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hirezI grew up on a large and mechanised farm. The smells and sounds that remind me of summer are warm hypoid, burnt stubble and idling diesels. I suspect every season is the same and has a specific set of sounds and smells, given that it was cold last night walking back to the house and I could smell wet earth. The smell of wet earth in October is different to September is different to May. Last night I thought 'Oh. Andoversford Young Farmers ploughing match', which for a long time was held on Charlton Abbotts land. Until, I think, they changed the rules about stubble burning, which meant the ground had to be turned over within some small number of days and couldn't be left until the first or second weekend in October.
Anyway. Big diesels, Gerry Anderson and the malign influence of one too many Chris Foss-illustrated paperback covers.
I guess it always seemed that if you had a large diesel-powered vehicle and a selection of large spanners, most problems you might encounter would be trivial. Non-trivial problems would require the length of big chain and a couple of pry-bars. This theory seemed borne out by early seventies viewing of UFO. Problem with Johnny Alien-chap arriving to shoot the place up? Send for SHADO-2: boggler boggler whoosh bang game over. Of course I had the Dinky version.
Recently, I was pointed at the DT-30 Vityaz. It's more or less exactly like the designers at the 'Big fuck-off diesel powered vehicle design bureau no. 23' had been watching UFO and/or had read 'Damnation Alley' (See, this is where Hollwood and by extension the USA gets it wrong. The transport in that film was the best that the set-design and custom car people could come up with. It didn't have to work, it just had to look like it could cope with a post-apocalyptic landscape. It's utterly outclassed by kit that the Russian military had been beetling about in for half a decade.) and thought 'Bugger me, I think we can do a bit better than that decadent western pish.'
For me, the money shot in the video is when the beast hauls the tank out of the snowdrift. Sadly there's techno music where there should be 'boggler boggler boggler BRAP! BRRRRAARRRR!' and some tank driver going 'Hoi you bastard mind the bodywork!' But y'know, it looks like the sort of thing that would be excellent for dealing with stroppy vampires, supernatural uprisings, zombie rugger teams, natural disasters, plagues of frogs or baldy blokes in metal gimp-masks.
It's also the sort of vehicle that one could write into an alien-planet version of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Were one into such obvious dieselpunk tropes. Never mind the plot, look at the threads on that injector-pump.
I guess the thing that I'm resigned to is that now I'm slightly more grown up and have been forced to understand that the world is just bloody complicated, is that there are no simple and/or elegant fixes, no matter how much I'd like to think that there are. And that the problem-space amenable to fixing in the manner outlined a couple of paragraphs ago is quite small and not one to which I have the luxury of returning.
Although I would like to have a bash with a DT-30 and some big spanners, just to make sure.
Anyway. Big diesels, Gerry Anderson and the malign influence of one too many Chris Foss-illustrated paperback covers.
I guess it always seemed that if you had a large diesel-powered vehicle and a selection of large spanners, most problems you might encounter would be trivial. Non-trivial problems would require the length of big chain and a couple of pry-bars. This theory seemed borne out by early seventies viewing of UFO. Problem with Johnny Alien-chap arriving to shoot the place up? Send for SHADO-2: boggler boggler whoosh bang game over. Of course I had the Dinky version.
Recently, I was pointed at the DT-30 Vityaz. It's more or less exactly like the designers at the 'Big fuck-off diesel powered vehicle design bureau no. 23' had been watching UFO and/or had read 'Damnation Alley' (See, this is where Hollwood and by extension the USA gets it wrong. The transport in that film was the best that the set-design and custom car people could come up with. It didn't have to work, it just had to look like it could cope with a post-apocalyptic landscape. It's utterly outclassed by kit that the Russian military had been beetling about in for half a decade.) and thought 'Bugger me, I think we can do a bit better than that decadent western pish.'
For me, the money shot in the video is when the beast hauls the tank out of the snowdrift. Sadly there's techno music where there should be 'boggler boggler boggler BRAP! BRRRRAARRRR!' and some tank driver going 'Hoi you bastard mind the bodywork!' But y'know, it looks like the sort of thing that would be excellent for dealing with stroppy vampires, supernatural uprisings, zombie rugger teams, natural disasters, plagues of frogs or baldy blokes in metal gimp-masks.
It's also the sort of vehicle that one could write into an alien-planet version of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Were one into such obvious dieselpunk tropes. Never mind the plot, look at the threads on that injector-pump.
I guess the thing that I'm resigned to is that now I'm slightly more grown up and have been forced to understand that the world is just bloody complicated, is that there are no simple and/or elegant fixes, no matter how much I'd like to think that there are. And that the problem-space amenable to fixing in the manner outlined a couple of paragraphs ago is quite small and not one to which I have the luxury of returning.
Although I would like to have a bash with a DT-30 and some big spanners, just to make sure.
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Date: 2010-10-12 09:38 pm (UTC)I had a moment of panic about future dystopian alien invasions since I'm not sure what I would do in the face of diesel powered vehicles and a selection of spanners. Oh, my kingdom for some rope, a Geo Metro, and a day-glo orange t-shirt to duct tape to whatever is hanging out of the back of the Geo Metro!
Of course, these days most nails look like they're begging to be whacked with a hammer shaped like Geant4, interlocking tupperware or Google maps.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 09:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 10:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 10:08 pm (UTC)...despite which, I've read half of those book covers.
New Dyson vacuum cleaner pre-launch photos (http://www.chrisfossart.com/Antares_Dawn_II_p/spaceship251.htm)
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Date: 2010-10-12 10:19 pm (UTC)It were all Panther PBs round here when I were a lad.
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Date: 2010-10-12 10:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 10:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 11:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-13 08:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-13 09:15 am (UTC)(The most obvious one being 'become as rich at creosote')
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Date: 2010-10-13 11:45 pm (UTC)It would be the Gloucestershire version of the Yorkshire / Genoese pig farmer pork baron jokes.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-14 05:17 pm (UTC)I now have a proper man-cave and am planning a series of reengines of things, hopefully culminating in a meteor-engined trike.....