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The worst decision ever to go out without my proper camera, in the belief I wouldn't see anything interesting...
Paul S Winson's Volvo B10M/Alexander G335 PAL parked up after a school journey.
Taking a day off at Butterley is preserved British Rail Class 141 Pacer unit, 141113.
The Class 141 has often gone down in British Railway history as one of the worst trains to ever be used on the UK network, a cheap alternative to replace ageing stock that turned out to be more trouble than it was worth.
The concept of Pacer units goes back to a multitude of prototypes created during the late 1970's and early 80's through a partnership between British Rail and nationalised car manufacturer British Leyland. The concept was to create a set of diesel multiple units that would be based on the bodyshell of the highly successful Leyland National bus with the underpinnings of redundant 4-axle goods wagons fitted with Leyland engines.
The first mainstream prototype of the Pacers were early railbuses known as LEV1 and RB004. LEV1 was built in 1978, and was, for all intents and purposes, a Leyland National bus on train wheels. This was followed by several other LEV (Leyland Experimental Vehicles) derivatives until 1984, when single railcar RB004 was built, its external design matching that of the Class 141. At the same time, a boxy two-car prototype designated Class 140 was launched and operated between 1980 and 1981, being only a proof of concept and not intended for mass production.
The Class 141 was designed between 1983 and 1984, taking the external styling of the RB004 railbus and combining it with the two-car bodyshell and layout of the Class 140. The primary intention of the Class 141 was to replace the many ageing DMU's from the early 1950's, with their main area of operation being in the West Yorkshire region around Leeds, York and Sheffield. Seeing as British Rail were very short on cash, having suffered the lowest year for rail ridership ever in 1982, the Class 141 was deemed the only option for replacing their extensive fleet of increasingly tired trains.
The units were formed of semi-permanently coupled two-car sets, each powered by a Leyland TL11 engine producing 205hp, whisking the Class 141 to a top speed of 75mph. As mentioned, the units were built of lightweight bodies placed upon what were essentially repurposed four-axle chassis donated from redundant freight wagons. The trains had a total capacity of 94 passengers.
The Class 141 was launched on services out of Leeds to York, Huddersfield, Halifax, Doncaster, Wakefield and Sheffield from mid-1984, with an eventual 20 units being built for the task. Originally, units were outshopped in a tasteful version of the BR Blue and Grey, but, as sectorisation began to take hold, the units were repainted into a variety of colours, including the rather dreary Green and Buttermilk, before eventually being repainted into the West Yorkshire PTE (Passenger Transport Executive) Red and White.
However, almost immediately, the quality issues of the Class 141's did nothing to help the already very low opinion of the railways. These trains were noisy, slow, underpowered, uncomfortable and highly unreliable. Their four-axle design, with the axle attached directly to the chassis rather than on separate bogies like on other trains, meant that on jointed track the trains would bump violently up and down, making the train riding experience similar to that of a 8.5 earthquake!
The engines on these units made the carriages vibrate and resonate with an irritating humming, and the poorly fitted panels and other parts of the unit's interior meant that the train would squeak and rattle as it went along.
There were other issues too, primarily with the gearbox. These were prone to failure after only a few hundred miles of service, which meant that many of the units were out of service being repaired. The continuous unreliability of these mechanisms eventually saw the entire fleet stored in 1988, with units sent north to the Andrew-Barclay Ltd workshops in Kilmarnock for refurbishment. The refurbishment also included the addition of BSI couplers, so as to make the units more compatible with Class 142 and 143 derivative Pacers, as well as the newer Sprinter units such as Class 150's and 156's. The units eventually returned to work in 1989, but their careers weren't exactly long in the grand scheme of things.
By the mid-1990's, it was apparent that these units, that weren't even 10 years old, were in no way fit for purpose, and in 1997 all units were retired from operation, being replaced by the aforementioned derivative Pacer variants, the Class 142, 143 or 144, or by Sprinters such as Class 150, 153, 155, 156 or 158. One unit, however, was converted into a weedkilling train for Serco, its seats being removed and replaced with tanks to spray weedkiller onto the line so as not to be overgrown.
One would've hoped that the Class 141's were just quietly sent to the scrapheap like they deserved, but the trains did somehow get themselves a new lease of life in Iran of all places!
This wasn't the first time Pacer units had been considered for export, the original LEV1 had been offered for sale in the USA, and RB004 was sent to Canada for a while. One Class 141 was trialed in Malaysia in 1984 before being later sent to Thailand, but neither country was impressed by its performance.
12 units were eventually exported to Iran to work commuter trains out of the nation's capital Tehran, the first units being sent there between 2001 and 2002. Once these units had left our shores, little was known about what became of them. Two were noted to still be in service as of 2005, while another two somehow wound up in the Netherlands and are now in storage somewhere. It is largely assumed that the Iranian units have all been withdrawn and put into storage following the introduction of newer DMUs.
Here in the UK, 3 units are preserved; one at Butterley, one on the Colne Valley Railway, and one at the Weardale Railway, while the remains of another unit are also at the Weardale but has been stripped for spare parts. Two units are known to have been scrapped, one of which due to accident damage. 141104 was involved in a head-on collision with a Class 156 at Huddersfield in November 1989, resulting in 33 injuries. While the 156 was returned to work in 1990 after minor repairs, the lightweight 141 was apparently so badly damaged that it was written off and promptly scrapped.
So there we are, the Class 141, the pioneering Pacer that let lose a slew of underpowered, cheaply built little railbuses onto the UK network. There is nothing much redeemable about these trains, they were slow, unreliable and unpleasant to ride one. Perhaps as a novelty you can travel aboard the few preserved units, but for an everyday commute, these trains could induce seasickness the likes of which you'd never seen before!
Alaa Abd El-Fattah has endured much of the last twelve years in some of the worst prison conditions anywhere for his brave work in promoting democracy in Egypt. He was last arrested in September 2019 while attending Cairo's Dokki Police Station and in December last year was sentenced to five years imprisonment for "spreading false news undermining state security." More precisely, he had shared social media posts explaining the hell-hole reality of Egyptian prison conditions.
PROTEST OUTSIDE THE FOREIGN OFFICE
When this photo was taken Alaa's two sisters, Mona and Sana'a Seif, were staging a protest in London's King Charles Street outside the British Foreign Office in the hope that the Egyptian government can be pressured to release him, as media attention began to focus on the upcoming COP27 conference at Sharm El Sheikh on Egypt's Red Sea coast.
UPDATE AS OF WEDNESDAY 9 NOVEMBER 2022
Starting from Sunday 6 November, Alaa escalated his hunger strike, and stopped taking water. His sister Sanaa Seif took a flight the same weekend to attend the COP27 conference at Sharm El Sheikh in a last-minute effort to save Alaa's life.
For the latest on Alaa's situation listen to his sister's Sanaa Seif's speech to journalists attending the conference on Tuesday 8 November - "They are very happy for him to die. The only thing they care about is that it doesn't happen while the world is watching."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqXibJ7PUTY
TORA PRISON - "A DAY HERE, IS LIKE A YEAR IN BELMARSH"
In April, Alaa began his hunger strike in a cell in one of the most secure sections of Cairo's sprawling and notorious Tora Prison - a maze of grim high concrete walls and watch towers, which strike fear into even the thousands of commuters who have to pass daily.
In 2012, one young Londoner confined to one of the least uncomfortable and most survivable wings of Tora prison, contrasted it with his own previous experience at Britain's high security Belmarsh. I can never forget his exact words. "A day here, is like a year at Belmarsh!" A little over 12 months later, he died of TB - the prison authorities had refused to listen to the pleas of his aunt, who fell on her knees during a rare visit, begging that he be admitted to the prison hospital.
ALAA'S HUNGER STRIKE CONTINUES AT WADI EL NATRUN PRISON
More than 200 days have passed since Alaa started his hunger strike. He has now been moved to the Wadi El Natrun prison complex in the desert north of Cairo, dubbed by inmates as the "Valley of Hell."
He may not survive much longer. However, as he holds British-Egyptian nationality, one would hope that the British government would be doing everything they could to secure his immediate release and it would be reasonable to suppose that the Foreign Office could get an immediate pledge in this regard, especially given that the British companies, including the likes of British Petroleum and BP, are the biggest investors in Egypt.
NO CONSULAR ACCESS
However, the British government have failed even to get him any consular access - think about that. That's an outrage. Even a convicted mass murderer, if British, would be entitled to consular access while in prison. That meeting would obviously not take place in his cell - but in a designated room in the prison or the highly supervised prison visiting area.
British men and women convicted of drug smuggling and other crimes in Egypt have received consular visits, so why not Alaa? The answer is because Alaa's crime is that he dared to tell the truth about Egypt, and the injustice both inside and outside its many prison walls. Nobody knows exactly how many political prisoners Egypt now has, but the number is estimated to be at least 60,000.
ALAA WAS ONE OF THE LEADERS OF THE MOST INSPIRATIONAL DEMOCRATIC REVOLT THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN
Alaa Abd El-Fattah was one of the leaders of arguably the most inspirational democratic revolt the world has seen in the last hundred years. Although the first phase of the 2011 uprising in Egypt lasted just 18 days, and although it followed the toppling of the dictator Ben Ali in Tunisia - the streets and bridges around Tahrir Square became a deadly stage watched by the world, where protesters from every walk of life were pitted against Egypt's feared state security forces. Against all the odds, and at the cost of many lives, Egyptians refused to leave the square, sleeping in front of the tanks and fending off attacks from government militia.
The Egyptian people's initial success in toppling the dictator Mubarak led to further revolts not just across the Middle East (most notably in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria) - the highly organised Tahrir-Square sit-in provided the inspiration for strikes and workplace sit-ins against austerity across the United States and Europe and to the Occupy Movement of the same year. The people of Egypt showed that it does not matter how brutal, feared and authoritarian a government is, it can be toppled if people act collectively.
THE MILITARY BACKLASH
It's true that Egypt's flirtation with the path to greater freedom seemed to be only temporary - the Egyptian authorities deployed the usual divide and rule tactics - encouraging the less committed protesters to return home - and then rushed to elections without allowing time for genuinely democratic opposition parties to develop.
Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood won the presidential election in 2012 - the Brotherhood (contrary to the perception many people have here in the West) had genuinely progressive elements within it, but the chance for any transformative radical programme was prevented partly by the corruption and self-interest of some of the main political actors and partly by opposition to its democratic mandate from the deep state (the military, the Interior Ministry, State Security, the police etc.)
The army, seeing its chance, seized power in 2013, superficially in the name of the people, but in reality, to advance the interests of the generals. The new president, Abdel Fattah El-Sissi, moved quickly to crush all opposition, and ordering his security forces to attack Muslim Brotherhood supporters who had gathered in eastern Cairo at Rabaa al-Adaweya Square, killing at least 800 people - the bloodiest massacre of civilians in Egypt's modern history.
DON'T ALLOW EGYPT TO USE COP27 TO GREENWASH ITS REGIME - AND PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO SAVE ALAA
Now COP27 is scheduled to take place in Sharm El-Sheikh and Sisi has been given a golden opportunity to greenwash his murderous regime, which has also seen ever increasing levels inequality and corruption. While British representatives at COP27 will be given accommodation in the most luxurious five star hotels in Sharm El-Sheikh and fall asleep listening to the sound of the waves, another British citizen, Alaa Abdel El-Fatah is near death, on a painful hunger strike in the darkest of places - his dimly lit cell. The only thing he might hear at night is the desperate cry from some prisoner in another cell appealing for medical help which most likely never comes.
If we care for freedom, real democracy and justice, we can't allow the British Foreign Office to forget Alaa - especially if it's simply not to upset the highly profitable relationship British multinationals have with one of the world's most authoritarian and corrupt regimes - a relationship which only benefits the wealthiest of Egyptians.
If you live in London, please show your support at the protest at King Charles Street - and wherever you live please sign the petition -
www.change.org/p/help-free-my-brother-before-it-s-too-lat...
'Own Worst Enemy Returns'
Red Screenprint over pink stencil
Hand screened, stencilled
& signed by Meggs
760 x 560mm
Edition of 25
Screenprints are now available online through NiceProduce.com
The most fearful of monsters is a well-known friend, slightly altered.
Kobe Abe
The Face of Another
We are our own worst enemy. It's too easy to demonize others. It's too easy to dehumanize brown and black people. And, it's too easy to be fearful when those who condemn our country's values come from elsewhere. But, what happens when that condemnation comes from Americans? Extremism in any form and from any place is dangerous.
Donald Trump and the GOP are ignoring one of the most dangerous concerns to our national tranquility, homegrown extremists. Executive Order 13224, signed by President George W. Bush after 9/11, gives the government legal tools to deal with international terrorism. But, it doesn't convey to domestic hate groups. In fact, the Immigration and Nationality Act expressly prohibits the Department of State from "sanctioning groups with a significant domestic presence."
Right-wing extremism is not new. Yet, there is no federal law that criminalizes domestic terrorist groups. In fact, crimes (like the ones which killed many in El Paso and Dayton) are more likely to be treated as hate crimes than terrorism. Because of this distinction, there is no law that prohibits funding or allows authorities to freeze funds for domestic groups as there is with foreign-based ones. There is no law that prohibits material support for domestic terrorists. And, there is no law that prohibits these groups from using social media and other technology to incite violence. Yes, the First Amendment protects citizens' right to free speech. But, there's a distinction between that right and the right to directly call for violent action. The 1969 Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio stated the government cannot use the First Amendment to surpress speech that advocates violence. It can only take action when that speech directs to incite or produce "imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."
Just as important, statements by President Trump, calling immigration from Central America an invasion, referring to himself as a nationalist, telling four nonwhite Congresswomen to "go back" to where they "originally came from," and his recent demonization of Jews who vote Democratic as "disloyal," not only have emboldened white supremacists, but have been downplayed by Trump's supporters as comical, off-the-cuff remarks and ignored by the Republican Party.
Americans are at risk because the safeguards set up by our Founding Fathers are not working. Reasonable gun control legislation is consistently blocked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. After the El Paso shooting, Trump stated his support for background checks, that is, until NRA Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre called the president. Suddenly, Donald had a change of heart. It's time to start thinking for ourselves. Be informed. Check out multiple news outlets. Explore these sources for their biases. Biases aren't necessarily bad; we all have them. But, being unaware of them can lead us to accept false information.
And, most of all, vote for those politicians who support your own self-interests. Concerned about healthcare? See who supports affordable health insurance without pre-exisiting conditions. Question those who want to gut the Affordable Care Act without having any counter proposals. Politicians are politicians, no matter which party they come from. But, support those who support your concerns. Question their motives and advocate for the end to the extreme polarization that has taken over Washington and the country. Finally, participate in the electoral process. Get to know the candidates' stands and vote!
The downfall of the American way of life won't come from the Islamic State. It will come from within. Ignorance and fear is rotting America's core values. It's time to stop being our own worst enemy.
See the rest of the posters from the Chamomile Tea Party! Digital high res downloads are free here (click the down arrow on the lower right side of the image). Other options are available. And join our Facebook group.
Follow the history of the last eight years of our country's political intransigence through a six-part exhibit of these posters on Google Arts & Culture.
Singer Britney Spears performs at the MTV Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York in this Sept. 7, 2000 file photo. Mr. Blackwell named Spears the top fashion flop of 2000 in his annual worst-dressed women list Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2001. He called her two-piece outfits Madonna rejects. (AP Photo/Suzanne Plunkett, File) bit.ly/werkbitch
ODC2 - Film Noir Style
112 Pictures in 2012 - #71 - Emotion
100 WORDS - #33 Emotional
Tony's Daily Topic - Darkness & Horror
By the beginning of the 16th century, Dunaverty had already seen more mayhem that most Scottish castles ever experience, but the worst was still to come! As we have seen with so many other castles around the country, there were few prominent families or castles that avoided involvement in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, and Dunaverty, out of the way as it is by modern standards, is set right slap bang between Scotland, England and Ireland - the aforesaid 'three kingdoms'!
If you have been following my photos along in chronological order, you will recall how Alasdair Mac Colla, after separating from the Marquess of Montrose in 1645, returned to western Scotland with his Irish gallowglasses to harry Campbell lands, during which he captured and sacked, amongst other places, Castle Sween. With General David Leslie's army bearing down upon him, Mac Colla left garrisons in the castles he had taken, including Dunaverty, and withdrew from Kinlochkilkerran (now called Campbelltown) via a fleet of birlins to Islay and subsequently Antrim. And so by May 1647, the scene was set!
It is said that by the time General David Leslie and Archibald Campbell, Marquis of Argyll arrived here, there were some two to three hundred men, women and children, principally MacDonalds and MacDougalls, holed up within the castle - which must have been quite a squeeze! They were mostly Scots and not Irish and had chosen to remain in Scotland, rather than having been abandoned here by Mac Colla. The garrison was under the command of Archibald Og of Sanda (the island just offshore from here).
The Covenanters laid siege to the castle, but with little or no artillery, there was effectively little they could do to force their way in, but what they did manage to do, was isolate the castle from its water supply. By now it was June and an early hot summer, which meant it wasn't long before the defenders requested a surrender on fair terms. General Leslie offered them quarter if they surrendered, which was accepted. However, despite the promised quarter from the Covenanters, no sooner had the garrison surrendered than they were almost entirely slaughtered, many, it is said, being thrown over the cliff from Dunaverty's summit. Only four people are believed to have survived.
Apart from the intriguing horror of the garrison being thrown to their deaths by the evil Covenanters, what is interesting about this event is trying to unravel who was responsible for it. There were three main players on the Covenanting side - General David Leslie, the military commander; Archibald Campbell, Marquess of Argyll, the leader of the Covenanting faction in Scotland, and of course the chief of the clan whose lands Alasdair Mac Colla had made it his self appointed task to ravish; and the Reverend John Naves, the man appointed by the Scottish Committee of Estates to ensure that moral judgement was duly passed down by Leslie's army.
There are many and varied versions of who said what to whom, both before and after the garrison's surrender. Sir James Turner, Leslie's Adjudant-General, stated that, having been ordered by Leslie to negotiate with the garrison, he was instructed to inform the garrison that they were to "yield themselves to the kingdome's mercy" - the important distinction here being that they were not yielding themselves to General Leslie's mercy!
(Sir James stated that only one man's life was saved, although the general belief is that 4 were saved, including the infant Ranald MacDonald, son of Archibald Og of Sanda.)
Whether General Leslie is as free of blame as his Adjudant-General suggests, is questionable. His past form would suggest otherwise. David Leslie was in command of the Covenanters that surprised and routed the Marquess of Montrose's army at the Battle of Philiphaugh, following which about 100 Royalists surrendered on promise of quarter. Some Presbyterian Ministers who accompanied Leslie persuaded him that this clemency was foolish, and the prisoners and 300 camp followers (many of them women and children) were slaughtered in cold blood.
In Bishop Guthry's Memoirs, it is distinctly stated that the Dunaverty garrison had been promised quarter, "But having surrendered their arms, the Marquis of Argyll and a bloody preacher, Mr. John Nevoy, prevailed with him to break his word, and so the army was let loose upon them and killed them all without mercy." Argyll also had previous form, having been responsible for the wholesale murder of the Lamonts by his Campbells in June 1646.
It is plain that Sir James Turner, as a soldier of fortune, was anxious to clear his boss, General Leslie, from the charge of having broken his promise of quarter. However further light is thrown on Leslie's character by a significant admission by Turner himself. After the fall of Dunaverty, Turner tells how the Covenanters attacked Dunyveg in Islay, where old Coll Ciotach (Alasdair Mac Colla's father) was in command. Turner recounted 'Before we were masters of Dunneveg the old man Coll, coming fulishlie out of the house where he was Governour on some parole or other to speak with his old friend the Captaine of Dunstaffnage Castle, was surprised and made prisoner not without some staine to the Lieutenant-Generall's honour.' So much for any arguments based on the character of David Leslie as a man of honour.
But while Leslie must ever bear the shame of his cowardly weakness and his broken word, the true blood guiltiness rests on the Reverend John Nevoy and on the Kirk whose official representative he was. Religious fanaticism was a common feature of Scottish Presbyterianism at this time - as it has been since, and still is, with many other forms of religion worldwide. While General Leslie and the Marquess of Argyll share nominal responsibility for the Dunaverty massacre, the influence exerted by Nevoy should not be underestimated.
The three officers left in command of Dunaverty by Alasdair Mac Colla - Archibald Mor, as Sanda was called, his son Archibald Og, and Donald M'Odhrayhain of Pennnygown, were executed for their part in the battle, at the nearby farm of Machribeg, which was probably being used as the Covenanters headquarters. They "asked for time to go about their devotional exercises, and were told thereupon to go upon their knees, and were shot before they had finished their prayer".
A little over half way from Dunaverty to Machribeg, on the south side of the B842, what appears to be a roofless barn in a field is in fact a mausoleum, in which are interred the bones of the deceased (I have marked it on the photo).
The Covenanting Army brought the plague with them to Kintyre, which killed most of the population - there were only three houses left in Southend from which smoke continued to rise. The Marquis of Argyll took the opportunity to import farming families from the Scottish Lowlands to replace the Gaelic Highlanders, which explains why so many of the established surnames in Kintyre - Ralston, Johnston and so on - are of Lowland origin.
These films are the worst Superhero movies of all time, enjoy. But as always, here are some DIShonorable mentions:
Batman Forever
The Amazing Spiderman 2
X-Men: The Last Stand
1. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
2. Batman and Robin
3. Superman: The Quest for Peace
4. Superman Returns
5. Fantastic Four
6. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
7. Captain America
8. Spider Man 3
9. Superman 3
10. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Worst to First
travesti.silicone-breast.com/2016/10/26/worst-to-first-2/
imgur.com/mf4Zo1P.jpg?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss
The world's worst womanless beauty pageant!
Contestant in the 2016 Miss Engineering womanless beauty pageant
(probably the world's finest womanless beauty pageant)
In this life I've seen everything I can see woman,
I've seen lovers flying through the air hand in hand
I've seen babies dancing in the midnight sun,
And I've seen dreams that came from the heavenly skies above
I've seen old men crying at their own grave sides
And I've seen pigs all sitting watching, picture slides
But I never seen nothing like you.
I am not liking being caught alone in dark spooky place - even worse at night
this was taken in an old abandoned armoury bunker
7DOS - IN YOUR DREAMS
Praktica BCC electronic with Pentacon Prakticar 2.4/50
Usually not my kind of camera, but for 3 € I couldn't resist. I expected the worst and it came true. The built-quality is .. utterly pitiful, so I hoped that the camera at least has some inner values, but I have my doubts. It has another shutter than the BX20s with 3 blades instead of 4 and you can really feel how the camera shakes when the shutter is fired. Furthermore, only the emergency shutter speed of 1/60 s works, the electronic seems to be completely dead.
The BCC was introduced in May 1989, so it was one of the last Prakticas at all. The BCC and the BCS can be seen as the budget-version of the BCA from 1986, whereby the BCC was the cheapest version, it even lacks the self-timer. Both, the BCC and BCS were only sold in the GDR, it is possible that they should replace the M42-Prakticas, whose production was ceased. About 15,000 BCCs were produced until June 1990, and since Pentacon was incorporated into Carl Zeiss Jena in 1985, the camera bears the Zeiss label.
The BCC is intended for aperture priority auto exposure only, on the dial on top you'll find besides "auto" also "B", a mechanical 1/60 s for flash and a setting for battery check. In the viewfinder you'll find 5 LEDs: overexposure, 1/60 to 1/1000, 1/30 to 1, underexposure and flash-ready. Since January 1990 the BCC features a DOF-preview switch. A battery V28 PX, 6 V (4xLR44) is required.
But: it turned out, that the lens is quite interesting. Of course it isn't a Tessar, because only Zeiss made them, and it isn't a Tessar-clone too, because it has 4 elements in 4 groups. You can find a comprehensive article about that lens on Zeissikonveb (in German). Around 1970 the designers Hubert Ulbrich, Wolfgang Hecking and Wolfgang Gröger at Meyer-Optik Görlitz thought up a new standard lens with 50 mm focal length, f/2.4 and 4 elements. Unfortunately that position in the lens line-up was already occupied by the Tessar, so the new lens was not produced with M42 mount. When Pentacon introduced the Praktica B200 with bayonet mount around 1980 the situation changed. It turned out that the Zeiss Tessar for the new bayonet mount was too expensive, it even cost more than the Pentacon 1.8/50, so the 2.4/50 was revived. From the begin it was produced in Romania at IOR, so it was very affordable and still available for the Praktica BX20s by Schneider after 1990, when Meyer-Optik had to cease its production.
Some specs:
Nearest focus distance: 0.6 m
Filter thread: 49 mm
6 aperture blades
Multi coated
Length: only 27 mm
There are at least two versions. The one not shown in the picture has an orange knuckle on the aperture ring.
At My Worst - Pink Sweat$ ft Kehlani
youtu.be/K_zylJH4PRI?si=BSpVWWLTLBR0tBfF
Can I call you baby?
Can you be my friend?
Can you be my lover up until the very end?
Let me show you love, oh, I don't pretend
Stick by my side even when the world is givin' in, yeah
Oh, oh, oh, don't
Don't you worry
I'll be there, whenever you want me
I need somebody who can love me at my worst
No, I'm not perfect, but I hope you see my worth
'Cause it's only you, nobody new, I put you first
And for you, girl, I swear I'll do the worst
If you stay forever, let me hold your hand
I can fill those places in your heart no else can
Let me show you love, oh, I don't pretend, yeah
I'll be right here, baby, you know I'll sink or swim
Oh, oh, oh, don't
Don't you worry
I'll be there, whenever you want me
I need somebody who can love me at my worst
No, I'm not perfect, but I hope you see my worth, yeah
'Cause it's only you, nobody new, I put you first (put you first)
And for you, girl, I swear I'll do the worst
I need somebody who can love me at my worst
No, I'm not perfect, but I hope you see my worth
'Cause it's only you, nobody new, I put you first
And for you, girl, I swear I'll do the worst
Unbelievable this lot. Utterly unbelievable.
Tim O'Toole, First Group Chief Executive, resigned this week after 8 years at the helm. Why? Well, last financial year they reported a profit of £152 million. There's a few happy shareholders. This year? £327 million.
In the red. Lost. Gone.
For starters, that's some turnaround, and to achieve such a result must surely indicate some serious issues within the company. Which the management are paid to manage.
Obviously, they can't.
But, I actually don't give a stuff about the fortunes of First. In my opinion, they are only outranked in nastiness by Arriva.
No, this is the bit that really gets me. O'Toole resigns, after pissing away half a billion quid. And he walks into the sunset with salary, pension and benefits until September. Yep, that old gardening leave shenanigan.
Not only that, he also gets a payment of £700k maximum in lieu of salary, pension, car allowance and medical insurance for the remainder of his contract.
What???
How much more snout in the trough would you like it? And how many employees will be shed as a result of the incompetence of this shower? I'll bet however many it is, they won't walk away with much more than a tiny shred of a million quid.
Meanwhile, TransPennine Express has reported that it forecasts it will lose £106m on the remaining life of the franchise. With their eye-watering fares and rammed day and night trains, how is this even possible? That's near on £2m a month.
And British Rail was supposedly bad...
Worst Skoda pic ever, 90019 on 1M16 beds at Crewe on 15 May 2010.
Memo to First Group...
I'll happily lose you another half billion if you'll give me a million quid to go away. Call me anytime, day or night.
This is my worst photo of the year because had this been in focus it might have been my BEST shot of the year. I was shooting hummingbirds when I saw these two interacting above a tree. Grabbed the camera quickly and got the shot except the focus was too slow and thus horrific. I was so bummed - thought I had won an Audubon award for sure!