WW goes back to its roots

Works Well has lost its way. It has got itself tangled up with effete stuff like sonnets, novel writing and (most baffling of all) gardening. WW was founded to celebrate technology, to detect beauty where it might be least expected and to leave Elizabeth Barrett Browning dead and buried. Time for a retrospective.

Where's its jet engine? Corsair US carrier-based fighter-bomber, flown in the Pacific during WW2. OK, it's a killing machine but it's muscular, looks right for the job and weren't we then fighting a "just" war?

Whatizzit? It's a winch used for rope-hauling on yachts. Costs a fortune but I'd have it on my mantelpiece.






Uh? A quaver rest and a crotchet rest that fill out the sung first line of the Everly Brothers' "Bye bye love." Here the beauty is in the shapes and their concise expression.


Bit humdrum. And only lovely to those who need to shift a recalcitrant tube. Yet the Stilson wrench (pipe wrench in the US) has never been superseded and the patent dates back to 1869.










Bet they stink. Oh yes, of me and my inglorious history as a rock-climber. Discard them? I'd rather open
my veins.




Novel progress 17/12/09: Ch. 8: 2425 words. Chs. 1 - 7: 33,000 words. Comment: Clare to face the camera! My literary invention was required elsewhere but I managed to squeeze in a few words at the end of the day