Musings and Thoughts

BobClay · #1 17th July 2018, 11:19

I was walking around Tamar Lake this morning and noting how low it has become in the last couple of months. The Canadian Geese have all gone, I don't think they like the extended banks which are as much as 60 feet wide now. Herons and Cormorants are dotted about at the water's edge, looking unhappy.

The lake is a reservoir created by a dam that was built I think in the 50's. It's about a 3 mile walk around it. Now the shape of the original valley is starting to emerge as the water level drops. At this I got to thinking how interesting it would be to go back in time, and see what the valley looked like before the dam.

So, given a time machine (which I am endeavoring to construct from an old gas central heating boiler, but it isn't going well) that can travel 10 years per minute back ward in time, so you can have a look at interesting historical times. (Best look only, don't meddle with paradox.) So climbing onto the seat, and operating the brass levers (if they were good enough for Herbert, they're good enough for me) here are some journey times for your voyages.

A human lifetime (let's say 70 years: 7 minutes (making a cup of tea)

World War One say a century ago: 10 minutes (making and drinking a cup of tea)

The Wars of the Roses (middle ages: ) 1 hour (ish) (A nice walk)

The Roman Empire and New Testament times: 3 hours (ish) (A short flight)

Stonehenge and Pyramid building: 10 hours (A long flight)

Emergence of human race (Homo Sapiens, current thinking: ) 20 days. (A sea passage)

Age of the dinosaurs (on average, they lasted a long time: ) 20 years. (Lifetime journey ?)

Life coming onto land: 100 years (You aint gonna make it.)

Emergence of life on Earth: 750 years (Forget going.)

Tomvart · #2 17th July 2018, 11:48

Bob, what a stunning idea!
Sign me up for one of those reconditioned central heating boilers please, happy to contribute a few old PC components and a DVD-VHS re-recorder by way of additional spares should you need them?

BobClay · #3 17th July 2018, 13:51

I don't suppose you've got a flux capacitor handy ?

Tomvart · #4 17th July 2018, 14:11

Looking in my black hole of a loft.........don't hold your breath though Bob!

BobClay · #5 17th July 2018, 14:21

I'll pay for it. I'll give you the money last week. (A time travel joke … there ought to be more of those …

)

McCloggie · #6 17th July 2018, 15:07

I don't like long flights so probably a couple of short ones for me:

Firstly to see where I went wrong earlier!

Secondly to be involved in the stories we read about here!

McC

Tmac1720 · #7 17th July 2018, 17:18

Tried that Bob but when I went back to yesterday I found it was really tomorrow so I didn't go as the previous day was the day after so I headed further back until I met myself going forward again. I had a flux capacitor in a box in my shed but as I haven't bought it until next week you will have to wait until tomorrow when I get back to yesterday before the shops shut to pay for it.

Sorry can't stay longer, there is a man coming to see me yesterday but I won't be at home tomorrow......... your time machine won't work until last week.

erimus · #8 17th July 2018, 17:44

.....and if you find something called "The Gallery".......keep going!

geoff

BobClay · #9 17th July 2018, 18:02

Two paradoxes for the price of one Tmac and Geoff !!!

Varley · #10 17th July 2018, 18:18

Dear me. That Bright girl has a lot to answer for.

BobClay · #11 17th July 2018, 18:26

I spotted a few mistakes in punctuation but I can't edit because when I try I keep getting logged out.

Do you think I've disturbed the space-time continuum with my old gas boiler ?

Dartskipper · #12 17th July 2018, 20:22

A gas powered time machine?

That is sooooo yesterday.

Or maybe tomorrow, or even last week.

BobClay · #13 17th July 2018, 20:40

There will be a time when my gas boiler time machine will be in a museum (either centuries in the future or last week) and people will gawp at it and say, 'So that's the pratt that shot King Harold in the eye.

'
(It wasn't my fault, I landed on the wrong side of the bloody line, and I'm a crap archer anyway.)

Dartskipper · #14 17th July 2018, 22:20

If King Harold had minded his own business, and not looked to see what you were doing landing in the battlefield during the contretemps with Monsieur William, he wouldn't have had his optical sphere punctured by a stray projectile fired by a careless archer. The surprise of seeing a gasboiler arriving in the battle probably caused his eyes to open much wider than normal, (under such stressful circumstances,) so that they facilitated the entry of the offending offensive instrument of wounding.

BobClay · #15 17th July 2018, 22:25

This is what happens when you mess with time paradoxes. Jeez you'll be blaming me for Richard III losing at Bosworth next … I just happened to land on that site purely by accident, as it happens, on top of the King … BUT IT WASN'T INTENTIONAL … that landing switch has/had been a bit dodgy for ages (before and after.)

Tomvart · #16 17th July 2018, 22:30

Bob, you should have used a single 2 way switch to initiate the landing, using a 10 year old thermostat dial was always going to add some degree of randomness to the final location/time/date of touchdown!

BobClay · #17 17th July 2018, 23:12

It's all I had at the time … you know how it is at sea … if you're stuck for a spare … bung something in and hope it works …

BobClay · #18 17th July 2018, 23:19

Now Varley, you do not have to go faster than light in order to travel through time. (Have you seen the cost of effing petrol lately

)

It's much easier with a converted gas boiler constructed shortly after consuming a couple of bottles of Pusser's Rum. (In fact, you can ditch the bloody gas boiler, the Rum will do it.)

I have travelled in time under the influence of Pusser's Rum, but there is a small flaw in my cunning plan. I seem only to move forward

The Rum wears off, and I've been transported into (which at the time seems effing bleak) the future. I'm still working on backward time travel.

Tomvart · #19 17th July 2018, 23:46

I've got backward time travel sussed - get Jeremy Corbyn elected - a sure fire way of transporting oneself back in time - although limited dates available 1960s and '70s, with special offers on a winter of discontent!

Harry Nicholson · #20 18th July 2018, 09:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tomvart

I've got backward time travel sussed - get Jeremy Corbyn elected - a sure fire way of transporting oneself back in time - although limited dates available 1960s and '70s, with special offers on a winter of discontent!

Corbyn's a lightweight compared to George Brown. I vaguely recall he promised, in Wilson's first Hundred Days, to nationalise all land, all banks, and that mortgages would be so low as to be almost free. George, sadly missed, could hold his drink far better than Juncker.

BobClay · #21 18th July 2018, 09:55

The one that impressed me Denis Howell. I arrived back in the UK in August 1976 to find the country in a serious drought. They made Denis Minister of Drought and a lot of national newspapers took great delight in taking the p1ss out of him.

Then it started raining.

Right the way through my leave it never stopped. Those same national newspapers were pleading with Denis to make it stop. Clearly the man had some clout with the weather gods.

Tomvart · #22 18th July 2018, 09:59

Rather than invite almost certain disaster by getting Corbyn & cronies in, perhaps we can incentivise Bob in his 'Clays Gas Boiler Backward Time Travel Machine Project' with a case of Pussers/Woods made in instalments, with a bonus payment of a bottle or 2 of 'Black Tot' for completing the project in time and on budget?

BobClay · #23 18th July 2018, 12:02

I have an electric boiler now. I put it in myself and converted the system from part gravity to fully pumped. Alas these meddlings have removed its time travelling ability, now it just heats water and pumps it about.

Still, you can't have everything.

Frank_P · #24 18th July 2018, 12:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by BobClay

I spotted a few mistakes in punctuation but I can't edit because when I try I keep getting logged out.

Do you think I've disturbed the space-time continuum with my old gas boiler ?

Bob, I have also noticed that when I try to edit or post something on SH, I get "logged out" I think that your time machine is affecting the running of SH.

Cheers Frank..................

BobClay · #25 18th July 2018, 15:04

Jeez I hope not, Steve will nail me to the wall.

It'll be MORLOCK time ….