How Britain Worked

While you lot were watching the programme I was recording it and watching Secret Universe: The Hidden Life of the Cell, **LINK** which blew my socks off! I urge anyone who hasn't seen it to do so, it will probably divest you of your socks as well. And if you're wondering what this programme has to do with engineering then just watch the amazing molcular machines moving stuff around inside the cell. All done in CGI of course, but presumably a true representation of what goes on inside every one of our billions of cells.

When I watched the How Britain Worked programme I thought that it was well worth watching but missed a lot of what was said, partly due to the heavy accent and partly to Anno Domini. Next week I shall watch it live and switch on subtitles, something I have to do with many of the American programmes.

Edited By Brian O'Connor on 23/10/2012 09:23:08

Thers note wrong wee the way Guy speaks, hees a bonny lad.

I'm waiting with 'bated' breath!

Trouble is, Guy's a bit of a motormouth. Combine that with an accent (Lincolnshire presumably) that's a wierd mixture of Northern generic and sing-songy running up and down the vocal scale, his comments were incomprensible to me half the time. They amounted to an unbroken stream of maybe intelligent comment, exclamations and half-completed utterances that made it diificult to get the gist. I like accents but people from other regions need time to 'tune in' to unfamilar variations. The delivery was just too manic — maybe the producer needs to give Guy a 'downer' before a take!

Most of the time he made a very fair hack of the jobs given but there was one WTF moment in the watch repairing segment. Right at the outset the watchmaker makes a pointed remark about how dirty his hands are and the necessity for cleanliness in dealing with these mechanisms. So what does our hero do — wash his hands? Not hardly, we next see his filthy paws all over the watch. Yes, he does a good job but what's the moral? Ignore the expert and just do your own thing?

Still, I'll stick with the series.

Joe

Edited By joegib on 23/10/2012 09:35:48

Re mucky mitts...Sorry but I put that down to TV..I doubt that Guy is such a twit to do that off his own bat. When today "mechanics" glove up for all work , he would certainly not be walking into the watchmaker like that.

Btw wasn't the watch at median on the regulator ? Did It realy need additional weights? ( wouldn't you have tried the built in adjustment first? ) that said wished for more on the clock/watchmaker..

Its a bit like TOPGEAR.. I can put up with the presenters because occasionly the content is fun( wouldn't go so far as intresting) .

BUT

probably the programme makers feel the opposite , in that the content is a vehicle for the presenters to entertain..

Shame really, because in other shows ( on their own ) each has shown a knowledge or at least intrest in the subject that TG dare not.

Oh well, we get what we pay for don't we...

Engineering , as we know rewards attention to detail and patience... viewing figures don't

Posted by chris j on 23/10/2012 10:30:09:
Mark Williams is still the King

Agree there though the Dutch guy who does the 'Euro' version of Industrial Revelations isn't bad either.

Another series worth catching (probably on 'Yesterday' now) is Monty Don's Mastercrafts. Sure, it's got plenty of the hackneyed 'meeja' elements — hopeful aspirants, synthetic drama, impending failure, tears and ultimate triumph — but there was some very good stuff. I especially enjoyed the blacksmithing and chair bodging episodes.

Joe

Just a quick reminder that the next episode is on tonight at 8.00pm C4.

Gayle Mill that was featured on Restoration a few years back is the subject of this installment.

J

I must be a nostalgic because I thought it was great and that is coming from someone who is defiantly pro British. My company has just finished building a machine that has not been made here for a long time for another great British company –Glastonbury spring water. Entrepreneurialism is what we area all about in this country and the thing that spoilt it is two world wars that left us in a complete mess. I think?

J But that’s only my view!!!!

Technical it was a ploughing engine featured. In the fist episode it was a locomotive being restored not a train.

Hi all,

I enjoyed the programme and thought that Guy's presentation in episode 2 was a bit better. When watching him in episode 1 I lost count of the time he went on about 'them boys', Once would have been quite enough to get the point over. I also took exception to him calling a locomotive 'a train'. The train is what the locomotive pulls. At least in the blurb for the programme they got it right. Surely he should have done, especially if he is trying to be the next Fred Dibnah. Fred was a bit of a rough diamond (and all the better for that) but by gum he knew his stuff, unlike Guy who seems surprised by it all most of the time.

At least in the second programme he began to recognise the cost to workers of creating wealth for the 'Masters'. The other point was that the wooden bike was a one off anomaly and had very little to do with the actual development of the bicycle, but it made for interesting television but as for him 'making' it - that was stretching a point.

Having said that, thanks for the original recommendation

Regards

Terry

Yes I did enjoy the Ploughing engines not agricultural engines as Guy called them, I think the timber tractors would have been a bit to late but they could have russeled up a nice Fowler stump puller with the large axle mounted winch drum though most went to export.

J

Sounds interesting but I will need some more clues.

J

Rev. R.C. Stebbing supervising the gas axe

Thanks Gray, I'll do a bit more reading later. It was a class KKS of wich no others now survive

Edited By JasonB on 30/10/2012 09:51:50

R.C.Stebbing Southampton Ploughing Engines? ME2507

You either like Guy or you don't. For me he's straight as a die and very entertaining and I'm constantly reminded of seeing him hop off his bike at the end of a race at the T.T.and declaring that he was in desperate need of a cup of tea because his throat felt " like a camel's arse" !!! Fred Dibnah by contrast was a self centred old soak whose greatest skill was listening to the sound of his own voice; so lets not compare them at all.

Mike

Whether you like Guy or don't and whether you can try and compare to Fred Dibnah is really irrelevant.

What is relevant is that both these people have been invited by the advent of TV into peoples homes to present 'their' love of engineering to the masses.

Not it might be slightly biast givening at a professional TV producton company is pulling the strings but best thing is it's happening and at prime time viewing.

Anybody think they can do any better ?

John S.

Well said John. having actually met both Fred and Guy, albeit very briefly, I can tell you that IMHO Guy is a much nicer "guy" (sorry for the pun) to talk to.

There is a fundamental difference in their approach to the engineering subject, which shows through clearly when you listen to them. Fred new about everything, but Guy does not profess that level of knowledge......he clearly however wants to know and is not afraid to admit to his knowledge/experience deficiencies.

Anyway apart from all that serious stuff...........Guy is a bike racer so that makes him my favourite by at least a hundred miles. If you ever get to see film of him in action, or better go and see him in action you will realise what a truly brave man he is. You can see that racing on roads, as well as track, is almost as dangerous as riding a wooden bike down a "big hill."

I remember going to a lecture by Fred Dibnah - probably 35 years ago. He had a large jug of ale on the table before him which he emptied and had replaced in the course of the evening. In my life I have been to many lectures on a wide range of subjects, engineering and otherwise, but I don't think any have topped Fred for entertainment value. I still chuckle at the memory.

My only experience of Guy was in the TV series involving the longboat and Victorian engineering. I didn't really like this much but I suspect that he may well be interesting to listen to beyond the confines of a TV show. Unfortunately his TV series was scripted and "packaged" for the fleeting interest that program makers assume exists for anything other than graphic and gory crime or a public, and often humiliating, search for talent amongst the deluded.

Ah - that's made me feel a bit better!

Cheers

Norman

As usual JS has correctly summarised and simplified the whole matter!

Top and bottom of the whole thing is that TV programmes are made for 'entertainment' (well to sell products, get licence fees etc). I dont particularly like the 'talking to the camera' type of presentation employed in this series but I may still watch it.

Many programmes contain errors but the majority of viewers dont even notice them

I rarely watch TV but by chance saw '50 years of Bond cars' (not the 3 Wheelers!) and the director of one movie described how 007 drove a car on two wheels to get through a narrow alley, thing is, the car entered the alley tilted to the right but came out tilted to the left! The film was still a success.

Many

Ian P