In The Matter Of Certain Lighters

This book is a continuation of the content and format style of what was to be found in this writer’s immediately preceding book Light and Dark, 1982 edition revised. (August 2015) If you read or sampled and liked that book then you’ll likely find this one equally or maybe even more to your taste. The alphabetical arrangement by title in that first book took you from Aardvark to Zeitgeist where this one moves you along from About Backbones And Breakfast Foods to Zero Heroes. Between its “A through Z” arrangement you’ll encounter a strange and often epileptically eclectic selection of richly mixed subjects, topics and treatments which this writer had at some point felt some compelling need to put on paper for his own relief and the possible amusement or edification of “imagined others”. If you’re in this group then this book is for you. If, however, you should have an insensitivity, let alone active dislike for rhyme and alliteration in your reading matter then this book, most especially should you be reading this in some braille version, since it might very well prove “toxic to touch” best you promptly put it down and move on to another and safer shelf or pile. Seriously though, this collection does offer a full spectrum of the silly and the serious often inextricably intertwined within the uncomfortably containing body of the very same composition, rather like a hot mustard pickle relish thickly spread between the cut halves of a sweet bun. Yes De gustibus … de gustibus! But please, if you’ll let me be clear, if perhaps, a little Ogden Nashy here … without too much … fusstibus!

Neville Florian Usborne entered the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1897. In the years between him joining up and the outbreak of the First World War, he engaged in a huge number of enterprises and endeavours. Praise and respect garnered in accordance with his achievements all helped to establish his reputation in later years as an 'irreplaceable' pioneer and a leading light of early British airship design. His fertile imagination and enterprising spirit fused to form a dynamic personality, able in wartime to draw up countless schemes in an effort to outwit the enemy. His chief task during the Great War was to dream up new tactics and designs to combat the Zeppelin menace, perceived as one of the most damaging threats of the entire conflict. He was also deeply involved in the design of the very successful SS and Coastal Class airships; indeed, during 1915 he was actually appointed Inspector Commander of Airships at the Admiralty. Unfortunately, his illustrious career was destined to be cut short in 1916 when he was killed testing a prototype of one of his own designs. This new biography seeks to shine a light on an overlooked pioneer of early aviation and it does so in entertaining and reverential style. The importance of Usborne the pioneer is made plain; as one of his contemporaries commented upon his death No one can talk of the early days of British airship design without mention of his name and work. A personality was lost on that February day which was irreplaceable.

Gravity is the most enigmatic of all known basic forces in nature. Yet it controls everything from the motion of ocean tides to the expansion of the entire Universe. Many books use technical jargon and high-powered maths to explain what gravity is all about. In The Lighter Side of Gravity, the presentation is beautifully clear and completely non-technical. Familiar analogies, interesting anecdotes and numerous illustrations are used throughout to get across subtle effects and difficult points. The coverage is, however, comprehensive and makes no compromise with accuracy. This second edition has been brought completely up to date and expanded to include the discovery of gigantic gravitational lenses in space, the findings of the COBE satellite, the detection of MACHOS, the investigations of the very early Universe and other new ideas in cosmology. In short, this lucid and stimulating book presents 'the lighter side' of the intriguing phenomena of 'gravity' to the student and general reader.