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Demolition Man
Posted by
monza gorilla
,
09 December 2006
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38 views
Yesterday a squirrelly little man with a tweed cap turned up and ripped out my kitchen. It only took him 2 and a half hours which, considering the size of the kitchen, was quite impressive. Now all he has to do is fit the new one. By Friday.
The above paragraph isn't really about anything (except my exciting home life), but it does lead neatly into this instalment of the World of Strange. UK readers will, doubtless, have heard of Fred Dibnah (1938-2004). Any UK readers who haven't heard of Fred Dibnah should be ashamed of themselves, and made to polish steam engines until the Brasso fumes overcome them.
Fred Dibnah was a great Englishman and this is all about the things that Fred represented. A passion for his work and for the achievements of great men. A belief in a better way, a better time (not always the past). An upholder of tradition and 'old ways'. You could call it nostalgia but it's a whole lot more than that. The thirst for knowledge, innovation, enterprise, pride in one's work and respect for the accomplishments of others. He was accused by many of being an anachronism in the modern world and this was true to a certain extent. While his peers were demolishing factory chimneys with explosive charges, Fred cut out part of the base of the chimney, inserted timber props and then set set fire to them. Why? Because it worked, and if it worked then why change? Especially to a more expensive method that was actually more dangerous.
He also upheld the tradition of the Great British Eccentric. Who else would dig a working coal mine in their back garden? A pox on the bureaucrats who shut him down.
Some Fred quotes:
One mistake up here, and it's half a day out with the undertaker.
A man who says he feels no fear is either a fool or a liar.
The modern world stinks.
We've become a nation of con men, living by selling double glazing to each other.
"Anybody who destroys anything made of stone should be prosecuted. It is not all beautiful, but it took a man all day to make one stone."
http://www.vanl.free...dio/chimney.wav
Look him up on the interweb; he was a Great Briton and we need more like him. People with history in their bones and a sense of wonder at the things around them. He's one of my heroes and maybe I'll expand this into a mini series. We'll see.
Thousands of people lined the streets of Bolton on the day of his funeral as his coffin was taken through the town on the back of his favourite traction engine, driven by his son, with his Steam Roller, Betsy, following. People took him to their hearts because he was a rare thing in this day and age, and they realised it.
Nothing more to say really. See you again soon.
Russ
The above paragraph isn't really about anything (except my exciting home life), but it does lead neatly into this instalment of the World of Strange. UK readers will, doubtless, have heard of Fred Dibnah (1938-2004). Any UK readers who haven't heard of Fred Dibnah should be ashamed of themselves, and made to polish steam engines until the Brasso fumes overcome them.
Fred Dibnah was a great Englishman and this is all about the things that Fred represented. A passion for his work and for the achievements of great men. A belief in a better way, a better time (not always the past). An upholder of tradition and 'old ways'. You could call it nostalgia but it's a whole lot more than that. The thirst for knowledge, innovation, enterprise, pride in one's work and respect for the accomplishments of others. He was accused by many of being an anachronism in the modern world and this was true to a certain extent. While his peers were demolishing factory chimneys with explosive charges, Fred cut out part of the base of the chimney, inserted timber props and then set set fire to them. Why? Because it worked, and if it worked then why change? Especially to a more expensive method that was actually more dangerous.
He also upheld the tradition of the Great British Eccentric. Who else would dig a working coal mine in their back garden? A pox on the bureaucrats who shut him down.
Some Fred quotes:
One mistake up here, and it's half a day out with the undertaker.
A man who says he feels no fear is either a fool or a liar.
The modern world stinks.
We've become a nation of con men, living by selling double glazing to each other.
"Anybody who destroys anything made of stone should be prosecuted. It is not all beautiful, but it took a man all day to make one stone."
http://www.vanl.free...dio/chimney.wav
Look him up on the interweb; he was a Great Briton and we need more like him. People with history in their bones and a sense of wonder at the things around them. He's one of my heroes and maybe I'll expand this into a mini series. We'll see.
Thousands of people lined the streets of Bolton on the day of his funeral as his coffin was taken through the town on the back of his favourite traction engine, driven by his son, with his Steam Roller, Betsy, following. People took him to their hearts because he was a rare thing in this day and age, and they realised it.
Nothing more to say really. See you again soon.
Russ
It seems to me that mankind has existed for countless generations doing the same tasks the same way - farming, building, child-rearing, relaxing. Small improvements over time, but the same tasks. A field would be planted in a day; fertilized in a few days; harvested in a few months. A building would be hewn of stone or wood or thatch and erected in the same manner as the French and before them, the Greeks, and before them, the Egyptians, Babylonians, Indians, Chinese. After the work was done, the men retreated to a beer or a wine or brandy and the company of friends. Still later they tended their families. The women would keep the home in the same manner as their mothers and grandmothers had (no chauvanism here, bear with me
For thousands of years the manner and nature of these tasks were familiar to us. I like to think that over time these simple things became part of humanity; stamped into us. The grand Industrial Revolution changed all that. The comforting tasks were abandoned. A farmer would ride a machine and plant, and fertilize and harvest; forgetting the feel of the soil under his boots or the grit on his hands and the blanket of good sweat around him after a long day of autumn harvest. The writer no longer feels the scritch of stylus or quill or pen on papyrus and paper; now he feels the click of a keyboard.
Walking is now riding. Experiencing life is now sitting in front of a brightly-colored box and watching red, green and blue dots form an entertaining picture. Eating a meal is now buying a package at a store instead of raising the animal with care. Caring for a stranger that stumbles is now thinking that a government-employed official will deal with it.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I suppose I'll find out when I get there.......
The Industrial Revolution is the pivot in a vast teeter-totter with tradition and tactile experience on one side and comfort, inactivity, and technology on the other side. There's a fantastic artist/writer who portrays this to good effect: Hyao Miyazaki. His animated movies show this ballance, this teeter-totter, with both hope and warning. By contrasting the natural and the old ways in the same movie, it becomes clear to anyone that the old ways of riding a bicycle (clean, action) are preferable to the new way of taking a noisome, smoky, mechanical car of sorts (dirty, inaction). Hmm...probably a very odd thing for me to say, considering I like motorsports......
I suppose this really led nowhere after all....I'd hardly like to give up my comfortable technologies, but equally I'd not like to give up the familiar scritch of a pencil on paper. Hmmm....perhaps, Russ, I would have been better off just saying about this blog entry of yours 'I get it'.
Mike