Scholz's Star

There are more stars in the universe than we could ever imagine. However, there is even more nothingness. There's a vast amount of space between the stars - so much of it that a collision between two of them is nigh on impossible. 

This means that there's no danger, either, of the Sun ever being obliterated in a collision. So far, the closest it came to it was when Scholz's Star flew past us 70,000 years ago. In truth, it's a slight exaggeration to describe the event as a near miss, given that the closest that Scholz's Star ever came to the Sun was a not inconsiderable 52,000 astronomical units. In other words, the other star was 52,000 times further away from the Sun than our own 0.8 light years - a more than sufficient clearance, then.

Even though the distance to Scholz's Star comprised less than a fifth of today's distance between the Sun and its closest neighbour, Proxima Centauri, our Stone Age ancestors are unlikely to have taken much notice. Scholz's Star is a tiny red dwarf star less than a tenth of the size of the Sun in the Monoceros ('unicorn') constellation. It's so dim that you can't see it except through a large telescope, and astronomers remained oblivious to its existence until 2013, when Ralf-Dieter Scholz of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics in Potsdam noticed that the star displayed as good as no sideways movement in the sky. This normally tells us that an object is travelling directly towards or away from us, and when we investigated its motion more closely we saw that it was moving away from the Sun in a straight line. This meant that it had been even closer to us 70,000 years ago. The star became famous overnight, and was nicknamed 'Scholz's Star' – a clear improvement on its official designation of WISE J072003.20-084651.2.

- Florian Freistetter, A History of the Universe in 100 Stars, London, 2021, p.234-5.

Great injustices are committed upon this land

Thursday music corner: British dub poet and activist Linton Kwesi Johnson (b. Jamaica, 1952) joined his mother in Brixton in 1963 and during his school and university years became increasingly concerned about racism in British society and politics. Graduating with a sociology degree from Goldsmiths College in 1973, Johnson began writing verse targeting the goal of black liberation. He also wrote for music publications in the 1970s including the New Musical Express, Melody Maker and Black Music. 

Johnson released his first album, Dread Beat an' Blood, in 1978, and has released over a dozen albums to date, plus several compilation albums. Reggae Fi' Peach appears on his 1980 album Bass Culture, and honours the memory of New Zealand-born teacher Blair Peach, who died in Southall on 24 April 1979 during an anti-fascist rally against the British National Front. The balance of evidence suggests that the police Special Patrol Group unit was responsible for Peach's death, and also obstructed official investigations to protect the killer. An official report into Peach's death was not made public until 2010, 31 years after the incident.

Linton Kwesi Johnson - Reggae Fi' Peach (live at the BBC, 03.10.81)

See also:

Music: Linton Kwesi Johnson - Peach Dub (1980)

Music: Linton Kwesi Johnson - Di Great Insohreckshan (1983)

Music: The Upsetters - Dollar In The Teeth (1969)

The golden age of American long-distance high-speed diesel trains

[In 1935] the Union Pacific train was immediately put into service as The City of Portland between Chicago and Portland, Oregon, and the Milwaukee Road soon launched the Twin Cities Hiawatha, running between the same two cities as the Burlington's Twin Cities Zephyr but powered by new steam locomotives designed to run at 100 mph. Diesel, though, was now the fashion and within a couple of years there were more than a dozen of these new diesel services, trying to outdo each other with the extra facilities and comfort they provided. Pullman joined in the craze by providing streamlined lightweight cars for several of these trains, but it was the decision of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad to create an all-Pullman service that resulted in the service which could, justifiably, lay claim to being the most luxurious train in the world, pace the Orient Express. This was the Super Chief, which started running between Chicago and Los Angeles in 1936 in just under forty hours, a timetable that saved a full half-day on its steam predecessor, the Santa Fe's old Chief, a prestigious steam train introduced a decade before. The Super Chief became the train of choice for movie stars and studio moguls for their trips between the coasts and undoubtedly set a new standard of comfort for its passengers: 'Designed within by a group of eminent architects and stylists, its restaurant, observation lounge, bar and wide choice of overnight accommodation - every room richly panelled in wood veneers from the four quarters of the world were very reasonable replicas of the hotel accommodation to which the Hollywood haut monde who frequented it were accustomed.

These new streamliner services invariably offered all the accoutrements of the trains of the previous generation, but with modern extras such as air conditioning and electric razor points. The more spacious offered lounges, cocktail bars and office facilities, and all provided meals that today would earn them a Michelin star or two, elegantly hosted by a dinner-jacketed maître d', as well as offering various sleeping car options. There was, too, a great emphasis on making the trip itself into a pleasure, rather than merely a trial to be endured, with a great emphasis on the smoke-free views afforded by the much larger windows.

The result of this feverish activity was that, for a short period in the late 1930s, the ten fastest regular train services in the world were all American streamliners. It was not so much the speed or the diesel- powered engines that caught the public's imagination, but rather their streamlining. They were, quite literally, beautiful behemoths, a source of pride and modernity in an era of economic struggle and austerity. The size and power of the elegant diesels seemed to epitomize American values, and gave people something to celebrate.

- Christian Wolmar, The Great Railway Revolution: The Epic Story of the American Railroad, London, 2012, p.330-1.

See also:
Blog: The Sunday morning train to Verona, 15 June 2015

Blog: The break of gauge, 14 January 2014 
Blog: Take the 'A' train, 10 October 2009
Blog: You can get to Taumarunui going north or south, 24 May 2009

Flock

Burrows Ave, Karori

 

Reach across the cold divider, I will warm you

Thursday music corner: Marlon Williams is a New Zealand singer-songwriter with an increasing side-line in acting roles. He tours with backing band The Yarra Benders, and collaborates with fellow Lyttelton resident Delaney Davidson. Having met actor/director Bradley Cooper in Los Angeles, Williams was cast in a small role in Cooper's 2018 hit film remake A Star Is Born. He has also appeared in the 2019 Australian film The True History of the Kelly Gang, Alice Englert's 2023 film Bad Behaviour, and the New Zealand-filmed TV series Sweet Tooth.

Williams has released three solo studio albums, plus four other albums in collaboration with other artists, three of which were with Delaney Davidson. River Rival appeared on Williams' most recent album, My Boy (2022). It was the third single released from the album, after My Boy and Thinking Of Nina.

Marlon Williams - River Rival (2022)

See also:

Music: Marlon Williams & Delaney Davidson - Bloodletter (2012)

Music: Marlon Williams & Brandi Carlile - Oh, Pretty Woman (in A Star Is Born, 2018)

Music: Marlon Williams & Aldous Harding - Nobody Gets What They Want Anymore (2018)

Ascot St, Thorndon

 

But one little spoon of your precious love is good enough for me

Thursday music corner: Howlin' Wolf (aka Chester Arthur Burnett, 1910-76) was a Mississippi-born blues singer and guitarist who attained considerable fame as a progenitor of electric Chicago blues, and who was revered by the British blues exponents like Cream, the Rolling Stones and Steve Winwood. Howlin' Wolf released 14 studio albums during his lifetime, and scored four US R&B chart top ten singles: How Many More Years and Moanin' At Midnight (both 1951) and Smokestack Lightning and I Asked For Water (both 1956). 

The Willie Dixon-penned Spoonful was a 1960 Howlin' Wolf single on the Chess label. It features on the Rolling Stone '500 Greatest Songs of All Time' list, and has been inducted into the Blues Foundation's 'Hall of Fame'. 

Howlin' Wolf - Spoonful (1960)

See also:

Music: Howlin' Wolf - Killing Floor (re-recorded London 1971 with Clapton, Winwood, Wyman & Watts)

Music: Jimi Hendrix - Killing Floor (live at Monterey, 1967)

Music: Cream - Spoonful (live at the Fillmore, 1968)

How the plough fostered societies with greater gender inequalities

Early Egyptian ploughs were scratch ploughs, akin to a stick being pulled through the earth. During the Qin and Han dynasties (221 BCE to 220 CE), Chinese farmers developed the turn plough, which turns the soil upside down, creating furrows. Settled agriculture was five or six times more productive than foraging. The plough brought the end of a society in which everyone's occupation was effectively 'food finder'. Indeed, one historian has argued that the entire modern world is the result of the plough.

Ploughs changed power dynamics too. Digging stick agriculture is relatively gender-equal, but ploughs require significant upper body strength to pull the plough or control the animal that pulls it. So the plough made farming a more male-dominated activity. The legacy of this technology has echoed down the generations. In countries where plough use was uncommon (such as Rwanda and Madagascar), gender norms are more equal than in countries where plough use was common (such as Mauritania and Ethiopia). Even among immigrants who have recently moved to advanced countries, those from countries with a heritage of plough use are less likely to believe that women should have jobs outside the home.

- Andrew Leigh, The Shortest History of Economics, Collingwood VIC, 2024, p.16

Te Papa plinths

 

Let these times show you that you're breaking up the lines

Thursday music corner: Karen Dalton (1937-93) was a gravel-voiced American folk singer-songwriter whose struggles with alcohol and drug addiction during her lifetime limited her commercial success, but whose reputation has only grown with time. She released two studio albums, 1969's It's So Hard to Tell Who's Going to Love You the Best, and 1970's In My Own Time. Something On Your Mind was the opening track on the latter album, and was composed by Quicksilver Messenger Service singer Chet Powers under his stage name of Dino Valenti.

Karen Dalton - Something On Your Mind (1970)

See also:

Music: Karen Dalton - A Little Bit of Rain (live in Colorado, 1970)

Music: Fred Neil - The Dolphins (1966)

Music: Quicksilver Messenger Service - Pride of Man (1968)

How the 'heads' of London lived circa 1970

It was still possible for heads to live a low-budget life in London in 1970. Although student numbers were rising steeply as the baby boomers left school, higher education was still only available to 8 per cent of the population (today it nudges 50 per cent). This comparatively privileged group had their education financed by a grant from their local authority, money from their parents if they were lucky, and whatever they had managed to save from a holiday job, which usually involved some form of hard physical labour. With a loaf of bread costing 5p (or one shilling - this was the last year of pounds, shillings and pence), a packet of Embassy cigarettes 20p and a Wimpy hamburger 10p, most of their daily requirements could be covered easily. In many respects the world seemed as economically stable as it had done in the fifties. But 1970 was one year before the decision to take America off the gold standard and the subsequent rise in the price of oil ushered in an era when inflation became endemic. In 1960 the rate of inflation had been 1 per cent. By 1975 it was running at 25 per cent. 

In 1970, heads sharing a flat in central London would expect to pay around £7 each per week. If they were prepared to settle for cheaper areas like Muswell Hill and Finsbury Park Time Out's Book of London predicted they could get a three-room flat for £15. Most of their entertainment was cheap. If they had gone to see Five Easy Pieces, which opened in London at the end of September, they might have paid 30p for their cinema seat. Most of the pleasures and diversions London offered to the tourist were too expensive for heads. They didn't eat out. They never took a taxi. The Time Out guide to alternative London advised that if you had difficulty getting back to the suburbs after a night at Middle Earth you could hitch a lift on one of the lorries leaving Fleet Street in the early hours to deliver the morning papers to the distributors. Credit cards were strictly for the adult world. Banks didn't open at weekends. When they were open they made it clear that they disapproved of anyone taking out any money. Anyone with as much as five pounds on their person was bent on some sort of blow-out.

- David Hepworth, A Fabulous Creation: How the LP Saved Our Lives, London, 2019, p.48-9.

See also:
London: The grooviest place on the planet, 16 July 2018
London: Earl's Court 1968, 16 April 2014
London: Denmark Street, 18 January 2010