Feathers, Touching Down

     There's still something magical about flying a long distance in a plane, the sheer fact that you and your bag (or bags) are just two of the many "heavy" items on board; throw in a zillion other passengers, then the weight of the plane itself --not to mention the nearly 26,000+ gallons of fuel*--and one has to wonder how this massive mechanical beast even gets off of the ground?  Add in the weight of the air itself (as mentioned in one of my recent posts, thus the use of the term "air" plane) and you sometimes think that the whole thing --this flying that we so often just take for granted-- was magic.  Picture yourself in front of your 24-inch fan set at maximum speed; it is still nowhere powerful enough to tilt itself back, much left break free from its stand and fly across the room.  So double or triple the speed and maybe (if the blades don't fly off, a problem for wind turbines which have to be shut down during high winds), you'd get close to the fan moving itself back a little, but not much more.  For Wilbur & Oroville Wright, the problem seemed to be more with lift and wing design than with propulsion; but somehow they worked it out and gliders soon became double-winged craft, which eventually returned to single winged and now, massive jets which moved more and more blades inside the engine itself, compressing the air further and further until there was enough thrust generated to provide lift and...well, what am I talking about?  I have no real mechanical knowledge of how it all works (here's a simpler explanation from Bold Method for those of you still interested)...to me, it remained as mysterious as a good illusion.  And then there was the all-nighter...

     Who hasn't said at some point, I'm too old to be doing this anymore?  I think I began saying that in my thirties when I flew a few all-night flights,  those flights where sleep seems impossible no matter how tired you are.  But now, I did indeed feel too old for an all-nighter (although if Charles can become king at 73, there may be hope).  Man up, as my wife continued to remind me; but alas, I knew that I would still arrive grouchy and tired, which I did.  We had touched down at Heathrow where the weather was blissfully cooler and rainy as if in mourning for the death of England's longest reigning monarch (Queen Elizabeth, who ruled for 70 years as the UK's monarch, was bested only by Louis XIV of France who had reigned 2 years longer).  Now it was onward to the "coach" (as buses are called in the UK) for our ride to the next airport, then another flight, then, what we hoped, a quick cab ride to our hotel.  The days of a quick connection from Heathrow down to Cornwall ended with the summer so one has to choose this post jet-lagged routing or endure a 7+hour bus ride (taking the train would have involved even more connections).  So yes, I was truly feeling too old to be going through this (my American grumbling side had apparently landed with me).

     One quick side note: here's what I've found in general -- people actually don't want to hear about your vacation or worse, view pictures of it.  Despite all of the time you may have spent putting together a computerized "slide" show or even the narrative and research you likely put into your presentation  --all the tidbits you may have discovered on your tour from the locals you' happened to meet who told you all about the hideaways "only" the locals would know-- your friends and family back home are probably gritting their teeth and bracing themselves for your "short" presentation (which will still seem unusually long to them).  Today's world is somehow in such a hurry that a photo or two from your phone passed among those nearby is about the maximum time allotted before it's onward to refilling cocktails or sitting down to dinner.  It really doesn't matter if you've been to Mongolia or to the moon, such tales are interesting for about a minute or two because, well, who can relate, even if you as a viewer have been there.  Experiences are different for all of us and despite that hiking adventure you had climbing Portugal's Mt. Everest, it has little relevance for the armchair quarterback, just as that elaborate safari means little to that neighbor who hates bugs and would rather sip an umbrella-drink on the beach.  So yes dear reader, I realize that this may be you, so no worries if you decide to simply skip over this and other posts as I jot down a few Bill Bryson-type observations.  Let's face it, how could anyone relate to the fish and chips I planned to bite into?  Certainly you've had some form of fish and chips (some of the best I've had were not in the UK but in Alaska) but these would be English fish and chips (and in case you're wondering, I've found that fish and chips in England varies as much as baby back ribs in the US, a dish almost never seen in the UK).  But here's what puzzled me...the potato being such a mainstay in the English diet because centuries before, the British wanted nothing to do with them (hence, the start of the Irish divide).

     Here's how a book on the history of veggies, The Carrot Purple, put it: An early rumor, spread in England in 1620, had the potato causing leprosy.  Historian Redcliffe Salaman suggests that "the white nodular tubers, with bulbous finger-like growths, may well have recalled the deformed hand and feet of the unfortunate leper."  The potato was also threatening because it --along with tomatoes, eggplant, tobacco, and other plants-- belonged to the nightshade family.  Like the deadly nightshade, the tuber had small green berries and white, blue, and pink flowers.  This solanum ("quieting") plant group was thought to be narcotic...For Irish tenant farmers eking out a bare subsistence, potatoes had many advantages.  They grew quickly and prolifically on tiny plots.  Few tools, other than a hoe, were needed to cultivate them.  Along with milk, potatoes provided enough nourishment and calories for a poor family...The "mighty lovers of potatoes" were extolled by some observers.  David Henry, an English writer, remarked that the potato created a "vigorous population," a people with a high birth rate.  Others were more disparaging.  Author Jonathan Swift sneered at those "living in filth and nastiness upon buttermilk and potatoes."  Slogans like "No Potatoes, No Popery," a line used in an English election in 1765, expressed anti-Irish sentiment.  One should note that the potato, as with the tomato, arrived from South America, presumably after Spanish invaders brought them back after routing the Incas (who grew over 150 varieties of the spud).

Photo: I Am A Food Blog (wife/husband team Steph and Mike)

     I mention this because while in the UK, and especially so in England itself, one may overhear patrons asking for "the full English" when ordering breakfast.  According to the English Breakfast Society: The 'common' full English breakfast is a substantial meal consisting of back bacon, eggs, British sausage, baked beans, bubble and squeak, fried tomato, fried mushrooms, black pudding, with fried and toasted bread on the side.  Notice any potatoes there?  Occasionally one may spot some toaster version of hash browns, but almost never will one find made-from-scratch hash browns...same with finding waffles or pancakes.  Nearly everything else veggie-wise, from the traditional dill, parsley, and mint sauces to those sliced mushrooms (which are part of any "traditional" English fare), are actually leftovers from the days of Roman occupation (think Hadrian's Wall).  Said the site Historic UK: The Romans introduced many fruits and vegetables previously unknown to the Britons, some of which are still part of the modern nation diet: to name a few, asparagus, turnips, peas, garlic, cabbages, celery, onions, leeks, cucumbers, globe artichokes, figs, medlars, sweet chestnuts, cherries and plums were all introduced by the Romans...The impact of Roman domination on British cuisine was also very profound.  Roman cuisine was a lot more elaborate than that of the Britons, and it made extensive use of ‘exotic’ ingredients such as spices and herbs previously unknown in Britain.  As a result, herbs and spices like mint, coriander, rosemary, radish, and garlic were introduced and increasingly cultivated.  New farm animals such as white cattle, rabbits and possibly chickens were also introduced.  Jump to lunch or dinner and you'll discover nearly every dish will feature mushy peas (which look and taste pretty much as they sound).  Still, the food is all quite tasty and for the most part, still local and fresh in the smaller pubs and towns (sadly, many of the tiny "local" pubs have been bought out or are struggling to make it, a fate which had nearly 80 communities uniting in a save-the-pubs effort, said NPR).

     A 70+ mph tailwind had put us into Heathrow nearly 30 minutes early and I couldn't help but again reflect on the words of Mark Vanhoenacker in his book Skyfaring: Often the fastest winds are as smooth as glass.  When the computerized readouts showed even a routine wind for an airliner to experience, 50 knots for example, I think that anywhere but Iceland, perhaps, such a wind on the ground --58 mph-- would make the news.  We would struggle to stand against it, and yell to be heard.  Maritime cultures, such as those around the Mediterranean, still deploy many archaic names for wind -- the Bora, the Sirocco, the Khamsin.  Today, England has one named wind, the Helm Wind, known for occasionally shrieking down the western slopes of the Pennines in Cumbria.  But it's easy to imagine that the so-called Protestant wind that blew the Spanish Armada away from England might have become a general term for the east wind ("Popish" winds blew too, a century later, to delay the arrival of William of Orange).  America retains a few named winds, such as the Santa Anas of southern California and the Chinook, and even a fictitious wind, the Maria, from the Gold Rush musical Paint Your Wagon (from which the singer Mariah Carey gets her name and its pronunciation).  Hawaii once had hundreds of named winds; whether you could list a place's winds and rains there was a test of whether you were truly a local.

     For us, the winds had indeed shifted and we were suddenly, or perhaps finally, here, overly tired and a tad hungry.  Perhaps tired didn't quite describe it, as anyone with serious jet lag would tell you; delirious might be a better description.  Now checked in at our hotel, we discovered that most kitchens were closed, even if the bars and drinks were still flowing.  Ironically, the only pub still serving food was one of the massive commercial ones and we were quite happy to walk in and order a bite.  Prices were overly reasonable and the place was packed, as in full of patrons both upstairs and down.  Perhaps a few of the other pubs had done the calculations and realized that as the season slowed, there just wouldn't be enough people around to fill both their pub and the other larger ones.  Perhaps.  But right now our misgivings were few.  We just wanted a nibble, a tiny something so that we wouldn't wake up not only jet-lagged but having a hangover as well; we had had our share of beer and wine and were ready for something to just get us through the night...then bed.  An hour later we blissfully sank into our hotel bed.  It was just past noon back home...

*In general, a gallon of jet fuel is about 6.8 lbs. and the maximum fuel capacity of the plane I was on was 97,500 litres.  Here's how MetaFilter put it for a 12-hour flight from Vancouver to Beijing (my flight was just under 9 hours to the UK so adjust accordingly, although it's still rather boggling to consider): At 12 hours' worth of burn, we're at about 90,000 liters for one trip from Vancouver to Beijing.  This is pretty close to the listed capacity of the A330-300's fuel tank (97,530 L).  Let's say Cathay Pacific's A330-300 can hold 300 passengers, and their load factor for this flight was 80%, which is a pretty good ballpark.  So you're talking about 240 people on each flight, meaning that each passenger was responsible for 375 L of fuel, or roughly 100 US gallons.  The Artemis rocket, uses a  mix of motors, engines and fuels (the rocket will produce 8.8 million pounds of thrust at lift-off) which is described in this manner by NASA: A motor is generally defined as a device that produces motion, and an engine is considered a type of motor that produces motion with the use of moving parts.  In rocket science, these terms are typically used to differentiate between rocket motors with solid fuel, that do not employ moving parts to generate thrust, and engines that use moving parts such as pumps and valves to direct liquid fuel through the system.  Solid rocket motors may still include moving parts to steer and direct the thrust.  The Wright brothers would indeed feel that aviation had taken "one giant leap..."