by
Frank Hatton

Sunday morning is hallowed ground,...... with weather permitting, it follows a similar pattern. First comes helping my wife with any of the household chores which lie within the compass of my physical and intellectual capabilities. Then comes the weekly battle with my petrol driven lawn mower, a fight in which I mainly win, and after the reluctant start up, we then cut the front and rear lawns. Into the shower, and by the time I have shaved and dressed, the time will be approaching the hour of 12.00 noon, and that my friends is the hour at which the pubs open on a Sunday morning in our fair land. A magical time, because all over the country menfolk are gathering together for the purposes of quaffing the first and most delicious pint of their favourite brew, but, and even more importantly, they are then able to proceed with the essential business of discussing both the economic and political problems which constantly beset mankind. Now, quite often, we find that these dilemmas do not take over long to resolve, hence we often find ourselves with time to spare for a discussion on other enigmas, and I recall a time when we somehow drifted on to the subject of the dirigible or airship. Now to refresh your minds, the technology of this type of aircraft came to a somewhat sad and sudden finish with the disaster of the German Hindenberg and the British R101 in the 1930’s. Our discussion group was divided into roughly two schools of thought, one group being headed by an aeronautics engineer, and the second by yours truly. Now, my contention was, that the technology of the airship was not allowed to develop, as for instance the motor car and the conventional aeroplane developed with the passage of time, because of the fact that these disasters put an end the investment of cash into the technology of the dirigible, and the obvious dangers of using the highly flammable hydrogen gas as the lifting medium. The opponents of our group were of the opinion that even if the airship had not met with this technical catastrophe, there was not much more that could have been done on the advancement of the science. Our group offered the development of television, telephones, jet propulsion on aircraft, and a host of other modern inventions which have progressed enormously over the years since their first appearance. The availability of inert helium gas as a lifting medium has been around for many years now, and, just this week I read in the newspaper, that a 50 foot long prototype of a completely new type of dirigible is due to take off from Cardington, in Bedfordshire, which was the British home of airship building in the early part of the century. A hundred years after the German Zeppelin took to the skies, the new British airship will use modern aeroplane and hovercraft technology to conquer the problems which caused the airship dream to die in the 1930’s. Resembling ‘Thunderbird 2, from the Sixties TV programme, it will use a giant hovercraft type skirt to ‘suck’ itself down to the ground. This will allow it to touch down on almost any flat surface, including swamps, deserts, and the sea, without the need of 200 ground crew to keep it on the ground, as in the original versions. It will be over 1000 feet long, and travel at 120 mph, the full sized version will carry tanks and troops into battle, take supplies to disaster zones that normal aircraft could not reach, or be able to carry 1,500 passengers in cruise ship comfort, and will have a range of 14,000 miles. Now this I feel proves the point I was attempting to make in the pub discussions. Now,... while it takes a good deal of practice, and years of experience, it eventually becomes possible to ignore the nastier aspects of news in the daily newspaper, and focus entirely on the screwball, and nuttier items of life. Some of you may remember me reporting on the guy who built a motor car from a settee, or sofa,.... he even had a working lampshade, and a TV set among other little luxuries. One of his problems was the fact that the authorities would not grant a road licence to the thing, so he could only drive it on private roads. We now have another chap, with the rather strange name of Mr. Friend Wood who has now built a completely working car from,.... would you believe, mahogany? It has taken him two years to complete, and the body is made entirely from polished wood and resin. Even the chassis is fabricated from box-section timber, which holds in place the engine, steering, suspension, and electronics from a Citroen 2CV. There is a picture of it, and it looks aerodynamically perfect. It can reach just over100 mph, and does 70 miles to the gallon, all this from a 602cc engine. This time there was no problem in getting his masterpiece licensed for the road, and he will never have to worry about rust attacking the bodywork...... woodworm maybe, but not rust !!! While on the subject of motoring, you may, or may not know that we have recently been having quite a lot of publicity given to the price of our petrol, and among other factors appertaining to the subject was the comparison between the UK and the USA on the breakdown of cost. Prices were given in sterling and litres, so I have hopefully converted this correctly to dollars and gallons, it breaks down as follows. UK USA Cost per gallon $5.70 $1.98 Retailer profit $0.13 $0.09 Oil Companies $0.26 $0.11 Production costs $1.25 $1.04 Government Tax $4.06 $0.71 I have rounded down on the USA breakdown, hence the slight price difference on total. Never the less, it was stated in our newspaper that the folk in your country were getting quite upset as the price neared $2.00 a gallon. So you can imagine the wrath of our people as we near the $6.00 a gallon mark. In fact, there is a campaign starting up in August to have an ongoing boycott of the gas stations on a given day per week, in an attempt to force the government to lower the rate of tax. Finally, last month, I promised to publish a poem I have written on the English language, my son has kindly pointed out that the pronunciation of certain words differs in our two countries, so, if some of the rhyming does not ring true to your ears, then I trust you will not be too harsh in your judgement. LINGUA FRANCA I think that we are all agreed, a lingua franca is a need And English is so widely used, it seems the one that we should choose But can I warn you, hear my voice, there are some pitfalls to this choice The vowel sounds don’t play the game, they do not always sound the same Yes, English has its problem words, for ‘word’ will rhyme with bird and heard In your eye do I see a tear, and this of course will rhyme with fear But, then there comes another care, when we look at words like ‘wear and tear’ You know that ‘give’ would not rhyme with five, but a Bee would live within a hive. Other words like ‘good’,‘wood’, ‘hood’, seem to be sounding as they should I trust you will not think me rude, when I ask you look at ‘food’ and ‘mood’ You give a King a very low bow, which rhymes with beasts like cow and sow But, now compare with Robin Hood’s bow, and give the grass a tidy mow And why oh why do floor and door, also rhyme with jaw and saw Fury and jury don’t sound like bury, and bury is not at all like merry Heaven and seven, worm and form, jerk and work, and storm and dawn I trust you’ll see just what I mean, things are not always what they seem So I’ll bid you all beware, which funnily will rhyme with stair The safest way that I have found, is to learn from birth the proper sounds and while the sounds won’t rhyme with wounds, this in itself will rhyme with brooms So keep on studying and keeping busy, which finally will rhyme with dizzy. 'til next time, Frank Hatton

I would love to hear from you so email me.

You can find more articles in the archive under From Over the Pond