Gents,

JRT, Jens,

There was a 'time' much better than the present. Medical advances notwithstanding; I would return to the fifties right now if only it were possible to step through those separating layers we call time. There is no direction you could point to where things were not better.

Apart from medicine, there was superiority in education and school discipline, hospitals, police, standards of public behaviour and moral attitude, control of alcohol and drug distribution, public transport, quality of goods and services, wildlife was much more prolific, politicians could at least fool you all the time. Nowadays they can't. Not because we know better. We don't. It's just that they are not good enough to be credible and convincng. There was a complete understanding of all things cultural and unique to Britain. The illusion of time has brought great changes and very few things for the better. That which some see as progress would be more accurately described as regression.

If Einstein's cosmic speed limit is broken by the Higgs Boson there will be a slightly used Nobel Prize up for grabs.

Folks,

I'm for bringing back some of the past.

Kindly leave out black and white TVs and baggy swim suits for the ladies. I'm not too keen on the year 1960; I had 3 operations that year and a girl slapped my face in front of friends at school (there is no known connection between the two).

I don't care much for bell bottomed pants or girdles either. Don't get me wrong, I never actually wore a girdle but several young ladies I got to know rather well did and I really hated those difficult to remove suckers. If the past were the present would that make tomorrow yesterday? When would the paychecks come and the bills come due; and what would we do about birthdays and babies? If I threw a ball into the air at the stroke of midnight when would it fall? Inquiring minds need to know.

JRT,

I wouldn't miss colour TV and we didn't have a B&W set until '56. What I do miss are the three local cinemas we once had which showed six films a week. Now we have none. The main venue was taken over by the avant garde for minority interests like opera and ballet after it had been kept alive for 50 years as a cinema.

FOKKER'S END.

Folks,

Dux:

Congratulations. I do not mean to lick the stripes off your holiday candy cane however that appears to be old Wimpy EnderLedahozen's Fokker. He was half blind and desperately hard of hearing. The 60 year old man had taken off from the field sans his crate's usual compliment of Spandaus to check out repairs on his plane and to do a little innocent cloud hopping before his annual visit to Kaiser Bill's Children's Orphanage and Sanitarium for Homeless Ragamuffins and the Hopelessly Untidy.

It had been Wimpy's custom for several years to bring the kids stacks of Christmas presents and good things to eat donated by local merchants and the fliers of his squadron. This he always did sometime during the 2 final weeks before Christmas. No way you could have known that old chap. It would appear that the festivities may begin a bit late this year.

I think we got our first TV set (a B&W 17" Crosley Super V)in 1957. The set was adequate and we enjoyed watching it. The name has always seemed a bit presumptive to me for there was nothing I considered to be "super" about the thing. I could do without TV today as long as the Internet is available and the library remains open. While I do on occasion enjoy certain selected arias sung by the late Pavarotti; just as Mark Twain once wrote, for the most part, I like everything about Opera but the singing. I have always maintained that tasteful nudity would improve my appreciation of the Ballet considerably. The nudity would be reserved for the lovely, graceful ballerinas of course. I'd willingly allow for a few strategically placed feathers in "Swan Lake" of course.

Give me any year in the past as long as automated service agents (press one to inquire about your account, press two... etc.), "hot-spots" on internet pages that play soundbytes if you happen to trace the cursor over them, and Facebook are not invented.

It seems that progression invariably results in regression in some important areas like service, privacy, peace of mind.

Gents,

JRT, Jens,

If only I had known that old EderLedahozen was on a charitable Christmas mission I would have pressed home the attack with even greater determination. Furthermore, I missed a golden opportunity to end his annual extravagances as he stood there among the wreckage and saluted as I swept past. I even returned his salute when I should have been perforating his field-grey uniform with my twin Vickers.

His plane came down behind our lines so if I'm quick about it I can dash over there and gather up all those misguided presents before the salvage party of charitable nun's arrives from the nearby church of St. Eloi. I'll flog them to my Squadron pals and use all monies to reduce my mess bill....probably.

Ah, well. It's easy to be wise after the event.

Folks,

Dux:

Your communication and latest reconnaissance photos have been received. If you have not discovered it already, an unsuitable reply has now taken root in the fertile bottom of your frosty mailbox.

Very soon the colder weather plus the calendar will remind us southerners that winter has arrived in Dixie. Sadly for some no snow is forecast for Christmas in Carolina this year. There will be no snowmen standing watch for Santa in front yards on Christmas Eve this year. The precipitation we expect will not be of the frozen variety. The kiddies will Just have to figure out how to make rain men.

Is anyone but me old enough to remember a Saturday morning kid's TV show that aired in the late fifties (previously a radio show) titled "Sky King"? The program starred a fellow named Kirby Grant. It was a western show set in the time that it was aired. What made it stand out among all the other westerns on TV for me was that it incorporated an emphasis on aviation. Sky King was a WW2 pilot turned rancher who flew about righting wrong in the post war period. Did I mention he also had a very pretty niece?

I could not for the life of me remember the plane he flew in every adventure. Actually there were two planes but I was only interested in one. With a little online research I discovered that it was a Cessna T-50 Bobcat (also built under license in Canada and England and named differently). C51 has located a flying model for FSX and there are maintenance and flight manuals available free online.

I have no idea why that particular TV show just popped into my mind the other night. I haven't seen or thought about that for decades. There are some episodes available on DVD for a price on the official website and a few free on Youtube.

Gents,

JRT,

Maybe that programme came to mind just as I was watching part of a film which caught my eye yesterday.

It was a 1938 western: The Terror of Tiny Town which featured a cast of midgets including Billy Curtis. He also appeared in The Wizard of Oz and High Plains Drifter! The diminutive saloon singer sounded like Lisa Simpson.

I think the entire cast came from a bona fide circus midget show.

Folks,

I'm sure we all remember Billy. He managed to have a decent career in Hollywood and on TV. Big things can come in small packages. While I have never seen "The Terror of Tiny Town", there were several movies I can think of that starred little people. Some were better than others:

The Wizard of OZ
Time Bandits
Poltergeist
The Man With The Golden Gun
Willow
Freaks
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
Willy Wonka
Austin Powers
Leprechaun

And there were numerous SF films in which full sized people became little people by one means or another.

Simulators For Everyone....

I've noticed these new little banner ads for the Sim shop with the
flashy chromium logo, so I thot I'd take a peek and see what they
are flogging. ...I had no idea there were so many sims, and for such
a bizarre range of subjects. Here are three from their list: gardening,
garbage truck driving, and bungee jumping. Each has a little blurb and
a set of screenies. It is very odd. There are some others which look
possibly intriguing, like the helm of a large freighter in a vicious
storm, and a very beautiful looking space shuttle sim, but a lot of
them have sort of flat, unhighlighted shaded graphics of a decidedly
older generation of 3D, and look a bit embarrassing to my eye spoiled
by modern rendering. They look rather like they are from the previous
century.

Also, a lot of them mainly raise the question why would anyone do this
on a computer? Perhaps some are of interest to people contemplating
a career choice, who want to see what they're in for. Other than that,
well, I guess it takes all kinds. I mean, as we well know here, it makes
lots of sense for things where personal access is out of reach, and/or
perceived risk seems too high, and the sim provides vicarious participation
which would be otherwise unavailable (but there isn't an extreme mountain
climbing sim, maybe there's an opportunity waiting?), and of course there
can also be considerable intellectual challenge; but for a lot of these,
I'm unable to figure out the attraction. Maybe they're popular for children?
Ah, well, I guess there are lots of very popular things in this world for
which I've never been able to figure out the attraction. Most of them, in fact.

Hmm, now I'm not seeing the ads, maybe I better put up a link, perhaps it's
an infrequently appearing banner:
http://www.simw.com/simulator/woodcutter-simulator-2011.html