

The second half of the 19th century was a time of rapid change. Napoleon was the last exemplar of a time when having defeated the (relatively small) standing army, the government acknowledged itself defeated and conceded. 

 

Prussia succeeded with a series of small, quick wars of annexation against minor neighbours, but in 1870 they fought France and that's not quite what happened. They beat the French in matter of weeks, including a victory parade in Paris, but really didn't know what to do next and eventually returned more-or-less empty-handed, apart from the ever-contentious provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. 

 

German and French thinking in 1914-18 was formed by this debacle. 

 

Enter the USA. They understood the level of destruction necessary to conclusively end a war of this sort. They didn't get their way in 1918-19 but insisted on unconditional surrender by an army which had been unquestionably beaten in the field, in 1945

[jjb1970]

26 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I think Singapore doesn’t allow dual nationality after the age of 21. When Aditi’s family became British citizens in the late 1960s they had renounce their Indian Citizenship and surrender their Indian passports. Dual citizenship can have difficulties especially with countries that have national service requirements. Also my brothers fiancée has a British passport but was from Venezuela which doesn’t allow people to renounce their Venezuelan citizenship. So she had to get a Venezuelan passport to leave Venezuela after a recent visit. This was accomplished, with some difficulty but the real problem occurred at Madrid when she was on her way home. The Spanish border authority tried to stop her boarding a flight to London using her British passport. The Venezuelan passport didn’t physically exist (shortage of materials) but they had issued her with all the exit documents she needed. She didn’t think a flight from the EU to the UK was going to be a problem. At one point she thought the Spanish officials were going to send her back to Venezuela. 
Another issue that occurred here is that even if you have had a British passport issued the UK Government can decide you are really a citizen of somewhere else and can be deported to a country you have never been to. Not all of these people are alleged terrorists, some didn’t even know they were weren’t British. 

 

Some countries are trying to lure people back, not necessarily by re-instating citizenship but allowing right of return to live and work. A lot of developing countries traditionally lost many of their most talented people to Europe's, North America,  Australia etc (medically trained people, graduates, engineers,  scientists and such like) but as their homes develop quite a few are looking at the sort of lives they could have back at home. I know a lot of naval architects who returned to China from various European countries as while they may not be as well off in $ terms they enjoy a far higher standard of living. We know a few Indonesian people who returned home for the same reasons.

[Tony_S]

It is easier to get a visa for a holiday in China than India. People,of Indian Origin can now get a visa that gives certain advantages (India wants foreign exchange from former citizens) . British citizens need visas for India, the Indian government is wary of people they class as dissidents but in recent years restrictions like not allowing online or on arrival visas for British citizens were introduced because someone in the British Government had “offended” India. Aditi’s relatives had all booked in person appointments for their visas last year when after some diplomacy online applications were allowed. 
When my son went to Australia his unpaid work/study type visa took less than 15 minutes to process. He was impressed.  I don’t think he was that impressed  with the special Russian  visa he had been promised for Kaliningrad. It arrived the day after he needed it for travel from Helsinki. He didn’t mind, he went to Estonia for a week instead and had a holiday instead of attending a conference. 
 

[Tony_S]

I did wonder what would happen as we travelled to various EU and Schengen countries on cruise ships. I assumed our passports wouid get stamped on entry to the first Schengen country and stamped when we left the Schengen zone. Didn’t happen, in fact told don’t take passports ashore, if you hadn’t got any other government photoID , carry a photocopy of your passport. I think the cruise line do submit names and passport details for passengers and crew going ashore so I suppose they are recorded for the 90 in 180 day stay rule but certainly not in our passports. 

Edited August 6 by Tony_S

[DenysW]

49 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

The EU really haven't forgiven Britain for leaving, and closing the cashbox while they were about it.

Modern myth. In as far as it existed, the cashbox was actually Germany and Holland, and the UK did not fight for better parity for them. Also, if you look at the net UK contribution to the EU as a fraction of UK GDP, it's tiny, less than the error in funding calculations for the NHS.

 

What they didn't like (and struggle to understand) is rejecting ever-closer union having signed the documents that included it.