A Crossing Continued (1)

What's In A Name?

For fbb words have always been fun, so hear are a few for out highly intelligent blog readers to muse over. Slightly less intelligent blog readers may also like the challenge. So what do all thse words have in common?

Avon

Sabrina

Pont

Samarina

Afon

Bridge

Severn

Hafren

And a picture.

Afon Hafren is the Welsh name for the River Severn; remembering, of course (how could you possibly forget?), that the letter "F" in Welsh is pronounced "V". So it rhymes with the word "have" as in "ave-on have-ren". You need an "FF" to make the "F" sound as in the welsh for "Flint" (the town) which is Fflint.

Dyma ddiwedd ar y wers Gymraeg!

So the River Avon (as in Stratford upon and Bard of) ...

... actually is the River River!

Furthermore, says fbb again donning his gown and mortarboard, Severn and Hafren are, historically, the same word with slight alternative spellings caused by the different routes that their origins have taken to arrive at modern orthography.

Geoffrey of Monmouth (1095 to 1155) was always ready and willing to adapt tenuous history and expand it to fill gaps in reality; and so he has adapted some ancient tales that explain how Sabrina became known as goddess of the River.

Sabrina in Latin becomes Hafren in Welsh - honest it does!

She, as a water nymph, is in statue form (twice) in Shrewsbury, once surrounded by water ...

... and once standing rocks in a park.

More prosaically, her name might be derived from something more ordinary.

Anyway, fbb does quite like a good crime novel as bedtime reading - it makes a change from bus timetables.

The "Point" is the under-construction Hinkley Point C nuclear power station ...

... a massive civil engineering project on the North Somerset coast.

Transport there is a massive job as well, in the hands of Somerset Transport Solutions ...

... but, under social distancing rules, augmented by surplus double decks from First Bus companies.

First Bus is joint owner of Somerset Passenger Solutions.

All workers have to be ferried via park and ride buses to the construction sites. For understandably tight security reasons, parking on-site is forbidden. 

So, what is the link with the Severn Bridge?

The book's blurb drops a fairly huge hint.

The plot revolves round corruption at Hinkley Point and historic corruption during the building of the Second Severn Crossing.

In at least four places (that fbb remembers) there is mention of the bridge's monorail.

Monorail?

The bridge is of a cable-stayed construction ...

... rather than a suspension bridge. For the latter the cables that support the roadway are anchored in massive concrete blocks buried deep on each shore. These anchors "take the strain" of the weight of the bridge and its traffic.

In a cable-stayed bridge the two pylons "take the strain" carrying it vertically down to the tower's foundations.

In the Second Severn Crossing the cables and the approach piers support two parallel box girders.

The monorail hangs between the two girders.

We will see more tomorrow.

Purchasing Plausible People?

People are expensive. The "painfully sliced legless" coach passengers cost nearly £1 each and six standing people will set you back nearly £8 in total.

But go on-line and you will be offered 25 people for just over £2.50 - 10p a person. From the illustration on the site they look just as good.

Some of the gents have ties, the ladies carry bags and different coloured shoes are shown on each tiny model. For 10p each!

They must be joking ...

... and they are! You get crudely painted shiny plastic people with no detail and in some cases base colour faces as with the "blue" man second in from the right. And the above octet have been improved with poor quality touch-up from the wobbly hands of fbb.

Of course, in days past, your unpainted Airfix "people" had all been set in concrete slabs ...

... by an evil gangster prior to offering them a dive off a suitable bridge, like the Second Severn Crossing.

BUT ...

... if you want plenty of people to be viewed from a distance, the cheapos are just about OK. Here is some of fbb's first batch visiting Peterville Castle.

And if you have the dosh, there are companies who will scan YOU and make a 3D print, so the modeller can be a model in his own model. First you are scanned ...

...then you are 3D printed.

Even better, you can have you professionally painted! Prices on application - i.e. too expensive to put in an advert.

fbb will stick to grotty 10p people.

 More "Crossings" blog : Thursday 25th June