From Old High German for "Twisted".

The use of the word "queer" for homosexual dates from as recently 1922 when it was a perjorative insult. For most of fbb's life "queer" was simply a synonym for "unusual" and it is in this sense that it finds its way into today's blog.

All fbb's readers will immediately recognise the splendid actor John de Lancie as the recurring character "Q" in Star Trek The Next Generation. "Q" was a pseudo god-like being from the "Q Continuun" who was Jean-Luc Picard's nemesis and protector at the same time.

He re-appears in the more recent series Star Trek Picard where he does not wear a silly hat. He does, however, wear the silly hat in the cartoon series Star trek Lower Decks!

Which brings us appropriately to ...

 Q ueues of

 Q s?

 Q uaint,

Q uality or

Q ueer?

Q Ships : Q Cars

The "Q" came from Queenstown dock yard in Ireland where some were created by adding fire power to seemingly "innocent" freight vessels. Most emanated from English docks not Irish!

But that is where our next, and much more recent "Q" originated.

The idea is that such motors look "ordinary" but contains lots of vehicular oomph. The fbb's Citroen Picasso would not qualify as it is somewhat underpowered with the same engine as a mini.

Q Stock

This was a title given to a range of London Underground trains which first appeared in 1923. It grew into a mixed bag as indicated by a picture of a train so classified on the District Line in the early 1959s. It had six carriages.

The first was from 1923 ...

... followed by a 1935 build.  

Coaches 3 and 5 are from 1938 with the flared body sides ...

... with 4 and 6 being back to the clerestory design but built in 1927.

Q Stock last ran on the East London line.

Q Class Bus 

One of the queerest buses of its age developed as a double decker and later a single decker for London Transport.

Built with either a front entrance or a centre entrance ...

... these buses had the engine tucked under the stairs; but not quite completely "tucked" - its "pod" protruded into the passenger space. The stairs faced towards the rear. 

Despite the modernity of the design and its potential (never used?) for one man operation, the design was unsuccessful and faded rapidly. It was in the late 1950s when Leyland put their engine right at the back and called it Atlantean.

Q Class Loco

In 1938, Richard Maunsell, introduced his Q class loco to the Southern Railway. It was an 0-6-0 goods loco with tender.

Q1 Class Loco

Arguably the ugliest loco ever operated on Britain's railways, Mr Maunsell's successor, Oliver Bullied, came up with his Q1.

They were built in the face of wartime metal shortages (hence the obviously missing bits). Designed for freight work, the class saw occasional use in its later years on local passenger trains.

Q Trolleybus

The iconic six-wheeler London trolleybus appeared in 1948 and had less that 20 years life before the system was shut down.

As far as fbb can discover there was no nickname for the Q, but the earlier six wheeler A1 class ...

... was called a Diddler

And fbb doesn't know why!

========================

In the last few days of Jesus' life on earth, he goes to the Temple and throws out traders in the outer courtyard.

From this we can see how corrupt and degraded the religion had become. To offer a sacrifice in the Temple, you had to buy over-priced tenple doves or lambs. To pay your temple tax you had to change everyday money into Temple money. The traders took a substantial percentage! 

The destructive Jesus certainly was NOT "Gentle Jesus Meek And Mild".

That was the problem with Jesus.

Q uibbles and

 Q uarrels

His anger was often directed against the self-serviing pompous and elitist leaders Jewish Religion.  Instead of putting God first, they put themselves first and condemned the injured, the mentally unwell and the foreigner to something near to outcast status.

Jesus did the opposite. He welcomes the underdogs of society, as we saw in yesterday's blog.

BUT IT WAS MUCH WORSE!

He claimed to be doing God's work.

BUT IT WAS MUCH MUCH WORSE!

He claimed to be God's Son; God on Earth; Immanuel.

And that was Blasphemy. And Blasphemy was punishable by death.

Jesus was about to heal a man with "a withered hand"

Jesus was angry as he looked round at them, but at the same time he felt sorry for them, because they were so stubborn and wrong. 

Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and it became well again. 

So the Pharisees left the synagogue and met at once with some members of Herod's party, and they made plans to kill Jesus.

Corrupt religion and God-given Faith will always come into conflict. And this particular incident was early in Jesus three year ministry. It would get worse.

The sin forgiving, life saving, God loving gift of Jesus was transformational - but deeper conflict was inevitable.

==============================

 Next R ABC Blog : Monday 18th December