I want my CRT. The Verge offers a history of the tube television and the people attempting to preserve it.
"CRTs were once synonymous with television. By 1960, nearly 90 percent of American households had one. But at the turn of the millennium, their popularity rapidly decayed as LCD panels flooded the market. Even though CRTs comprised an estimated 85 percent of US television sales in 2003, analysts were already predicting the technology’s demise. In 2008, LCD panels outsold CRTs worldwide for the first time. Sony shut down its last manufacturing plants that same year, essentially abandoning its famous Trinitron CRT brand. By 2014, even stronghold markets like India were fading, with local manufacturers switching to flat-panel displays." [The Verge]
A selection of Soviet era Star Wars posters, few of which actually illustrate the films:
"Yuri Bokser and Alexander Chantsev created this poster, along with three others (all below), to commemorate the lifting of the ban. Some critics have described Star Wars as a ‘space Western’ but Bokser and Chantsev make visualised the idea. Perhaps they were just ahead of the curve, though – the bounty hunter Cad Bane wears the Star Wars’ version of a cowboy hat on the Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV series and there was a kind of horse-racing in The Last Jedi." [BBC]

The 231163 Diaries:
Colin Churcher.

Transport Colin Churcher has worked in and around the railways in the UK and Canada. He still keeps a diary in the form of a blog which can be seen here.

Everything he's ever written seems to be available on this website.

In 1963 Churcher was working as a Management Trainee on British Railways.


Saturday 23 November

I came home from Reading to Orpington by a novel route this morning. I caught the 09.45 steam train to Redhill. We left Guildford three minutes late at 10.54 and were three minutes late into Redhill at 11.49. We were hauled by a Southern 2-6-0 (I didn't get the number). The engine seemed to cope with the two coaches quite well but I think the service could be speeded up. The train was old Southern straight-sided coaching stock, one compartment and one saloon. At Redhill, the train reverses and forms the 12.11 to Tonbridge. We had another 2-6-0, a U class. I changed to the saloon coach which was extremely comfortable. What a difference. Before Redhill, the train was almost empty and very slow. After Redhill, it was packed with people standing and the service was much faster. The 2-6-0 really had to work hard to maintain the schedule. The driver was using a long cut-off and then notched her right up without any intermediate stages. This section of line is much flatter and we reached quite high speeds. At Tonbridge I caught the 13.14 electric train to Orpington which arrived at 13.35 - extremely good service. The weather was quite bright and I enjoyed the trip through the Surrey and Kent countryside.
Welcome essay from Mona Eltahawy about teaching girls how to rage:
"One day when I was four years old, a man stopped his car on the street under my family’s balcony, pulled his penis out of his pants and beckoned for me to come down. He did the same to my friend who had been talking to me from her family’s balcony across the street. I was so small that I needed a stool to see my friend from above the balcony railing. I was enraged. I waved my slipper at him to frighten him away." [NBC News]