Nostalgic Vision
On Saturday, Clare took Hannah, Daisy and Gilbert to The American Adventure (Ilkeston Adventure!) theme park, along with two of their friends, leaving me to shift several weeks worth of dog shit and elephant grass. The sunny weather made for a good gardening session at least, whilst old vinyl records played on the record deck: Soft Cell - A man who could get lost and Stan Tracey's Bracknell connection. A nostalgic flow drifting into the afternoon sun.

The weekend was characterised by Gilbert's newfound mobility and ability to sleep, and for the first time in eight months we feel we can now sleep normally ourselves!

The rainy weather on Monday was in stark contrast to the weekend's hazy sunshine. This blended in nicely with the gridlocked roads courtesy of Nottingham's new tramway system. I wouldn't mind, but there's nothing coming up through Arnold and I can't see the logic of laying tracks adjacent to an existing train line?

Whilst I sat in my car cursing, Hannah and her schoolfriends were busy doing their SATS examinations; the modern day equivalent of the eleven plus. I failed mine and was denied a Grammar School Education, ending up at Joseph Whitaker Comprehensive School instead. What a depressing day for exams though!

I picked up two interesting URLs today, one dealing with a solar powered spaceship due to go up in 2004 with thousands of personal drawings and DNA samples onboard, and another focussing on a rather unusual anti-gravity theory using devices called 'lifters'.

In the light of another major UK train disaster, the lifters technology reminded me of those 200 MPH maglev trains that were pioneered by British Rail in the 1970's. What the hell happened to them? No damaged track problems for the maglev system, those trains were designed to ride on a cushion of magnetism. Why the hell do we keep repeating the same mistakes with the same old technological solutions? - Where has our vision disappeared to?

Links:
Left Legged Pineapple - Vintage Records
Humanity's First Starship
Antigravity Technology

posted by Paul Fillingham at 1:13 AM

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