The Hooverville Hexagon: Local Customs

 

All politics are local, so it's said. Join us for a look around: there's even a politician in here. (Don't run away!)

 

Your Daily Warning That

Halloween Is Coming

by Paulh

Halloween at the trailer park is a relaxed activity.

 

Quote of the Day

"Carry On Corpsing" marked the death of the long-running British comedy franchise and has been wiped from collective memory – perhaps because 1994's animatronic technology proved ill-suited to reanimating the cadavers of the series' original ensemble cast.

Paul Phillips, Horror Writer

 

Guest Creature of the Day

This is a girl tortoise named Fred. More I do not know. Maybe Willem will come along to enlighten us.

Why Is There a Cow in This Parade?

(Video)

by DG

Do not, at this point, start quoting scripture: it's not that kind of cow.

The gentleman in the yellow t-shirt throwing candy is a US Congressman. He's very proud of his new milk law (which provides milk to schoolchildren), so he brought a very large cow to the autumn parade. It's a really decorative Holstein and the parade-goers enjoyed it. I thought y'all might like to see it because frankly, I've seen a lot of floats in these parades but this was particularly impressive.

 

It's a Sign:

Beware the Mine

by Bluebottle

What's local depends on the locality. And the spellchecker can stop yelling at me: 'gurt' is how Bluebottle spells it. It adds local colour. We're all for local colour.

It wouldn't be a seaside town without there being a gurt big red mine with a white stripe being used as a collection tin, and Sandown is no exception. Besides the mine there is also a sign showing Sandown's link with mines and minesweepers. In 1934 one of the Isle of Wight's ferries was launched named PS Sandown, named after the Isle of Wight town. On the outbreak of the Second World War she was requisitioned by the Admiralty to serve in the Royal Navy as HMS Sandown, a minesweeper and anti-aircraft ship. She led a flotilla to Dunkirk, evacuating almost 1,900. She was one of the 892 British Royal Navy ships (out of 1,213 Allied warships) on D-Day and later served in the Battle of the Scheldt in which Antwerp, Europe's largest surviving deep-water port, was liberated. This was one of the most heavily fortified parts of Europe. 

The PS Sandown was returned to being the Isle of Wight ferry and scrapped in 1966, though her sistership PS Ryde almost slightly exists to this day. 

Still, in 1988 the Royal Navy's newest minesweeper, HMS Sandown, was named after the valiant vessel, the first in a class of Sandown-class ships. At some point back in the 90s HMS Sandown was given the freedom of the town, which presumably allowed her to sail up the High Street with a flock of sheep. In 2003 she took part in the Battle of Al Faw. Disappointingly in 2007 she was transferred to the Estonian Navy, only for them to rename her EML Admiral Cowan, after a British Admiral who led the Royal Navy's Baltic fleet during the Russian Civil War and Estonian War of Independence, which as a Sandonian I find mildly insulting. Mark my words, it's bad luck to rename a ship, shouldn't be done.

Hamburger Philharmonie

by Tavaron

This is an amazing building, explained by an architect.

 

The Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg is a large music venue, opened in 2017. It has been designed by the famous Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. The building stands at the edge of the harbour, directly at the water. At its base is an old brick warehouse, which has been completely gutted and today mostly houses the parking garage. On top of that stands the large glass structure which houses the actual concert venue as well as a hotel and some luxury apartments. It is designed to reflect the sky and therefore look different in different weather, the glass is not straight but has panes which are convex, sticking out of the facade. The roof is also curved and kind of shaped like a wave. Between the brick-part and the glass-part there is a public terrace leading all around the building and there's a café. 

The large concert hall of the Elbphilharmonie has seats for 2100 people and it's really impressive. The wall plaster board panels have all been individually designed by an acoustics specialist for the best sound. Almost hidden inside of the

wall is a huge organ (you can see the vertical pipes on the picture). The whole hall has been hung into the building from above so the sounds from ships in the harbour are not transmitted to it and the sound of the music is not disturbed.

The smaller concert hall has space for 'only' 550 people and also has individually-designed wall panels made from wood.

The last picture is from up on the roof, where there is a small terrace.

 

Tribute Poem

by DG

The sound of the trumpet pierced the air.

It woke up the ISS.

It scrambled Sky News.

It preempted droning parliamentarians.

It echoed in every home, business, school, and prison.

It reverberated at the Philharmonic.

The conductor looked up, annoyed. 'I said B-flat!'

TTYL,

 Dmitri Gheorgheni, Editor