I'm not kidding about those wet eyes. I challenge anyone to see The Danish Girl and not be affected by it. I saw it yesterday evening with two friends, one of them trans, one not. I saw it mostly because I'd been urged to (though not by these particular friends, who simply came with me for company). But I am glad that I made the effort.
The film does tell a compelling love story, which ends in tragedy - so it is inherently emotional - but it also presents the story of a trans woman sensitively - and in an adult context, not simply as something that young children or teenagers might go through.
I thought it was well-cast too. Here is a list of the main characters.
Eddie Redmayne as Einar Wegener, admired landscape artist, devoted husband, slightly hesitant but fun lover, who by degrees changes into alter-ego Lili Elbe.
Alicia Vikander as Einar's wife Gerda, also an artist, but at the start of the film not yet getting much success for her portrait painting, who has to cope with the emerging Lili.
Matthias Shoenaerts as Hans Asgil, a childhood friend of Einar's - whom Einar once kissed - but now a an established Parisian art dealer, well-off, urbane, a little wolfish, but nevertheless loyal and caring.
Ben Whishaw as Henrik, a carefully-closeted gay man who represents a 'safe' and gentle social companion for Lili as the film progresses, though it is short of being a full physical relationship.
Sebastian Koch as Dr Kurt Warnekros, a pioneering sexoligist and surgeon in Dresden - clearly humane, sympathetic and high-minded, who is approached late in the film, and offers Lili a high-risk set of operations that will transform her body's appearance and functionality from that of a man into that of a woman.
Most of the film is focussed on the interplay between these characters, chiefly between Lili and Gerda. But there are important subplots going on.
One is what happens between Lili and Henrik. Henrik meets Lili at the reception that is her first public appearance, her first proper test of passing. Much to Lili's surprise and consternation, she attracts the attention of more than one eligible man, but ends up being lured aside and deliciously kissed by Henrik, for whom she represents a strange fascination. The incident follows on from an earlier one in which Lili - not yet so named - is asked by an unsuspecting Gerda (whose art model has not turned up) to don silk stockings and heeled shoes, and hold a gorgeous silk dress over 'Einar's' formal male clothing, so that a painting can be completed on time. At first reluctant to co-operate, Einar becomes spellbound by the texture of the fabric and the transformation bestowed on his legs, and something that might have stayed buried is awakened. Now Henrik gives her a glimpse of what a woman's emotional and sensual life might be like. From that point there is really no turning back: the genie is out of the bottle.
Another is what happens between Gerda and Hans. Hans is a kind man, concerned for both Einar' and Gerda, but it's plain that he recognises early on where Lili is going, and sees himself picking up the pieces where Gerda is concerned. They never actually make love - though it's a close-run thing - for Gerda is desperately loyal to Einar (despite the tensions threatening their still-childless but otherwise close and companionable marriage) and then (gradually) to the woman she tearfully acknowledges that Einar really is, and needs to become in full. In the end it doesn't matter to Gerda what Lili looks like, or wants to be, she remains the chief human being in Gerda's life. It's telling that as the film proceeds, Gerda stops saying 'Einar' and calls her beloved only 'Lili'. Hans observes all this. Hans is her safety net: the proverbial badly-needed strong arm around Gerda's shoulders, as Einar slips away.
I don't want to spoil the film for anyone who hasn't yet seen it, so I won't discuss very much more about the plot. I will but say that - in my view at least - this is a compelling film that anyone can enjoy. It's most definitely not the usual trans fare. But I do think it takes the general image of trans people to another level. A very timely thing, if you caught the headlines of the Trans Equality Report out today.
Mind you, you must bear in mind the following points:
# Some of the true-life story of Lili Elbe has been pared away for the sake of achieving simplicity of narration and enhanced dramatic impact. That's forgiveable, in the context of making a watchable film. Let it be a reason for looking up the extra details that the film has omitted.
# Some inventions have been introduced. But again, in the context of the film as a whole, this is forgivable. It's like - say - comparing the three-part book version of JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings with the astonishingly good (and just as moving) three-part film version. In that case, the film - despite its liberties - brings to vivid life the main and best-loved scenes in the book, with all their power, and the smaller discrepancies do not matter.
What major impressions or perplexities did I come away with?
# Eddie Redmayne was an absolute natural for the part, a slim male actor with a woman's face. The shape of his face, including his eyes and lips, were just right. His movements were fluid, too. The era dealt with by the film (late 1920s and early 1930s) was one in which women's fashions favoured tallness, a flat chest and tolerated a certain mannishness in the planes of the face. The social scene was still formal, and women were still well covered up. These things assisted Eddie Redmayne's portrayal. But I have to say that, in any case, he looked and sounded very convincing as a woman of the time, and the portrayal goes through subtle changes and improvements as the film progresses. It's no surprise that Lili is accepted as 'one of the girls' at the department store she gets a job at. Nor that, recovering from her first operation at Dresden later on, she falls into natural conversation with a natal woman as they discuss having children.
# This is only my own view, but I think the character of most interest to me - the one I identified with, and was most drawn to - was Gerda. If Eddie Redmayne was good, Alicia Vikander was terrific! From the outset, one could almost take the story of Lili Elbe as a given. But how would Gerda react? What would she do? Eyes were immensely important in the film. All the main characters had expressive eyes, but none more so than Gerda's; and hers were the most over-brimmimg with tears. I felt my own over-brimming with her. You could feel her anguish so acutely. And because of this, because the theme of 'love enduring through so much' is so dominant, I would say that this is most definitely a 'woman's film'. More so perhaps than it is a 'trans film', although it is of course that too.
# Formal occasions apart, strict clothing conventions hardly exist now in the modern world, allowing all kinds of perfectly acceptable gender-fluid attire. No such overt gender variant expression was possible around 1930. Dress was much more gender-specific than now - suits on one hand, dresses on the other. There was no 'safe' unisex clothing. Lili could not have compromised with a T-shirt and jeans, worn with the kind of hair and trinkets that men (or women) could get away with from, say, 1970. One couldn't be quietly ambiguous. There is a scene in the film where, in a vain, experimental and one-off attempt to keep her femininity in check, Lili goes for a stroll in a distinctly effeminate 'male' outfit and gets roughed up for her pains, because she has been mistaken for a gay man of the period, which she was not. Sympathetic and accepting Hans cleans her up. She does not repeat the mistake. I'm struck by the undoubted advance in social attitudes between 1930 and now that make it distinctly less likely that anyone will be set upon if they want to dress in an out-of-the-ordinary way. (At least in the places I go to: you may be stuck with a backward locality)
# Lili used a name acquired by accident! That seems odd for something so intensely personal. I think I am right in saying that one of the greatest pleasures of taking a transition forward is the business of self-naming. It's also a significant privilege. And yet, although already aware of the woman within while still leading a male life, Einar had not named that woman, and left her anonymous, even though he apparently regarded her as a separate personality: 'not Einar'. And yet most if not all modern trans people I've come across know what their 'real name' is, even if they might be very circumspect about revealing it. It took a female visitor to the studio, catching Einar modelling in those silk stockings, to dub him 'Lili'. And the 'Elbe' surname was hastily invented at the Dresden hospital admission desk, soon after Lili had arrived by the rail bridge over that river. That seems so casual, and I don't get it. I'd want to chose my own name myself. And take time and care over it.
# I wasn't the only one among the three of us to feel dissatisfied that Lili completely abandoned her painting. Gerda - as she pointed out - was both a woman and an artist. But the art seemed to drain away from Lili, leaving a figure wholly concerned with developing her identity and nothing much more. Perhaps that was natural, and the feeling for artistic expression would have returned if she had lived. I hope so!
And where did I cry most? I had wet cheeks when farewells were said at Paris, when Lili boarded the train for Dresden and her first operation. And then another overflow at the very end, when the scarf was taken by the wind, the scarf that had been passed between Gerda and Lili like a love-baton, and in the end represented Lili's spirit set free.
The film said in silence that Gerda painted Lili from her imagination for the rest of her life. She could never forget her. I'm crying as I type that too. I have a changed world also, and a lost love irretrievable, irreplaceable and unforgettable. Maybe you too. Let's share the tears.
Thursday, 14 January 2016
Monday, 11 January 2016
David Bowie dead
Wow, it seems to be the season for knockout news. David Bowie, once so young and vital, now dead of cancer and off life's stage at sixty-nine. Gone forever. The chameleon singer and actor and trendsetter for my generation. I won't say I modelled any part of myself on him, but he must have had an influence nevertheless, if only as a colourful and inspirational rebel figure with clout - exactly what I never was - who wasn't afraid to be new and challenging again and again and again. My goodness, that make-up! Those strange outfits! But it's the songs that matter. And their effect - which has been huge and long-lasting, spanning four decades.
I'm old enough to have seen him perform his first proper hit, Space Oddity, on Top Of The Pops way back in 1969. I was actually still at school, doing my A Levels. Dad had just bought a colour TV - not to watch David Bowie with, but to watch his beloved golf; but there were many enjoyable spin-offs for the rest of the family. Seeing Top Of The Pops in colour was one of them. It was so nice to see my pop heroes in all their glory. I had watched the Beatles' 1968 Christmas Special - Magical Mystery Tour - in dour black and white, with Mum and Dad tut-tutting darkly over every minute of it. I think my Uncle Wilf and Auntie Peg were there as well. They didn't understand what was going on, or at least said they didn't. (I dare say they understood much more about the way society was moving forward than I could. I was only seventeen, and very inexperienced indeed) But they might all have found MMT easier to digest, had they seen it in amazing (if lurid) colour.
I think Mum and Dad actually approved of Space Oddity. Bowie (at that point) was 'normal'. He was a very clean cut, very good-looking young man with a folk guitar and easy-to-understand lyrics. It was (apparently) a straightforward song about Major Tom, astronaut and loving husband, whose space capsule malfunctions. An alternative notion wouldn't have occurred to them - that Major Tom had decided to pull the plug on returning to his humdrum earthly life, preferring to spin off into deep space, embracing the silence and immensity of the universe. Who would do that?
Bowie wasn't multicoloured and androgynous and 'weird' then. But he soon was. Almost everyone was. And many of them were simply following Bowie's lead.
Enough said. There will soon be a flood of words and pictures and musical analysis. I need not comment further. To round this post off, and at the same time reveal what appealed to me about his talent, I can hardly do better than list the David Bowie songs - mp3 tracks - installed on my phone right now for daily listening. I won't cheat. It's a meagre, bare-bones collection, that needs expanding. And there are in fact several songs I intend to add, such as Sound and Vision from 1977. But they aren't yet on my phone, and mustn't be listed as if they already were.
The Laughing Gnome (1967, released again 1973)
Space Oddity (1969)
Changes (1971)
Starman (1972)
The Jean Genie (1973)
Drive-in Saturday (1973)
Life On Mars? (1973)
Rebel Rebel (1974)
Heroes (1977)
Boys Keep Swinging (1979)
Ashes To Ashes (1980)
The odd one out is of course The Laughing Gnome, a novelty recording. But it reveals David Bowie as a man of fun. A man with a playful sense of humour. I don't think he ever lost that.
I'm old enough to have seen him perform his first proper hit, Space Oddity, on Top Of The Pops way back in 1969. I was actually still at school, doing my A Levels. Dad had just bought a colour TV - not to watch David Bowie with, but to watch his beloved golf; but there were many enjoyable spin-offs for the rest of the family. Seeing Top Of The Pops in colour was one of them. It was so nice to see my pop heroes in all their glory. I had watched the Beatles' 1968 Christmas Special - Magical Mystery Tour - in dour black and white, with Mum and Dad tut-tutting darkly over every minute of it. I think my Uncle Wilf and Auntie Peg were there as well. They didn't understand what was going on, or at least said they didn't. (I dare say they understood much more about the way society was moving forward than I could. I was only seventeen, and very inexperienced indeed) But they might all have found MMT easier to digest, had they seen it in amazing (if lurid) colour.
I think Mum and Dad actually approved of Space Oddity. Bowie (at that point) was 'normal'. He was a very clean cut, very good-looking young man with a folk guitar and easy-to-understand lyrics. It was (apparently) a straightforward song about Major Tom, astronaut and loving husband, whose space capsule malfunctions. An alternative notion wouldn't have occurred to them - that Major Tom had decided to pull the plug on returning to his humdrum earthly life, preferring to spin off into deep space, embracing the silence and immensity of the universe. Who would do that?
Bowie wasn't multicoloured and androgynous and 'weird' then. But he soon was. Almost everyone was. And many of them were simply following Bowie's lead.
Enough said. There will soon be a flood of words and pictures and musical analysis. I need not comment further. To round this post off, and at the same time reveal what appealed to me about his talent, I can hardly do better than list the David Bowie songs - mp3 tracks - installed on my phone right now for daily listening. I won't cheat. It's a meagre, bare-bones collection, that needs expanding. And there are in fact several songs I intend to add, such as Sound and Vision from 1977. But they aren't yet on my phone, and mustn't be listed as if they already were.
The Laughing Gnome (1967, released again 1973)
Space Oddity (1969)
Changes (1971)
Starman (1972)
The Jean Genie (1973)
Drive-in Saturday (1973)
Life On Mars? (1973)
Rebel Rebel (1974)
Heroes (1977)
Boys Keep Swinging (1979)
Ashes To Ashes (1980)
The odd one out is of course The Laughing Gnome, a novelty recording. But it reveals David Bowie as a man of fun. A man with a playful sense of humour. I don't think he ever lost that.
Sunday, 10 January 2016
The Danish Girl
Everyone seems to be talking about this film. I haven't seen it yet, but I feel I ought to. Two of my friends who have seen it have told me what they think.
One (a natal woman) wasn't impressed, and thought the star, Eddie Redmayne, was unconvincing in the role of transsexual woman Lili Elbe. Her critical focus was on the casting and the quality of the acting - as it might well be for most people who aren't trans, given that the 'plot' - subject to a few things not dealt with or mentioned - broadly follows the real-life facts and is a given. The interest is therefore going to be on the interplay of the characters and especially the development of the main one. Certainly, the official trailer's coverage of Lili's first really close contact with female attire, and her first kiss with a man at a reception, and the consequences hinted at, is rather tantalising and I may break my own general rule about never watching weepy films.
The other friend, a trans woman herself, who watched in the company of another trans friend, told me she had been moved to tears. The film will naturally have huge significance for a trans woman, especially someone who has herself undergone surgery. She has urged me to go and see the film.
I think this difference in reaction is completely understandable. A non-trans person is just not going to identify strongly with Lili Elbe and how she felt about herself. How can a non-trans person feel the gut need to make the body align with the soul within? How can they understand what drives trans people to take the steps they do, in order obtain the fullest possible self-expression in their right gender? How can they look at this film and directly compare it with a transitional experience of their own? There hasn't been any transitional experience, whether contemplated or fulfilled. So there must be an imagination shortfall - and an emotional shortfall too.
Let me put it this way. I've never had a baby: I never could. And I don't want one now. But it's nevertheless a matter for intense regret, not to have had that experience of all female experiences. It's one of those 'if-only-I'd-had-the-capability-at-the-proper-time' things. I've recently discovered that I am no longer emotionally neutral on the subject. 'Mother' is a very heavily loaded word in so many ways.
Of course, I can 'easily' imagine how it could be for a first-time mother. I can approach the whole thing very seriously, and really try to share the emotion, really try to imagine the weight and movement of a child in the womb, and all the worries and discomforts and anticipations of pregnancy.
But of course, it's not possible to really know. And it's far too late to find out now. Nor do I understand anything about the inner feelings that drive some women to go to extraordinary lengths to get themselves a child. Why a woman might risk even death, against a doctor's advice. It does seem to me that what I'm saying here may go some way to illustrate the problem of 'full understanding' for a non-trans person, in relation to what Lili Elbe put herself through, and what she had to let go of.
And what about Eddie Redmayne? As the choice for the part? And his performance? I must go and see the film for a proper opinion, but from what I've seen in clips, I personally think he was right for the part. He had the right look at least. I mean he seemed intriguingly female. Three nights ago, I heard him talking on BBC Radio 4's The Film Programme. He explained the conscientious things he did to get into the part. Such as studying the look and behaviour of both ordinary and trans women. He wanted to get inside Lili Elbe's head and portray her authentically in the various stages of her transition. My impression was that he made a jolly good attempt to understand her. He also admitted that no actor, certainly not himself, could play such a role to perfection. Which begs the question, could even a trans actor?
The film seems to be doing quite well. Which is a very encouraging thing, because although many a trans person will want to see it, to be profitable it must find its largest audience outside the trans world. And that argues a willingness in the general public to treat the film in an adult way, as a love story, about a relationship that goes tragically amiss, and for a reason that an ordinary audience can recognise, accept, and have sympathy with. Which surely takes the mass public portrayal of trans women to a new level.
One (a natal woman) wasn't impressed, and thought the star, Eddie Redmayne, was unconvincing in the role of transsexual woman Lili Elbe. Her critical focus was on the casting and the quality of the acting - as it might well be for most people who aren't trans, given that the 'plot' - subject to a few things not dealt with or mentioned - broadly follows the real-life facts and is a given. The interest is therefore going to be on the interplay of the characters and especially the development of the main one. Certainly, the official trailer's coverage of Lili's first really close contact with female attire, and her first kiss with a man at a reception, and the consequences hinted at, is rather tantalising and I may break my own general rule about never watching weepy films.
The other friend, a trans woman herself, who watched in the company of another trans friend, told me she had been moved to tears. The film will naturally have huge significance for a trans woman, especially someone who has herself undergone surgery. She has urged me to go and see the film.
I think this difference in reaction is completely understandable. A non-trans person is just not going to identify strongly with Lili Elbe and how she felt about herself. How can a non-trans person feel the gut need to make the body align with the soul within? How can they understand what drives trans people to take the steps they do, in order obtain the fullest possible self-expression in their right gender? How can they look at this film and directly compare it with a transitional experience of their own? There hasn't been any transitional experience, whether contemplated or fulfilled. So there must be an imagination shortfall - and an emotional shortfall too.
Let me put it this way. I've never had a baby: I never could. And I don't want one now. But it's nevertheless a matter for intense regret, not to have had that experience of all female experiences. It's one of those 'if-only-I'd-had-the-capability-at-the-proper-time' things. I've recently discovered that I am no longer emotionally neutral on the subject. 'Mother' is a very heavily loaded word in so many ways.
Of course, I can 'easily' imagine how it could be for a first-time mother. I can approach the whole thing very seriously, and really try to share the emotion, really try to imagine the weight and movement of a child in the womb, and all the worries and discomforts and anticipations of pregnancy.
But of course, it's not possible to really know. And it's far too late to find out now. Nor do I understand anything about the inner feelings that drive some women to go to extraordinary lengths to get themselves a child. Why a woman might risk even death, against a doctor's advice. It does seem to me that what I'm saying here may go some way to illustrate the problem of 'full understanding' for a non-trans person, in relation to what Lili Elbe put herself through, and what she had to let go of.
And what about Eddie Redmayne? As the choice for the part? And his performance? I must go and see the film for a proper opinion, but from what I've seen in clips, I personally think he was right for the part. He had the right look at least. I mean he seemed intriguingly female. Three nights ago, I heard him talking on BBC Radio 4's The Film Programme. He explained the conscientious things he did to get into the part. Such as studying the look and behaviour of both ordinary and trans women. He wanted to get inside Lili Elbe's head and portray her authentically in the various stages of her transition. My impression was that he made a jolly good attempt to understand her. He also admitted that no actor, certainly not himself, could play such a role to perfection. Which begs the question, could even a trans actor?
The film seems to be doing quite well. Which is a very encouraging thing, because although many a trans person will want to see it, to be profitable it must find its largest audience outside the trans world. And that argues a willingness in the general public to treat the film in an adult way, as a love story, about a relationship that goes tragically amiss, and for a reason that an ordinary audience can recognise, accept, and have sympathy with. Which surely takes the mass public portrayal of trans women to a new level.
Hooked
This is a sequel to my last post. The object in question - which destroyed a good tyre - is definitely worthy of a write-up. Here it is:
It somewhat resembles a very hefty iron fish hook, even to that vicious barb. And that's my left hand, so you can see how big it was. The tyre fitters had not seen such a beast for some time. It must have hooked itself onto my rear tyre, and then by degrees, as the wheel revolved, driven itself in as far as it could go - which was nearly all the way. It didn't make a simple round puncture, the repairable sort, but a misshapen hole, so that the shank of this thing didn't self-seal the wound but let air escape around it, leading to a very rapid (and potentially dangerous) deflation of the tyre.
Well, Fiona now has two very nice new rear tyres - very reassuring in this dreadfully wet winter weather! This incident can be placed in the past. But not forgotten: for some months to come I will be very wary of country lanes strewn with gravel and other debris after heavy rainfall!
Did fitting new tyres cure the humming noise at speed? No. It's still there. My ears tell me that the hum is definitely coming from the rear offside, into my right ear. So it could be something to do with the wheel back there on that side of the car, or whatever it's connected to.
The wheel bearings then? Except that the noise isn't a metallic drone, and it doesn't cut out or change if I steer sharply in a different direction (the standard test for worn wheel bearings). And it began 10,000 miles ago, in May 2015, without ever getting worse - dodgy wheel bearings would get rapidly louder prior to their inevitable disintegration: they wouldn't last so long as 10,000 miles. Apart from that, the Volvo dealer's sonic tests determined that there was nothing wrong with any of the wheel bearings.
The differential box is right in the centre of the rear underside. But my ears say the hum isn't coming from that direction. It's a sealed unit, in theory never requiring maintenance. And it isn't leaking any lubrication. Nor is it used only some of the time, as the rear differential on my previous car (the Honda) was. Twice in my ownership of the Honda, the rarely-used rear differential gummed up through under-use, and would creak on sharp bends. The Honda dealer fixed this with a 'differential flush', which I think just means fresh lubrication. But Fiona's rear differential is always-on, and can never 'gum up'. Apart from all that, the Volvo dealer's sonic tests didn't indicate anything wrong with the differential - and indeed I gather from my own Internet research that it's rare for that component to give any trouble at all on my car.
So it's all very mysterious. My concern is that an unexplained noise must indicate a problem of some kind. It might easily be trivial. Or it might be a sign of impending doom. I do take heart in the fact that the noise has never got worse, and that it's not so loud that I can't live with it.
I feel the practical and sensible thing to do is to await events. Certainly not to book Fiona in to have a new offside rear wheel bearing, simply to see whether, after all, it might do the trick. The job would cost at least £200 - too much to spend on a tentative notion that it might effect a cure for the hum.
I gather that even if they become noisy, rear differentials hardly ever fail. I hope that's true. It seems that installing a new one might cost £3,000. I'd put up with a lot of humming to avoid paying that!
It somewhat resembles a very hefty iron fish hook, even to that vicious barb. And that's my left hand, so you can see how big it was. The tyre fitters had not seen such a beast for some time. It must have hooked itself onto my rear tyre, and then by degrees, as the wheel revolved, driven itself in as far as it could go - which was nearly all the way. It didn't make a simple round puncture, the repairable sort, but a misshapen hole, so that the shank of this thing didn't self-seal the wound but let air escape around it, leading to a very rapid (and potentially dangerous) deflation of the tyre.
Well, Fiona now has two very nice new rear tyres - very reassuring in this dreadfully wet winter weather! This incident can be placed in the past. But not forgotten: for some months to come I will be very wary of country lanes strewn with gravel and other debris after heavy rainfall!
Did fitting new tyres cure the humming noise at speed? No. It's still there. My ears tell me that the hum is definitely coming from the rear offside, into my right ear. So it could be something to do with the wheel back there on that side of the car, or whatever it's connected to.
The wheel bearings then? Except that the noise isn't a metallic drone, and it doesn't cut out or change if I steer sharply in a different direction (the standard test for worn wheel bearings). And it began 10,000 miles ago, in May 2015, without ever getting worse - dodgy wheel bearings would get rapidly louder prior to their inevitable disintegration: they wouldn't last so long as 10,000 miles. Apart from that, the Volvo dealer's sonic tests determined that there was nothing wrong with any of the wheel bearings.
The differential box is right in the centre of the rear underside. But my ears say the hum isn't coming from that direction. It's a sealed unit, in theory never requiring maintenance. And it isn't leaking any lubrication. Nor is it used only some of the time, as the rear differential on my previous car (the Honda) was. Twice in my ownership of the Honda, the rarely-used rear differential gummed up through under-use, and would creak on sharp bends. The Honda dealer fixed this with a 'differential flush', which I think just means fresh lubrication. But Fiona's rear differential is always-on, and can never 'gum up'. Apart from all that, the Volvo dealer's sonic tests didn't indicate anything wrong with the differential - and indeed I gather from my own Internet research that it's rare for that component to give any trouble at all on my car.
So it's all very mysterious. My concern is that an unexplained noise must indicate a problem of some kind. It might easily be trivial. Or it might be a sign of impending doom. I do take heart in the fact that the noise has never got worse, and that it's not so loud that I can't live with it.
I feel the practical and sensible thing to do is to await events. Certainly not to book Fiona in to have a new offside rear wheel bearing, simply to see whether, after all, it might do the trick. The job would cost at least £200 - too much to spend on a tentative notion that it might effect a cure for the hum.
I gather that even if they become noisy, rear differentials hardly ever fail. I hope that's true. It seems that installing a new one might cost £3,000. I'd put up with a lot of humming to avoid paying that!
Saturday, 9 January 2016
Just sheer bad luck
I have to admit that so far as cars are concerned I am decidedly unlucky. No matter what care I take, the cars in my life regularly suffer mishaps, and if there is one area where I am particularly unfortunate it's tyres. Yes, I've suffered another puncture. It wrote off a tyre this time, damaged beyond hope of repair.
I had just bought some smoked salmon from Springs Smoked Salmon at Edburton, a hamlet at the foot of the South Downs west of Fulking. Edburton lies along a fairly narrow country road that tends to puddle somewhat in heavy rain, and the consequent water movements always spread silt and loose stones and a variety of other detritus across the road. Well, the rain had stopped, but there was still lots of gravel and other stuff on the road surface, and among all that lot was a huge nail that Fiona's nearside rear tyre picked up soon after I left the salmon shop's customer car park.
At first there was a regular thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk sound, as if something had temporarily caught in one of the tyre treads - a large stone, say. But it didn't go away as I increased speed, and actually got much louder. Suspicious, I stopped and got out of Fiona to take a look. Sssssssssss! That rear tyre was hissing air and deflating rapidly. I quickly jumped back in, turned the car around, and drove back to the customer car park - the only nearby large flat area I could think of with easy access for a roadside rescue vehicle.
I only just made it. I was running on a completely flat tyre as I turned into the car park. It was making awful flapping noises. Expensive noises!
Well, it could have been worse. The tyre hadn't come off the wheel. But it was a sorry sight:
If ever I saw a write-off, this was it. It was so badly crumpled. The tyre walls must have been totally mangled. And deeply embedded in the tread was a large, blunt-headed metal nail, which you can make out in this next shot if you look carefully:
No mere tack this. It looked like a iron stake that would do nicely for killing Count Dracula. I was not happy.
Don't let that early-afternoon sunshine fool you. It was chilly, and I was not warmly clad. Nor did I have anything more than a bottle of water with me. And I knew I'd have to wait for roadside assistance - changing a tyre was not within my powers.
I phoned Britannia Rescue from the shop - help promised 'within 90 minutes' - went to the loo there (very obliging of them, that), transferred everything from the boot to the back seat, and disinterred the never-before-used spacesaver tyre from its well. I had a plastic tarpaulin, so at least the beige carpet in the boot wouldn't get dirty.
Then I hunkered down to wait, now and then turning on the engine to warm the interior of the car up a bit. The man came after 80 minutes. He was cheerful. He had the tyres swapped over in short order. I 'signed' the rescue app screen on his phone, all you seem to do nowadays, and headed for home. I did stop on the way back to get some milk. The spacesaver looked very odd, as it was smaller and much narrower than the ordinary tyre:
This was a Thursday, and I needed a proper new tyre fitted by Saturday evening. I was scarcely in the mood to organise that. In fact after no food for several hours, and a longish wait for help, I was feeling somewhat tired and brain-dead. Fortunately I met Jackie and Kevin, my neighbours, as I arrived home. They advised me to buy a replacement tyre online (from TyreShopper). I'd get it at a big discount, and could specify which tyre fitter it should be delivered to, for them to fit it at no extra cost, balancing included. I said I'd look into this, even though it seemed rather a palaver. But after a badly-needed and very late lunch, it didn't look so hard to do.
The price was in fact so good I decided to replace both rear tyres. And as I write this, I am looking at the job being done very locally some time on Saturday morning, less than twelve hours ahead.
Now why both rear tyres? Well, after my rear tyres were last replaced, at Fiona's annual service in May 2015 - 10,000 miles ago - I began to notice a humming noise at speed, which I've mentioned several times since. Although from the same maker (Continental) the then-new rear tyres had a very different kind of tread compared with the front tyres. I'd never had that kind before. They were meant to be free-rolling and long-lasting. And supposedly quiet. But something was making that humming noise, and passengers said it came from the rear, so those new tyres were the likely culprits. But I wasn't going to discard them too quickly, not while they still had plenty of wear left in them!
Now fate had written off one of these humming tyres. An opportunity to discover whether a different set would silence the noise completely. At low cost.
We'll find out very soon.
I had just bought some smoked salmon from Springs Smoked Salmon at Edburton, a hamlet at the foot of the South Downs west of Fulking. Edburton lies along a fairly narrow country road that tends to puddle somewhat in heavy rain, and the consequent water movements always spread silt and loose stones and a variety of other detritus across the road. Well, the rain had stopped, but there was still lots of gravel and other stuff on the road surface, and among all that lot was a huge nail that Fiona's nearside rear tyre picked up soon after I left the salmon shop's customer car park.
At first there was a regular thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk sound, as if something had temporarily caught in one of the tyre treads - a large stone, say. But it didn't go away as I increased speed, and actually got much louder. Suspicious, I stopped and got out of Fiona to take a look. Sssssssssss! That rear tyre was hissing air and deflating rapidly. I quickly jumped back in, turned the car around, and drove back to the customer car park - the only nearby large flat area I could think of with easy access for a roadside rescue vehicle.
I only just made it. I was running on a completely flat tyre as I turned into the car park. It was making awful flapping noises. Expensive noises!
Well, it could have been worse. The tyre hadn't come off the wheel. But it was a sorry sight:
If ever I saw a write-off, this was it. It was so badly crumpled. The tyre walls must have been totally mangled. And deeply embedded in the tread was a large, blunt-headed metal nail, which you can make out in this next shot if you look carefully:
No mere tack this. It looked like a iron stake that would do nicely for killing Count Dracula. I was not happy.
Don't let that early-afternoon sunshine fool you. It was chilly, and I was not warmly clad. Nor did I have anything more than a bottle of water with me. And I knew I'd have to wait for roadside assistance - changing a tyre was not within my powers.
I phoned Britannia Rescue from the shop - help promised 'within 90 minutes' - went to the loo there (very obliging of them, that), transferred everything from the boot to the back seat, and disinterred the never-before-used spacesaver tyre from its well. I had a plastic tarpaulin, so at least the beige carpet in the boot wouldn't get dirty.
Then I hunkered down to wait, now and then turning on the engine to warm the interior of the car up a bit. The man came after 80 minutes. He was cheerful. He had the tyres swapped over in short order. I 'signed' the rescue app screen on his phone, all you seem to do nowadays, and headed for home. I did stop on the way back to get some milk. The spacesaver looked very odd, as it was smaller and much narrower than the ordinary tyre:
This was a Thursday, and I needed a proper new tyre fitted by Saturday evening. I was scarcely in the mood to organise that. In fact after no food for several hours, and a longish wait for help, I was feeling somewhat tired and brain-dead. Fortunately I met Jackie and Kevin, my neighbours, as I arrived home. They advised me to buy a replacement tyre online (from TyreShopper). I'd get it at a big discount, and could specify which tyre fitter it should be delivered to, for them to fit it at no extra cost, balancing included. I said I'd look into this, even though it seemed rather a palaver. But after a badly-needed and very late lunch, it didn't look so hard to do.
The price was in fact so good I decided to replace both rear tyres. And as I write this, I am looking at the job being done very locally some time on Saturday morning, less than twelve hours ahead.
Now why both rear tyres? Well, after my rear tyres were last replaced, at Fiona's annual service in May 2015 - 10,000 miles ago - I began to notice a humming noise at speed, which I've mentioned several times since. Although from the same maker (Continental) the then-new rear tyres had a very different kind of tread compared with the front tyres. I'd never had that kind before. They were meant to be free-rolling and long-lasting. And supposedly quiet. But something was making that humming noise, and passengers said it came from the rear, so those new tyres were the likely culprits. But I wasn't going to discard them too quickly, not while they still had plenty of wear left in them!
Now fate had written off one of these humming tyres. An opportunity to discover whether a different set would silence the noise completely. At low cost.
We'll find out very soon.
Wednesday, 6 January 2016
The empire takes hold and expands
Nothing sinister meant here! I refer to my growing collection of digital Ordnance Survey mapping, specifically the 1:25,000 10 km x 10 km tiles you can buy online and download to your handy mobile device. They are priced at £1.99 each, and sometimes only £1.49. You hardly notice the cost, if you buy just a few at a time.
Ever since last autumn I've been snapping these up in small batches, whenever I've found myself with a little cash in hand, so that I've now got 151 of them. That's 15,100 square miles of detailed mapping, the sort you'd use for walking about, exactly the same sort you get when buying one of those orange-coloured paper OS maps in bookshops. But each of those paper maps now costs £9.99, and typically covers quite a large area - 20 km x 30 km - not all of which you might actually want. The much smaller 10 km x 10 km tiles let you focus on the restricted local areas you are most interested in. So there's no 'wastage'. And no paper is used. It's green then.
Well, that's the rationale. But being a map lover I couldn't resist building up a block of tiles covering all the south coast of England from Devon to Kent, and the hinterland to a depth of thirty miles or so. Three days ago I began to plot my purchases onto a base map. I used a OS Map Index of 1990 vintage:
As a rule I don't like marking maps, even something like this, but I couldn't find any equivalent online for downloading. Anyway, this is the result, the current extent of my digital-only, paperless coverage:
You can see why I think it looks like a spreading 'empire'!
2015 purchases are in pale yellow, 2016 purchases are pale orange. I'd found a box of colouring pencils Dad had bought some years back. Just right for my purpose. Now I have an overview. And I can see which areas need to be 'invaded' next!
But this is not a 'collection'. This mapping is for practical use, and I won't be buying tiles for localities I won't ever want to visit and walk about in. I do collect maps, and have done so since childhood, and it's an impressive collection, but they are proper paper maps. Nevertheless, as you might suppose, every kind of map is catalogued in detail on one or other spreadsheet, these tiles included.
There's nothing of course quite like a paper map. It's an historical document, it reveals social history. It has a sheet name and number, a survey date, a publishing date, and many other individual characteristics. You can touch it and spread it out, and fold it up. It has a cover, often something of a 'period' artwork. The map itself is a tangible artwork. And when using it, you get the wide view: you can examine the countryside for miles around, and not just what is shown in the little rectangle that is your mobile phone screen - as clearly illustrated in this shot of the area around Barry in south Wales, with my phone placed on top:
But the small screen is fine if you don't need the long-range view. And if the light is poor, as you might get on a dull winter's afternoon, it's much easier to see the detail on that backlit small screen!
And you can tweak the magnification with your fingers, making it all even easier to see:
Indeed, with these 10 km x 10 km tiles, you can zoom in as much as you want to, because your £1.99 buys high definition (660dpi). The money also buys ongoing periodic updating, to show new roads and buildings and other changes as they get put in. The latest 1:25,000 paper maps do include a free digital download, but it isn't high-definition (so you can't zoom into it much) and you don't get that updating.
For sheer clarity, there is no contest between ordinary definition and high definition. HD is orgasmically superior. And that's why my HD empire of 10 km x 10 km tiles will continue to expand, gradually covering everywhere in south and south-west England, apart from utterly boring places of no possible interest, plus a few outlying spots that I must have for romantic reasons. The only practical limits on this expansion are (a) what I should sensibly spend; and (b) the amount of storage space on my phone. I reckon I can afford to install another 150 tiles, making about 300 altogether.
So it's quite important to plot what I already have, in order to plan what I can still fit in. The last fifty or so map tiles will be the very hardest to select - some careful thinking to be done there! No dross. No tedious places of stultifying ennui and irredeemable banality. Only places that call to my wilder passions. So I may have to sacrifice coverage of (say) Swindon, Basingstoke, Slough and Woking for Scottish islands like Eigg, Muck, Rum and Canna. Or distant North Ronaldsay (even though I already have 1:25,000 coverage of that island in paper map form). Or the two tiles necessary to cover remote Foula. Or even the four tiles needed for edge-of-the-world St Kilda! What about the insanely hard-to-get-to Sula Sgeir?
Hmm...Sula Sgeir, fit only for seabirds and seals...versus Swindon? Guess which deserves HD mapping more.
The total number of tiles I could buy, if aiming for nationwide coverage, must be around 2,700. So 300 is a very modest target really, about 11% of the total.
Even if (so far as I'm concerned) my 300 map tiles won't be a 'map collection' in the hobbyist's sense, it's still fun to put them together. I mentioned what I was doing to my niece Jenny when I saw her on Boxing Day. She works as a highly-paid software developer. She was impressed at my being able to buy these tiles online so easily, one by one, and how well they were displayed on my phone in the OS's MapFinder app, fresh maps merging seamlessly with maps already in the bag. She was a fairly obsessive collector herself - for example her Japanese Manga books (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga). So she was intrigued at the notion that (even if I wasn't doing it as such) you could 'collect' these map tiles. I took that as a sign of approval, and that I wasn't being quaint or eccentric to regard my programme of acquisitions as a worthwhile, useful endeavour.
Not that I mind being thought quaint and eccentric, you understand. Indeed, people who don't do conventional things, who are mildly out of kilter with the rest, may have an evolutionary advantage and - who knows - might yet inherit the earth!
Ever since last autumn I've been snapping these up in small batches, whenever I've found myself with a little cash in hand, so that I've now got 151 of them. That's 15,100 square miles of detailed mapping, the sort you'd use for walking about, exactly the same sort you get when buying one of those orange-coloured paper OS maps in bookshops. But each of those paper maps now costs £9.99, and typically covers quite a large area - 20 km x 30 km - not all of which you might actually want. The much smaller 10 km x 10 km tiles let you focus on the restricted local areas you are most interested in. So there's no 'wastage'. And no paper is used. It's green then.
Well, that's the rationale. But being a map lover I couldn't resist building up a block of tiles covering all the south coast of England from Devon to Kent, and the hinterland to a depth of thirty miles or so. Three days ago I began to plot my purchases onto a base map. I used a OS Map Index of 1990 vintage:
As a rule I don't like marking maps, even something like this, but I couldn't find any equivalent online for downloading. Anyway, this is the result, the current extent of my digital-only, paperless coverage:
You can see why I think it looks like a spreading 'empire'!
2015 purchases are in pale yellow, 2016 purchases are pale orange. I'd found a box of colouring pencils Dad had bought some years back. Just right for my purpose. Now I have an overview. And I can see which areas need to be 'invaded' next!
But this is not a 'collection'. This mapping is for practical use, and I won't be buying tiles for localities I won't ever want to visit and walk about in. I do collect maps, and have done so since childhood, and it's an impressive collection, but they are proper paper maps. Nevertheless, as you might suppose, every kind of map is catalogued in detail on one or other spreadsheet, these tiles included.
There's nothing of course quite like a paper map. It's an historical document, it reveals social history. It has a sheet name and number, a survey date, a publishing date, and many other individual characteristics. You can touch it and spread it out, and fold it up. It has a cover, often something of a 'period' artwork. The map itself is a tangible artwork. And when using it, you get the wide view: you can examine the countryside for miles around, and not just what is shown in the little rectangle that is your mobile phone screen - as clearly illustrated in this shot of the area around Barry in south Wales, with my phone placed on top:
But the small screen is fine if you don't need the long-range view. And if the light is poor, as you might get on a dull winter's afternoon, it's much easier to see the detail on that backlit small screen!
And you can tweak the magnification with your fingers, making it all even easier to see:
Indeed, with these 10 km x 10 km tiles, you can zoom in as much as you want to, because your £1.99 buys high definition (660dpi). The money also buys ongoing periodic updating, to show new roads and buildings and other changes as they get put in. The latest 1:25,000 paper maps do include a free digital download, but it isn't high-definition (so you can't zoom into it much) and you don't get that updating.
For sheer clarity, there is no contest between ordinary definition and high definition. HD is orgasmically superior. And that's why my HD empire of 10 km x 10 km tiles will continue to expand, gradually covering everywhere in south and south-west England, apart from utterly boring places of no possible interest, plus a few outlying spots that I must have for romantic reasons. The only practical limits on this expansion are (a) what I should sensibly spend; and (b) the amount of storage space on my phone. I reckon I can afford to install another 150 tiles, making about 300 altogether.
So it's quite important to plot what I already have, in order to plan what I can still fit in. The last fifty or so map tiles will be the very hardest to select - some careful thinking to be done there! No dross. No tedious places of stultifying ennui and irredeemable banality. Only places that call to my wilder passions. So I may have to sacrifice coverage of (say) Swindon, Basingstoke, Slough and Woking for Scottish islands like Eigg, Muck, Rum and Canna. Or distant North Ronaldsay (even though I already have 1:25,000 coverage of that island in paper map form). Or the two tiles necessary to cover remote Foula. Or even the four tiles needed for edge-of-the-world St Kilda! What about the insanely hard-to-get-to Sula Sgeir?
Hmm...Sula Sgeir, fit only for seabirds and seals...versus Swindon? Guess which deserves HD mapping more.
The total number of tiles I could buy, if aiming for nationwide coverage, must be around 2,700. So 300 is a very modest target really, about 11% of the total.
Even if (so far as I'm concerned) my 300 map tiles won't be a 'map collection' in the hobbyist's sense, it's still fun to put them together. I mentioned what I was doing to my niece Jenny when I saw her on Boxing Day. She works as a highly-paid software developer. She was impressed at my being able to buy these tiles online so easily, one by one, and how well they were displayed on my phone in the OS's MapFinder app, fresh maps merging seamlessly with maps already in the bag. She was a fairly obsessive collector herself - for example her Japanese Manga books (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga). So she was intrigued at the notion that (even if I wasn't doing it as such) you could 'collect' these map tiles. I took that as a sign of approval, and that I wasn't being quaint or eccentric to regard my programme of acquisitions as a worthwhile, useful endeavour.
Not that I mind being thought quaint and eccentric, you understand. Indeed, people who don't do conventional things, who are mildly out of kilter with the rest, may have an evolutionary advantage and - who knows - might yet inherit the earth!
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