Comment: Paris and England 2002

I happened to come across your travels from St. Malo to England when I was googling some info about "adio" and its usage.

I just loved your little journal. Very sophisticated in its distancing and wry tone. The voice captures immediately. I clicked on "home" at the bottom thinking I would find that you were some terribly well-thought of author. Well, you could be. That selection is like the beginning of a novel which could either lead back to the circumstances that lead you to France, or forward to reveal how that slip-up on the visa affected your life in Britain, etc. etc.

I simply cannot check out the rest of your site right now. I'm sure it's fun, but kudos for such delightful writing under Travels. I'll check back again. Alicia

Mr Laurence Hoskin Hi,

Quite by accident I happened across your "England Plus Paris" travel review. I found your reference to Tile Ovens, which you described as quite garish & awful. Perhaps you are not aware that they are in fact wood burning heat storage stoves, the original central heating unit. Yes, they may appear to lack some asthetic appeal to the uninformed, until you realise that with a tile oven and just one sackful of dry wood, you can heat your home for 24 hours. Therin lies the appeal of tile ovens. The ones you saw are probably over a century old. I have just had a modern type of heat storing stove fitted in my home and I never needed the oil fired heating on all through last winter. If you read this and would like to know more about these wonder stoves then feel free to email me at- [email address removed]

Kind regards
Mr Philip Court.

PS If you make your next trip to Germany or Austria or even to Finland, or Scandinavia you will find that tile ovens are big business you have to wait for a year or more to have one built in your home.

Hi,
I saw your comment about sailing vessels gerring under the bridges of Paris. I spent many years a Captain of British Ships mv Normandy and mv Anjou which travelled from London to Paris wit fourteen day round trips carrying 2000 tons of general cargo -- Whisky Gin and everything from small packets which could go into your pocket to excavators and parts for Concorde. Return trips were mostly barrels of wine Brandy cheese and veneers, for the Paris London Line. They even made the bateau mouches look small as you can see in the first picture.

I thought you might like to see a couple of pictures of how we did it too. Note that not only the mast is lowered but also the radar and wheelhouse and lifeboat davits. The highest part of the ship became the steering wheel.

When containers came in they and their sister mv Seine, were sold to Iran where they still work.

Regards
Capt Ken Appleby

Hi Larry,

Here is another picture. Of a caterpillar tracked digger vehicle being offloaded in Paris.

Our berth in Paris was at Quai d'Austerlitz, just across the road from Austerlitz train station. To turn around we put a rope out from the bow and around to the starboard side. We would then start the engines with the rudder hard to starboard and go around 180* with the bow touching the quay on a fender all the way round until it led down the port side. There was about ten feet to spare at the stern when she was at right angles to the river. It was tricky in winter to Spring time when the water from the Alps was melting and running fast

My son on one of the thirty tractors we carried on deck, going under Tancarville bridge en route between Le Havre and Rouen..... The last essential item going on board and always first off. My car -- an Austin Mini Cooper S. :o)

Regards
Capt Ken Appleby

Hi Larry!
On your web site you mention a mexican restaurant in Paris that serves Inca Kola. Maybe you are not the biggest fan of Inca Kola, as you write, but I am. Is there a way to find out were you enjoyed it?
thanks and bregs!
Georg from Paris

Hi,

Sitting in my sunny flat (apartment) on top of a hill in South London (England) I found your site by accident and have just spent the past 3 hours reading. I should be working but you are far more entertaining. Great read, sorry you had some unfortunate episodes but it's all part of the experience. Next visit you should try Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham . I'd love to read more when you travel again.
Thanks

Rob McEwan

Your correction from Mr Diel regarding the Telcan Home Video correction is actually wrong. I interviewed Norman Rutherford for an article on Telcan (see www.epemag.wimborne.co.uk/ acatalog/EPE_online_catalog_2000_11.html ) back in 1999, both Telcan and Wesgrove were the same company and produced not only reel to reel TV mounted units but also separate pre-built and home-kit models. For a time they were reasonably successful. Wesgrove was a re-start-up after Telcan financial support dried up. Suggest you get article for full background.

Barrie Blake-Coleman

Hello,
On this page here: http://www.lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/departures/euro0/1368_telcan.html you show an early video recorder, but identify the machine incorrectly. The names of the inventors is correct. And it is likely that they did go on to produce the Telcan VTR later. but, the machine you have on display is a Wesgrove VKR-500 kit VTR. Trust me on this, I know the mechanical engineer who worked on it personally. I also own a few spare parts for that machine. See my Telcan and Wesgrove pages here:

http://www.labguysworld.com/Cat_Telcan.htm & http://www.labguysworld.com/Cat_Wesgrove.htm

The two machines may be very similar technologically, but their styling is individually unique. May I use your photo on my site? With full credit and a link back to your site of course.

Best regards,
Richard Diehl

Hi total stranger,

your time in England seemed unfortunate in some respects, though nothing is wasted.

Found you whilst looking up stuff for my students about Icons, and thought the Bechers convert things into icons, for some reason linked to and started reading your Paris London diary and read it right through. Your enthusiasm for conveyors is warming. I am beginning to photograph roundabouts (where lots of roads meet) at night by lying down on the middle of wet roads to get their sodium light black and white chevron Stonehenge drama. Some of your comments made me laugh.

Do email me before you come to UK again - I can guide you to some more interesting places (though interestingness has long worried me as to its sufficiency being such a malleable thing. As a student I spent time studying boredom and waiting (as did some of my arty friends). Then I discovered photographer Martin Parr who published his personal collection of "Boring Postcards" (e.g. Hendon Shopping Centre, The M1, Hornchurch Underground Station, etc) which has become a best-seller. In a lecture he said he decided early on to make the boring, the normal and the mundane, common and vulgar stuff his subject matter. He has done several books on the English. Interesting border country between anthropological art photos and kitsch. I live near Oxford, married, 3 beautiful children. Visited SF in 1973 saw "Last Tango" with my girlfriend, then went south, but overall my experience there was much like yours in London - cultural alienation, but ever since I've thought of SF as my favourite city in the world (well equal with Vancouver and Amsterdam.) - saw a string quartet in tails playing Beethoven in the street and bought a gram of chewing gum for 15 dollars. Went in search of Richard Brautigan and Ken Kesey, but didn't meet Kesey till the 2001 Total Eclipse in Cornwall, then he died soon after. I have some excellent pictures of Further Mark ll.

You're wrong about English Ska - my friend Erin has produced some CDs of retro and contemporary ska. He's a lovely bloke, never went to school but a great musician.

NEWS
'The Erin Bardwell Collective Volume One' has been made 'Ska/Reggae album of the month' in Scootering Magazine. On sale in all high street newsagents (like WHSmith etc).

Pop-A-Top releases currently receiving airplay in Belgium............... For more info go to : www.reggaeconnection.be.tf

My friend Mahesh may be able to advise you about English comics.

Nice to meet you,

Alex Eve

Hi Larry,

Glad you think it's good too. Erin's the son of some old old friends: he's been collecting ska since he was ten - didn't go to school (parents are street theatre performance artists) - but learnt to play music and be a truly gentle person. His previous very fast ska band played for my 40th birthday party and nearly caused some premature deaths through exhsustion, infarction etc.

Alex

I have enjoyed your forthright comments and scratched off a few places but kept others. I understand some suffering is necessary in order to have something to compare the better places with.

I grew up 4 blocks from a Radio and Television station and was always detouring by after school the station engineers took to me and I became the give to kid for all the old chassis and hardware. As a geek myself built my first radio at 9 a telescope at 12 vacuum tube stereo preamp and power amplifier at 14 and a 16 element yag backyard steerable radio telescope at 16. Home brewed from scratch a computer in 1975 internet access since 1991. Consulted for a few years then worked on improving consumer communications devices until a few years ago. Owned and ran a bookstore for a while and am now selling nonfiction and technical books on line. Will return to consulting after the trip or possibly move into teaching.

We will be in London the last two weeks in April then again later in the trip. The trip logs found on line have really helped in getting first hand information on what to see during the trip and many of the local people I have emailed have sent me their phone number to call when in the area so they can personally point out their favorite places. We will leave London in late April by bike using the extensive cycle routes that are being built we will travel east and then along the coast using National Cycle Routes 1 and 2 then use backroads to get inland and eventually to Cornwall and Land's End. Since I will have my books on vacation we will return when we get ready. Always wanted to see Wales and then Hadrian's Wall and Scotland and what ever else seems interesting.

Saw your note concerning your sister and the Stanford Linear I was in charge of the Global Timing Lab at the Superconducting Supercollider Lab here in Texas. I had designed and built a working prototype of a laser timing system for the Linear at the SSC when the axe came from congress. Lots of benefits could have been had but the MTV masses need instant gratification.

If you have not read it the book Green Beach is a good wartime story about the early days of radar do not remember the author [James Leasor]. It is in part the story of a radar engineer sent with a group of Canadian Rangers on a raid to find out information on the German aircraft detection system. Since the Germans did not have the magnetron and it was so simple a concept the rangers were there to make sure he was not captured alive.

bill

Collect a large cardboard box from your local supermarket, some tinned food, and a bucket - climb into the large cardboard box and close it as best you can - feast on the tinned food, use the bucket for whatever your needs may be, write another myopic travelog and take a range of ridiculous snapshots but please don't come back to our continent.

A couple of phrases I loved in your travelogue so far were Hurry and slurry and a barrel of brandy handy. ...

It was funny seeing myself quoted in the section about laundry.

A tile oven is like a furnace. I don't think anyone cooked on them or maybe you know that.

I loved the idea of the guys in green fatigues and bearskin hats passing for bears peaking out of bushes.

In my class we are reading a book in which one of the characters read a LOT about Scott and the Franklin expedition. He was obsessed with wanting to have gone.

Your web page says:

"A piece by Duchamp included a miniature urinal. I assumed that the urinal had been specially made for the piece, yet referred to the ready-made "Fountain." Was this mini-urinal supposed to be interesting because it wasn't ready-made? If I'd been French, I could have shrugged and said, "Absurd," and been done with it. Being an American, I instead said, "Screw this," and walked away."

And thus you missed out on the punch line of one of the biggest jokes of modern art.

> I shrugged. I left.

So you missed out on the mummified bones with icky bits of flesh stuck to them in the lavish, velvet-lined boxes, and a reflection on how morbid Catholics can be.

> But what else was I going to do with myself?
> It dawned on me that I'd come to France for no good reason.
> It didn't entertain me.
> The ferry ride wasn't very interesting. It took most of the day, and much of the time we were too far from land to see much.

The fact that I perform research tasks professionally may bias me, but it seems you bumbled through your trip without any foreknowledge of where you were going. You didn't study French, or prioritize your time based on available information, or read about the significance of what you would be looking at in English while you were back home. The world is difficult enough to interpret without going out of your way to avoid knowing about it.

If you go to a cathedral, it just looks like a big building made of stone, with fancy windows. Is there more to it than that? Hell yes, but no one is going to grab you by the throat and force you to know that people you've read about are buried there; that it took 500 years to build and collapsed twice, killing dozens; that it was the scene of a conspiracy to overthrow the monarchy in 1568; that what is believe to be Jesus' thumb bone is in the box behind the altar; that Joan of Arc had a vision here that led to a bloody victory the next week; that there's a secret passage in the tower; that your cousin is named after its patron saint; or that your parents visited in the 1960s and decided then and there to get married.

You PREFER to see it simply as a big building made of stone, with fancy windows. Which is fine, but sad to read about.