Tuesday 17 November 2009

Find The Fault No 48

Well, we've come to last Transport Series card this morning. And a good one to end on, I think. Next week we'll have something different to get us going over our morning teas and coffees. Still, I think there's enough going on here to keep us going for a while. Younger readers may struggle a bit with the concept of a trolley bus- basically a tram that didn't have to rely on travelling between rails. And yes, they did have wheels that big, very intimidating to cyclists and pedestrians alike. And can you still get Tit-Bits magazine? I do hope so.

18 comments:

Diplomate said...

Ah - no picture

Philip Wilkinson said...

The perfect 'find the fault' card. So good it has no faults at all.

Diplomate said...

Pick up poles are pointing f'wds - is the bus in reverse ?

Peter Ashley said...

Good grief that was quick. I'd just taken it off for three seconds to alter something. But yes Diplo, you're this week's winner! The conductor poles are indeed angled the wrong way, if everything else is to be believed.

Philip Wilkinson said...

Crumbs, Diplo, you are quick. I was just about to post the same answer, except I wasn't sure what the pick up poles were actually called. So 'pole things pointing the wrong way;' wouldn't have been a very convincing answer.

Oh, and is there room for the driver's legs above that big wheel?

Chris Partridge said...

Tit-Bits died in the 1980s, killed by sniggering from the back seats of the trolleybus I think. G.K. Chesterton, however, thought writing serious stuff for The Times was much easier than doing jokes for Tit-Bits - he wrote in the foreword of Defence of the Ephemeral:
"So in these easy pages I keep myself on the whole on the level of THE TIMES: it is only occasionally that I leap upwards almost to the level of TIT-BITS."

Peter Ashley said...

Thankyou for the Tit-Bits news Chris. I remember reading it at my Aunty Mabel's on wet weekday mornings, and seem to recall it was printed (late 50s) in black with green as a second colour.

Anonymous said...

Easy for me to say now, but this was a very straightforward spot. (I'm always on the train when FTF goes up so that's why I'm very rarely first to chip in - honestly!)

These days the poles would be called a "pantograph", I suppose

Vincent said...

Apart from the pantograph, I was going to say that surely "titbits" is one word. My photographic memory of the Forties and Fifties is letting me down though, as to whether it was hyphenated in that esteemed and educational newspaper's title.

Philip Wilkinson said...

Tit-Bits once had a hyphen, then became one word, so the bus ad is correct if it's set in the right period.

I think strictly a pantograph has to be jointed, so it will span a variety of different-sized gaps (the 'panto' bit in the word is from the Greek meaning 'all' or 'universal', as in pantheism, pan-European, etc). But I may be wrong, in which case I may be panned.

Peter Ashley said...

From my recollection the masthead had the two words stacked one above the other, but the words were later hyphenated until 1973.

accountant said...

The pilaster on the Regal cinema does not look to convincing.

expat said...

Did bus stops anywhere actually have railings around them as in the picture?

bikerted said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bikerted said...

Tit-bits did make a brief comeback only to die a second death, only more rapidly. Does anyone remember "Revallie", although the spelling may not be correct.

Sue Imgrund said...

I think you saved the best to last. What I'd like to know is - what is the secret of the little red house with the blue roof, sandwiched between those shops and cunningly concealed by the trolley bus?

expat said...

Reveille mentioned in Bikerted's post folded in 1979 and was incorporated into Tit-Bits so these comments are all linking together.

Pantographs work for trams or electric trains where only one cable is used and the route is fixed. Trolley buses always use poles to connect with two wires and allow manoeuvring.

Peter Ashley said...

Pilasters, Reveille, little red houses, pantographs, blue roofs, bus stops. Very odd to have gone into this wonderland without any artificial stimulants, thankyou all.