Queensland Country Bank Stadium ,Townsville . Vallis. |
(Stadium .Townsville. Views.)
As a result of researching books and notebooks which once belonged to a marine engineer with a link to an American Marine in l942, found in a Townsville garage sale , our waterfront roundsman could get a job building Australian billionaire Clive Palmer's replica of the Titanic.
Why? Because the notebooks contain a wealth of diagrams and involved formulae related to ship construction and performance of various parts .
Ships construction , important measurements is the heading in a section which contains handwritten information that covers the thickness of steel needed in the framing of a vessel , its floors and other parts , vital for Titanic ll. As expected, rivets also get a mention .
Dealing with keels , it goes into considerable detail . In respect of the bilge keel , it must consist of two centre girders to resist rolling . A duct keel must be scalloped .
Laws of perfect gases is another subject covered in depth , including a number which Palmer could use in his election campaign on the stormy bounding main, seeing he is the skipper of the Trumpet of Patriots windjammer , inspired by Donald Trump who is fast turning America into the Wreck of the Hesperus .
Other topics include combustion, steam , turbines, nozzle velocity, air compressors , entropy and reversed Carnot.
(Titanic. Palmer. Trump.)
And just recently , she was the special subject of a contestant on ABC television's zany Hard Quiz , who was excommunicated by the devilish presenter , Tom Gleeson , when she failed to win .
Of particular interest was the above well worn , revised 1942 Henry Ford Trade School Shop Theory , published by McGraw-Hill Book Company , New York and London, 267pp, highly illustrated .
Founded by Henry Ford in l916, with just six students and one instructor, the Henry Ford Trade School, Dearborn, Michigan, gave underprivileged young men the opportunity to earn a living while learning a trade , and provided the Ford Motor Company with trained draftsmen and technicians.
By l931, there were 135 faculty members teaching 2800 students.More than 8000 had graduated from the school when it closed in l952.
The book contains three inscriptions from American Thomas Paul Burns , the first dated August 2, l942. Possibly a second class marine mechanic or engineer , he described himself as being of the US Navy, San Diego, California ; another gives his address as 1228 Elbur Avenue, Lakewood, Ohio .
In large handwriting, the other expresses good luck to Jack Herrmann , of Ascot, Brisbane , Australia.
Somehow, that book made its way to Townsville and was found by our waterfront roundsmen in a box with a run of books , Mathematics for Marine Engineers, published by Thomas Reed Publications Limited, Sunderland and London, in the l960s.
There is another handwritten inscription with the name John . C. Herrmann , 36 Mary Street, Innisfail, Queensland , in volume one , published in l965, 381pp, with the outline of a merchant vessel on the dustjacket of each one .
The Shipping Reporter says he reckons there could be an interesting story ,possibly involving Townsville during WWll when there were many Americans in town and subsequent dealings with shipping in dock and at sea in various locations.
If he is able to flesh out the scenario we will inform our readers. Already he knows of a connection with Queensland's sugar industry.
(Ford. Ohio .Marine.)
Ever since boofheaded Donald Trump imposed the trade war , causing Wall Street to become wall-eyed , cycads have turned unhealthy- like the one below in Australia which even looks as if fathered by Trump in a golfcourse bunker and is obviously suffering from the dreaded, highly infectious Oval Office Pox.
Would you believe this is not fake news? |
Due to the flooding rain in Queensland , magpie geese are having to raise the level of their nests in swamps, pools and billabongs.
The rising water level in a lake caused a pair to quickly raise the height of the nest by adding more sticks and pieces off nearby plants. The home alone bird below on its nest seems somewhat nonplussed about the situation.
(Estate , Floods. Queensland. )
Because of a so-called rain shadow over Townsville it became known as Brownsville in the dry season. According to the Bureau of Meteorology , Townsville misses out on much rain because most onshore winds from the south- east , which bring showers , bypass the area due to the terrain , unlike Cairns that has mountains .
However, so far this year, Townsville has experienced record rainful of about 2400 millimetres , flooding in some areas , the closure of a large shopping centre due to underground flooding, landslides which closed Castle Hill and the Ross River has been cascading across the weirs.
The usual lotus filled pool in the gardens has also expanded , attracting much more birdlife than usual , including magpie geese, whistling ducks, curlews , peaceful doves, pee wees and finches.
With so many surface pools about it gives rise to arty photographs of the reflections of sky , clouds and surrounds, like the one following , taken by drenched Vallis.
Found in a number of war books in the garrison city of Townsville , in the one above, was the loosely inserted photograph of a crouched soldier posing with a rifle and what looks like a cullender , a kitchen utensil used to drain fluids from food , on his head .
The author , Gary McKay, served in South Viet Nam in 1971, where he was badly wounded and awarded the Military Cross for gallantry.
According to the blurb, he interviewed more than 100 veterans and their families to build up a picture of their war.
He spoke to nurses and doctors, Qantas cabin crew and pilots, men who had served with the Army, Navy and Air Force, in helicopters, armoured units , maintenance divisions , destroyers , on the gun line , units attached to American forces and ships carrying troops.
This resulted in a most interesting book , published by Allen and Unwin.
McKay also wrote In Good Company and Delta Four and Sleeping With Your Ears Open : On Patrol with the Australian SAS .
Bullets, Beans and Bandages was first published in l992 as Vietnam Fragments.
There was another inclusion , a Queensland Health Public Patients' Charter pamphlet , in The Accidental Guerrilla, fighting small wars in the midst of a big one , published by Scribe, Melbourne.
Written by David Kilcullen, a former Australian Army officer and one of the world's most influential experts on guerrilla warfare, the wide ranging volume includes extensive coverage of the INTERFET force which went into East Timor.
(VIetnam . Guerrillas. Books .)
In our exclusive series- Rewind The Press!- we recalled the Northern Territory's colourful media past. In this case , it is a rerun about an unusual publication and the dynamic duo who produced it after Cyclone Tracy destroyed Darwin in l974.
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Damaged Chinese Temple sign in shatttered city. |
Victorian Pete Steedman , a seasoned and scarred ALP warrior, known as the Black Knight , had been in the eye of countless political storms. It was an epic tempest, Australia’s worst natural disaster, Cyclone Tracy, which saw him called in to utilise his skills as a forceful journalist / editor, publisher and communicator in the production of the Darwin Newsletter .
Ball had lived in Hong Kong and there were articles, illustrated with a picture of ships swept ashore in tidal surges , about how the British colony coped with regular hurricanes and information about its building code, The byline on one article billed John Ball as "our cyclone-proof obsessed reporter".
An historically significant bound volume containing the first eight issues-May to December 1821- of Australia’s first periodical, The Australian Magazine, at $45,000 , is one of the many items of note in the latest acquisitions from Douglas Stewart Fine Books, Melbourne.
Edited by Reverend Ralph Mansfield and printed by Robert Howe , it went out of circulation in September 22, 1822 after 14 issues.
Robert Howe (1795-1829) was a member of Australia’s most important early publishing dynasty.
His father, George Howe (1759-l821) , printed the first book in Australia in l802 , the New South Wales General Standing Order , and Australia's first newspaper , the l803 Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser .
The first issue of The Australian Magazine – printed by Robert Howe – was published on May 1. 1821, 10 days before George Howe’s death . Having already succeeded his father as Government Printer, Robert also became editor, printer and publisher of the Gazette, which he had formerly helped his father to publish .
According to the bookshop, ‘Robert Howe was dissipated as a young man and in 1819 fathered an illegitimate son. Next year, however, he experienced a spiritual awakening and, in his own words, was “wonderfully and mercifully visited by God and snatched from infamy in this world and Hell in the next”.
He joined the group of Methodists who were working in Sydney ,and their influence, particularly that of Reverend Ralph Mansfield, was apparent when he published The Australian Magazine; or, Compendium of Religious, Literary, and Miscellaneous Intelligence, the first periodical to appear in Australia.
Reverend Mansfield (1799-1880), was a recently ordained and zealous Methodist minister who had arrived in Sydney from Liverpool, England, in September 1820.
Mansfield’s editorial Preface, dated December 1, 1821, bound in at the front of the above volume stated:
‘Our design, from the first, has avowedly been, “to disseminate useful knowledge, religious principles, and moral habits.” And though some, we are aware, object to our Magazine, that it wears too grave and religious an aspect, candour must compel them to acknowledge, that we have not swerved from the intentions we distinctly proposed.
Political discussion, and party spirit, and personal allusion, we have scrupulously avoided. Literature and science, while we have devoted to them a portion of attention, have been kept subordinate and subservient to our primary design.
Of Colonial occurrences we have endeavoured to select the most interesting; though this department is, in a great measure, superseded by the weekly Journal [i.e. the Sydney Gazette].’
(Publications.Colonial. Books.)
Whether it's one for your mantelpiece, one for your cellar or just one to toast one of our really great Labor Prime Ministers with your friends, I'd encourage you to buy as many tickets as you can so that we can all keep the legacy of Bob and all the other great Labor Prime Ministers alive for the benefit of today's Australians and our future generations.
Remember in Australian political history, it's always been Labor Governments that have been the nation builders and it's always been Tory governments that have been the divisive social wreckers.