Twicet

A couple of years ago, I had a request from a Russian chap, asking permission to use a couple of my pictures in a book he was writing. I get these quite frequently, so we settled on my usually terms - payment for the use of the images and a copy of the book. Apparently it was to be called 'Space Wings' and would be a comprehensive history of winged spacecraft, with an obvious focus on Soviet designs that were cloaked by secrecy until now. So I sent the pics - two images of the BAC EAG.4396 space launcher, carrying an EAG.4413 orbital spaceplane, received the payment, and more or less forgot about it.

It must have been a year or more later... I was out in the drive, chopping our wood for winter (typically we get through 6 tonnes of oak in our wood burner), when a Post Office van turned up. Out gets the chap, very carefully carrying a large, brown parcel.

"Are you Mann Adrian? I have a package for you".

"Yes, that's me."

"It's from Russia! Look - RUSSIA! From Moscow... MOSCOW! A package for you... from RUSSIA!". And he very gingerly hands it over, as if it contains some sacred relics! I should point out that when Hungary was under Soviet control, there was a huge airbase not 5km from where we live, so the Soviet Army and Russians of all sorts were well known around here - the children even had to learn Russian in school, so anything to do with the Russia is held in some reverence - or perhaps it's fear!

Anyway, he hands me the parcel, and nows holds me in the highest esteem - this foreigner, living out here in the middle of nowhere, receiving a package from Moscow!

Of course, it was a copy of the book. Bloody huge thing... case bound, thick as you like, copiously illustrated with images I've never seen before - just the kind of thing I love. One slight problem... it's all in Russian! My schoolboy grasp of the language was enough to decipher a few tantalising bits.

So that was that. Until a few weeks ago, when, during my frequent browsing of space-related websites, I came across a mention of the book. It had been put onto a Progress M-09M freighter and launched to the International Space Station!

 

 

After docking with the 'PIRS' module on 11th January, 2011, the cargo was unloaded. And there were pictures of cosmonauts, on the ISS, with the book! So my images have finally made it into space!

Rats - who needs 'em? Apart from their medical testing uses, the things are nothing but a ghastly, stinking, disease-ridden menace. As we live out in the countryside, there are, naturally, rats. We do what we can to deter the buggers, but inevitably they appear. Anyway, a little while ago, my wife was visiting a chap in the next village. Pista-baci (pronounced Pishta Bachy) who's as old as the hills with a weather-beaten face that looks like a walnut, but he's clever, generous and works with his hands all day, usually doing some carpentry project - he did a lot of stuff for us. Katinka mentioned rats to him, and that we didn't want to put down poison because of our cats, and shooting them isn't really an option - "Aha" he says... "You need a rat trap"! So he describes this thing and says he can build one. OK... so that was a a couple of weeks ago.

Today, I hear shouting at the gate outside - it's Pista! He's come over on his Soviet-era cast iron bicycle to deliver the trap. And what a thing it is! Made from chunks of wood and sticks, old tin lids and string, but it works! General idea - two flaps at either end, held open by the strings which are held up by a wooden pin secured by a notch in the bar that goes through the middle. Inside, on the bar, there's a sweetcorn cob (favoured food of rats, apparently). Rat goes in - nibbles on sweetcorn, disturbs the bar, latch flies out and flaps slam shut - genius! Naturally, rat is not pleased at this sudden reversal in its fortunes and will try to escape by gnawing through the wood - which he's cleverly covered with more bits of tin, defeating the vermin!

Now, this is all well and good, but it's a fearsomely large contraption and if I was a rat I'd turn and run! It may or may not work, but that's hardly the point - it's one of those amazing things that jut seems to happen out here. Oh - he also made the catflap** in our MPF* door - "You want what? A door for cats?" So he made it, but then the door was the wrong size and couldn't be adjusted, so he made a new one. He sold the original to a Dutch chap who saw it and strangely was on the hunt for an outside door with a catflap - so now he's the cat flap master of Tomaj! I demonstrated how it worked to him today, much to his amusement!

*MPF = Multi Purpose Facility; large building joined to our house, which is used for outside living during the summer, has it's own water and cooker, storage for tools and sundry impedimenta, and all round jolly useful thing that we couldn't find another name for.

**Cat flap - invented by Sir Isaac Newton, no less. When conducting his famous optics experiments, was continually annoyed by his cat wanting to go in or out - so he invents the cat flap. What a guy.

More on Isaac Newton and the Cat Flap.