Vespa 150 TAP (Troupes Aéroportées)

In the late 1950’s the French Airborne Forces devised a system to transport a USA-sourced 75mm recoilless rifle via scooter.  A two-man team, each with his own scooter (one carrying the rifle, the other ammunition), would be dropped via parachute (into Algeria, mainly).  This is an excellent example of choosing the minimum vehicle and system required to accomplish the goal.  (I suspect that ‘roadside bombs’ and the like were somewhat less common in the theatre of operations, however.)

The Ramos Gin Fizz

Ahh yes, the ‘crew-served’ drink.

In the golden days of cocktails (that is, before Prohibition), your better bar would employ a staff of perhaps dozens of boys for the purpose of shaking these drinks.  The egg white allows a certain emusification to take place - provided at least five minutes of steady, hard shaking is undertaken.  A minute and a half is generally recognized as the maximum realistic shaking time for one person.  Hence the staff required to make the Ramos.

Ramos Gin Fizz (adapted from Gary Regan, The Joy of Mixology)
makes two drinks
2 ounces gin
1 ounce cream
1 fresh egg white
3 drops orange flower water
½ ounce simple syrup
½ ounce fresh lemon juice
½ ounce fresh lime juice
club soda or seltzer water

Combine all ingredients (except the seltzer) in a cocktail shaker over ice. Shake vigorously for five minutes Collins glass or champagne flute and top up with a splash of seltzer. Garnish with an orange wheel, and serve with a straw.

 

Coffman Engine Starter

These devices were (are) a study in cleverness.  The goal: start a large (generally aircraft) engine without incurring a large weight penalty vis-a-vis an electric motor and battery set.  The cardboard cylinders are, roughly speaking, blank-type shotgun shells.  They contain a fairly slow-burning propellant.  When the operator desires a start, a shell is discharged, the gas spinning up a small turbine.  A gear reduction unit and engageable pinion couples this energy into the engine’s flywheel or similar.  The pictured unit is a multiple-discharge-type, allowing convenient retries in the event of a failure to start, or subsequent stall.

Saber Scar ‘Must’ Again in Germany

 Berlin (UPI) Feb 13, 1963

The saber scar is back as a status symbol in West Germany.

Revival of the university dueling societies, once a symbol of Teutonic nationalism, has become so widespread that students are split on the issue and some educators are calling for an examination of post war higher education.

The societies have become so popular that more than 46,000 students, or about a third of the males in West German universities, are said to be members.

New generations of Germans are entering adulthood with proudly-worn fresh scars inflicted by sabers in student duels.  In some upper classes the prized scars are passports to better jobs and professional advancement.

The controversy will reach a peak this week in voting by 14,000 students of West Berlin’s Free University on whether a member of one of the societies will be allowed to take office as president of the student council.

Eberhardt Diepgen, a law student and a dueling society member , was elected student president by the 73-member student parliament on jan 30.  But the selection raised such a storm that a plebiscite was ordered on whether to accept or reject Diepgen.

The Free University long has been considered a stronghold of democratic thought and a symbol of the post-war democratization of German education.

(and for more information of the inverted-pyramid school of journalism, we commend you to Mr ‘Chip’ Scanlan’s history at https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2003/birth-of-the-inverted-pyramid-a-child-of-technology-commerce-and-history/)

 

We do hope that the pilot made a safe and prompt egress.

YES the queen rode sidesaddle.  Some very impressive work has been done that way - the sidesaddle jumping record is something like six and a half feet. 

 

In the before-times, a company’s logo was a piece of artwork that proudly spoke of their prowess in whatever their field of operations might be.  With the passage of time, however, many logos have seen great changes.  There has been a decided trend to simplify; by removing serifs, for example, or deleting ‘extraneous’ text.  Contemporaneously, pseudo-three-dimensional effects (bevels and the like) and 'speed effects’ (leaning typography, wiggly lines) have become de rigeur for the 'modern' firm.

It should be clear that a logo of this sort would enhance the appearance of any modern delivery vehicle: