But Firstly ....
fbb is an avid watcher of BBC's Only Connect, an excellent lateral thinking quiz which has just started its 2025/2026 run on Monday evenings. Due to a series of foreseen circumstances, fbb was not watching last Monday's opener with enough concentration. But he re-watched it on iPlayer and his Tablet yesterday.
On a good day, fbb can answer one of the questions in the three rounds and quite a lot in the missing vowels round at the end.
But, SHOCK HORROR, there was a ghastly error in one of the questions. It was a schoolboy bludner of monumental proportions and no correction or apology was issued on the programme, probably recorded in 1922!
In round one, the contestants have to identify what Only Connects a series of four clues. The first question was a picture round; and the team was quick and slick to identify the answer after only two of the four clues.
The correct answer was "Rocket" ...
Rocket Ronnie O'Sullivan was the first, fbb cannot remember what the second picture was and the fourth was the salad plant rocket.
Then Victoria revealed the third picture ...
... as Stephenson's Rocket.
"No, no. no and no again," screamed fbb at the screen, which, as usual, ignored him completely.
The picture was, of course, of the Stockton and Darlington Railway No1, called "Locomotion" ...
... a replica of which runs at Beamish museum..jpg)
fbb has ridden behind this beauty, sadly now much modified to comply with vast amounts of health and safety regulation. Really! It now has proper brakes, which spoils all the fun!
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This diminutive loco is available as an OO model from Hornby and is ridiculously expensive.
The real "Rocket" is usually presented like this ...
... but originally looked like this.
In the past an OO model as made by Triang ...
... but a much better and completely retooled model was made more recently by Hornby (which used to be Triang; stay awake at the back!).
Likewise it is very expensive!
And So To This Man ...
He was Eric Laithwaite, an engineering prof originally at Manchester. Here he is demonstrating one of the features of magnetism.
He balanced an aluminium ball raised up by the field from an electromagnet.
In an electric motor, you can get the drive shaft turning by applying current in sequence to the pole magnets in the motor.
Our Eric then had a jackpot idea. It is here demonstrated by a mechanical model.
The rods just go up and down but, if you push them in order (by turning the twiddly cam shaft) they create a wave which will move a ping pong ball along the contraption.
Very useful!
... you can fire a missile into a block of wood, or, indeed, into a laboratory assistant if you (or he) are careless!
Ouch!
In the final demo, Eric has made a much longer run of magnets ...
... which will ping an aluminium tray very fast across the lab!
And if you add a carriage model to the tray you can imagine a train pinging thus ...
... with Eric catching the model before it self destructs on the lab floor.
In he film from which fbb has gleaned these stills, Eric points out that he has to catch the carriage because "it was rather expensive to make".
Ah, those were the days.
So the magnetic "river" lifts and propels the car.
But, fbb hears you cry, it would cost a fortune to create a track of magnets all the way between, say, London and Birmingham to engineer a high speed line.
But Eric has another cunning plan ...
To be continued.
The stills were mostly taken from a rather tired on-line film produced for school sixth formers in the early 1970s
P.S. Rocket Raccoon ...
... is a Marvel Comics character, possibly a goodie. fbb had to look it up!
Next Repulsive blog : Thurs 24 July
You were not the only one who shouted at the television ... As it happened, the error didn't affect the scoreline. But what if it had?
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