A web log, an æthereal scrap-book if you will, with a somewhat vintage flavour. News items, occurrences, experiences, thoughts and opinions related to Victoriana through to Fifties Americana can all be found here.
"What's that - you'd like to leave a comment? Let me just get a pen and some paper..."
Hello all. This is by way of a bit of "housekeeping" between posts (I suppose this is a post in itself, though, but you know what I mean I hope! Not my usual fare, shall we say). It's just that I've been informed that some of you may have been experiencing difficulties posting comments recently, with some sort of message along the lines of "An error occurred while trying to publish your comment" stopping one from leaving a friendly remark or somesuch. If this has been affecting you I am heartily sorry, as I do value all positive and chummy comments that you may wish to send my way on the subject of my (hopefully our) interests and witterings thereon. Should it be the case, and if you'd care to, perhaps you might drop me a wire at the address on the postcard (right column) and I will see if I can do anything to help. To be truthful I'm afraid my technical know-how is slim to non-existent though, so I can't guarantee I'll be of any use I'm afraid! Having had a poke about amongst the cogs and gears below stairs - and although I do have comment moderation switched on - I don't believe it's got anything to do with the Comments settings on Blogger (but who knows with Google these days), however with a bit of a hunt around the æther I can at least suggest the following:
Check your anti-virus software settings. Some anti-virus programs include anti-tracking as standard and this can apparently interfere with third-party cookies that are required by most websites (including Blogger) for comments etc. to be allowed. I myself experienced something along these lines (stopping me from commenting on my own blog, no less - the cheek of it!) the other day and it turned out to be my anti-virus software, Bitdefender, being rather overzealous on the blocking front. It might be worth checking your own provider to see what the settings are for the Anti-tracker, if you have it switched on (with Bitdefender you can choose which browsers it is active on, so I have it switched off for all of them).
Likewise you can check the third-party cookie settings on your browser of choice directly to confirm whether or not they are switched on and/or create a custom list of which websites are allowed to use them (in Chrome this is under Settings/Privacy and security/Third-party cookies).
It might also help to do the old trick of emptying your cache and/or deleting your browsing history and cookies but for how far back I could not say (again in Chrome this is in Settings/Privacy and security/Clear browsing data). You will likely lose all your logins across the interweb and have to sign in again, though.
It may be a nuisance but perhaps try a different browser and see if that helps (quite what to do after that I couldn't say though - perhaps check and compare the settings?).
Again a bit of a pain, however you could switch to Incognito mode in Chrome or open a Private window in Edge or Firefox (Ctrl+Shift+N in all cases, I believe) and see if that makes a difference.
As a last resort you may want to try uninstalling and reinstalling your browser - that might reset everything, although again you will probably have to sign in to any websites you were previously logged in to.
"This would be so much easier if we had a working comments section..."
Well apologies for that rather dull, instructional post but as I do enjoy and encourage any and all pleasant comments I would be sad to think that you, my readers, were being stopped from doing so for any reason. I hope my limited knowledge on the subject has been of some use should you have encountered this issue and I look forward to reading all your lovely comments again in the future!
Vintage subject matter with a modern twist in this post as everyone's favourite Belgian boy reporter Tintin, who recently turned 90 years old(!), is soon to get a new video game adventure to his name according to the above news article.
Details of what form the adventures will take are perforce sketchy as the news of tie-up between developer Microids and Tintin rights-holder Moulinsart has only just been announced but either way it sounds very promising. "A whirlwind of incredible situations and suspense hand in hand with the legendary Tintin and Snowy...", along with all the supporting cast of characters we know and love - Captain Haddock, Professor Calculus and Thomson & Thompson - sounds just the sort of thing to keep our bequiffed hero in the forefront of people's minds and hopefully introduce him to a whole new generation of fans.
Video games are something I've tended to drift away from as I've got older but for Tintin & Company I'm bound to make an exception! While researching for this post I discovered that this by no means the first computer game to feature Brussel's famous fictional son so I thought I'd take the opportunity of this news to go through the brief history of Tintin video games that have been produced thus far:
We begin way back in 1987, when Infogrames (a precursor to Atari) released Tintin on the Moon which was based on the two-part story-line Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon. A mixture of traditional first-person shoot-em up and side-scrolling adventure the aim is to land the Moon Rocket on the Moon whilst avoiding all sorts of dangers including rogue asteroids and villainous stowaways. It was available on all the major platforms of the day - Amiga, Amstrad, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum - and later, in 1989, was updated for use in MS-DOS. Fans of 8-bit graphics and sound effects will not be disappointed!
The next Tintin game did not appear until 1995 when the story Tintin in Tibet was adapted, again by Infogrames, as a platform adventure for a variety of different consoles including Sega's Mega Drive and Game Gear as well as Nintendo's Super NES and Game Boy. A year later in 1996 it became available for PC and then much later in 2001 was re-released for the Game Boy Colour. The plot mirrors that of the book, in which Tintin and Captain Haddock travel to Tibet to rescue Tintin's Chinese friend Chang who is missing presumed dead following a plane crash.
Only one year was to elapse before another Tintin game was released when in 1997 Prisoners of the Sun came out as a companion piece to Tintin in Tibet. It too was available for PCs as well as the SNES, Game Boy and later Game Boy Colour, but unlike the earlier game not for any Sega consoles.
Four years later in 2001 and Tintin was back again, this time for PC and Sony's new PlayStation console, in Destination Adventure. Despite being designed (again by Infogrames) for the new generation of Windows computers and Sony consoles, Destination Adventure is essentially an update of Tibet and Prisoners of the Sun with some improved 3D graphics and a few new levels.
We have to fast-forward ten years for what is currently the most recent Tintin video game - The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. Based on the 2011 film (as well as the original books) it is a reflection of how far computing has advanced in a decade with regards to the graphics and game-play, which takes the form of a traditional platform adventure with elements of 2D puzzle-solving. It was released (this time by Ubisoft) across a whole host of platforms, from Microsoft Windows & Xbox 360 through Nintendo Wii & 3DS to PlayStation 3 and even Android and iOS (okay, this terminology is getting beyond me now - anyway, lots of different computers!). It did not, however, garner very good reviews and has largely fallen into obscurity in the last five years.
Speaking of falling into obscurity, especially in reference to the 2011 game, is the film that inspired it. I can hardly believe that it has been nearly ten years since The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn came out. At the time we were promised that it would be the start of a trilogy of films (at least), with Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson sharing directing duties. Indeed the film ends on a cliff-hanger, with the clear intention of being carried on with the story-line of the following book Red Rackham's Treasure, yet here we are in 2020 and there's been not a dicky-bird! Come on chaps, get your fingers out and get on with giving us another cracking Tintin film before the poor fellow turns 100. At this rate Jamie Bell will be old enough to play Captain Haddock!
Hopefully the launch of this new video game will inject some fresh interest in Tintin & Co and maybe jump-start Messrs Jackson and Spielberg into getting on and bringing the next instalment of these timeless characters' adventures to the silver screen. In any event I look forward to seeing what form the new video game takes when more information becomes available. In the meantime I have been getting my Tintin fix from the 2011 film and the excellent early '90s French-Canadian cartoon series The Adventures of Tintin, which I remember fondly from my youth and (naturally) have as a DVD box set.
I think I've made it clear on this blog before, but I am one of the few people remaining in this world who does without (and perfectly well without, I might add!) a mobile telephone and who has absolutely no intention of getting one. (I warned you all some time ago, when I first mentioned the fact, that it might one day lead to a bit of a rant and today may well be that day!). I don't think it is possible for me to succinctly explain how much I hate them - they way they rob people of manners and considerateness, replace common sense and restraint with imprudence and immoderation, and encourage banality over self-reliance and initiative - and just how much I consider their "essentialness" to be one of the biggest myths ever perpetrated on the modern world.
Before this turns into too much of an essay I should explain the series of events that has led to this post. It all began the other week when I attempted to fill out an online form for something or other (I think it was a job application). For the first few fields all was going well until I got to the box marked "Telephone
(Mobile)". Now up 'til this point I had always been able to bypass the request for a mobile number and simply move on. Except this time a whole load of red warning signs and highlighted instructions appeared upon my pressing "Submit". For perhaps only the second time in my experience, a mobile telephone number was a "required field"(!).
Not being the owner of such a device I had to make up some
vaguely mobile-like number (lots of 0s and 7s are my favoured choice) before I could continue, but it confirmed to my mind an ever-more prevailing attitude that I (and others) are encountering. My suspicions were first aroused when I perceived that, when providing my
details at the request of some official lackey or other, the question "Do you have a mobile number?" had begun to subtly change. First it lost its genuinely querying inflexion and became almost rhetorical (with the level of surprise registered when I explained that I do not own such
an infernal appliance inversely proportionate to the perfunctoriness of the question). Now the transformation is all but complete as the question has tended to become "Whatis your mobile number?" as
if it is a foregone conclusion that I must possess - and make a note of this term, taken from The Chap magazine, for I have yet to find a better description - a
chirruping horn of damnation.
"He doesn't have a mobile number?!"
Then, as proof that I am not alone in this, Tupney encountered the selfsame problem last week in relation to her e-mail account. I commiserated with her in the comments section using a phrase I've coined to describe this increasingly common attitude, which seemed to strike a chord with some of the other commenters and so convinced me that maybe there was blog material in it. That phrase is - the presumption of technology.
I
suppose when there are 62½ million of the things in the country, with 85% of the population in thrall to them and the "average person" owning two of the confounded machines the odds are stacked heavily against the likes of Tups and me, leading to the aforementioned conclusion on the part of most people/forms. Still, it is dashed frustrating for those of us who get by perfectly well without
to encounter this presumptive attitude.
"People walking around with 'phones stuck to their heads..."
Yet there is still 15% of the population without a mobile telephone, so is it not jumping the gun a little to start making it a compulsory field or otherwise insisting on the provision of a number? The 'papers are full of stories about rural broadband (or lack thereof) & mobile provider coverage and the recent record low turnout for the England & Wales Police and Crime Commissioners election has been blamed in part on a lack of information - information that was almost exclusively available online but to which not everyone had access. We may be seeing the creeping advancement and acceptance of technology into our lives but it is by no means universal and perhaps there should be a greater realisation that folk who haven't bought into this "technology for the sake of it" malarkey (or aren't in the position to benefit from it) still exist.
How long before it becomes impossible for those of us sans mobile 'phone to get by on a day-to-day basis? Already we are seeing the advent of "pay by mobile" in certain high street shops and car parks. Will mandatory mobile numbers beget mandatory mobile 'phones, perhaps? In a related aspect, many adverts and competitions seen on television are increasingly becoming accessible only for those with a Farcebook account. Again, I do not have one. I almost feel marginalised!
I expect I'm preaching to the converted here and I'm sure many readers
who do have mobile telephones use them sensibly and recognise them for
the occasionally-useful tools they can be. Nor am I suggesting we all
go back to tin cans and string; I've mentioned in the past how I like to see (and use!) modern technology fused with vintage æsthetics but I'd also like to see it married to certain vintage values and a healthy, balanced lifestyle. Part of that should be the acceptance - the understanding - that mobile telephones are not the be-all and end-all of things and are (and should remain) optional.
Until then, my stock response of "I don't own a
mobile telephone" is becoming ever more long-suffering and the numberpad on my keyboard more frequently employed.
A couple of weeks ago Jessica over at Chronically Vintage did a post that featured the seemingly highly diverting online tool, the Deluxe Pin Up Maker, producing a pretty caricature of herself. Then on Friday just gone Porcelina, inspired by the same post, created her own pin-up persona using the same site.
Always quick to spot an emerging trend (!), it occurred to me that there should be something similar for us chaps (and that if there wasn't, there blasted well ought to be!). As it happens someone did indeed have the same idea for the gentlemen, in the form of the Dandy Maker. Not wishing to feel left out and with the thought of addressing the balance for the boys, I immediately took it upon myself to create a dandy in... something approaching my own image (within the constraints of the configurator, at any rate).
This is the result:
Hat - check.
Glasses - close enough.
Features - a damn sight more handsome than in real life.
Collar - should be turned down, of course. What am I, some sort of scruff?!
Bow tie - quite right.
Waistcoat - aye, although I fancied a contrasting rather than matching blue - he is still a dandy, after all!
Jacket & trousers - spot on.
Shoes - I wish! Co-respondents/spectators are on the list, of course...
Cane - hand looked a bit unnatural without anything in it, and I don't smoke. Do have a walking stick, though.
There we have it, then. It is possible to go overboard with the dandification of the model, something which I will probably spend a few idle minutes doing at some point again in the future, but it's all good fun for the odd quiet moment and quite variable considering the limits imposed. Thanks to Jessica and Miss P for highlighting this jolly little feature - and who else will create a dandy or a pin-up, I wonder?
Now this is more the kind of thing! A splendid article from the BBC that highlights the benefits (yes, there are such things!) of a typewriter over a personal computer. And they haven't even touched upon the finer aesthetic qualities of the typewriter compared to the black/beige box that is the PC. "Clunky" and "dirty" indeed! Why, just look at the picture above - how beautiful is that?
As you may have worked out by now, I am somewhat passionate about typewriters, just as I am about most early- to mid-20th Century machinery. I have one myself, an Imperial 66 that I'm ashamed to say is rather battered and has seen better days, as you can see (left). It still works though! If anyone knows the name of a good restorer, however...
I can quite understand why some people prefer typewriters over more modern devices (I would love to use my own more often) and the users featured in the article make quite pertinent yet funny points regarding the shortcomings of newer technology. However it is surprising (but understandable) to see that typewriters still retain some popularity among students. Nevertheless the writer of this piece has, at least in my case, hit the nail fairly firmly on the head in his description of aspiring typists and aficionados of the machine(!). The chap mentioned in the article, Richard Polt, is well-known and highly-regarded in typewriting circles and ironically the Internet has allowed groups and collectors to flourish all over the world. Adventures In Typewriterdom, Fresh Ribbon, Retro Tech Geneva and Strikethru are just a few examples of the blogs I have stumbled across in my travels.
It is a sad inevitability that typewriter sales are declining, probably to a point where they will soon cease to be made new, but so long as there are those out there with a passion for these machines their future is assured. Of course there is another avenue - one that has been explored by the Steampunk movement in particular - and that is the merging of typewriters with computers. This has been done to varying levels of ingenuity and success, from programs such as Virtual Typewriter, through the wonderfully detailed ElectriClerk (above), to the chap who has managed to convert old typers to work with iPads, Macbooks and the like (below).
Finally, one more little thought-of advantage typewriters have over computers is that they make a delightful noise. Which allows me to finish this post with a fantastic typewriter history lesson in sound. Close your eyes and get ready to be taken through... The History of the Typewriter:
An exciting proposal, reported here by the BBC, to create a full-size replica of what is rightly regarded as the world's first computer, as conceived by Charles Babbage in 1837.
It is incredible to think that the foundations for the computer age were laid down as long ago as the mid-19th Century, but Babbage's designs and creations were to all intents and purposes embryonic computers, albeit very large and steam-powered. This picture (above) illustrates only part of the Analytic Engine; as the article mentions a full-size version has never been built and could easily be the size of a small lorry!
Once again it begs the question of "what if?". Had Babbage succeeded in creating a complete working Analytical Engine, what would it have meant for the Industrial Revolution and the British Empire? Might there, as Dr Swade also wonders, have been an information age in the latter part of the 19th Century? Where would we be now if it had been so?
These kinds of questions are, in part, what led to the formation of the Steampunk movement which does indeed image an alternate universe in which Babbage's machines not only worked but became commonplace; in which steam remained the main motive power and allowed amazing adventures to take place with all the majesty and pomp of Victorian Britain through the 19th Century and beyond.
Even if a scale replica is successfully built and operated it will still be some years off yet and, sadly, unlikely to precipitate us into a Steampunk future (sorry chaps!). It does have the potential to be a major engineering undertaking, though, with the great possibility of rewarding knowledge and understanding of the processes and abilities of these early behemoths. Good luck to them, say I!
