Hooptedoodle #362 - The Liverpool-Holyhead Optical Telegraph

A bit more Merseyside local history, I'm afraid - pretty ancient history, too. During lock-down, I am presently working my way through some of the old BBC TV Coast series on DVD, and enjoying them thoroughly - apart from anything else, it's nice to get a change of scenery, and to see people travelling about in the fresh air and speaking to each other!

Yesterday I watched the episode from Series 2 in which they discuss the North Wales coastline from Anglesey to Liverpool. One of the items covered was the Optical Telegraph, begun in 1826, I think, which was built to communicate between Holyhead, in Anglesey, and Liverpool. My interest was kindled!

Long before any electric telegraph, it was very useful to be able to pass messages back and forth, with news of arriving shipping. In those pre-steam days, most of the sugar trade from the Caribbean and the cotton from the USA came into Liverpool, and voyage times were very variable. When incoming ships reached Anglesey, they only had about 70 miles to go, across Liverpool Bay to the port itself. Ships passing Holyhead could exchange (flag) signals with the signal station, and then the telegraph system (invented, I believe, by an employee of the Liverpool Dock Company named Watson) would send news to Liverpool, where the shipping companies could make arrangements for berthing and unloading, and the local traders could make announcements in the Cotton Exchange and in the local commodity markets, and of course, messages to the ship could be sent back.

The Telegraph stations

 The system used a relay of semaphore stations, sending coded messages which consisted of numeric signals, translated by means of a code book.

Each station would receive incoming signals from an adjacent station in the line, and resend as quickly as possible. I imagine the job of spotting a new signal quickly would be a demanding one, but the signal traffic was heavy, so there might be little chance to doze off! This sounds painfully slow, since someone would have to decode the numbers at each end, but it seems that 3 to 4 minutes from end to end was about average, which is impressive. During the BBC TV show, they made great play of the fact that there was a claim that the fastest ever recorded time for a message from Holyhead to Liverpool was 27 seconds. My reaction was to wonder how they could possibly have measured this, since there was no time signal or satellite clock to check it against. It took me a while to realise that it would be possible to time a there-and-back signal and response at one end of the line, but I have to say that still don't believe they could have done it so quickly!

Ruin of the station at Carreglwyd, abandoned in 1841 when the Puffin Island station opened

Puffin Island

Bidston Hill "Observatory" in the Wirral - telegraph station, and one signal flagpole for each shipping line!

If you want to know more, here's a link to a pleasing little history of the telegraph system - there seems to have been a gradual improvement in the technology - there are still traces of it around. I remember that when I was a small child I saw the signal pylon at Hilbre Island, just off West Kirby. Come to think of it, I never realised until yesterday what that site was!

One nice moment in the BBC programme was a reference to the fact that that one of the coded signals in the book, transmitted as a number, meant "do you have the code book?", which, of course, would convey nothing at all if you didn't.

WSS - Flag Day

I spent some time last week working on my backlog of flags - this requires a lot of scanning and lifting screenshots, some actual freehand artwork (large, to be reduced) and a whole lot of graphic editing using my much-loved old version of Paintshop Pro. I also have Photoshop, which is certainly more versatile, but Photoshop does a zillion things I don't need, and requires a PhD to use it properly. If I really need to use transparent png files, or to add shadow texturing, Photoshop is the fellow, but not this time.

Once again, I come up against a regular complaint of mine, which is the fact that you can't get proper photo-quality print paper in 80g/sm weight any more, so the finished flags are sort of OK - they'll do until I can get the good stuff again, at which point I may reprint them. This morning I attached 14 missing flags to recently-completed WSS units, which is a comfort. I also have flags prepared for the next 6 battalions I'll be painting, so I'm (briefly?) ahead of the game.

I have yet to design/draw/edit flags for 3 of my Bavarian cavalry units, but that shouldn't take long.

Here are the flags I've been working with this weekend. I've only included a small sized image here, as you will observe - oh yes, the French 1804-pattern flags at the bottom are just because I stuck them on the print file - they will not be appearing in the WSS. Also - in case it matters - please note that any direct connection between these flags and the stated units may be questionable. One does one's best.

A Touch of Class

One of the things which continues to delight me in the world of wargaming blogs is the kindness people have shown to me over the years. I've been on the receiving end of a number of gifts and favours which have often far surpassed anything I might have expected (or might have deserved).

This last week I received a parcel from one Aly Morrison, gentleman and sculptor/painter extraordinaire. Included in this package was a unit of painted French cuirassiers, as he had promised, in return for something I had sent him - as is often the case, the repayment was out of all scale to my original effort. I'm really very pleased with them, so now I have based them up I thought I would share some pictures.

12eme Cuirassiers

The figures are 1970s PMD (Les Higgins). I am impressed not only by the painting, but by the quality of the conversion work. The Higgins range was a bit eccentric in some ways - there never was a cuirassier officer, but there was a dragoon trumpeter which would work well with the cuirassiers. When Aly first mentioned that he had some figures he would paint up for me, I had a brief wonder about what I would do for command - usually I have used Art Miniaturen figures in recent years.

I underrated the man. Not only did he convert a couple of troopers to provide an officer and a standard bearer (a feat which I have been known to achieve by painting the epaulettes silver, and maybe going for a black sheepskin) - he carved off the carbines and all the support belting and cartridge pouches, he corrected the eagle bearer by removing one of his epaulettes and adding a sword handle to the top of his scabbard, and he removed the officer's portmanteau, recarving the dog-tooth sheepskin edging which is now exposed.

Detail close-up of the carving on the officer conversions

I am, as they used to say, knocked out. My cavalry reserve becomes bigger and better. Let's see Stryker chase this lot the length of the Danube, then.

Thanks, Aly - really pleased with them.

Hooptedoodle #361a - Home Physics Puzzle - SOLUTION

Thanks very much to everyone who sent in a comment - I've now published these against the original post - here - and am pleased with the responses.

Yes, this is all about things which float, starring Archimedes - a man who was famous in my schooldays as someone who made his life's greatest discovery when he broke wind in the bath.

The puzzle is set out in yesterday's post.

Solution:

When the stones are in the boat, they are floating - well, technically it is the boat that is floating, but the stones will push the boat down into the pool to displace an extra volume of water equal in weight to the weight of the stones themselves. This is where Archimedes comes in.

When the stones go over the side, they sink, and will now displace their own volume of water, which - since stones are more dense than water - is less than what they displaced when they were in the boat. Thus - yes, that's right - the water level on the side of the pool will go down. The only special case would be if the stones were able to float on their own (because they were pumice, or hollow, or fake stones made of wood, or because the water was polluted to an astonishing degree), in which case, of course, they would continue to displace their own weight of water, and the level would remain the same.

Once again, thanks very much for having a go. Some excellent answers, and some very good explanations of the less correct ones. Just to put an official seal on things, I was going to attempt this experiment today, but the bird bath is too small.

Hooptedoodle #361 - Home Physics Puzzle

This comes from a discussion I had with a friend on email - there is no trick to this, it is simply a bit of school physics, but I was surprised how much discussion it gave rise to. I thought I'd trot it out here - have a think about this...

A man who is working from home sets up an experiment with his children one afternoon, as part of their home-schooling. They like that kind of thing, apparently.

They place a boat in their (very small) swimming pool. The man climbs in, and takes on board a number of very large stones borrowed from the garden. When the ripples have stopped, his kids mark (very accurately) the water level on the side of the pool (not on the boat, on the pool side).

Once they have done this, the man very carefully drops all the stones over the side into the water. Again, when the ripples stop, the kids mark the water level on the pool side. We may assume that there is no loss of water through splashes, overflow, drainage, leakage or evaporation during the experiment, and that the kids can mark the level with unlimited precision.

OK then - when he dumps the stones overboard, does the water level in the pool

(1) rise

(2) fall

(3) stay the same

No prizes, obviously, just a bit of (supposed) fun. I won't publish any comments for a day or two, so as not to spoil the puzzle for anyone who cares - this will also allow me a couple of days before I have to reveal that there were no responses at all.

Splash!

WSS - More Imperial Foot

The painting is still coming along nicely. As promised two weeks ago, the next hefty batch is refurbished and finished - flags apart. Another four battalions of Austrians.

As this job continues, I'm starting to get to the rather more battered parts of the hoard (horde?), so the clean-up work becomes more substantial, and in this case I had to supply about 15% of new figures, painted from scratch. To avoid any culture shock, or obvious silliness in the line-up, I have started painting the new figures in a style which is unfamiliar to me, with black outlining, to match the originals. This is slow going, but I have enjoyed the challenge, the results are quite pleasing, and it is a good exercise for me to have to produce finished soldiers painted "in the style of" the previous owner. Certainly the new boys fit in well enough with the refurbed old ones for me to have to look carefully to tell them apart.

There you go, you see - forging antiques; my teachers said I would come to no good.

Two battalions each for the regiments of Thürheim (left) and Gschwind. Not a flag in sight, of course, but that should be sorted out in the next few weeks

Next batch of Imperialists will be another of the same size, 72 figures, and that will be Phase One finished, apart from general officers. Lots of flags to do now - the new arrivals have to wait in a lengthening queue for their flags, but I'm coming around to that. Something should happen there soon.

You can see the large command bases in the centre of each unit, with the mini-dice frame at the rear. The research team here at Chateau Foy came up with a design which would make a column 150mm long or a line 150mm wide. No reason, really, just OCD at work.

Immediate plans for what happens after Phase One are to add two battalions of grenadiers to the Bavarians, two more battalions of Austrians (blue - Baden-Baden - for a bit of variety) and a small batch of foot dragoons for the Austrians.

I'm trying to keep this painting frenzy organised, so I don't lose all enthusiasm for the task. I'm (roughly) working 6 days on, 3 days off, I limit each session to two hours max and take a lot of trouble over keeping things tidy and putting everything away at the end of a batch. I think the attic area may become rather hot for extended painting sessions as the Summer comes in, but the night shifts are good [no extra pay, though]. Radio 3 on permanently during painting hours - I've sat through more screeching sopranos than usual over the last few days, but generally very calming.

The two-hour shift rule works nicely - I also try to keep my hands off the soldiers during my days off, or else I just get distracted and fiddle about, which, overall, dampens the mojo.

Strange times, so if I can delude myself that I'm staying organised - however petty the context - I find it helps. I am not painting because I have nothing else to do, I'm painting because I choose to do so.

My thanks to Stryker for advice on painting in this style - much appreciated. Keep well, everyone - look after yourselves and each other.

Hooptedoodle #360 - Something Has Changed

I observe that a number of my recent blog posts will not display some of the images I inserted. I see this symbol instead of each blocked picture:

The picture is still in a library somewhere - hovering the cursor over the missing image shows a sub-caption with the name of a convincing-looking file name on a Blogger library - but I can't see the image itself, either as part of the published post or in a draft version if I switch to the editor. Oh yes - and I can't save it or open it as a separate link. For all practical purposes, the image has gone.

Hmmm.

I had a quick, rather nervous check back to 2011 or so, and I think my older posts are unchanged. This is something of a relief, since the status of my blog as one of The Wonders of the Modern Age would be severely compromised by having the pictures removed. Knocked on the head, in fact. The pictures which have been suppressed recently were (at a quick glance) some photos of book covers, which I nicked from Amazon's website, a couple of photos of items for sale taken from a 5-year-old auction catalogue, a photo of HG Wells playing wargames in his garden which I obtained from Google. My own original photos are unaffected, and I didn't look much further, so the evidence on which to base any heavy investigation is not extensive. However, not being easily discouraged, I have been pondering what's going on here.

I realise that the Amazon pictures are copyrighted, but my blog is not any kind of commercial venture, the photos could almost be described as promotional, since I was singing the praises of the books involved, and my readership is small (anyone over six feet in height, please excuse the generalisation). Quite apart from the fact that I don't suppose Amazon or anyone else would regard the inclusion of these photos as unreasonable use, or even be faintly interested in my activities, I am puzzled, if there has been a change, as to what that change is, and why.

Maybe this is an Apple thing? My desktop machine is a Mac, and my iPhone shows the same thing. However, my tablet, which is an Android device, shows this same NO ENTRY symbol, and they all do this on a variety of browsers, so this would appear to be down to Blogger / Google.

Hmmm.

Maybe there has been a tightening up on the use of unauthorised or copyrighted images? Since my own photos of my soldier collection and the games I play are all over Pinterest and TMP without any permission from me, and since I recently learned that I can order a mouse-mat, a mug or a poster from a company in the US which seems to offer a couple of my photos as stock designs, I can see some sense in this.

It could, of course, just be a glitch in Blogger - such things are not unknown. A number of the routine facilities which Blogger offers have stopped working for me over the last year - I think that this may not be unconnected with the fact that my principal sign-on uses an email account which is supported by a competitor of Google, but that's another story altogether.

Or it could be a change in Official Policy. They could be clamping down, in which case, as long as my entire blog is not wrecked, I have to shrug and say fair enough - probably not before time. If I've done bad things then it serves me right. [Drat]

To put this in context, I do not regard this as a free-for-all. I do try to behave responsibly in these matters - if I do anything that offends someone's rights, then it is normally accidental, I'll put my hand up and apologise, and remove the image straight away. It does happen, but not very often.

Some weeks ago, MSFoy received an email from a lady in the US, complaining that he had used a photo which was her property, without permission. I sent a humble apology and removed the photo promptly. I received a friendly acknowledgement - matter closed, I hope. What strikes me as a little odd about this is that the picture in question, which was in a blog post here some six years ago, was supplied by a library service I used until (I think) last year. For a while I owned a small publishing business - in fact I still do, though it is no longer trading - and I took out a paid subscription to an online library service which offered royalty-free, non-copyrighted images - clip art and photos - which could be used for small-distribution advertising and so on. It was not an expensive deal (as you would expect - quiet at the back, please), so I forgot all about it until maybe 18 months ago, at which point I cancelled my subscription.

OK - maybe that's all irrelevant, but the incident of the complaint seemed like something new. So perhaps Google have changed their rules? It would be possible for some algorithm to check the meta-data behind any image, and suppress it, I guess. I can see this would be constructive in the overall scheme of things. However, the algorithm will struggle with screen-capture images or scanned images, so I really just have to introduce an extra step to get round this. Save an image, display it in my Preview app and take a screenshot. Pick the bones out of that.

Anyway, this post has certainly gone on long enough, considering I am blundering around in the dark. I wondered whether anyone has had a similar experience recently, or if anyone knows if the law or Google usage has changed?