Autumnal Thoughts........

Haversack said:

And the London to Brighton Run has been going on for decades. There is a delightful 1953 movie called Genevieve in which the Run is the central feature.

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The London to Brighton Veteran Car Run is the longest-running motoring event in the world. The first run was in 1896, and it has taken place most years since its initial revival in 1927. To qualify, the cars must have been built before 1905. It is also the world's largest gathering of veteran cars – 484 started in 2009, compared to 37 starters in 1927.

It takes place, currently, on the first Sunday in November and starts at sunrise from Hyde Park, London and mostly follows the old A23 road to finish at Brighton – a distance of 54 miles. There are two official stops along the way: Crawley, for refreshment, and Preston Park (in a suburb of Brighton). Preston Park is the official finishing point.

The event is organised on behalf of the Royal Automobile Club who emphasise that the event is not a race – they do not even publish the order in which cars finish, and participants are not permitted to exceed an average speed of 20 mph. Any that finish (many do not) before 4:30 pm are awarded a medal.

The first run took place on 14 November 1896, a wet Saturday. Organised by Harry J. Lawson, President of The Motor Car Club, and named "The Emancipation Run", it was a celebration of the recently passed Locomotives on Highways Act 1896, which had replaced the restrictive Locomotive Acts of 1861, 1865 and 1878 and increased the speed limit to 14 mph. Since 1878 the speed limit had been 4 mph in the country and 2 mph in the town, and an escort had been required to walk 20 yards ahead of the vehicle. The 1865 act had required the escort to carry a red flag at a distance of 60 yards.

Fading Fast said:

Yes, I'm looking forward to the leaves changing and that first cold morning when a sweater is necessary, but it isn't fall for me until these ⇩ show up in the store.
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I'd like to be a deeper person who talks about the change of seasons and the cycle of life, blah, blah, blah, but what I'm really looking forward to is the orange marshmallow pumpkin. I hope they had a good crop this year.

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Update:

Fall has arrived at the Fading Fasts as our order just arrived from Russell Stover.

Most importantly, I can report that this year's crop of orange marshmallow pumpkins turned out well - it was a good harvest.


And since I was putting in an order anywhere, picked out a few other items:

Nothing like a traditional pumpkin harvest.

A box of Dunkin Donuts munchkins left in the conference room.

Tiki Tom said:

Nothing like a traditional pumpkin harvest.

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Every year is anxious watching and waiting to see if the orange marshmallow pumpkins will have a good harvest or not.

A few weeks back, I was thinking that there is nothing sadder than the feeble light put out by the last few remaining fireflies, now bound to earth in the chillier nights, clinging to weeds, but still doggedly flashing their tiny lanterns in a fading, last-ditch hope of finding love.

On the other hand, we've just had out first frost, so we have an abatement from the eternal, existential question of the harvest moon season: "Where are we going to put all this damn squash?"

One of the best Autumn events in the UK is the heritage steam train at Pickering, Yorkshire. Every October they have a wartime, as in WW2, event. It just gets bigger year on year. Hopefully the weather gods will bless the venue again this year. Roll on 13th October.

Sunday was an absolutely perfect autumn day. Perfect for a walk through the vineyards that are a ten minute stroll from my house. The varietal is Gruener Veltliner, a grape that is unique to Austria. They are hanging in thick curtains and are about to burst. The harvest should start any day now. In the background you can see a built up part of Vienna that is on the far side of the Danube.

It... has begun!

History said, turtleneck pullovers were very popular in the 70s. And in the old media, it can of course be seen.

So, did the young fashionable people were them in all seasons, all day long, back then?

Trenchfriend said:

History said, turtleneck pullovers were very popular in the 70s. And in the old media, it can of course be seen.

So, did the young fashionable people were them in all seasons, all day long, back then?

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Yes unfortunately so for a good part of the year. There were different weights of material depending upon the season.

The UK put their clocks back an hour last night, for daylight saving. Many years ago I had the luxury of living close to my work, which meant I could set my alarm for seven am. Waking up to see daylight drifting in after getting used to the dark, I was always convinced that I had slept in. You know it's autumn when the clocks go back.

GHT said:

The UK put their clocks back an hour last night, for daylight saving. Many years ago I had the luxury of living close to my work, which meant I could set my alarm for seven am. Waking up to see daylight drifting in after getting used to the dark, I was always convinced that I had slept in. You know it's autumn when the clocks go back.

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I'm waiting with bated breath for this to happen in the States (they extended D.S.T. back in 1999...I wasn't even aware that the U.K. also took part in this foolishness). I have to be at work at 6:30, and am looking forward to getting back the hour that the government borrows every spring.

Nobert said:

(I wasn't even aware that the U.K. also took part in this foolishness.)

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The United Kingdom started using Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) as its standard time in 1880. It remained the base of civil time in the world until 1972. The Shepherd Gate Clock showed GMT first. The United Kingdom was among the first countries to use a standard time for the whole country, replacing the practice of each place keeping its own local mean time.

“Railway Time” With the introduction of the railway, travel became faster. With every station keeping its own local mean time, the need for a synchronized time arose. The first railway company to implement a common time for all stations, appropriately named “Railway Time,” was the Great Western Railway in November 1840. By 1847, most railways were using “London Time,” the time set at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. In 1847, the Railway Clearing House, an industry standards body, recommended that Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) be adopted at all stations as soon as the General Post Office permitted it. On December 1, 1847, the London and North Western Railway, as well as the Caledonian Railway, adopted “London Time,” and by 1848 most railways had followed.

By 1844, almost all towns and cities in Britain had adopted GMT, though the time standard received some resistance, with railway stations keeping local mean time and showing “London Time” with an additional minute hand on the clock.

In 1862, the Great Clock of Westminster, popularly known as Big Ben, was installed. Though not controlled by the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, it received hourly time signals from Greenwich and returned signals twice daily. However, it was not until 1880 that the British legal system caught up with the rest of the country. It had stuck to local mean time for years, leading to oddities such as polls opening at 08:13 (8:13 am) and closing at 16:13 (4:13 pm) during some elections.

With the Statutes (Definition of Time) Act (43 & 44 Vict.), Greenwich Mean Time was legally adopted throughout the island of Great Britain on August 2, 1880. Ireland replaced Dublin Mean Time with GMT in 1916.

In 1884 GMT was adopted as the international standard for civil time at the International Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C., USA. It remained the standard until 1972 when it was replaced with Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). UTC is still primarily based on the solar time on the prime meridian (0° longitude) near the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.

The English have not only pioneered standard time. It was also an Englishman who was responsible for the invention of Daylight Saving Time (DST), or summer time, as it is commonly known as in the UK. In 1907, English builder William Willett published a pamphlet called The Waste of Daylight, campaigning to advance clocks at the beginning of the spring and summer months and to return to GMT in the autumn. He wanted to encourage people to get out of bed earlier in summer. Willett spent the rest of his life fighting for his time-shifting scheme but died before DST was implemented.

The 1908 Daylight Saving Bill was the 1st attempt in the UK to move clocks forward 1 hour in summer. The idea was to provide more daylight hours after work for the training of the Territorial Army, to reduce railway accidents, and to reduce lighting expenses. The House of Commons rejected the Bill.

However, across the Atlantic a British colony in Canada made history. On July 1, 1908, the residents of Port Arthur, Ontario, today's Thunder Bay, turned their clocks forward by 1 hour to start the world's first DST period.

In 1916, during World War I, Germany was the 1st country in the world to use DST nationwide, and the UK followed just weeks later. To save energy and help the war effort, the Summer Time Act 1916 advanced the clocks in the UK for 1 hour from May 21 until October 1 in the same year.

Summer time, or DST, proved so popular that it was named British Summer Time (BST) and the seasonal practice kept.

Did you not also have British double summer time during the war? One hour year around and two in summer?

I'm again enjoying getting the normal-time back.

3fingers said:

Did you not also have British double summer time during the war? One hour year around and two in summer?

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How knowledgable you are:
Manipulations of Greenwich mean time have often been controversial. In October 1999, the King of Tonga, Taufa'ahau Tupou IV, put the clocks forward one hour, ensuring that his island would beat neighbouring Fiji to the millennium. In 2001, the Mayor of Mexico City managed to spark a constitutional crisis by arguing with the president over who had the right to decree what the time was. In September 1999, three Arab Israeli terrorists were blown up by their own bomb after misunderstanding the timers set by West Bank Palestinians. The West Bank was on daylight saving time; Israel wasn't.

Britain's timekeeping history is less turbulent, though no less complex. The Summertime Act of 1916 established two clock changes per year. During the second world war, double British summer time was invented as an energy-saving device, effectively putting the country on the same footing as mainland Europe - GMT+1 in the winter, and GMT+2 in the summer. In 1947, Britain reverted to normal.

Then, in 1968, a three-year experiment was conducted with British Standard Time, keeping the clocks fixed throughout the year on GMT+1. However, the dark winter mornings were unpopular, particularly in Scotland. In 1971, MPs voted to return to the system that endures today.

GHT said:

The UK put their clocks back an hour last night, for daylight saving...You know it's autumn when the clocks go back.

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I've said it before, but I sincerely wish all of the nations around the world that are still participating in this nonsense would finally conclude/agree/admit it serves no practical purpose for the vast majority of the people living on this rock and discontinue the practice once and for all. If you're one of those few people for whom it's actually an advantage, adjust your schedule and leave the rest of us alone.

GHT said:

By 1844, almost all towns and cities in Britain had adopted GMT, though the time standard received some resistance, with railway stations keeping local mean time and showing “London Time” with an additional minute hand on the clock.

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Sounds like you Brits really have a lot of hands on your time.


Thank you! I'm here 'til Thursday, enjoy the buffet!