caldrail

I agree Caesar was backed into a corner - the senate wanted him to disarm and cease to be a political threat via his legions - but don't you think that Caesar was going to take any such chance to grab power at some point? Certainly the senate made him take that step, but we shouldn't ignore Caesar's character. He was an iverterate risk taker and had been intent on success from childhood.

A few nights ago I took a moment to take in the view overlooking the valley below my home. In Roman times it was verdant countryside with a farmyard at the bottom of the hill. Even in victorian times it was a green belt between the old market town on the hill and the new industrial village built for Brunel's new railway. Now it's urban sprawl, with an abandoned college building dominating the view. I'm used to seeing movement in the back yard and the alleys leading from it. People use the area as a shortcut to and fro their favourite drinking holes. They sometimes park cars there in the evening in the search for a cheap place to hopefully leave their vehicle undisturbed. Revellers occaisionally wander back and forth along the street nearby. At this hour however, it's the quiet after the socialising is done and before the local burglars come out to play. It seems the local wildlife sense that too. I guess they become accustomed to our movements and know full well that the wee small hours are the safest bet for an undisturbed scrounge in the rubbish we leave behind. Urban foxes have made a name for themselves doing exactly that, though as I predicted, the piercing screech they make has been absent for a while now. But I wasn't dissappointed. As I watched, a solitary badger trotted down the lane, crossed the road, and headed for his favourite scrounging ground. Unlike the foxes the badger remains silent, preferring not to draw attention to itself, and moves quickly in case someone does spot it. Somewhere nearby the badger will find discarded chips, kebabs, or any other takeaway that a drunken customer couldn't keep hold of. Nature doesn't miss a trick, does it? Wetness Expected The morning is cloudy and although it isn't actually damp, you can sense the rain waiting to unleash wetness upon unsuspecting Swindon residents. it is of course the remnant of Hurricane Irene that's heading across the country, now downgraded to a band of rainclouds. As I headed for the library this morning I could feel the rain in the air, that sort of prickly sensation on the face that precedes something a good deal wetter. People don't seem to be aware of the forecast rain. Despite the drab greyness, most of those I see outside on the street are still dressed in summer clothes, though oddly scarves seem to a fashionable addition. Their faith in scarves is probably not going to help them this afternoon, but then, I've been caught in one too many downpours to believe that staying dry is all that easy in Britain. How fortunate then that really strong cyclonic winds are so rare in our otherwise dampened contry. No Longer Flat So concerned are the Netherlands that the approach of Irene will cause flooding that they're investing millions of euro's to build an artificial mountain, Holland's first ever At last the dutch will be able to enter an olympic skiing team, though infairness, their athletes had better hurry because London 2012 is but months away. I know. I've seen the constant reminders on television. It does occur to me that all of a sudden there's a danger to aviation in the area. Pilots do have a slight tendency to make controlled flight into terrain now and then, so anyone hoping to fly in Holland beware. There's a new mountain to avoid very shortly. Imagine if the nazi's had thought of that one. None of the Dambusters would have made it to the Rhine. Having A Say "Have you got any ideas?" The boos at the museum asked me, looking for inspirtation to extend the social activities that keep customers arriving through our doors. Why? Why does he think we're struggling? My last 'graveyard' shift was the busiest ever, with zombies arriving to pay the entrance fee at a regular pace. Some of them even bought books from the museum shop too. I thought for a moment, considering the possibilities and the sort of people we encourage to visit, and just as I was about to speak.... Whirrrrrrrr Evil robot, perched on the side of the front desk, made an electronic groan. Shut up.

Interesting that you take a view that Caesar was somehow 'saving' Rome, a popular theme these days regarding the Roman empire and one based on sentiments expressed in the western world ever since their passing. We praise Rome for civic achievement, admire their imperial vastness, and applaude their conquering legions, yet at the same time, we sneer at their callousness, greed, decadence, and political ruthlessness. it would seem then that the question of whether Caesar was hero or villain rests on his motive for crossing the Rubicon. Was it indeed to replace a broken Republic with a new dynamic autocracy? Or simply a desire for personal power?

Later today the last remnants of Hurricane irene will sweep across the UK. Of course it won't be anything close to the american experience, merely a blustery wind if any and some heavy rain. I know some of our members live in the path that Irene took. How are things in the wake of that storm?

Apparently the bluestones had a very specific religious context to the builders. Some researchers believe they represented something about life or natural bounty, because springs are plentiful in areas where bluestones are found. Springs are very noticeably a 'gift of the gods' in prehistoric & ancient times. Odd that a stone ring associated with death rituals should have such symbolism present. There will be those who immediately draw conclusions from druidic practice but those beliefs were a child of the Iron Age and the gallic migrations, unconnected with neolithic or Bronze Age religions.

Here, deep in the rainforests of Darkest Wiltshire, the evenings are a time when the animals of the forest gather for their nightly mating rituals, challenging rivals, announcing themselves to all the other animals as big, hairy, and completely sozzled, and so for a few hours the cacophany continues. Later, when most of the animals ave either found a mate, a hospital bed, or a ride in a police van, there's an occaisional outburst from young male apes, hooting loudly to proclaim the success of their favourite football team. But even they eventually wander away. And so the small hours bring an feeling of emptiness to the forest, a quiet interrupted only by the passing of a motor vehicle. Yet if we wait patiently, a creature emerges from the undergrowth, a nocturnal scavenger... Thwump... Thwump crack! Yes, the sound of a back door being kicked in betrays the presence of the lesser Spotted Burglar as he raids the nests of other animals in search of shiney things. Moving quickly he he darts inside, sifting carelessly through the nest, and vanishing into the darkness when he finds something he can use to feed his habit. Dawn brings another creature to the forest, the Detective, a prowling creature in dark plumage, wandering the area for the scent of his favourite prey, the burglar. The detective and burglar are rival species in the fight for survival in the rainforest. Getting There Eventually I see that a microlight pilot has spent four months flying from england to australia, a distance of 12,000 miles no less. Even in this day and age there are still adventures to be had. Of course things have moved on since the heyday of exploratory flying when aeroplanes were real aeroplanes. Whereas once a pilot took off across hundreds of miles of primitive country with no facilities for flying, now he must cross nation after nation with airports, traffic control, regulations and flight plans. I think we can see where the achievement is. Coming There Eventually Also in the news is the revelation that prostitutes in Berlin can buy tickets to legally ply their trade, with 'consummation areas' set aside. This sort of idea is nothing new. Some people have suggested it for British cities before now in some form or other. Personally speaking I don't buy from prostitutes. British prostitutes are invariably ugly for a start, never mind the health and criminal issues involved. That's my choice. Others of course will disagree and utilise their services, and our local red light district, Manchester Road, has never rid itself of the stigma of prostitution. In fact, local residents want the area renamed 'Broadgreen' to disassociate themselves from the nocturnal trade. I think it's clear that the worlds oldest profession is not going to disappear overnight, unlike people belongings, and I still haven't solved the case of the missing Eunos Cabriolet. A postcard arrived through mmy letterbox the other day, asking me for my opinions on local issues and what I want done. To be honest, prostitution, for all the insidious effects it can have on a neighbourhood, is a lesser issue. What gets my goat are those cocky little thieves making life a misery for local residents. Lock them all up. No sex for them, unless they're unlucky enough to share a cell with a twenty eight stone weightlifter who thinks they're cute, but when they've served their sentence they can always look forward to getting laid again.

Yes... That instruction manual gag? Humour old boy. humour. Anythiong to send KGB agents on a wild goose ch.... Hang on a minute!.... Do you speak russian by any chance?

Yeah, I know what you mean. I've just uploaded my finished route for MSTS (that's the Pahusett River at www.train-sim.com, there's screenshots of it on their forums). Strictly speaking railways might be viewed as a little more grown up than the Duke (all blokes are little boys at heart, right girls?) but that took three years to polish off. That means statistically I can finish six more and be halfway through another before I die of old age. Oh stuff it. Where's my Duke Nukem CD?

Nice try CN. Actually I'm pleased you made you made the effort, but the problem with trying to prove a point is that people get very choosy about which evidence they put forward. As it happens that cartoon is fairly accurate of the cavernous radiator duct of a P51 - I had a good look at one at Hendon museum once. Here's the problem. The primary funcrion of a radiator is to get rid of heat. That's why they designed it. At medium power cruise let's say our P51 is flying at 250kts. That big V12 generates a lot of friction and combustion heat. Most of the combustion heat is thrown straight out the exhaust stack, which is deliberately angled back and benefits to a small degree from the reaction thrust, the reason being that the combustion cycle produces a lot of pressure. That's what pushes the piston, turns the crankshaft, turns the propellor, and forces the air back to provide the impetus to reach our hypothetical cruising speed. Circulating in the engine is coolant. It has a very high boiling point, but the heat it picks up can boil it suprisingly quickly, so the liquid is merely a medium to carry that heat elsewhere. We still need to get rid of it. Luckily our P51 designer has thought of adding a radiator. The liquid is exposed to air rushing past it at 250kts, or possibly more due to propellor backdradft, or possibly a little less due to shockwaves developing around a constricted entry duct, a problem that won't be serious unless we reach much faster speeds. As with 'wind chill' the heat is stripped away by the movement of air and exits the aeroplane quite quickly without building up any great temoperature itself. The problem with radiators is that they don't work very well when the aeroplane is stationary and there were instances of fighters engines siezing up because they ran their engines on the ground for too long. In other words, the faster we, the cooler the radiator gets because the 'wind chill' effect works more effectively. The cartoon exaggerates the difference in temperature and notice how there's no indication that the air is moving through the aeroplane. Since a 'ram-air' effect operates on the grounds that air entering forms a barrier against the expanding air behind it, that would mean the radiator becomes less effective at speed because you've reduced the airflow through it. Disaster. The Napier Heston air racer of 1938 used a similar duct for their engines cooling. The designers did not mention anything to do with 'ram-air thrust' because there wasn't any. What is commonly quoted as exhaust thrust is in fact a 300lb equivalent reduction in drag by producing an effective boundary layer control under the rear fuselage that reduces vortices, the major cause of drag at that part of the airframe. You see, if all this stuff is correct, then the aeroplane could move on the ground purely by this expansion in the radiator efflux. I don't know the weight of the P51 offhand but let's assume it's around 3 tons. Three hundred punds of static thrust should move the aeroplane slowly with brakes off, although our situation is clouded by the static impetus of a rotating propellor even at idle. I would think, even if the propellor was removed, that the aeroplane would not move forward, because the expansion of air in the radiator efflux is nothing like that of cylinfer combustion - since no energy is being put into the system at that point - the whole point is to transfer the energy you already have and get rid of it. This is the most essential point to understand. Our airflow at the radiator efflux has to pass through or the radiator loses efficiency. If constricted (and it isn't - the exit from the radiator duct is very large on a P51, much larger than the inlet) then the rate of air exiting is reduced because as we know from blowing down a tube, the effort required to increase airflow becomes much harder. That means the air entering is forced aside by a pressure wave. Thus we get less air entering, less air exiting, less cooling, and no thrust. In the specific case of the radiator duct of a P51, the air passing through, even allowing for expansion which is actually minmal since the warm air exists the aeroplane very quickly, enters a larger efflux space and therefore has no additional pressure to apply upon the airframe. However - the pilot can control the radiator exit door and in order to achieve less drag, he can actually almost close it completely. At this point, the air does have a restricted exit. Notice though that this prevents efficient cooling. In other words, the only way a pilot might generate anythibng approaching 'thrust' is to riskk siezibng his engine. Since the survivability of combat partially depends on ensuring the reliable operation of highly stressed aero-engines and airframe parts. In the case of the P51, the engine responds autom,atically I notice, therefore in order to maintain operationalm temperatures the airflow is less restricted. The Meredith Effect, postulated in 1935, relies on this idea that rammed air is creating reactive thrust against expanding air in a radiator. However, as we have seen, the expansion of air is too slow. Each molecule is passing quickly thus does not build up high individual levels of heat, certainly not enough ebnergy top press effectively against a 250kt wind. In other words, as much as the force of airflow entering the radiator provides a certain force, the expansion of air is not rapid nor intense enough to generate thrust. The only way to do that is retain heat in the system so the efflux air is heated to a much larger degree, thus reducing considerably the cooling effect of the radiator system. What we have therefore is a conflict of effect. The point of a radiator is to lose waste energy. The Meredith Effect relies on the concept that waste energy is present and retained to a level that can be exploited. Without it, there is nothing to push against the 'rammed air'. But, as we have seen, the retained energy reduces cooling, reduces the effectiveness of a warplane, and in all likeliehood, reduces the number of pilots availble the next day.

Another one of those articles on how to be successful at dating the opposite sex has appeared on the boards. It makes interesting reading but clearly anyone following the advice is going to struggle. Let me explain... A connection A man can tick all the boxes in the world, but in so many cases if the woman feels no chemistry, it

Its actually relatively simple. The radiator heats up and expands the air inside the engine, which escapes through the narrower rear. The heated element (if one prefers that to radiator) serves the same function as the fuel burner. The radiator/element does not in itself cause thrust, the escaping heated air does. It is really irrelevent what the nature of the heat source is, as long as air is heated and has a means of escape. Erm... No. Sorry. If you could use a radiator in such a way it won't cool the engine (the entire point of installing it) because as you seem to have forgotten it requires a force applied to the airframe to push the vehicle forwards. Since the air inside the radiator is not sufficently heated to create this force (in order to carry warmed air away, not retain it) it cannot push the aeroplane. There is not enough energy transfer per molecule to achieve any measurable level of thrust. That's thermodynamics, which in simple terms says you don't get something for nothing. I find it both remarkable that theories like 'radiator thrust' only emerged in the last couple of decadss along with the rise of the internet and the self-appointed expert. I've read literature on aviation technology dating back to 1918. Even one written in 1938 does not mention anything about radiators providing thrust, and although R J Mitchell clearly had in miond to make his famous fighter as aerodynamically clean as possible, his idea was to use a dirty great V12 combustion engine and propellor to create thrust, while the rest of the aeroplane was designed for minimal drag in order to let ironwork do it's job to great effect. Neither for that matter is there any claim during WW2 to have designed radiators for extra thrust, either from allied or axis manufacturers, despite a strong tendency for those manufacturers to make exaggerated claims for their products. neither for that matter do the people operating race converted WW2 fighters ever mention radiators in the context of anything other than cooling and drag.

A newsletter pushed through my letterbox? That wouldn't be unusual given how keen some local politicians are in making themselves sound useful to the community, but no, this has nothing to do with community politics. The neighbourhood has decided to conduct an archaeological dig behind a nearby street, hoping to find evidence of a long lost alleyway believed to lie beneath weeds, trees, and an extraordinary collection of household waste. It is fascinating how that alleyway has changed. Back in 2003, I drove a low slung sports car along it (at a crawl mind you. Safety first. Repair bills second). Now it's a meandering cinder path between masses of vegetation that a land rover couldn't tackle. I was even told by the developers of the old college site that no-one knows who the alleyway belongs to anymore. In its current state, it's hard to see why anyone would want it. I wonder what they'll find? A lost cat perhaps? A stolen white Eunos cabriolet? Japanese soldiers refusing to believe the war is over? Indiana Jones and the Alleyway of Doom? An atttactive gun-totin' young woman of impeccable breeding occupied with infiltrating a long lost atlantean colony? Who knows? Maybe it won't save the world from disaster, but nice to see the local community getting together and doing something about the fall of western civilisation in our neighbourhood. The Race Isn't Over A russian physicist in Manchester UK has just earned himself a Nobel Prize by creating Graphene, a sheet of carbon so thin that one gram of the material would cover several footbal ptitches. Who would have imagined such space age materials were possible? No. I don't know what it's good for either, but apparently the western military do. In the race to re-stabilise the power balance with China's ever growing armed forces, we're going to cover their football pitches in carbon. I notice the Chinese have gotten wise to that and complained about the west's master plan for military superiority. They're getting the moon to themselves right now, what else do they want? Song of the Week Saturday night and first on the radio's classic rock show is Status Quo and their hit single Rockin' All Over The World. How does anyone escape from that song? It just follows you around and refuses to die. Way back when I had just left school I formed a band with a bunch of mates to play a charity gig with lots other no-hopers. As it happens the event went down quite well. Sadly we didn't win the prize for the Best Band of the night. That went to a punk band who won on the basis of being the only act to perform a drum solo. They also had the sheer gall to criticise my choice of drumkit. Talk about rubbing it in. On the plus side we won the prize for the Best Instrumental Track. However the judges quite rightly refused to acknowledge the existence of our cover of Rockin' All Over The World and so the world was saved.

No, it isn't. How difficult is this to understand? Radiators do not create thrust. They can't. Otherwise we could approach the speed of light even easier than setting off from a standing start. )(1) NASA (naca in 1941) model proving radiator thrust, using electric heating element to simulate radiator It doesn't 'prove' anything other than the creation of a duct, and quite franklly, that looks more like a ramjet to me, which I happen to know the P51 was tested with. 2) successful Tory-IIC nuclear powered ramjet (eg. propulsive duct, thermal jet, stovepipe jet) And this means what exactly? Nothing, other than they built a ramjet. Elephants and mice are both mammals but they do different things. Human recogntive skills sometimes join up dots in all kinds of daft ways. 3) flat nosed standard p47 (draggy fuel hog replaced ASAP by sleek merlin p-51 for long escort missions) The P47 had less rangem, thus because escort missions were becoming longer as allied air power found it easier to penetrate weakening german defenses, it made more sense to give those missions to the 'sleek P51'. The P47 is not as draggy as you think. As I said, the teardrop shape is efficient aerodynamically and since it was faster than the corsair with less power in level flight, I would have to say that darg was not a great issue (again). 4) sleek 500+mph xp-47j when they got ducted fan religion (still big turbo scoop) For a while the fastest aeroplane if I remember right. Certainly quicker than a P51. 5) supersleek xp-72 with scoop moved out of nose (xp-47 follow on... these had longer, slimmer radials) A prototype un fortunately which does not necessarily depict aircraft as finalised for service. I don't know if 'supersleek' is anything more than your own impressions, and I do realise you're trying to make a point by exaggeration, but realise the P72 contract was cancelled because faster sleeker jets were becoming available. 6) slim Corsair with big p47 type engine more tightly cowled, and scoop relocated to wing leading edges And still slower than a P47. 7) stubby late war Bearcat with flat nose radial engined fighters have blunt noses by necessity. Nonetheless, this aeroplane wasn't exactly slow either. You have to realise that looks aren't everything. Just because you think something loooks like this or that doesn't make it so. What you're trying to impress upon us is largely your own imagination. 8) sleek post war racing Bearcat (probably internal fan to assist slim duct area) And useless for military service. 9) sleek ducted radial Hawker Tempest2... a (US) pilot scored 11.5 kills in one (p47 in background) Quite. Nonetheless the sample of your statistics is small and thus biased. Much depends on the relative skills and experience of pilots, operational circumstance, the effectiveness of the enemy adversaries, and the numbers involved. There are other examples throughout WW2 of individual pilots scoring highly in single missions.

That's difficult. With the limited information we have the details of people motives and actions are usually only to be guessed at. What we have to be wary of is assuming that a name in a particular style requires the person belongs to a particular faction. We know from the line of Wessex kings that intermarriage brought members of factions together and that names were sometimes applied from what appears to be the wrong faction. To complicate matters, the issue of names is garbled because our sources are so retrospective and prone to errors in copying, misinterpretation, or I hate to say, but complete fiction. The nature of the ancient world was very factional in any case. We see a plethora of examples where an individual leads his followers against the regime, or simply tries to create his own, in which case the leader might well be choosing whatever followers he could get and making allies as suited his needs. Incidentially, regarding your ideas about saxon settlement, it occurs to me that there's little basis to believe this was happening in the iron age. My reasoning is that the saxons do not appear to have had any expertise at sailing or ship-building before their contact with the Romans, and indeed, although travellers did journey to Britain before Caesar, the island was pretty much a mysterious place said to be full of monsters and strange tribes. It does seem, at least superficially, that the Saxons were enlightened about Britain via the Roman experience.

The problem with DNA evidence is that it creates problems as much as solves them. It does not tell us why indiividuals were there, whether they were slaves, settlers, or conquerors. For that we need contextual evidence. We know that the Romans had some saxons amongst them in southern england at least, both through graves and their own accounts in which they describe the saxons as 'good citizens'. Even at that late stage, to be described as a citizen is an important distinction from the unpredictable barbarians sailing up and down the channel looking for loot. We cannot tell if remains are slaves, settlers, or conquerors unless we obtain this contextual evidence. The overall impression is one of increasing uncertainty, dissatisfaction of the britons with their increasingly fragile hold over power, and a growing threat from germanic opportunism, a feature common to the empire in that period. Britain was of course attractive to the saxons by virtue of their enthusiasm for farming and the fertile land available. It was also seen as an increasingly vulnerable corner of the wealthy Roman empire. The political ambitions of the later provincial governors didn't help matters of course and after 383 the withdrawals of troops to support campaigns in europe must have made themselves felt. It is noticeable that the populations of saxons only begin to attract our attention from around 400, suggesting opportunistic migratiions in small numbers. it's one thing to stop a few saxons here and there from settling, which I doubt the Romans concerned themselves with, but when numbers start increasing there are clearly governmental, financial, and security issues to resolve in an empire that relied on obedient co-operation with the prospect of armed retaliation against those who didn't. Even as late as 440 we the Romans rooting out religious evils in Britain, or making adventurous attempts to see off pagan tribal threats, and even renewed calls to Rome to help defend their former province. Although we usually see the the Roman occupation ending in 409, the issue is clearly more one of a crumbling relationship, but in it's wake we see an increasingly strident germanic presence in the isles. It does illustrate the change from a subliminal osmotic settlement to more aggressive tribal migrations that sought to profit from the power vaccuum left by the 'independence' demanded by Britons in the wake of what they saw as unsufferable failings in Roman administration.

You can't have a museum without exhibits. Every so often we find new ones. Or should that be old ones? Anyway, our boss came across some stuff being thrown away at Portsmouth and couldn't resist an ancient computer. You should see it. Straight out of a 70's Doctor Who episode. It turns out our new exhibit is a bog standard Bloodhound missile control box, or in civilian guise, a nuclear reactor control box. I'm not joking. Some power stations are still using these things to this day. Our boss grinned mightily and made clear his intention to get the old machine fired up. when we finally figure out how it was done. So if you see a missile trail on its way to Moscow, or loads of people fleeing the immediate area of the local nuclear power station, you'll know we succeeded. In the meantime we need to find some dusty instruction manual before the KGB do. Who said museums were boring? Are You Blind? Having spent the week finding more and more 'apply' buttons to press on job websites, enough is enough. So I wrapped up, logged off, and made my usual noisy exit from the office. The girls at the programme centre laughed at that. Not because I was actually funny, but at the suggestion that I worked there. Oh great. It's raining. Pretty heavily too. I think I'll wait until I leave the premises. Meanwhile I became aware that someone was trying to get in to the building. They have this security door now that stops you until you speak into a metal grille and telll some disembodied female voice who you are. But this chap didn't seem to know that. He just stood in front of the door pressing the wrong button. In a sudden inexplicable need to be generous I decided to open the door for him, so I walked over to the exit button and waited for him to realise he could enter. He stared back through the glass patiently. This is pretty spooky. Oh! I see! Or rather, he doesn't. I physically opened the door for him and asked if he was blind. He was and we had a chuckle over it. He didn't need any further help, finding his way around the programme centre without too much difficulty. Normally I don't encounter blind people other than stepping politely around them. I was struck by how easy he made getting about seem. Fair play to him. Well, I can't stay here all day. Time to brave the weather and KGB assassins. Down Again Having previously booked a session on the library computers, I made my way upstairs. Barely had I noticed how few people were up there than a librarian kindly informed me that the system was down. Amazing how quiet it gets up there when no-ones got a computer to play with. Funnily enough, it got even quieter after I went back downstairs. Strange coincidence that. Almost as if the computers were sabotaged by the KGB in an insidious plot to prevent me discovering the lost instruction manual.

The average Roman male was a modern 5'4", females an inch or two shorter.

There were saxon populations in the Thames Valley during Roman times and I know that sdaxon burials have been found in Wiltshire (not far south of me) that confirm habitation of the area at the same time. As far as I know however there are no older germanic settlements in Britain. It appears the Gauls did that first with two succesive migrations that heralded in the Iron Age in Britain. That doesn't discount small numbers arriving individually, just that there's no evidence to show for it. In fact, although Britain is visible from the Pas De Calais coastline, it was the gauls who occupied those sites and who had problems with the german tribes further east, thus the germanic tribes of inner europe at least had other things to worry about. Further, it's questionable whether the saxons had any tradition of sailing and piracy before the Romans came to their attention. If they did, it was so small scale to avoid our attention. I have sometimes speculated that the saxons learned about ship-building from Roman contact, and that later that knowledge reached the vikings who developed it further and used it so notoriously.

You are correct. Some aircraft weren't amenable to development as like the Hurricane or P40, revisions and redesigns never caught on, whereas aeroplanes like the Spitfire changed considerable\y over the course of the war and in fact the later versions were virtually new aircraft designs with different engines. One of the most significant variations was of course the engine itself. The early mustangs for instance had poor altitude performance from their allison v12's, but when fitted with supercharged merlins, became one of the better fighters of the war - and arguably, one of the most significant in the european theatre of war because the long range of later versions meant bombers could reach Berlin with escort, thus forcing the Germans to hold back valuable fighter strength in defence. However, with the general migration toward more powerful engines we have to accept that aircraft also needed to carry more weight, such as fuel, bombs, ammunition, as adaptions to changing war conditions and filling roles that would otherwise need expensive and long winded design work to produce new designs. Although in terms of performance aircraft were obviously improving, that's not neceessarily true of important qualities like handling. Most fighters suffered in terms of 'flyability' as their weight escalated, though in fairness this was obvious to aircraft manufacturers who went to considerable length to eradicate any dangerous tendencies in flight behaviour.

The Romans ate meat but the availability of it was another matter. You could of course buy the Roman equivalent of a burger from street vendors. Handouts of exotic meat from animals hunted in the arena and butchered afterward was a regular feature of imperial life, not to mention a welcome bonus for the poor. Legionary camps show the remains of cooked animals. However, the Romans of the early republic were derided as 'porridge eaters' by other cultures.

Once again the weathermen have triumphed. The storms have crossed the west country overnight and left us with a wet and rainy day. In fact this rain is a bit unseasonal, but at least it wasn't a hurricane. By chance I was watching CBS news last night. I wouldn't normally bother because for some reason I can't fathom, american news channels are almost unfathomable. Not this time. The arrival of Hurricane Irene was causing worry for everyone living on the east coast and it seems weather of that scale is something that happens only once every 75 years. It reminded me of one particular in 1987. A friend of mine worked for a logistics company but because he'd gotten off with a lady at one of his drop-off points, he wanted a day off every week to bonk her senseless, so he got me to sub in for him which was fine because the cash in hand was useful to me. The problem was that no-one realised we were going to get a hurricane. So I set off early one morning to discover that southern england had been turned into a warzone, with trees uprooted everywhere and lorries overturned in droves. I guess the earth might not have moved her that day, but pretty much everything else did. Pickups Come Of Age Awhile back Top Gearproved beyond shadow of a doubt how impossible it was to stop a Toyota Hilux pickup truck from working. It was an imppressive level of toughness, but I sort of wondered at why a vehicle built for such mundane purposes needed the ability to survive armageddon as a selling point. As I continue to watch events unfolding in Libya, it occurs to me that at last the pickup truck has found its true vocation. I always wondered what people did with that useless space on the back. Now I see the point of it, as trucks drove here and there with 20mm AA quad cannons or missile launcher twinpacks. I wonder if the Australians wish they'd thought of it as they rebelled against the evil kangaroo regime. A few heavy weapons might have swung it for them. On the other hand, perhaps the autralians had indeed seen the future, as Libya turns ever more toward a real life Mad Max. Pickups Of The Future This morning I noticed that astronomers have discovered a planet apparently made of diamonds. it's four thousand light years away, and orbits a nasty neutron star, so getting your wage slaves there and back with spaceships full of expensive conumer luxuries isn't going to be easy. We defintely need the interstellar equivalent of a pickup truck. Perhaps the original Star Trek was again being a little prophetic because some of those symbols on starfleet sweatshirts look remarkably like Toyota badges.

I doubt they go faster than gravitational pull. The below suggests to me that weight is always helping push you into a faster dive. But GRANTED the effect will be small and sometimes washed out by factors of a low drag design or powerful engine. We're talking WW2 fighters here. They're quick aeroplanes to begin with, and believe me, aeroplanes accelerate even quicker when they're pointed downhill. A crash at Thruxton in the 90's saw a Beech Baron stall and nose in from 400 feet, hitting the ground at more than four times its original flying speed. You cannot achieve thrust by creating drag. Radiators create drag. They are designed to cool engines. They are not engines in themselves. You do not obtain thrust from radiators. All you casn achieve is to minimise drag. You cannot create thrust by forward motion alone - that breaks the laws of physics no matter what that article claims - in order to change interia, you need to add force by using additional energy, and since a radiator is designed to dissipate that energy, I don't see any evidence for your statements. Incidentially your estimations of aeroplane factors aremn't that accurate. The P47 is, according to you, a draggy aeroplane. That was a criticism applied to radial engined fighters before WW2, and it was proved wrong. The teardrop shape is better aerodynamically than that despite the blunt face (which allows some air passage through it via cooling gills) and if proof were needed, I would like to point out that the P47 accelerated well and had a high top speed, so clearly drag was not that great an issue.

I understand your point but strictly speaking that experience is only valid for the period the historian fought in. Also, it would tend to colour his opinions toward periods which don't necessarily conform to the psychology, methodology, and organisational emphasis he is familiar with. There's far too much scope for taking things out of context, especially now that the widespread use of the internet allows some extraordinary myths to be spawned and disseminated. In fact, military experience is not a guarantee of historical authority. How can anyone know exactly what the Roman legions were actually like unless they served in them? The Romans tell us various things, but notice how easily their writings are conveniently ignored if someone is constructing a comparative model with their own experience? The magic word is context - something soldiers are never too hot on.

You don't have to look very hard to find stately homes in englands green and pleasant land. So prevalent was the landscaped parkland of the 18th century that people believe english countryside is supposed to look like that. Therefore to get our cultural fix, we english people sometime visit these stately homes and their pastoral surroundings. I've been dragged around a fair few stately homes as a child. They all seemed to be the same. Pastel labyrinths of grandiose furniture and anonymous portraits of very important people. The thing is, for all the display of opulence and excess, I always found it impossible to imagine life in the homes of the rich and powerful. Perhaps when I become rich and powerful I'll finally understand. I think the government have discerned my master plan because now they're planning a Mansion Tax. I've been visiting the grounds of Lydiard Park, our local stately home, since I was a child. Back then it really was in the countryside. Now it's a popular venue for walking dogs and kicking footballs for the local residents, although none of them could afford to live there either. Given the neighbours would use the front lawn as a playground, I can see why they wouldn't want to if they could afford it. But in all that time I've never been inside the house itself. Yesterday I was invited to visit that very house. Yes, I know, the first thing you see is a pastel labyrinth of grandiose furniture and anonymous portraits of very important people. That is of course expected of a stately home and indeed, it always was, even when they were lived in. And what a crowd lived in that house over the years. Some of them were important politicians in their day. One was a hellraising horse fanatic. One member of the family, Barbara Villiers, turns out to have been a lover of Charles II. She was, by all accounts, utterly shameless. Mind you so was he. That of course was the usual public tour. Everyone who goes inside the house discovers these things. However, as an invited guest, I got to see their cellars. Not a single skeleton. Imagine my disappointment. After years of Dungeons & Dragons you learn to expect certain standards. Better yet was a visit to the attic level. After following the crude walkways under the rafters I was shown small bedrooms here and there, tiny hovels for servants to stay out of the way when not being bossed about. No skeletons there either, but quite an insight to life among the slightly less well off in the days when owning a stately home was financially possible. Palace of the Week Of course if you own oil reserves a palace might not be beyond your resources, although I do note that it's difficult to avoid intervention from the armed forces of the western world if you do. Saddam Hussein owned thirty odd palaces and look what happened to him. I had to laugh at the news reports now that libyan rebels have broken in to one of Gaddafi's oil-funded homes. Expensive clothes? Conspicuous consumption? Why was anyone suprised?

The possibilty of slaves running away to find freedom in the legions was the reason that penalties existed for slaves who got caught trying it. There was of course the problem that although admired as fighters, slaves were not the same status as citizens, and therefore to fight alongside as equals in what was regarded as an admirable profession meant not only that these slaves were somehow as good as citizens, but also that the citizens were no better than slaves. As it happens I'm really not that bothered what you call the slave militias of Otho's defence other than we note that regarding them in the same way as legionaries, or even auxillaries, would have been scandalous and insulting to Roman sensibilities. That was after all the most likely motivation for the absence of their commanders before the crossing of the river took place.