Exit, Pursued by a Bear

Dial comes to town!

Another how-to-use-the-dial-phone film, this one with sound, from a bit later.

“Do you know what it says here?” Gramps demands in the opening scene, brandishing his newspaper. “They’re going to take out all our phones, and put in them kind with dials on them!”

“As soon as a man gets used to one thing,” he continues, “by golly, somebody wants to take it away from him.”

I know how he feels. So did Edward Abbey.

Anyway, Bell paid for the film, so it ends badly, disappointing after such a cheerfully Luddite beginning: the gentle, patient granddaughter, up-and-coming double-breasted company-man son, and impeccable '50s-mom daughter-in-law - she wears heels to knit in her own living room - take him to the phone company’s indoctrination lecture, where he’s patronized into submission. (“This thing isn’t hard to work!" he finally announces. "No, sir!”)

The most recent commenter at archive.org sees it differently:

Crotchety grandpa complains when the phone company changes the phones to “them kind with dials on them.” Grandpa lives with his son Charlie’s family, who are to be commended for putting up with such a demanding old man. Grandpa even didn’t like it when Charlie’s wife got a new washing machine! Living with Grandpa can’t be easy for this family. And where’s Grandma? Living with Grandpa probably sent her to an early grave.

The family goes to a meeting to learn how to use the new dial phones, which have irritatingly loud dial tones. As the man from the phone company says, “it’s mighty important and mighty exciting!” As the other reviewers here have noted, this telephone company film presumes that their customers are real dimwits. In the end, Grandpa uses the dial phone to call his friend Ed. Charlie and his family are relieved—let Grandpa complain to someone else for a change.

The bellsystemmemorial.com phone history site can’t date it, but thinks 1940s.

QuickTime

from BoingBoing, as usual:

A very ponderous seven-minute instructional film from 1927, introducing the viewer to the dial telephone.

QuickTime, RealMedia

Mitchell & Kenyon

Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon were Edwardian entrepreneurs. Their business idea: take a hand-cranked movie camera around the UK, filming people as they led their daily lives – leaving their factory gates as the whistle blew, crowding a town’s main street, relaxing in a park, whatever it happened to be - then charge them to watch the footage as a sort of fairground attraction.

Most of them had only seen images of themselves in the mirror up until that point, so Mitchell and Kenyon carried on profitably for about fifteen years up until 1913. They rarely ventured south of Birmingham, but did film in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

They shot over 800 rolls of film, which were discovered in barrels a few years ago in a cellar in Lancashire.

In the meantime, needless to say, their footage had been transformed from forgettable gimmick to priceless social documentary - in all, there are 28 hours of viewing time - and Mitchell and Kenyon have a reputation that they never did when they were alive.

The British Film Institute took on the complicated chore of making the fragile film usable:

Because the films were recorded using a hand-crank, the speed of the motion onscreen varied from one reel to the next, depending on which of the two filmmakers pulled the crank, and whether or not he was feeling particularly vigorous on that day. “People think they know how silent films should look,” says Russell. “They think they should look scratchy, herky-jerky.” The restored Mitchell & Kenyon footage, however, looks nothing like a stilted music hall melodrama; it flows at the speed of real life.

You can feel the weight of humanity on these Edwardian streets. And it’s important to remember all of these films are just outside living human memory. None of the people coming out of those gates can be living. The films are all populated with ghosts.”

GLASS TOMBSTONES

Radiant and incredibly tactile, Lundgren Monuments are designed for the individual who defies definition, and in the setting of a memorial park or cemetery they are glowing beacons that stand out amongst the traditional stone memorials. Please review our full line of memorials and see for yourself their beauty and timelessness.
Luminescent, organic, rugged and incredibly beautiful, cast glass monuments actually glow with life and spirit, standing out as a beacon amongst a field of stones. Lundgren Monuments presents the original cast glass memorial. There is nothing like it in the world. Isn’t that the way you want to be remembered?

link

SNOWDROP COUNT: 40

with lots more on the way.

(OTOH, the witch hazel is definitely dead.)

There’ll always be an England –

- and England will be free, so long as it contains hard-core eccentric gardeners like the Duchess of Northumberland, whose Poison Garden contains over 50 dangerous and/or potentially lethal plants.

To highlight its hazardous nature the garden's beds are laid in the shape of flickering flames.
Members of the public will be escorted around the walled garden by marshals.
The Duchess of Northumberland officially opened the garden with Northumbria Police chief constable Crispian Strachan.

snowdrop count: 30

Thirty snowdrops in bloom, with more on the way and infant crocuses poking up in the lower bed.

encouraging signs

I count 14 snowdrops in bloom in the front garden, with more on the way. (I'd like to plant dogtooth violets, another ultra-early spring bulb, but can't source them.)
On the bad news side of the ledger, my witch hazel seems to be dead: it was in bloom at the end of February last year.

looking for a few good tattooed law-abiding married women

The military’s own door-kicking, terrorist-killing special forces organization, Joint Task Force Two, has opened up somewhat over the years, moving gradually from being secretive to the point of comedy to just being discreet.

(Working on a story about them, years ago, I ended up talking to a frustrated military public affairs officer who was barely allowed to admit the organization existed. He ended up referring me to information about them in Hansard, which was either helpful in a weird sort of way or weird in a helpful sort of way.)

Anyway, in the nature of these things, JTF2 is second only to the detention barracks in Edmonton (‘Club Ed’: can you imagine a week?) as a source of barrack-room rumour and fascination.

When it comes to the glasshouse, digger, brig, call it what you want, a bit of awed mythmaking is probably helpful for discipline. (An institution run by an officer with the title of commandant and a hulking military police NCO with the title of chief disciplinarian — I hope he has business cards printed up — is asking for mythmaking, in any case.)

With JTF2, on the other hand, the myths that spread among the pool of potential applicants may not have the effect you were hoping for.

Hence, on the authority of the Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff, a list of eleven things which are not true about JTF2. It’s ten, really, given that they concede that Myth 4 is accurate.

Is entry only possible for single men without tattoos? Myths 7, 8, and 3 would have you think so. Do you get to break the law? Myth 11. Are you never allowed to leave? Myth 10.

telling it like it is

MLS®: C584329 $649,000

56 OSSINGTON AVE
TORONTO, Ontario
M6J 2Y7
C01 - Toronto
Toronto Central
Central 5
Ontario
Property Has Been Used As Marijuana Grow House.There Appears To Be Minimal Damage To Bldg.Electrical And Heating Systems Were Tampered With-Estimated Repair Cost Under $5000. Excellent Steel+Concrete Bldg Possible 2nd Floor. Selling As-Is Condition.**** EXTRAS **** Forced Air Gas Furnace, Air Conditioning Equipment, Hot Water Tank(Rental), Electric Light Fixtures, Commercial Range, Kitchen Equipment, Tables And Chairs Etc.

full text

allies? we have allies?

from the Times:

US commanders were so worried that their men were shooting at the British because they failed to recognise the Union Jack or other distinguishing military markings that, in an unprecedented move, they asked the British Army to supply vehicles, men and flags to teach their soldiers what their allies looked like.
It is understood that the British supplied several “snatch” armoured Land Rovers, the most common vehicle used by British troops on patrol and senior non-commissioned officers, with Union Jacks, to instruct the Americans.
A British officer in Basra said: “The Americans can be pretty pumped-up. Sometimes they fire in broad daylight when we are travelling at two miles per hour, shouting that we are British out of the window and waving the Union Jack. If they shoot, our drill is to slam on the brakes and race in the opposite direction.”

Spain pix!

click on image to enter