Clancy Tucker's Blog

7 April 2017 - RUNNING REPAIRS

RUNNING REPAIRS

G'day folks,

Here are some more samples of quick fixes to automobiles. Some people are so innovative and inventive.

Clancy's comment: Mm ... One can only imagine what their house is like.

I'm ...

6 April 2017 - WAS THERE A ‘RED TELEPHONE’ HOTLINE?

WAS THERE A

‘RED TELEPHONE’ HOTLINE?

G'day folks,

During the height of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union established a direct communications link to allow their leaders to contact one another in the event of a nuclear crisis or other emergency. This Washington-Moscow hotline has since featured in countless novels and films such as 1964’s “Dr. Strangelove,” but contrary to its depictions in pop culture, it never took the form of a red telephone. In fact, it never involved phone calls at all.

The Washington-Moscow hotline was first proposed in the 1950s, but the idea didn’t gain traction until 1962’s Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Americans and Soviets found that their diplomatic messages often took several hours to reach one another. Fearing that any further mishaps might trigger an accidental nuclear war, the two superpowers met in Geneva the following year and signed a “Memorandum of Understanding Regarding the Establishment of a Direct Communications Line.”

On August 30, 1963, the new system went live. Rather than a telephone link, which presented the possibility of miscommunications, the hotline consisted of teletype machines that allowed the two countries to send written messages to one another via transatlantic cable. The Soviet system was located in the Kremlin, but the American version was always housed in the Pentagon, not the White House. Satellite links were later added to the hotline during the Nixon administration, and in 1986, it was upgraded to include high-speed fax capability. The most recent overhaul came in 2008, when the system switched to email.

While there is no evidence that the hotline was ever used to avert a nuclear disaster, it often played a key role in U.S.-Soviet relations. In 1967, Lyndon B. Johnson became the first president to use the system when he negotiated with Soviet leader Alexei Kosygin during the Six Day War, a brief conflict between Israel and several Arab states. Richard Nixon later used it for similar purposes during 1971’s Indo-Pakistani War and 1973’s Yom Kippur War, and Jimmy Carter famously hopped on the hotline to object to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The hotline’s last crisis uses came during the Reagan administration and the dying days of the Cold War, but it still exists to this day. To ensure that the system will function in the event of an emergency, Russian and American technicians continue to send test messages to one another once every hour.

Clancy's comment: We can only hope common sense prevails at any given time.

I'm ...

5 April 2017 - 'FLYING THROUGH CLOUDS' – Blog Tour – MICHELLE MORGAN

'FLYING THROUGH CLOUDS'

Michelle Morgan

- Blog Tour -

G'day folks,

Today, I'm taking part in a blog tour for Australian author, Michelle Morgan, who has just released her latest book, Flying Through Clouds.

Welcome Michelle ...

I was inspired to write Flying through Clouds by two historical events – the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in March 1932, and the landing and take-off of Southern Cross by Sir Charles Kingsford Smith on Seven Mile Beach in January 1933. Several relatives of mine were at the opening of the Bridge and one had an official invitation. I was amazed to discover that people started climbing the bridge before it had even opened, and some of those daredevils kept a flag from the top of the arch as a souvenir. When I discovered that Sir Charles Kingsford Smith (aka Smithy) led the flypast in Southern Cross at the opening of the Bridge I was hooked.

In January 2013, I wandered into the Gerringong Historical Society Museum on the South Coast of New South Wales to see their special exhibition. It was 8o years since Smithy landed Southern Cross on nearby Seven Mile Beach at Gerroa, before taking off again early the following morning, 11 January 1933, on the first commercial flight to New Zealand. I'd been toying with the idea of somehow including this amazing historical event into the new novel I ‘d begun writing. As I wandered around the exhibition, inspecting each old photo and artefact, reading every newspaper and magazine, I became more and more excited. A couple of hours later, I walked out of the museum and headed straight to Seven Mile Beach.

After parking my car on the side of the road, I headed along one of the tracks to the beach. I walked slowly, taking in every sight, smell and sound in the surrounding bush. I ran over the sand dunes to the beach, just as I'd imagined my main character would. I was channeling the teenage boy deep inside who I could picture there on the beach as Southern Cross was landing and taking off again in 1933. That was the inspiration I needed to develop an important part of my main character's story. Over the following months, I finished the first draft of Flying through Clouds. It has taken me nearly four years to edit and reshape that raw manuscript into a novel that was ready to be published.

I am sincerely grateful to pioneering aviators like Sir Charles Kingsford Smith who flew such basic planes with canvas bodies and timber wings across oceans and continents. If it wasn't for their courage, tenacity and adventurous spirit, the airline industry wouldn't have developed at the rate it did. Many of the early aviators lost their lives, including Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, who disappeared in his plane, Lady Southern Cross, off the coast of Burma in 1935.

I hope you enjoy Flying through Clouds!

AUTHOR: Michelle Morgan

TITLE: Flying through Clouds

ISBN: 978-0-9953865-0-1

AGES: 12+

RRP: $18.99 Pbk

Available now at bookshops, educational and library suppliers, and can be ordered on Michelle’s website: www.michellejmorgan.com.au