The Night Mail

[Hroth]

37 minutes ago, Flying Fox 34F said:

Happy St David’s day to all our Welsh contingent.  As for the rest, it’s the start of Spring or Autumn depending on which side of the Equator you happen to be.  
(Of course, if you are a Star Gazer, then you have to wait another 21 days.)

 

Back to watching the rain, wondering when I can partake in some strangling of wood!

 

Paul

 

Spring already?

Does that mean the central heating has to be turned off???

 

I think I'll leave it until after Astronomical Spring and the clocks have gone forward!

 

Somewhere about Eastertide....

 

Edited March 1 by Hroth
Added observation...

[SM42]

43 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Spring already?

Does that mean the central heating has to be turned off???

 

 

No, that's  New Year's Day. 

 

Andy

[jamie92208]

10 hours ago, AndyID said:

Weather here is bonkers. Four inches of snow yesterday then it turned to rain. It was 47F this morning, then it droped to 37F in about 30 minutes and now it's snowing again.

 

Ten feet or more snow expected in the Sierra Nevadas.

Does that mean that the Roseville Rotaries are getting ready for action. 

 

Jamie

[Happy Hippo]

7 hours ago, SM42 said:

 

 

 

A sense of urgency was injected into proceedings earlier when Mrs SM42 announced we may have house guests just after Easter, thus the contents of the airing cupboard need to be back in there  rather than the guest bedroom. 

If you want to put a stop to this sort of thing, invite PB and myself  to stay in an open ended sort of arrangement.

 

'Andy!  why did you invite them to stay for so long?'

 

'Me invite them?  I thought they were your friends!'

 

'We'll I'm never again having anyone else to stay here...Ever! Have you seen the claw marks on the bannister?   Oh and don't go into the bathroom.  The bath is full of mud..... Well I hope it's mud!'

[Winslow Boy]

2 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

If you want to put a stop to this sort of thing, invite PB and myself  to stay in an open ended sort of arrangement.

 

'Andy!  why did you invite them to stay for so long?'

 

'Me invite them?  I thought they were your friends!'

 

'We'll I'm never again having anyone else to stay here...Ever! Have you seen the claw marks on the bannister?   Oh and don't go into the bathroom.  The bath is full of mud..... Well I hope it's mud!'

I thought PB said not to talk about the stairs as it gives him nightmares.

[Winslow Boy]

39 minutes ago, SM42 said:

 

No, that's  New Year's Day. 

 

Andy

That's alright then. Think of how much your saying on heating when your painting.

[New Haven Neil]

10 hours ago, Northmoor said:

and even more remarkably, their hearing still perfect;

 

+1 on that, I was once next to the cylinder heads of a large marine diesel (90cm bore, 25,000hp) when a cylinder relief valve lifted as the engine started - total loss of hearing for a few seconds, then tinnitus turned up to 11 for a minute or so afterwards, you can't hear a thing.  It was a BIG bang, and my hearing was  never quite the same.

[DaveF]

While I've been recovering from surgery to repair my hernia I've been exploring YouTube which I've never really bothered with before.  I wonder if I am one of a very small group of people who can say that?

 

I've obviously found various cartoons, including Simon's cat, videos of places near where I live - some good, some with inaccurate commentary - and I wonder how (if) they got permission to fly drones over parts of the town and harbour.   I've found some pleasant music, including (as mentioned earlier on ERs) Ladyva playing boogie woogie piano music which led me to some nice jazz.

 

More usefully I've realised how much railway stuff there is, especially cab rides.  I've been working my way round Switzerland, I always find cab rides are very useful as they give a good idea of where things are places in relation to the track,  It does seem odd though to be running into a passing loop on a single track line and seeing a train doing the same at the other end of the loop - no waiting for one train to stop before the other arrives.  The Swiss do things differently.

 

There is one sad thing - the number of freight sidings which have been lifted since I went there regularly in the late 80s and 90s.

 

I've also been watching a number of UK cab rides.    I do have both Swiss and UK cab rides onDVD, but the YouTube ones cover more routes. 

 

It is a lot better than TV at the moment - I don't like soaps, reality, celebrities, real life crime, very "dark" dramas etc etc.

 

David

Edited March 1 by DaveF

[jamie92208]

@DaveFThere are some excellent French ones. One set is  by Aiguillage, which means points. He puts subtitles on in English.  There is also  a set that do the Tours to Hendaye line by someone else who I can't remember.

 

Jamie

[Willie Whizz]

5 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

That’s actually a myth (see link below), the average Italian soldier was no more a coward than his British counterpart. Being badly supplied, badly equipped and badly led (from the ascent of Mussolini in 1923 onwards being a good fascist was about the only criteria for becoming an officer that mattered) would make any army from any nation ineffective.

 

The Italians got a bad rap in WWII but many of the professional Italian Military regiments were certainly as good as any. The Bersaglieri, the Alpini or the Carabinieri were certainly no pushovers. And to sit quietly on the bottom of Alexandria harbour on a Maiale (manned torpedo) whilst the British chuck into the water anything explosive that they can get their hands on and then go on to sink two battleships and a tanker, well it takes some doing.

 

There’s an interesting academic paper (see: https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1054&context=gljuh) that revisits the myths about the Italian military. One of the interesting points is how, post-war, the retired German Generals to hide their mistakes pushed the narrative that many of the failures in the East and in North Africa was due to the Italians - a narrative the US and the UK were happy to accept lock, stock and barrel.

For examples of incredible fortitude and bravery of the Italian armed forces, look no further than the Italian-Austro-Hungarian front in WWI. Although - due to poor political and senior military leadership - the Italians didn’t reach most of their military objectives, the courage and toughness of the Alpini was exemplary. The Alpini would do things like dismantle a field gun, strap the parts of the gun to individual Alpini, climb up to a suitably sized mountain ledge, reassemble the gun and fire off rounds at the Austrians, quickly dismantle the gun before the Austrians could zero-in on it, and rappel back down the mountain, bits of gun strapped to their backs.

 

My father, who after being forcibly conscripted at age 15 into the Wehrmacht (my grandfather was in the Italian Diplomatic Service and got stuck in Germany durin WWII), returned to Italy where he had to do his military service. Of this time he said the two divisions that stood head and shoulders above the rest were the Bersaglieri (who were all crack marksmen and had to run - not march - everywhere. Unsurprisingly, most recruits failed the physical for the Bersaglieri) and the Alpini (who my father claimed had barracks without staircases - the Alpini having to rappel in and out of their dormitories)

 

Entirely agree.  It is a fascinating experience to go to the area north of Lake Garda, view the terrain and the surviving Austro-Hungarian fortifications (mostly quite 'modern' at the time) and see the 1915-18 War Memorials in the towns and villages, which typically have lists of names as long as any you will find in the UK.

 

My "other hobby" is Naval History, and it is interesting that in the last decade or so there has been a significant reassessment of the achievements of the Italian Navy in WWII.  They were seriously hampered by dire top-level leadership, the fact that their ships had primarily been designed for fighting France rather than the Royal Navy (which required a very different approach), and a lack of the most modern technology (especially radar) and night-fighting training; but until serious fuel shortages began to restrict mobility in c.1942 they are now recognised as having done better at achieving their strategic goals than the RN did at its own.

 

History sometimes takes time to overcome the memory of propaganda, especially when the propaganda was one's own country's.

[monkeysarefun]

13 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

You've been watching Neighbours again haven't you.

 

 

 

No that'd be NEIGHbours,  which features those psycho f*(*en horses.

[Happy Hippo]

Back in Wales again. Br2975 is on a warning order for a Monday morning visitation.  More toot to deliver😂

[SM42]

The first coat of paint is drying although a strange water mark has appeared  halfway up a wall ( no there are no pipes in the wall and no holes been drilled in the vicinity) there is a smell of wet plaster rather than wet paint in there too. 

 

I'll see how it looks( and smells)  in a few hours when I come to the second coat. 

 

Just the woodwork to do then and finally boxing in a couple of pipes. 

 

The job seems to have grown since I started. 

 

It may  take a while to finish, as,  per usual, my employer is insisting on personal appearances over the weekend and the early part of next week. 

 

Sometime the back end of next week is my estimated completion date. 

 

Andy

 

PS, HH & PB if you are coming over, bring a paintbrush and roller 

Edited March 1 by SM42

[pH]

7 hours ago, DaveF said:

 It does seem odd though to be running into a passing loop on a single track line and seeing a train doing the same at the other end of the loop - no waiting for one train to stop before the other arrives.  The Swiss do things differently.

That’s known as a “rolling meet” in North America. Appears dispatchers will try to arrange them if possible, and the “loops” on single tracks here tend to be much longer than in Europe.

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, pH said:

That’s known as a “rolling meet” in North America. Appears dispatchers will try to arrange them if possible, and the “loops” on single tracks here tend to be much longer than in Europe.

Called dynamic loops in the UK.  The borders railway has at least three of them. Without them the timetable would be unsustainable. 

 

Jamie

[SM42]

Well that was interesting. 

 

I'm sat here doing not much,  I just reached up with my left hand to scratch my nose. 

 

This caused a sharp pain between the shoulder blades and the stiffness I've had in my neck on the left-side for the last few weeks has gone.

 

Fingers crossed it doesn't come back

 

Andy

[Happy Hippo]

My daughter has just sent me this planner

 

[br2975]

4 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Back in Wales again. Br2975 is on a warning order for a Monday morning visitation.  More toot to deliver😂

.

All noted !

.

Standing by

.

Out !

[br2975]

56 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

My daughter has just sent me this planner

 

.

I can't go because the Pope gave me syphilis

.

Sounds like one of the notes my mum used to write when I was off school.......................

[SM42]

13 minutes ago, br2975 said:

.

I can't go because the Pope gave me syphilis

.

Sounds like one of the notes my mum used to write when I was off school.......................

 

I was thinking he stole my bicycle.

 

Andy

[Winslow Boy]

14 minutes ago, SM42 said:

 

I was thinking he stole my bicycle.

 

Andy

Or telling knock knock jokes whilst stealing my bicycle.

[TheQ]

15 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

That’s actually a myth (see link below), the average Italian soldier was no more a coward than his British counterpart. Being badly supplied, badly equipped and badly led (from the ascent of Mussolini in 1923 onwards being a good fascist was about the only criteria for becoming an officer that mattered) would make any army from any nation ineffective.

 

The Italians got a bad rap in WWII but many of the professional Italian Military regiments were certainly as good as any. The Bersaglieri, the Alpini or the Carabinieri were certainly no pushovers. And to sit quietly on the bottom of Alexandria harbour on a Maiale (manned torpedo) whilst the British chuck into the water anything explosive that they can get their hands on and then go on to sink two battleships and a tanker, well it takes some doing.

 

There’s an interesting academic paper (see: https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1054&context=gljuh) that revisits the myths about the Italian military. One of the interesting points is how, post-war, the retired German Generals to hide their mistakes pushed the narrative that many of the failures in the East and in North Africa was due to the Italians - a narrative the US and the UK were happy to accept lock, stock and barrel.

For examples of incredible fortitude and bravery of the Italian armed forces, look no further than the Italian-Austro-Hungarian front in WWI. Although - due to poor political and senior military leadership - the Italians didn’t reach most of their military objectives, the courage and toughness of the Alpini was exemplary. The Alpini would do things like dismantle a field gun, strap the parts of the gun to individual Alpini, climb up to a suitably sized mountain ledge, reassemble the gun and fire off rounds at the Austrians, quickly dismantle the gun before the Austrians could zero-in on it, and rappel back down the mountain, bits of gun strapped to their backs.

 

My father, who after being forcibly conscripted at age 15 into the Wehrmacht (my grandfather was in the Italian Diplomatic Service and got stuck in Germany durin WWII), returned to Italy where he had to do his military service. Of this time he said the two divisions that stood head and shoulders above the rest were the Bersaglieri (who were all crack marksmen and had to run - not march - everywhere. Unsurprisingly, most recruits failed the physical for the Bersaglieri) and the Alpini (who my father claimed had barracks without staircases - the Alpini having to rappel in and out of their dormitories)

Exactly, their tanks were very poor,  as was much of their equipment, also the average conscript was treated very badly compared to their officers. So they often had no choice but to surrender.

[Northmoor]

3 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Exactly, their tanks were very poor,  as was much of their equipment, also the average conscript was treated very badly compared to their officers. So they often had no choice but to surrender.

Much like the unpleasant stereotype about the French surrendering without a fight, where delving into the historical record will tell you that after WW2, some senior German officers who'd been there in 1940 spoke very positively of the French military's response to invasion by an overwhelming force with better equipment.

[SM42]

It's obvious the various national stereotypes with regard to fighting prowess are drawn from personal perceptions, the bad ones will always rise to the top as those are the ones that are heard the most. 

 

People like to complain / gloat

 

The Polish airmen who fought in France in 1940, did not rate their French colleagues, but that is only the story of their limited experience. 

 

Who knows what others experienced or saw in other parts of France, or if memories have been clouded by time and well published stereotypes.

 

Andy

Edited March 1 by SM42

[Winslow Boy]

15 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Much like the unpleasant stereotype about the French surrendering without a fight, where delving into the historical record will tell you that after WW2, some senior German officers who'd been there in 1940 spoke very positively of the French military's response to invasion by an overwhelming force with better equipment.

I seem to recall that there was a tank battle where the French gave the Germans a battering due in part to the tanks they were equipped with were equal to the German ones.