Monday, August 23, 2010
Crewkerne cakes
To Crewkerne over the weekend to see how they do cakes there. Delayed a little by the Stonehenge midday jam and arrived at maybe 1600, to find that the two tea shops had closed. So reduced to afternoon tea at the George, the formerly posh hotel of this formerly market town. Very reasonable and pleasantly served - and a whole new cake. Described as a fruit slice, it consisted of two oblongs of shortbread - maybe 4 inches by 1 inch by 3/8 of an inch each - and separated by about half an inch of what appeared to be dried fruit mixed with some kind of glucose/fructose/whateverose syrup. Dried fruit including raisins and glacay cherries - these last being the sort of things you put on top of Christmas cakes and Bakewell tarts. A sweet and gooey confection which must have packed at least as much punch as a Mars Bar. Not bad as a pick-me-up, taken with tea.
Onto agriculture land for a lesson in agricultural mechanics. Which turned out to be entirely topical given my recent post re the Empire State Building and the lack of health and safety thereon (August 7). The task before us was the connection of a tractor (contraption A) to an implement (contraption B). This means bringing the male and female halves of the joint together and popping the retaining bolt in. Tolerances are sub-millimetre. See illustration in previous post.
If one is doing the advanced task the two halves of the joint are rigidly connected to their contraptions. Which means that one has to bring the two contraptions into alignment in their entirety. You lose points every time you impale yourself on one of the spikes with which the contraptions are decorated. One is allowed the use of grease, crowbars, club and sledge hammers. Either or both of the contraptions may be motorised and mobile - although mobility is not very sensitive. Contraptions apt to jerk about in the mud a bit.
The elementary task - the one I tried - is rather easier. The requirement for the joint halves to be rigidly connected to their contraptions is relaxed a little. One or more degrees of freedom are introduced, at the discretion of the instructor. At six degrees of freedom - three each for position and orientation - the task becomes near trivial; you can just screw the two halves into alignment. No pushing, shoving or swearing required at all. As I was not a complete novice I was allowed two degrees of freedom. Task took about an hour.
Which left me very impressed by the idea of doing the same sort of stunt a mile in the air (on the Dublane spike) or several miles under the sea (the BP blowout). Or maybe on the deck of a drilling rig. The scope for accidents must be huge.
But it also occurred to me that with a bit of design effort the agricultural task could be made a lot easier. The design could include degrees of freedom. I suppose the catch is that the joint has to be more or less universal - any female will fit any male - and that it has to be very robust. These joints take a lot of stick and get attended to by people with rough ways. I shall try again in a few years time and see if things have moved on at all.
# posted by Jim @ 4:08 AM 
