Just time for our occasional series: "Ladies in Bikinis Holding Model Aircraft!"
I will be testing you on the aircraft...
Who filed the first patent for a 'flying machine with a boat hull'?
- Alphonse Pénaud
- Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin
- Orville Wright
When built the first single engine monocoque aircraft?
- Dornier-Zeppelin
- Oswald Short
- LFG Roland
You buy a model aircraft whose controls use the 72 MHz frequency band. Which country are you NOT permitted to legally fly it in?
- Canada
- Singapore
- the Vatican city state
Which of these light jets is the fastest?
- the Cirrus Vision SF50
- the Dassault Falcon 10
- the Bombardier Learjet 25D
Which of these nations did not purchase the F4 Phantom?
- Spain
- Turkey
- Japan
Which of the following is NOT used to control a multi-pitch RC helicopter?
- the cyclic
- the collective
- the throttle
Which aircraft is depicted below?
- a Martin AM Mauler
- a Douglas A-1 Skyraider
- an NAA T28 Trojan
Well how did you do? I'm not going to tell you because I don't believe you were looking at the aircraft, but if you think you did well then well done!
More ladies in bikinis holding model aircraft another time...
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Today in pulp I'm looking back at one of the greatest albums of all time.
What are the chances...
By 1976 Jeff Wayne was already a successful composer and musician, as well as a producer for David Essex. His next plan was to compose a concept album.
War Of The Worlds was already a well known story, notorious due to the Orson Wells radio play production. For Wayne it seemed like a great choice for a rock opera.
Today in pulp I'm looking back at a very popular (and collectable) form of art: Micro Leyendas covers!
Micro Leyendas (mini legends) are a Mexican form of fumetto, small graphic novels normally pitting the everyday hero against the weird, the occult and the unfathomable.
The art of Micro Leyendas is bold, macabre and very funny. The books often tell a cautionary tale of revenge or humiliation, much like a modern folk tale.
Today in pulp: what makes a good opening sentence for a pulp novel?
Now this is a tricky one…
The opening sentence has an almost mythical status in writing. Authors agonise for months, even years, about crafting the right one. Often it’s the last thing to be written.
Which is odd, because very few people abandon a book if they don’t like the first sentence. It’s not like the first sip of wine that tells you if the Grand Cru has been corked! Most people at least finish Chapter One.
The Time Machine, Brave New World, 1984: these weren’t the first dystopian novels. There's an interesting history of Victorian and Edwardian literature looking at the impact of modernity on humans and finding it worrying.
Today in pulp I look at some early dystopian books…
Paris in the Twentieth Century, written in 1863, was the second novel penned by Jules Verne. However his publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel rejected it as too gloomy. The manuscript was only discovered in 1994 when Verne’s grandson hired a locksmith to break into an old family safe.
The novel, set in 1961, warns of the dangers of a utilitarian culture. Paris has street lights, motor cars and the electric chair but no artists or writers any more. Instead industry and commerce dominate and citizens see themselves as cogs in a great economic machine.