MatSav wrote:
"John Rowland" wrote in
message ...

the NPL which was, and is, in Teddington.

Indeed it is - I work there!

Ah! I have an idea for how the NPL could use the spare bits in the MSF
signal to improve the service... Do you think they might be up for that, or
are they a Not-Invented-Here organisation? (I guess the answer to that
should be emailed rather than, er, broadcast.) I'd give the NPL carte
blanche to use my encoding free of charge, obviously, although any equipment
manufacturers who wanted to decode the spare bits using my algorithm should
have to pay me a royalty.

Ob Cycling: In a recent travel survey, something like 15% of the
750-strong workforce at NPL regularly cycle to work.

So that's about 0.1 kilocycles.

John Rowland wrote:
MatSav wrote:
"John Rowland" wrote in
message ...
the NPL which was, and is, in Teddington.
Indeed it is - I work there!

Ah! I have an idea for how the NPL could use the spare bits in the MSF
signal to improve the service... Do you think they might be up for that, or
are they a Not-Invented-Here organisation? (I guess the answer to that
should be emailed rather than, er, broadcast.) I'd give the NPL carte
blanche to use my encoding free of charge, obviously, although any equipment
manufacturers who wanted to decode the spare bits using my algorithm should
have to pay me a royalty.

Ob Cycling: In a recent travel survey, something like 15% of the
750-strong workforce at NPL regularly cycle to work.

So that's about 0.1 kilocycles.



Do you mean 100 Hz

--

Tony Dragon

"Tony Dragon" wrote ...
John Rowland wrote:
MatSav wrote:
Ob Cycling: In a recent travel survey, something like 15% of the
750-strong workforce at NPL regularly cycle to work.
So that's about 0.1 kilocycles.
Do you mean 100 Hz

On my math, up to 112.5 Hz - but if they cycle regularly, most will just
feel Nmb

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sun, 24 May 2009, Marc wrote:

The past is like a foreign country they do things differently there....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyz5d3entBw

Brilliant! Crossposted to uk.transport.london and uk.railway so they can
enjoy it as well. Lovely shot of the aerials at the NPL around 3:50, and a
lovely section about the canal in the second part.

Cyclists back then must have been made of cast iron. Nobody had anything
more advanced than a Sturmey-Archer three-speed [1], and yet they still
tackled open roads, hills, whatever. Makes my 27-speed setup seem a bit
wimpish really.

Belay that! In part two, they have to get off and push up a hill!



Strange to think that some of the younger cyclists featured in the film,
say around the age of 20, would now be in their mid-70s.

On 25/5/09 13:52, in article ,
"Tony Polson" wrote:

Strange to think that some of the younger cyclists featured in the film,
say around the age of 20, would now be in their mid-70s.

I always think the same thing when watching old documentary film. To me,
the '40s seems old, but the 50s seems recent. In the '50s the GPO
introduced the new 'modern' 706 telephones. The railways were being
modernised, Britain was starting to recover after the long years of war, and
the decade started with the Festival of Britain which always seemed to me,
though I'm too young to remember it, to be the start of the new Britain.

When I was at school we used to have Wednesday afternoon film shows. After
a short tome I found myself running these, and later programming them.
There was a combination of films which I'd run every year or two; the first
was a colour film, I can't remember the title, about the Festival of
Britain, and I'd follow this with the Dennis Mitchell BBC production
'Morning in the Streets', from 1958. It was absolutely stunning to see the
difference between the Festival, at the start of the decade, and the images
of Liverpool, Stockport and Salford, depicted in 'Morning in the Streets',
almost at the end of it. I'd not seen the film for many years, but last
October while in Bradford for a few days I went to see Terence Davies' new
film 'Of Time and the City' at the Pictureville. I saw the film again a
week or so later, at a screening at the Phoenix Cinema, East Finchley,
attended by Terence Davies. Some of the archive material he has used in his
film was taken from 'Morning in the Streets', I recognised it at once,
though the music which Terence Davies has used with it in 'Of time and the
City' gives it a very different feel.

The BBC have recently put the whole of 'Morning in the Streets' on their web
site, it's not a very good copy, but it's still well worth watching. I wish
the BBC would release the film on DVD, or even better , someone would donate
me a nice 35mm print of it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/conte...tory_morning_o
n_the_streets_feature.shtml

The link to the film itself is just above the second picture.

Recently, one of the schoolgirls seen in the film has been in contact with
the BBC; she must be close to retirement age now:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/conte...ce_morningonth
estreets_feature.shtml

Many people have never seen this film, the BBC seldom show it for some
reason, but it's a real gem, and those that have seen it remember it, even
decades later.

Such an interesting period, the '50s.

On Mon, 25 May 2009 14:27:04 +0100, Stephen Furley
wrote:




On 25/5/09 13:52, in article ,
"Tony Polson" wrote:

Strange to think that some of the younger cyclists featured in the film,
say around the age of 20, would now be in their mid-70s.

I always think the same thing when watching old documentary film. To me,
the '40s seems old, but the 50s seems recent. In the '50s the GPO
introduced the new 'modern' 706 telephones. The railways were being
modernised, Britain was starting to recover after the long years of war, and
the decade started with the Festival of Britain which always seemed to me,
though I'm too young to remember it, to be the start of the new Britain.

I remember it. I was only four and my father took me. While most of it
has gone from memory after all these years, there was the Post Office
railway, a Britannia (William Shakespeare) in a special finish for the
festival, the giant kaleidoscope in the Shot tower, the Skylon, the
Dome of Discovery etc.

The Britannia was extra special because we'd seen it a few days
earlier from the allotment in the park between Harrow & Wealdstone and
Kenton being pulled on its way there.

My fading memory tells me it was in some kind of highly polished brown
but nobody has been able to confirm this.

Part of the festival was the amusement park at Battersea - with the
Emmet Railway. I loved this. I think the amusements stayed there after
the festival was over because we went there quite often.

When I was at school we used to have Wednesday afternoon film shows. After
a short tome I found myself running these, and later programming them.
There was a combination of films which I'd run every year or two; the first
was a colour film, I can't remember the title, about the Festival of
Britain, and I'd follow this with the Dennis Mitchell BBC production
'Morning in the Streets', from 1958. It was absolutely stunning to see the
difference between the Festival, at the start of the decade, and the images
of Liverpool, Stockport and Salford, depicted in 'Morning in the Streets',
almost at the end of it. I'd not seen the film for many years, but last
October while in Bradford for a few days I went to see Terence Davies' new
film 'Of Time and the City' at the Pictureville. I saw the film again a
week or so later, at a screening at the Phoenix Cinema, East Finchley,
attended by Terence Davies. Some of the archive material he has used in his
film was taken from 'Morning in the Streets', I recognised it at once,
though the music which Terence Davies has used with it in 'Of time and the
City' gives it a very different feel.

The BBC have recently put the whole of 'Morning in the Streets' on their web
site, it's not a very good copy, but it's still well worth watching. I wish
the BBC would release the film on DVD, or even better , someone would donate
me a nice 35mm print of it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/conte...tory_morning_o
n_the_streets_feature.shtml

The link to the film itself is just above the second picture.

Recently, one of the schoolgirls seen in the film has been in contact with
the BBC; she must be close to retirement age now:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/conte...ce_morningonth
estreets_feature.shtml

Many people have never seen this film, the BBC seldom show it for some
reason, but it's a real gem, and those that have seen it remember it, even
decades later.

Such an interesting period, the '50s.

On 25/5/09 14:52, in article ,
"Christopher A. Lee" wrote:

Part of the festival was the amusement park at Battersea - with the
Emmet Railway. I loved this. I think the amusements stayed there after
the festival was over because we went there quite often.

I believe parts of this remained until quite recent times, maybe 15 years or
so ago, though I never went there. Another television documentary film,
'The River's Tale', Had some scenes filmed there I seem to remember.

There are still a few other remains of the Festival, and others which though
now gone survived for a long time; the Festival Hall is the main one of
course; there was a flagstaff on the South Bank in quite recent times, but
I'm not sure if it's still there. The long dis-used refreshment rooms, I
think that's what they were, at Broad Street Stations still had a sticker on
the windows with the Festival logo until the station was demolished.

The original 1951 prints of most of the 3-D films shown at the 'Telekinema'
still exist, and are screened from time to time, as the original
three-channel stereo magnetic tracks are now 'lost'. Other, non-3D, films
were also shown at the Festival. One of them, 'We've Come a Long Way',
about the design of oil tankers was later used by the BBC as one of their
'Trade Test Colour Films' in the '60s. I've actually got two prints of this
film, one 16mm, the other 35mm. It wasn't until I saw it mentioned in an
exhibition about the Festival at the National Film Theatre in 2001 that I
realised that it had been shown there.

A number of buildings were given architectural awards at the Festival. One
of these was the bus station at Newbury Park, just outside the Underground
station. This carries a plaque with the Festival on it's arch, though it is
in rather poor condition.

On 25/5/09 15:26, in article , "Stephen
Furley" wrote:

The original 1951 prints of most of the 3-D films shown at the 'Telekinema'
still exist, and are screened from time to time, as the original
three-channel stereo magnetic tracks are now 'lost'.

Sorry, a few words somehow went missing; that should have read:

The original 1951 prints of most of the 3-D films shown at the 'Telekinema'
still exist, and are screened from time to time, though with only mono
optical sound, as the original three-channel stereo magnetic tracks are now
'lost'.

Christopher A. Lee wrote:
I always think the same thing when watching old documentary
film.
To me, the '40s seems old, but the 50s seems recent...
and the decade started with the Festival of
Britain ...


Part of the festival was the amusement park at Battersea - with
the
Emmet Railway. I loved this. I think the amusements stayed
there after
the festival was over because we went there quite often...

Indeed they did.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batters...ersea_fun_fair
explains. I was there just a week before the collapse of the
roller-coaster, and the very thought of that puts me off using
one ever again.

I was also at Lulworth Cove, Dorset, on a Geology field trip -
just a week before a land slip killed a teacher and pupils (also
on a field trip). I'm seeing a pattern :-(

--
MatSav

In message
Stephen Furley wrote:




On 25/5/09 14:52, in article ,
"Christopher A. Lee" wrote:

Part of the festival was the amusement park at Battersea - with the Emmet
Railway. I loved this. I think the amusements stayed there after the
festival was over because we went there quite often.

I believe parts of this remained until quite recent times, maybe 15 years
or so ago, though I never went there. Another television documentary
film, 'The River's Tale', Had some scenes filmed there I seem to remember.

There are still a few other remains of the Festival,

One is the RT bus that was displayed at the Festival. It reappeared at the
Millenium Dome. Anyone know where it is normally to be found these days?

--
Graeme Wall

This address not read, substitute trains for rail
Transport Miscellany at www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail