#brunel building

[aneverydaything]

Day 2237, 7 August 2024

The Brunel Building in Paddington, London

Is this the most inappropriately named building in the UK? I presume it is named after Isambard Kingdom Brunel who designed wonders such as the SS Great Britain, the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the Tamar Crossing Bridge. I'm pretty convinced that if Brunel had been alive today, his designs would look absolutely nothing like the Brunel Building

[marymjarvis]

also I didn’t know Brunel was a real person until literally yesterday sometimes I’m so American it hurts

[mrtheengie]

Monsieur Estrade lives in my walls

Who's Estrade? I'm glad you asked! He was an engineer in the late 19th century who came up with and successfully built a concept for an 0-6-0 with 8 foot high driving wheels. At the time it was built, it was very brave and controversial, but it had several advantages. For one thing, all of its weight was on the driving wheels, and this would have allowed it to pull heavier trains at the same pace as Cramptons and other singles which were popular in those days. Unfortunately, the boiler was, according to one report, too small to keep up with demand, a consequence of the boiler being sandwiched between the driving wheels.

Anyway, besides drawing existing locomotives and engines, I like to make speculative ones of my own. Keep in mind, everything I do is based on existing practice.

So, what have I drawn here? Well, it is, for all intent's and purposes, a copy of Mr. Estrade's high speed locomotive, but with a twist. This machine runs on 7 foot gauge track, which allows the boiler to be larger, thus fixing any steaming troubles the real engine had.

I have made a TON of 7 foot gauge locomotives over the past year, and I've been slowly building a universe for them to live in. It's a huge passion project of mine, so I'm excited to start sharing it with the public.

[whencyclopedia]

Sydney Harbour Bridge Construction

The Sydney Harbour Bridge – affectionately known as The Coathanger by Australians – was opened to great fanfare and a touch of scandal on 19 March 1932 and was the longest steel arch bridge in the world at the time, with a span of 503 metres (1,650 ft) and standing at 134 metres (440 ft) above Sydney harbour.

Sydney Harbour Bridge During Construction

State Library of New South Wales (Public Domain)

Before the bridge was constructed, there were two Sydneys – the north side, with a population of around 300,000, and the south side and central business district, with 600,000 people. A regular and reliable ferry service took passengers across the harbour, carrying 13 million annually by 1908. There was also a land route from the south to the north shore, which was a time-consuming journey known as the 'five bridges' – horses and cars crossed a series of bridges over the Parramatta River, a detour that added 20-30 kilometres (12-19 mi) to the trip.

As Sydney's population grew and up to 75 ferries crisscrossed the harbour, often in dangerous and foggy conditions, the need for a bridge to connect the northern and southern shores gained momentum. One extraordinary man, Dr John Job Crew Bradfield (1867-1943), envisioned a structure that would unite Sydney – a minimalist, sweeping steel structure embodying modernist design aesthetics, breaking free from the city's convict-era agrarian roots.

Early Designs

Charles Darwin's grandfather, Dr Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), was inspired by reports of the NSW colony and mentioned the vision of a 'proud arch' in his poem Visit of Hope to Sydney Cove, near Botany Bay, published in 1789. However, the first person to seriously propose a harbour bridge was the emancipated convict and New South Wales (NSW) government architect Francis Greenway (1777-1837). In an 1815 report to Governor Macquarie (1762-1824), Greenway raised the idea and also wrote to the editor of The Australian newspaper, which published Greenway's letter on 28 April 1825:

Thus in the event of the Bridge being thrown across from Dawes Battery to the North Shore, a town would be built on that shore, and would have formed with these buildings a grand whole, that would have indeed surprised anyone entering the harbour; and would have given an idea of strength and magnificence that would have reflected credit and glory on the colony and the Mother Country.

(The Australian, Letter to the Editor)

Greenway's vision was never adopted. The engineering skills and steel technology to span the harbour were not yet available, and the NSW colony was focused on agricultural production and settlement.

The next proposal was put forward in 1857 when English-trained engineer Peter Henderson designed a bridge from Dawes Battery (now Dawes Point on the south side) to Milsons Point. Henderson had worked with Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859), the renowned and groundbreaking 19th-century engineer who designed London's Paddington Station, the Great Western Railway linking London with the west of England and South Wales, and various steamships.

Sketch of Proposed Sydney Harbour Bridge

P. E. Henderson (Public Domain)

Henderson's sketch for a cast iron bridge supported by two pylons on either side of the harbour is the oldest existing practical plan. The population and economic activity on the northside in 1857 were not significant enough to convince the colonial government. It is also likely that engineering knowledge at the time would have resulted in a bridge that may have fallen into the harbour. Cast or wrought iron, which is not as strong as steel, might not have been capable of withstanding the stresses of a large span in a harbour with strong tides and a city frequently buffeted by high winds.

By the turn of the century, north shore residents had formed the Sydney and North Shore Junction League, championing a bridge inspired by the vision of Sir Henry Parkes (1815-1896), a local politician and five-time premier of NSW. Parkes had called for a bridge to improve transportation and promote urban development. This resulted in Minister for Works E. W. O'Sullivan (1846-1910), announcing a design competition in January 1900. Submissions were received from local and international engineers.

Continue reading...

[the-power-of-a-pen]

Oh, How I Love Thee

Fandom: Spider-Man 2 (PS5)

Summary: A series of cute moments between Harry Osborn and reader based on Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem How Do I Love Thee?

Word Count: 3061

Pairing: Harry Osborn x reader (romantic)

Trigger Warning(s): Cursing, 3rd to last scene is reader panicking

A/n: I don't remember the last time I wrote a fic, but I loved the new Spiderman 2 on ps5 and I'm obsessed with/gay for Harry Osborn. Also apologies: English isn't my first language. Also please give feedback -- I have quite a few more of these in my drafts that I'll only publish if these are well-received!

How do I love thee?

Planks, nails, screws, and metal bars were strewn haphazardly across the floor of the apartment you shared with Harry. His eyebrows were furrowed the way they always do when he's determined to solve something. You'd long ago surrendered the instructions to him after his persistent insistence that he could figure it out. Instead, you simply leaned against him as you began organized the mess of a dresser you had attempted to assemble.

"Okay, how the fuck am I supposed to know with one of these screws is the 40 millimeter one?" he complained.

You adjusted yourself so that you were lounging more comfortably next to him with your chin on his shoulder while he wrapped an arm around your waist. “If I had to guess,” you started, “I’d probably read what’s on the top of each screw.”

He scoffed playfully. “Thanks, Captain Obvious.”

You gestured for him to give you the instructions, which he reluctantly did. "It says we need to put the x12 screws into the L2 bar first. Then we- oh for fuck's sake, why does this manual have pictures only? We're trying to build a coffee table, not a fucking time machine."

"Let's just try using the power drill on these," Harry suggested. "There's probably tons of extra parts in here that we can use if we mess up."

"Okay, Brunel. I thought you were a biochem major."

"Hey," he laughed. "Let a man dream. Can you hold this piece up?"

You obliged, and Harry picked up the nearest 40 mm-looking screw and drove it into the wooden bar at an angle to connect it to the bottom of the coffee table. You gave each other a look. It didn't seem right, but it did what it was supposed to.

"Trust the process?" you suggested. "I'm not going to try and read that chicken scratch again."

Harry shrugged. "Fair enough. As long as it stands up, right?"

The two of you repeated the process for the other four legs and the rack under the table. Finally, you propped it up to stand. It was a horrible mess, slanted and barely standing up. Truly, it looked more like a modern sculpture than a piece of furniture.

After a moment of silence, Harry said, "I'm gonna order something pre-made and get us takeout."

"Yeah," you sighed. "That's probably for the best."

Let me count the ways.

"I claim Yoshi," Harry declared as he selected the character for the round.

"Basic," you jabbed back. "My main's Toad, anyway. Rainbow Road?"

"Obviously."

The rain pattered against the windows outside. It was a perfect night to stay in.

As soon as the countdown finished, Harry sent a green shell your way and curved around you.

"Cheater," you jabbed as you spammed your controller to get back up.

"Hate the game, not the player," he bantered. "Oh, fuck you, Peach."

"How funny would it be if the bots won over us?"

"Not gonna happen," Harry replied. He threw a banana at your mini-kart and, by pure luck, managed not to crash into you.

On Harry's side of the split screen, it showed that he was on his final lap, with you a decent distance behind him. With the finish line in sight, you pulled the last trick in your sleeve. You grabbed Harry's chin and pulled him in for a passionate kiss, making him entirely lose focus. By the time you two pulled away, you were out of breath, and your side of the TV read 1st Place.

"Now who's cheating?" Although he was trying to scold you, the way he was catching his breath took away from it.

"Oh, please," you remarked. "You didn't mind."

Harry dropped his controller and, cupping your face with one hand and pulling your waist towards him with the other, he mumbled before kissing you, "Damn right I didn't.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.

Your phone buzzed, stirring you from your sleep. Rubbing some sleep from your eyes, you fumbled around for it, barely reading 7:23AM off of it. You tossed it over your shoulder and rolled over, hardly getting anywhere before Harry pulled you back into him.

He pressed a soft kiss to your neck and nuzzled into you. "G'morning, babe."

"Morning," you yawned. Your eyes adjusted to the morning light and you tried to massage some warmth back into your hands. A flock of pigeons brushed by your window, tracking in a breeze that brought shivers to your spine. You stirred again, trying to get up this time.

Harry tried and failed to grab for your hand. "Where are you going?"

You smiled to yourself. Harry's morning voice never got old. "I'm just closing the window. It's freezing in here."

He propped himself up on his elbow and commented, "Well, word around town is that I make a pretty good personal heater."

You hummed. "I'll take that into consideration." You sat down on his side of the bed and brushed some wild stray hairs out of his face. "But seriously, just because we have the day off, that doesn't mean we should spend all day in bed. I can make us hot chocolate the way you like it, and we can sit out in the park, maybe try to find something good in Midtown?"

"That sounds great, baby." Harry leaned into your touch. "After a quick nap."

You scoffed as he grabbed your waist to pull you on top of him. "Nothing's quick with you," you remarked.

Your boyfriend just smirked at you. "Part of why you love me." You settled down onto him, resting your head on his chest and intertwining your legs. "Just... five more minutes, babe," he implored you.

"Five more minutes," you agreed, already drifting back off to sleep.

When feeling out of sight for the ends of being and ideal grace.

The movie you had been watching had run its course, and you were beyond tired. You resigned yourself to quickly run through your skincare routine and find Harry so that the two of you could go to sleep.

You finished rinsing the cleanser off of your face and stretched with such force that you got dizzy. Shaking this feeling off, you called for your boyfriend.

"In the kitchen!" he called back. And he was there, but sheltered behind the kitchen island on the floor with his laptop and countless papers strewn around him. The fans in his computer sounded like a helicopter about to take off. "I'm just finishing these last few emails," he yawned. "Then I've got to review the results of bee drones, verify the statistics Dr. Loughran gathered on the organ reproduction project, and then I gotta check if they repaired the particle accelerator yet and-"

You sat yourself down next to him and gently shut his laptop, kissing his temple. "Why don't we deal with this tomorrow?"

Harry sighed and leaned on your shoulder. "I've been putting this off for a while. I'm so close to finishing, just like 30 more minutes."

You ran your fingers through his hair and felt him fighting to stay conscious. "You and I both know that's a lie, babe. The weight of the world doesn't rest on your shoulders. Take a break. The work will be there tomorrow."

"But-"

"What did May always say?"

Harry sighed again, but relented and put his head in your lap. "You help someone, you help everyone."

You arranged the papers around you into a pile and grabbed a cushion from one of the kitchen island's stools to put behind your back. "Let the person you help today be you, okay?"

But Harry was already fast asleep.

I love thee to the level of every day's most quiet need.

"Do you ever wonder what would happen if you used conditioner before shampoo?"

"Not really," you conceded as you took another bite of your ice cream from your place on top of the dryer.

Harry sat on the floor organizing the dark, white, and delicate clothes into piles. "I mean, it's probably better for your hair, no? Like, the whole purpose of conditioner is to break down unwanted particles and moisturize your hair. If anything, it's probably better to do it that way."

"Maybe," you agreed as you hopped down and put the first load in the wash. "But wouldn't that be the same as using fabric softener before detergent?"

"Nope. Fabric softener just coats your clothes in microplastics. It's a long-term way of damaging the bonds between the atoms for temporary comfort. Technically, we should be using something like vinegar instead."

"I'm not putting vinegar on my clothes," you objected.

"Maybe you need to be more open-minded," he teased.

"Maybe you need to keep your head in the game," you teased back, throwing his dirty T-shirt at him. You yelped when he threw a sock your way. "Oh, I'll get you back for that."

"I'd like to see you try," Harry challenged.

By sun and candle-light.

Harry raced past you in the hallway, tugging on a shoe while awkwardly hopping. You sipped your tea from the kitchen island as you stared down the morning crossword.

"Running late?" you asked as he grabbed an apple and tossed it into his bag.

"Yeah," he replied, out of breath as he roughly kissed your cheek and gave you a squeeze before rushing towards the door. "Pete's gonna have to deal with the donors on his own if I don't get there on time. Wish me luck."

"Good luck." You filled out the five boxes for 23-across whose clue read 'Oscar-winner Streep.' "I love you."

"I love you, too," he called as he shut the door. Almost immediately, he opened the door again. "Forgot my keys!"

"They're on top of your nightstand," you called as you heard him tearing your room apart. The jingle of the keys confirmed that he got them, and he bounded over to you again.

"I love you," he breathed, kissing your cheek. "You're the best."

"I know," you chuckled. You leaned around the corner to watch him leave for the second time before returning to your morning routine. You had just finished eating your breakfast when Harry came running in again.

"Missed me already?" you joked.

"Forgot my phone," he explained, grabbing it from beside you. He kissed your cheek again. "But that, too."

"Love you!" you called as he fumbled with the doorknob and you walked to the living room. "Kick ass today."

He gave you a charming wink then slipped out the door.

You turned on the TV and let a talk show play in the background as you cursed at your crossword. This time, it took Harry about 6 more minutes to realize he had yet again forgotten something important. He barged in for the third and last time, profusely apologizing.

"You wouldn't happen to know a five-letter port city of Japan, would you?" you asked without looking up.

"Try Osaka?" Harry filtered through the pockets of his coats in the laundry room until he finally found his wallet.

"That fits."

Harry returned from the laundry room and leaned down, pressing three kisses to your lips. "Okay, I'm leaving for real now. I love you."

"I love you, too, babe. Show 'em how it's done."

I love thee freely, as men strive for right.

"Oh my God, you should've seen the look on Hasan's face when Vijay showed up. Like, I get it, you dated way back in the day, but showing up in all white? So then MJ went to go pull the wine trick on him while I tried to distract Hasan so that he wouldn't notice anything was going on, but of course the universe wasn't satisfied." You huffed and caught your breath in the middle of pacing back and forth in the living room. "You know what happened after that?"

Harry, from his comfortable corner in the couch covered his mouth to hide his amusement. "Jess said something?" he guessed.

"Jess opened her fucking mouth," you continued. "And she was drunk off her ass because she always is, and she comes up to Hasan on his fucking wedding day and starts shouting about Vijay coming over. So at this point, Song is already asking Hasan 'Have you been cheating on me? Is that what this is?' And obviously Hasan would never do that but now Song's upset so the two of them go to argue in the backroom while Keith escorts Vijay out and MJ and I have to babysit Jess for the rest of the evening." You paused and took a sip of your mocktail. "It was literal hell."

At this point, you realize the smile taking over Harry's face. "What?"

He shook his head as he surveyed you in admiration. "You're hot when you're angry."

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

"Do I look good?" Harry asked nervously as he adjusted his tie.

You brushed his mess of curls away from his forehead. "You look perfect. You are perfect."

"I really need this interview to go well," he said, biting his lips. "Whatever this guy publishes is gonna be severely edited by Jonah, and if even half of what MJ said was warning enough, we're screwed."

"You're going to be fine," you assured him. When that didn't seem to work, you grabbed him by his shoulders and said, "Your mom would be so proud of you. Don't worry about what you can't control."

Harry took in a deep breath, and, hugging you before going into the meeting room, whispered, "Let's heal the world."

I love thee with the passion put to use in my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

"Good morning," chirped the barista as you walked in to the small café. "What can I get started for you?"

"Just a small pumpkin latte, please," you replied. You shivered and wrapped your scarf tighter around you.

"Anything else I can get for you? Maybe my number?"

"No, thanks -- that'll be all," you assured her, glancing behind you to look for Harry.

You jumped when he touched your arm. "I've got this one, baby," he winked and offered his card. The barista's eyes widened in realization, and she silently finished the transaction. One of her coworkers finished off the order and handed it to you on the other end of the kiosk.

You unlocked your car with your keys and laughed when Harry rushed to open the door for you.

"What's so funny?"

"You're jealous, aren't you," you jested.

Harry mocked offense as he got into the car on the other side. "I haven't the slightest idea what you're referring to, your majesty."

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints.

Harry crossed your arms on your chest and hugged you from behind to give you that comfort of pressure. "Breathe, babe. It's gonna be okay. This feeling will go away."

Your breathing was erratic, your face tingled, and you felt so dizzy you might pass out. "I could've lost you," you managed to get out between gasps. "So much could've gone wrong."

"I know," he said in a low voice. "I know. But everything's alright. Pete and Miles have a handle on things, they always do. That thing's gone. I'm okay. Everything's gonna be okay."

You rested your forehead on your knees, but Harry didn't let go of you. "I tried to get through to you but that thing just kept on speaking to me, and Dr. Connors said you were too far gone and then MJ told me what happened at the Foundation- fuck's sake you were in a coma for three weeks and you just show up-"

Harry crawled in front of you and gently took your face in his hands. "It was scary for me too, love. I thought it was going to hurt you and-" He took in a deep breath. "The worst is behind us, okay? Let's focus on that."

You nodded and tried to slow your breathing. After a moment: "None of that was your fault, you know? It wasn't you doing it."

"I know." He rested his forehead against yours and closed his eyes with a shaky breath. "I know."

I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life;

"Okay, what do you think of this option?" You came out from the hallway with a new outfit and gave him a spin.

"Gorgeous," he breathed. "You look like an angel."

You sat down next to him on your bed. "Babe, I love you, but if all you do is flatter me, I'm not going to know what to wear to the gala."

Harry traced his fingers over the folds of your sides as you fiddled with the invitation in your hands. "Not my fault that my partner's hot."

"But it will be your fault if we're late," you retorted. "This one, the dark blue one, or the black one?"

He hummed. "This one," he replied with a wink. "It'll be easier to take off later."

He got up to leave the room, but you grabbed him by the tie, saying an inch away from his lips, "We'll see about that, handsome." And with that, you strutted away.

And, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

You moved the needle onto the vinyl, letting the smooth jazz of Thelonious Monk fill the room. You waltzed over to Harry, and, wrapping one arm around his waist and grabbing his other hand, you swayed to the beat.

"C'mon, loverboy," you taunted him. "Show me some rhythm."

"I'm trying," he laughed, shuffling his feet.

"Baby, a little less Electric Slide, a little more moving those hips."

"Why don't you lead me instead?"

You spun in his arms and put your dominant leg between his legs and hummed as you swayed in a circle. Harry put an arm over your shoulder and started singing along.

"Glee Club paying off," you joked.

He bumped your nose. "Very funny."

You spun Harry as the music signalled that it was near its end.

"Have I ever told you that I love you?" Harry asked as he caught his balance.

You dipped him with the flourish of the music. "More than I can count."

[gollancz]

We are thrilled and delighted to reveal the cover for HIGH VAULTAGE, the first novel from @victoriocity, coming in 2024.

1887. London, but not as you know it. The sprawling, chaotic metropolis of Even Greater London spreads across the southern half of England. The immense Tower casts electricity through the sky, powering the mind-boggling mechanisms of the city. The engineer-army of Isambard Kingdom Brunel swarms across the capital, building, demolishing, and rebuilding whatever they see fit. Queen Victoria is recovering nicely from her eleventh assassination, ruling with the dignity that comes from striking terror into anyone who sees the unholy union of human and machine that one has become. And at the heart of all this sits the country's first Private Investigation Agency. Archibald Fleet (formerly of Scotland Yard, currently administratively deceased) and Clara Entwhistle (formerly of Harrogate, currently intermittent crime journalist) hoped things would pick up quickly for their new enterprise. No-one is taking them seriously, but their break will come soon. Definitely. Probably. Meanwhile, police are baffled by a series of impossible bank robberies. With no trace left of the thieves, and nothing to connect each break-in to the next, their resources are absorbed by the case. Which means that when a woman witnesses a kidnapping, Fleet-Entwhistle Private Investigations is the only place she can turn for help. They're more than happy to oblige! But why would this man be a target for kidnappers? As Clara and Fleet dig into the mystery, things go deeper than they could ever have anticipated . . .

Pre-order here!

Can't wait until next year? Check out the phenomenal, hilarious podcast.

[fluentisonus]

google search how to look like isambard kingdom brunel when you're 8 inches taller than he was with a completely different build & can't grow facial hair

[ginandoldlace]

Pioneering engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel envisioned building a steamship that could take passengers on a non-stop voyage from London to Australia.

In the 1850s, Brunel began constructing the SS Great Eastern, the largest ship to ever be built at the time of her launch.

Brunel died  in 1859, shortly after the ship made its tragic maiden voyage from London, where it experienced a huge steam explosion near Hastings, killing and injuring crew members.

Although it failed as a passenger liner, the ship later played a significant role as an oceanic cable layer between Europe and North America.

This photograph by Robert Howlett shows the ship under construction in Tower Hamlets, London, in 1857.

[umbry-fic]

Epitaxy

Summary:

Cursed to be the saviour, she wonders if she must walk eternally alone.

Fandom: Tales of Symphonia

Characters: Colette Brunel

Relationships: Colette Brunel & Lloyd Irving

Rating: G

Word Count: 5584

Mirror Link: AO3

Original Post Date: 29/08/2024

Notes:

Written for the TOS 21st anniversary celebration! Happy birthday Symphonia! 🎉 (This is the furthest thing from the theme of "celebration" haha but I wanted to write my favourite character :P)

Something of a Colette character study, written to Empurple by Harumaki Gohan. There is a slight canon divergence regarding Colette's illness. More notes are in the endnotes on AO3.

~~~

The world had fallen away from her unfeeling fingertips, numbness creeping up her skin like an insidious creature, seeking to devour her whole. Her mouth tasted like ash, her heart coldly silent in her chest, so much so that it could be mistaken to have shrivelled and died. Rays of sunlight danced cheerfully across the room, but they seemed so oddly far away, their warmth unable to reach her. An unbearable pressure was building up inside of her, but when she opened her mouth to let it rush out of her, she found that it got stuck in her throat, her lips unable to utter a single sound.

Her entire body beginning to tremble, she raised her gaze to the mirror she knew hung on the other end of the inn room, already certain of the sight that would face her.

Red eyes met her gaze.

Colette shot awake, blanket clutched close to her chest as she panted, panic squeezing tight around her heart as she struggled to get air into her lungs.

She had no desire to find the same mirror that had starred in her nightmare, hanging tauntingly on the opposite wall and encroaching into the corner of her vision, reflecting her terrified form. But she had to know - and thus, keeping her gaze firmly rooted to the floor, she silently got off the bed and padded over with hesitant steps, her breaths still rattling in her chest and threatening to overwhelm her.

Heart pounding in her ears, she jerkily raised her head, bracing herself for what awaited her.

Blue. Her eyes were still blue. The same as they were when she checked every morning after waking up and every night before going to bed.

All the breath rushed out of her, and she gingerly placed a hand against her reflection. Her mirror image didn't waver at all, nor did it dissipate like a mirage crafted just to dangle false hope over her head. Her wide blue eyes didn't darken and dissolve into red - they remained the very shade she'd been born with.

Just a dream, she told herself, in an attempt to calm her rapid breathing. It was then that she noticed that the glass against her palm, which should have held the early morning’s chill, didn’t register at all against her skin. Neither did the smooth wooden panels against her bare feet. There was only the faint echo of sensation, a prickling like the cold was attempting to force its way past a nigh-impervious barrier.

Turning her hand over, she sighed, watching her Cruxis Crystal wink in the morning sunlight as she shifted away from the mirror. One of those days, then.

“Colette?” A voice blearily called out her name, a messy head of brown hair slowly finding its way out of the mess of the covers she’d made in her flight from the bed. “Is something wrong?” Lloyd asked, holding back a yawn, sleepy russet eyes blinking at her.

For a moment, she was tempted to say nothing. But…

Redirect, Zelos had sighed the last time they'd seen each other, reluctantly giving her advice as he slumped over a table, the shared weight of her secret, heavy but brittle, resting in the space between them.

“Bad dream is all,” she whispered, her shaky voice easily carrying over the silence.

It wasn’t a lie.

Just not the full truth.

“Come here,” he offered readily, his gaze flooded with so much affection that she couldn’t help but look away, guilt raking its claws over the walls of her heart. The boy she loved wore his heart on his sleeve, and he was not at all aware of the complicated web of deception she had once again spun around him as she continued to pull the wool over his eyes. Nails digging into her arm, she wanted nothing more than to confess the truth, to ease the vice grip over her heart. But as always, the words stuck in her throat, growing thorns that lodged themselves into flesh.

Even now, she couldn't live true to herself.

Still, she gladly clambered into his open arms, his familiar embrace calming her as she buried her face in his chest, grasping for the tiny fragments of warmth she could salvage. His presence was comforting - that was a single truth that would never change. Fingers ran through her hair as his lips brushed against her forehead, his gentle touch slowly soothing her, even as she was stabbed in the heart with a dozen broken shards.

As she took his hand, she prayed that one day, he might understand.

~~~

When she’d stepped out of the Seal of Fire and into the arid desert, leaving behind crumbling rocks and a smothering sense of heat that had been relentless, she didn’t realise she’d left behind something else among the endless, smouldering lava, lost forever.

Agony had held her in its clawed grip as she struggled to draw breath, what felt like burning hot metal pressed against her chest. Sleep was the furthest thing from her mind that night, and she gasped a sigh of relief at the peek of the morning sun over the dunes of sand, for with the gentle touch of sunlight left the pain, leaving her hollowed out but alive.

It was only once the sun said farewell once more, sinking below the horizon, that she was able to place a finger on what had been missing for the entire day as she walked alongside everyone else, seeing nothing at all as she retreated into her thoughts. The gradual pull of fatigue had been absent, leaving her wide awake even as darkness set in. Sleep had been a constant, if unnoticed, companion all her life, and it had simply vanished within moments, leaving her to stare at Kratos’ still back under the brilliant light of the stars as he sat guard and she feigned sleep.

Quietly, she told herself it was a good thing. It meant she would never again be plagued by nightmares of her possible failure, of all the people she would have condemned to suffer if she didn't complete this Journey. It meant she had more time at night to let her gaze rove over the friends she held dear, who she would inevitably have to let go of when she ascended the Tower. Her gaze lingered on Lloyd - the unruly flop of his fringe over his eyes that could never be tamed, the gentle rise and fall of his chest, the soft expression on his face as he slept.

Just a little more time to memorize that which was precious to her.

As the days passed, bone-deep exhaustion settled in every inch of her body, unable to be alleviated by the solace of sleep. While her eyelids didn't feel heavy, her head did, like her brain was stuffed full of cotton wool, liable to leak out of her ears. She passed the nights counting the stars, staving off thoughts about all the ways she was inadequate. Already, she was so far from the perfect image of the Chosen that existed in everyone's minds. A lost cause from the very beginning, no matter how many times the priests chastised her, for it seemed nothing could mould her into that perfect figure that everyone wished to see.

Unbidden, her thoughts turned to an old memory. Of waking her father up as a small child, no longer able to remember the bad dream that had so rudely torn her from the gentle embrace of sleep, but still shaken, tears welling in her eyes. Before everything had changed, before she’d learned to hide her emotions and draw away from those around her even as she stood right next to them, to tuck away anything that could be considered undesirable.

Suddenly blinking away tears that never came, she was glad that they had been taken from her, if only so they could not give her lie away.

With the chilly night air that made her shiver and the stars as her only company, she passed the night alone.

~~~

She’d denied it, at first, the hints of green speckled on her shoulder the more pressing issue. She'd brushed off the gradual wavering of her senses as nothing, firmly pushing it into a tiny box in her mind that didn’t need to be opened. Nights when she couldn't sleep were simply because of worry, keeping her up and unwilling to give her a break. Meals she couldn't taste must be because of anxiety. Days when the touch of her peers faded to a whisper of warmth…

As the green scales continued to spread down her arm, each inch of skin it took hostage radiating a burning pain, she kept quiet. There were more important things to be done! Like reuniting the two worlds, putting a stop to Cruxis’ machinations, and ensuring no one else had to suffer. Compared to what everyone else was going through, her own problems were minuscule.

Even after her affliction was exposed to everyone, as she shied away in shame, clutching her arm close to her side, she said nothing. She was already worrying all of them enough, making them run around the two worlds, wasting time just to find a cure for her. This would surely go away once she was cured, so there was no need to tell them.

None of them suspected a thing. The genuine joy that had bloomed in her heart when she’d first wrenched free of the prison her soul had been trapped within had been enough to convince them that the loss of her senses had been put far behind them, even as that joy withered.

After all, it had been enough to convince her as well. The soft brush of the wind against her skin, the patter of raindrops against her palms as she’d raised them to the sky, the food she had practically shovelled down during dinner, the taste enough to bring her to tears… It had been enough to convince her, for a short time, that it was over. That she could be…

It's your own fault, her voice echoed in her ears when she stared into the mirror, watching herself get consumed by scales that glinted in the light of the dawn, reminding her of the Cruxis crystal attached to her neck, no longer able to be removed, a constant reminder of the role she had played.

Surely this was punishment for her failure. For abandoning her duty, for hesitating at the final sacrifice. For even daring to think that she was allowed to be happy. An imperfect weakling, through and through.

All she could do was endure.

~~~

She frowned when she raised the fork with spaghetti wound around it to her lips. It tasted like nothing, its texture like cardboard against her tongue. Across from her, Lloyd was grimacing and eating around the chunks of tomato like his life depended on it, loudly complaining all the while and barely avoiding spitting chunks of food into Genis’ face as Genis frowned at him. The sight, and the usual consequences (namely Professor Raine smacking Lloyd on the head with a rolled-up textbook) were usually enough to elicit a smile, but now all they did was light an uncomfortable flame in her heart, licking at its walls.

So this was the next thing to be sacrificed, then.

When Lloyd ran over to her and offered her the tomatoes, as he’d been doing since they were children, she took them from him, telling him that he didn’t need to take her bell peppers anymore. Ignoring his surprised blink and the slow furrowing of his brows, she forced down the tomatoes he’d left behind on the plate, feeling each piece as they dragged painfully against her throat. Her free hand held onto his tightly, refusing to let go, clinging to his gentle warmth.

She could still remember the moment she’d first tasted bell peppers as a small child. Her grandmother had packed her lunch for a long afternoon spent entirely with the priests memorising the scriptures, having to endure their barbed tongues whenever she stumbled over a verse. She’d sat down on one of the pews, shoulders slumped in exhaustion, before sitting ramrod straight when she felt a glare settle on her. Shakingly taking one bite of her lunch, she’d promptly choked and spat out the accursed slice, unable to stand its texture against her tongue.

The priests had not been happy. To be picky over food was too petty a thing for the Chosen, they had said with those severe expressions drawn on their faces, reminding her of the leering monsters that crept in dark shadows in scary stories. Think of the people who had laboured over the fields to grow this produce, who had shed sweat under the vicious sun, while the threat of the Desians hung over their heads all the while. To refuse to eat the food that had come from those efforts would be like spitting on it, like forsaking the gratitude of the people she would save.

It was not fitting behaviour for the Chosen.

So this was a good thing, she decided on the days to come, as she accepted new meals from whoever was cooking that day, uncaring of what it contained as she forced down all that she could. There was no longer any need to be picky when everything tasted the same.

She could finally live up to those virtues that had been hammered into her skull since she was young, which had always been out of reach, no matter how much she chased after them with her hand outstretched.

Because without that, she had nothing at all.

~~~

“Couldn’t sleep?” Zelos’ casual voice broke the silence of the night as he slid smoothly onto the stool next to hers at the otherwise empty dinner table.

She swallowed, realising she hadn’t heard him coming at all, as lost in thought as she had been. Over the flickering flame of the candle that had been burning all throughout the night, valiantly keeping the shadows to the corners of the mansion, his piercing gaze rested on her, causing her fingers to tighten on the handle of her cup. A cup of coffee that she knew was hot, but was barely warm in her hands.

“You're really not going to tell anyone?” he asked, leaning forward, their respective Cruxis crystals reflecting the waning light, the tone of his voice telling her exactly what he was talking about. The tension leaked from her shoulders, and she sighed. Figures he would be the one to catch her in the act.

It might have been easy to pass him off as nothing more than a lazy, arrogant young man, but behind that facade was a highly observant person who had also worn the mantle of Chosen, who had witnessed the ugliness that hid behind the shiny veneer of the title.

“You didn't either,” she whispered. It was not an accusation, nor a judgement. Simply an observation.

Sheena had told her about the orange wings that had shone on his back in the darkness of the Tower. And that would mean he’d endured the very same process she had - slowly losing everything, and yet keeping it all under wraps, a secret cradled close to the chest. He'd done it alone, spent the sleepless nights awake without letting anything slip.

“You're right, I didn't.” The smile that sliced across his face was bitter and tired, a far cry from his usual smirk. “But you could say there were… extenuating circumstances.”

She sucked in a breath, feeling the cold of steel against her bare neck, and shoved those memories far away.

“I will tell him.” She hated how weak her voice sounded to her own ears, even though she wasn’t painting yet another lie. She wanted to tell Lloyd, with her own words, without needing to have the truth dragged out of her like a chain, link by painful link. She wanted to place her trust in him, like he’d told her to, for she knew he would never betray it. “Just….”

It was so difficult to push the words onto her tongue, to ignore the tiny voice that still whispered in the back of her mind that her suffering was hers alone to endure.

“I know.”

She stared at the steam rising from her cup, and they both lapsed into silence. A moment of commiseration between two liars who had never learned how to stop lying, who found it nearly impossible to bare their souls, fearing a retribution that would never come.

Two smiling fools, through and through.

“You don’t have to stay up with me, you know.”

“I really can’t sleep.” Zelos waved off her protest, and she smiled gratefully at him, even knowing the reason he couldn’t shut his eyes was because of the vivid images that would flash behind his eyelids when he did, haunting him even now, months after the worlds had been reunited. She had experienced the same, after all.

It was the simple matter that her heart now felt just a little lighter, the weight of her secret shared between two souls.

~~~

Stumbling out of the Balacruft Mausoleum, she heaved a sigh of relief, having once more successfully driven off the assassin that kept popping up along their Journey. She wished to know what fueled the determined spark in the assassin’s amber eyes, so that they might come to an understanding and lay down their weapons. She had no desire to shed any unnecessary blood.

“Colette!”

She turned as Lloyd’s voice reached her ears, eyes widening when she nearly lost her balance and fell. It was then that she realised he was holding her hand in his.

When… had he taken her hand? She hadn’t even noticed. Had he been holding it the entire time? How… hadn’t she…

“Your hand!” Lloyd exclaimed, worry written across his face, and she stared at the blood oozing from the cut in her palm. A wound she hadn’t even felt, would never have even realised she’d sustained if he hadn’t pointed it out.

Red leaked and leaked over her skin, and she found herself suppressing trembles as she was unable to tear her gaze away, even as he fussed over her. The dying embers of her soul scattered to the wind, pouring out of her from a crack that could not be sealed as she remained frozen in her own tiny world, an incessant buzzing in her ears. She had long since stopped resembling anything close to human - she was no longer even the girl who had walked out of Iselia, knowing she would never return.

Even as Lloyd refused to let go of her hand, she found that she could no longer feel his touch. Not the roughness of the calluses she had memorised long ago, not his fingers running soothingly over her knuckles, not his warmth which had never failed to make her feel safe. It had been locked away from her forever, and she could only struggle to remember the ghostly remnants of it, nothing but cold emptiness against her skin.

This was fine, she whispered to herself that night. It meant she could no longer feel pain from all the tiny scrapes and bruises she accrued from her various trips and falls. She would no longer have to bite her lip to stop herself from crying out in pain, rapidly wiping away tears with her arm so no one would see. It was…

Curling into a tiny ball, she screwed her eyes shut, all the lies she had told nipping relentlessly at her heels.

~~~

It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried telling him. There were so many instances when she had tried, when she had opened her mouth only to stumble at the finish line. When she’d taken a bite of the lunch they’d prepared together while camping in the forest and found it bland against her tongue. When he’d rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stretched his back while she sat calmly, having counted the stars all night. When she’d tripped and he’d caught her, the two of them nearly toppling over, his arms securely wrapped around her waist, his warmth failing to reach her.

She had tried, and tried, and tried, in a way she never had before. To clumsily get the words out, to explain that the Angel with eyes the colour of blood had never left, looming behind her at all moments with a cold hand on her shoulder, grip so tight it hurt.

But he always seemed so happy.

So light, the weight that he’d carried with him for the final leg of their journey having been lifted, scattering into tiny motes of stardust. His smiles were bright as he explored this newly reunited world, awe and wonder clear on his face as he helped as many people as he could, all while collecting Exspheres at a steady pace, moving ever onward towards his goal.

(There were, of course, still nights when he awoke gasping, eyes wide and seeing something else entirely, his hands twitching for his swords. She would hold his hand on those nights and hum softly under her breath, running her fingers through his hair until he relaxed.)

And, every time, she would close her mouth, swallowing the words.

She didn’t want to weigh him down. To hold him back in any way. To shatter that joy with something as trivial as what she was facing. After all, it was nowhere near as bad as it was before!

On most days, she could enjoy the warmth of his embrace. On most days, she could fall into the thoughtless escape of sleep, letting all of her anxieties dissipate. On most days, she could taste the sweetness of fruits, coming to rest on her tongue. On most days -

Whenever her thoughts raced in this direction, she would forcefully bring it to a stop, letting her excuses run right into a brick wall. She could at least admit to herself that it wasn’t alright, not at all. That she was once more drowning as she painstakingly maintained the perfect facade, waiting and waiting for the day the forming cracks got too wide. Terror that she was doomed to slip back into that prison roiled within her - a wild, vicious beast, clawing away endlessly at her insides. Old guilt over her perceived failure as Chosen still refused to die, hissing in a discordant chorus that this was already a merciful punishment - she deserved so much worse.

Holding close the memory of a little girl who had so easily opened her heart, she would sit silent, reminding herself not to lie to her own self anymore. At the very least, she could do that much.

~~~

Lloyd had dug and dug, refusing to give up, until he had finally dragged the truth from her. The ugly, bleeding truth, once more leaving her hollow, her heart having been scooped out of her chest long ago. But somehow, he hadn’t glared at her in disgust, even knowing now what she’d become, knowing that something had broken permanently inside of her. He had only pulled her closer, and she had -

Her throat had burned, and she’d wanted so badly to cry, for reasons she couldn’t understand. But she could admit that it was nice, for someone else to know. For there to be someone helping to cover for her, so that she didn’t need to pretend so much to be sleeping, or eating. For a few moments, she could release the mask and let it drop to the dirt, and simply be. Now there was someone who really knew, who could pull her back when her mind drifted away into that endless void. She was so exhausted, whole minutes slipping between her fingers sometimes when she couldn’t recall what she’d just been doing.

The fourth seal stole her voice, and swaying unsteadily outside the Tower of Mana, she barely restrained herself from scratching at the pale skin of her neck, hoping that it would somehow free what had been taken from her. With her voice permanently dead in her throat, there was no longer any hiding her condition from the rest of her companions. The veil had been ripped to shreds, leaving her vulnerable.

There was no rejection to be found there either. Only compassion and even anger, all for her sake, so passionate and warm as it washed over her, patching the cracks in her soul. It was a kindness she didn’t deserve nor understand, but she craved it nonetheless, cherishing it as she counted down the days till which she would have to climb the endless stairway to Heaven.

Still, she concealed the final piece of the puzzle, knowing she had to keep it hidden at all costs. That was a truth that no one else could know - it was a truth that she could no longer even reveal, no longer having the words to do so, even if the temptation was there.

Slipping from her inn room in Hima after speaking a farewell for each of her friends in her thoughts, she gave the stars that had kept her company for the past months a final glance, before taking the first step towards the Tower that loomed in the distance.

~~~

She giggled when the little puppy licked her hand, its rough tongue leaving a trail of sticky saliva behind. Not at all minding the mess, she petted its head with her clean hand, ruffling its brown fur as its tail rapidly wagged. Next to her on the bench, Lloyd grinned and leaned back against steady wood, content to watch her as the gentle breeze caressed their skin.

“Bye, puppy!” She waved farewell to the dog as it padded away. It was so cute! The ways its ears flopped, its soft fur… There hadn’t been time to come up with a name for it yet, but if she and Lloyd came across the same dog tomorrow, she would certainly do so!

Turning her head to once more squeal over the puppy to Lloyd, she met his warm gaze, and… And all of a sudden, she found that she didn’t want to lie anymore. She didn’t want it hanging over her head constantly, creeping into her thoughts during peaceful moments like this one, casting a cloud over her cheerfulness as she suddenly found it impossible to breathe.

“Lloyd? I… I have something I need to tell you,” she whispered, taking his hand, watching his expression go from curious to worried, likely finding this situation very familiar. Even as she sat silent, slowly mulling over the words she was attempting to string together, he didn’t say a word, occasionally squeezing her hand to remind her that he was right there beside her, ready to listen.

The unrelenting fear from before was still there, rearing its ugly head and beginning its final vicious struggle. Fear that something terrible would happen, that this was still her fault, really, that she should just shut her mouth and endure like she’d always had. But it was easier to pin the emotion down, to take a deep breath and step past it, for she could vividly picture Lloyd’s reaction - he would call her an idiot for keeping any of this from him, and then he would do his very best to help her. Because he loved her, even if it had taken a while for that to sink in and become fact in her mind.

Perhaps he would be angry that she’d kept this from him for so long, lied and concealed as if her life had depended on it when she’d promised she wouldn’t do it again. But she could deal with what came after. Once she was finally free, once she had eased the burden she’d carried, once she knew, with full certainty, that she would never need to let go of that which was precious to her.

She wanted to be the one to speak the truth this time, instead of having to hiss it through gritted teeth. To finally break the cycle.

So she pushed past the lump in her throat, letting the first word fall from her lips. Clumsy, messy, unrefined. But it was a start.

The rest would follow.

~~~

With her heart locked in chains, all she could do was curl into a tiny ball, no longer bothering to suppress the tremors that wracked her entire body.

She had all the time in the world to think, watching through red eyes as her body moved without her input. The world seemed so far away, muted and quiet, and so she pulled further away in the opposite direction, inch by inch, something shuttering in her heart. All that swirled in her mind were not the memories she had wished to cherish before she had set out for what she had known to be her final journey, but rather the events of the last few months.

Everything that she had lost, her entire self gradually, excruciatingly being carved out of her, for this. She had thought what awaited her was death, but surely this was worse. Unable to die, all of her thoughts stuck in a never-ending loop in her head as she slowly faded away, endlessly facing her failures, reflected in the floor of the Tower of Salvation, and carrying the legacy of a dozen other girls, staring at her with dead eyes and wings that had lost their light long ago.

What appeared in her mind was the young girl who had been so open with her feelings, who had freely sought the company and comfort of others, who hadn’t hesitated to speak the truth. That girl was long dead - she had personally sunk the knife into her heart and scattered the tiny pieces into the night, murdering her old self in pursuit of the perfect Chosen who she could never find.

Yet she was all she could think of now.

She’d been such a fool. Who had she really been lying to all this time?

~~~

She couldn’t breathe, the air freezing in her lungs as blood congealed in her throat. Her wings, usually weightless, now felt like they were pulling her to the monochrome earth. An Angel, chained to the ground, unable to fly -

Someone shook her awake, her breaths coming rapidly, one after another, tumbling into each other until they all got tangled together. She couldn’t see much through her blurry vision, just a smudge of vibrant colours that was a stark contrast to the images that had flown through her mind just moments before. A hand gently brushed the tears from her cheeks as a voice calmly talked, all while she simply breathed, returning to a steady rhythm instead of the stuttering mess it’d been before.

“It was just a dream,” Lloyd whispered into her hair as she opened her eyes once more, his arms lowering to wrap around her - an impregnable wall that would always protect her. “You’re alright now.”

Taking a few more deep breaths, she leaned into his touch, resting her cheek against his shoulder. Warm, though it was a little muted.

“How is it today?” he asked, because he always did nowadays whenever she awoke violently from a nightmare. It was a routine they’d both become used to. Her sense of touch was the most volatile, and it tended to fluctuate with her mood. It was useful for him to know if it had gotten particularly bad, so he could keep a watchful eye for the things she tended to miss whenever it dipped below a certain threshold - the small scrapes she sometimes accrued from innocuous activities, or the larger injuries that she might not realise she’d sustained from when they stumbled into an unavoidable battle.

The tender manner with which he tended to her wounds - carefully bandaging a deep cut, or applying ointment to a small scrape - always made her heart clench in her chest as gratitude welled in her heart. He never begrudged her for wasting time, never complained, even when she was the one to bring up how it was an inconvenience. Only bumped her shoulder with his, telling her with great conviction that he really didn’t mind.

On the worst days, when all her senses went haywire and everything was too loud, each little sound blaring in her ears like a siren, he would sit with her and keep her company, gently refusing her insistence that she was fine to move on. And on the best days, he would initiate contact as much as possible - the curling of warm fingers against her own, the brush of soft lips against her forehead, the safety of an arm around her bare shoulders - giving her more to remember on days when she felt endlessly cold.

“A seven?” she replied, pressing her hand against his to gauge if the number was accurate. “I don’t think it’ll get any worse.”

Nodding, he opened his mouth to say something more - only to let out a massive yawn that made her giggle. “We… can rest for a little while longer.”

Still giggling, she snuggled closer to him, amused to find that he had fallen asleep mere moments after those words had left his mouth. Letting her eyelids flutter shut, she pressed her ear to his chest. Wrapped in a gentle embrace, she drifted off to the steady sound of his heartbeat.

In this moment, she was loved.

[richwall101]

Construction of The Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol

The Clifton Suspension Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Avon Gorge and the River Avon, linking Clifton in Bristol to Leigh Woods in North Somerset. Since opening in 1864, it has been a toll bridge, the income from which provides funds for its maintenance. The bridge is built to a design by William Henry Barlow and John Hawkshaw, based on an earlier design by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It is a Grade I listed building and forms part of the B3129 road.

The idea of building a bridge across the Avon Gorge originated in 1753. Original plans were for a stone bridge and later iterations were for a wrought iron structure. In 1831, an attempt to build Brunel's design was halted by the Bristol riots, and the revised version of his designs was built after his death and completed in 1864. Although similar in size and design, the bridge towers are not identical, the Clifton tower having side cut-outs, the Leigh tower more pointed arches atop a 110-foot (34 m) red sandstone-clad abutment. Roller-mounted "saddles" at the top of each tower allow movement of the three independent wrought iron eyebar chains on each side when loads pass over the bridge. The bridge deck is suspended by 162 vertical wrought-iron rods in 81 matching pairs.

[sims-for-semi]

Bustin Roomies

This is when I realized that I could not maintain the neighborhood with three families that are intertwined with each other (laughs in Veronaville). So here is my youngest domestic unit: Liv Hayseed and Allen Brunel. They are based on characters I did in The Sims Bustin' Out.

Liv is an outstanding bartender. Allen basically does whatever he wants, but he works in the same business that Liv (she got him the job). Allen also hooked up with another neighbor in her building and the cleaning guy. They both like to party and have a few drinks.

And here we have their GBA counterparts

[stephensmithuk]

The Hound of the Baskervilles: Baskerville Hall

CW injury discussion, discussion of violent crime including torture, whaling and capital punishment:

There were three classes of travel on British railways at this point, althought second-class travel was on its way out:

Paddington station, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and today and a Grade I listed building, still has a big platform where it is possible to see someone directly onto a train without going through a ticket barrier. This is Platform 1 with access to the taxi rank and Elizabeth line station. It is also home to the GWR warm memorial and Paddington Bear statue, with a shop dedicated to the ursine Peruvian immigrant in the retail area at the south-eastern side.

The Museum of the College of Surgeons is now called the Hunterian Museum and is located near Holborn tube station. Admission is free, but they recommend advanced booking. It is closed on Sundays and Mondays.

It would be rather harder on a modern train to conduct a conversation as the vehicle was pulling out due to the elimination of most rolling stock with "droplights" i.e. manually lowerable windows, usually so you could open the door. The High Speed Trains which had at their end doors, them were withdrawn in 2019, the surviving "Castle Class" examples had their doors replaced with sliding ones and the Mark 3 carriages used on the Night Rivieria sleeper service now have them set to automatic locking during train movement. This was due to an enthusiast who stuck his head out of a window on a train with similar provision, resulting in a fatal encounter with a signal gantry.

The route taken is today electrified as far as Bristol (to Cardiff in fact) and is operated by the Class 802 Intercity Express train, although these mostly divert off that route at Reading. These are bi-mode units, capable of running both off 25kV overhead wire and on their underfloor diesel engines, both at 125mph like their High Speed Train predecessors, although much of SW England does not allow them to go near that speed. The main difference between the similar Class 800 is that they have larger diesel tanks for extended operations away from the wires; Devon does not have electrified railways.

The IETs come in five-car (802/0) and nine-car (802/1) on GWR. Not sure of these are 800s or 802s, but you can see why they are dubbed "Cucumbers" by enthusiasts when they are not complaining about the seats, which are a bit hard.

Spaniels were originally bred to be "gun dogs" to flush out animals and retrieve the corpses for the hunter. There are a wide variety of breeds, including the smaller ones like the King Charles Spaniel, which mainly serve as companion or lap dogs.

Dartmoor is home to the Dartmoor Intrusion, a large section of granite bedrock formed around 300 million years ago. London is on a clay bedrock, which is much younger:

Granite quarrying was widely done on Dartmoor, including by prisoners doing hard labour sentences. Today, it is no longer done as the area is now a national park, but you can get reclaimed granite from the area.

Nearly every station bar the smallest one would have a resident stationmaster and porters; these days, staffing is a lot less common in many areas and the station building may see other uses.

A wagonette is a four-wheeled carriage with longitudinal seats i.e the passengers sit on the sides facing each other. They are common on the Channel Island of Sark, where cars are banned.

Cobs are large ponies used mainly for driving carts or recreational riding:

The UK does not have an equivalent of the Posse Comitatus Act that the United States does to restrict the use of the military for law enforcement. While the use of them to deal with riots largely ended with the creation of civilian police forces, they can be still called on for "Military Aid to the Civil Authorities".

Not counting their use in Northern Ireland as part of Operation Banner from 1969 to 2007. This typically involves things like:

Civil engineering after disasters, like repairing flood defences;

Search and rescue;

Bomb disposal, such as when someone finds a German bomb during construction work;

Counter-terrorism, which mainly consists of standing around possible targets with their rifles or in 2012, sticking short-range SAMs on tower block roofs to protect the Olympics and Paralympics from aerial attack. The SAS would famously be used to end a siege at the Iranian Embassy in 1980, but this sort of thing would now be done by armed police officers today.

Selden's commutation of his death sentence due to questions over his sanity wouldn't have been uncommon, 534 of the 988 death sentences handed down were commuted between 1868 and 1899. 1889 saw 15 executions, all for murder:

****

HMP Dartmoor, on land leased from the Duchy from Cornwall, is located in a pretty remote location. It is six miles over open countryside before you reach the next town at Tavistock (which had two railway stations, both closed in the 1960s) and around ten before you'd reach Plymouth, with a further 4 1/2 before you could get to the coast. Also, you'd be doing this in a distinctive uniform with black arrows on, not exactly suited for the conditions.

This is not to say that people didn't try to escape and indeed succeed - 24 American POWs would do so during the prison's first incarnation.

It would be easier to do so when outside the prison on a work party rather than it, like Frank Mitchell, a gangster who in 1966 asked a guard if he could feed some ponies. He in fact walked to a nearby road, got into a waiting car driven by associates of the Kray twins and was driven to London. The escape (which involved soldiers in the manhunt) was a major political embarrassment, especially when Mitchell managed to get letters published in two newspapers asking for a parole date:

However, Mitchell becaming an increasing liability for the Krays; he then disappeared, generally believed to have killed and dumped at sea. They and an associate called Freddie Foreman, known as "Brown Bread [dead] Fred" for his ability to dispose of bodies, were tried for this murder and others at the Old Bailey; they were acquitted of this particular charge. Foreman admitted to the crime in 1996 and again in 2000; the CPS decided "double jeopardy" meant they could not bring new charges.

Because of its remoteness, Dartmoor ended up becoming a place for the worst of the worst in the British prison system. Mitchell, known as the "Mad Axeman". had a string of violent offences to his name, including an escape from Broadmoor that had seen him hold a married couple hostage with an an axe. He would not be the only London gangster of the period to spend time there:

It also held more "political prisoners", like Éamon de Valera. During the First World War, with other prisoners moved elsewhere, it became a Home Office Work Centre for conscientious objectors who agreed to do non-combatant work; the locks were removed, they could wear their own clothes and could even move around freely locally, although they were not very popular there.

The place was bleak too; no flushing toilets (so you had to spend each morning "slopping out", being cold and damp. Tampered-with porridge led to a riot in 1932:

A further riot in 1990 was part of a string of copycat riots in prisons following one at Strangeways in Manchester; D Wing was wrecked by fire and a prisoner was found dead in a burnt-out cell; this may have been an accident or murder.

In the aftermath, an inquiry was held by Lord Justic Woolf. A summary of the findings of the 600-page report can be found here:

Notably he recommended major improvements to Dartmoor if it was to continue operating.

In 2001, Dartmoor became a Category C prison for non-violent offenders, although concerns remained about its condition. Discussions about closure began in the 2010s with consideration being given to ending the lease and closing it down in 2023.

This did not happen, but other events are now looking like closing it anyway. Concerns over radon gas levels have now seen all the prisoners relocated as of time of writing; it may not reopen.

****

Electric lighting was of course becoming more common. Candlepower was a measurement for the intensity of a light, 1 candlepower being defined as the light from a spermaceti candle. Spermaceti is a wax found in the heads of sperm whales; it was mistakenly thought that spermaceti was whale semen because it looked like that when fresh. This was a major reason they were hunted, like in Moby Dick - today they remain at "Vulnerable" status.

The SI (metric, basically) unit is called the candela - one candlepower is 0.981 candela. The lumen is another measure, used for lightbulbs.

A billiard-room is where one plays billiards. It was also acceptable to smoke there. Women played billiards too; Queen Victoria was a fan, but I am not sure of the etiquette on mixed games. Especially if evening dress was involved, it would be seen as saucy by today's standards and positively scandalous in 1889!

[stargirlsuicide]

been thinking a lot abt this one specific frame of a clockwork orange

when alex is getting admitted into the rehabilitation facility, behind him and the guards theres this brutalist building (the lecture block of brunel university btw)

brutalism as an architecture style formed in the 50s, the post-war society infrastructure prioritized functionality and the social porpuse wich is why they were so large and made with concrete wich is a fairly cheap construction material. this is also why brutalism fell out of style, concrete buildings are very prone to decaying and are also hard to fix.

this is relevant because of what the rehabilitation facility promises. brutalist buildings look very authoritarian and imposing despite the intention of the architectural movement. the ludovico technique is, on paper, good for society cause its meant to bring down crime rates. but in reality its a cruel and very authoritarian method that strips the individual of their own freedom of choice even if its a criminal they are still ultimately depriving them of their humanity.

[relcollins]

"The Night of the Declaration" part 3

(3) Kensington Manor was not just grand, it was palatial, appearing on the horizon a good mile before the carriage reached the impressive stone gateposts.

“I’ve seen some remarkable homes in my time,” Artie ventured, “but this is indeed stately!” He poked his head out the window and admired the view.

“It has all the mod-cons you can imagine, and maybe some you can’t.” Leroy responded, not trying to hide the pride in his voice. “Mr Fortescue is a true Victorian innovator, and has engineered many things here to run on steam power. He studied the famous British engineer Kingdom Brunel’s work and created some useful devices for the property and the town generally. I’m confident you’ll find it very amenable here, gentlemen.” Jim and Artie smiled hopefully at one another.

The carriage pulled in through the massive wrought iron gates and travelled along a neat, paved drive, coming to a halt under a generous porte cochere, where they all alighted, watching as the carriage disappeared along the rest of the drive and away around the building. Jim and Artie cast observant eyes over it, noticing the teal paintwork and polished brass fittings shining in the sunlight.

“That was sure a cushy fit-out,” Artie said quietly to Jim. “We might have to have a chat to the upholsterers about the train!”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Jim grinned. “I can’t see the Prez springing for new sofas just yet.”

“Pity,” Artie said, nodding ruefully. “Anyway, let’s see what all this is about.” They followed Leroy Wyatt in through a grand entrance and looked about them appreciatively. They had, in their travels all about the United States, seen some ostentatious, indeed spectacular, displays of wealth in people’s residences and embassies, but found themselves instead entering a space that lacked the dazzling glitz and glamour of those flashy places, favouring in contrast unpretentious good taste and refinement, from the wall colours to the window treatments, the light sconces to the floor coverings. It was all very understated, but neither of them missed the quality in everything around them. There was an atmosphere of reverential quiet, yet both felt that activity was going on just out of sight.

“Feels quite restful in here, wouldn’t you say, Artie?” Jim asked, turning about to get the measure of the place. “I could easily spend time here.”

“I’m not normally one for atmosphere, Jim, I’m sure you know, but yes…it does feel like a nice place, a bit like coming home.” He nodded as his eyes took in the paintings and furniture in the spacious entrance hall. Doorways led off in all directions. A figure appeared at the one farthest from the entrance doors, and both Jim and Artie stopped their admiring to address the older gentleman approaching them with his hand outstretched.

“Welcome gentlemen, to Kensington Manor. I’m so pleased to have you here. I’m Fortescue Weston. How do you do.” His handshake, when he gripped Jim’s hand, was firm, which matched the upright appearance of its owner, and Jim noted with surprise that Mr Fortescue Weston appeared much younger than he’d imagined. Artie, too, showed surprise on his face as he shook hands in greeting.

“Ah, I see, young man, “Mr Fortescue said, turning to speak to Jim, “you seem taken aback by my appearance. Perhaps you thought I was as grizzled as our mutual friend President Grant…?” Before either of the two agents could answer, Mr Weston turned to Leroy Wyatt.

“Leroy, could you please ask Cook to have the afternoon tea sent to my office? I’ll take our guests there and fill them in. Thank you.” Leroy nodded and left the hall. Mr Weston in his turn indicated a different doorway and led the way along a wide and tastefully decorated corridor to a large and sunny office, and pointed to easy chairs near the window, away from the substantial desk along one wall.

[whencyclopedia]

SS Great Britain

The SS Great Britain was a steam-powered ship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) which sailed on its maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York in May 1845. It was the largest passenger ship in the world at the time and showed that giant metal steamships were faster and more energy-efficient than smaller wooden vessels.

Brunel & Steamships

One of the problems of the early ships powered by steam engines was that they required a prodigious amount of coal and freshwater to run. With massive holds full of fuel, there was not a lot of space left for passengers, and so most of these early steamships were limited to rivers or close shore work. The British engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel had the idea that massively increasing the scale of ships would solve the problem of space and a transatlantic passenger and freight service could be profitably run. The steamships would reach their destination port faster than sailing hips not because of their speed per hour necessarily but because they did not need to tack against a headwind and could take the straightest possible route.

Brunel was already a successful rail magnate, but in 1835, he formed the Great Western Steamship Company. Brunel's first giant steamship, the SS Great Western (SS denotes it as a steamship), was completed in 1838, but this vessel was made of wood. Great Western came second to SS Sirius, built by the Transatlantic Steamship Company, in the April 1838 'race' to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic. Sirius technically won the race (if it had ever been such) by just one day, but it had started four days earlier than Great Western and had been obliged to start burning cargo when it ran out of fuel. Great Western, in contrast, had overcome the delay of a fire in the engine room on its first day out at sea, had not needed to stop for fuel in Cork, and had arrived in the United States after 17 days with over 200 tons of coal to spare.

Great Western could carry 128 passengers in luxurious style, plus a crew of 60. The return journey from New York to Bristol took just 14 days, double the speed that most sailing ships could manage (Sirius took 18 days for the same voyage back). It was obvious that Brunel had unlocked the key to faster ships. SS Great Western made 67 more crossings of the Atlantic and managed a top speed of 11 knots, although this was still just a little over half the speed of the fastest sailing ships, the tea clippers, in optimal conditions. Now Brunel had proven that steam could work, he was determined to build an even more modern transatlantic steamship, this time with an iron hull. The profits from Great Western would be ploughed right back into the production of an entirely new type of ship, bigger, faster, and more efficient than ever seen before.

Continue reading...

[christiangittingsblog]

James Henry Greathead

James Henry Greathead a mechanical and civil engineer who lived between 1844 and 1896, was born in Grahamstown, South Africa; to parents of English descent, his grandfather had emigrated to South Africa in 1820

James Henry Greathead is known for his work on the London Underground railways, Winchester Cathedral, and Liverpool overhead railway, he was also one of the earliest proponents of the English Channel, Irish Sea and Bristol Channel tunnels, his invention of the Greathead Shield is why the London Underground is colloquially named the "Tube." as the Greathead Shield could build round tunnels hence tube.

James Henry Greathead''s shield design was built on the work of  Marc Isambard Brunel below is a paragraph from James Henry Greathead's Wikipedia page explaining the difference  between James Henry Greathead's tunnelling shield and Marc Isambard Brunel's tunnelling shield

"Brunel's shield was rectangular and comprised 12 separate, independently moveable frames; the Greathead solution was cylindrical, and the "reduction of the multiplicity of parts in the Brunel shield to a single rigid unit was of immense advantage and an advance perhaps equal to the shield concept of tunnelling itself", though the face was still dug out by manual labour to begin with. Greathead's patented Shield for Tunnelling Soft Earth used water jets under pressure at the tunnel face to assist in cutting through soft earth as described in the patent. Pneumatic tunnel pressurisation was used to ensure better safety for workers by equalising internal tunnel pressure to its estimated exterior underground pressure beneath the water."

interesting fact you can still see a Greathead shield embedded into the tunnel wall at the bank underground station, the Greathead shield in question was used during the tunnelling of the original Waterloo & City Line in 1898, you can see a picture of the Greathead shield at bank underground station on the article linked below

James Henry Greathead Statue:-

below is a picture of the statue of James Henry Greathead from the James Henry Greathead's Wikipedia page, here are some interesting facts about the statue, the statue is next to the bank underground station in London and on the statue between the base and the statue itself are some metal grilles these grilles are connected to the bank underground station's ventilation system.

References:-