The Road - T E Lawrence

[pritch]

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/rbotoole/entry/the_road_motorcycle/

[pritch]

Some years ago on the Antiques Roadshow there was an Omega watch presented for evaluation. The distinctive feature of the watch was the very long strap. The expert advised the owner that the long strap was to permit the watch to be fastened around the outside of the sleeve on a sheepskin flying jacket. This particular watch being a WW1 pilot's watch.

In the box with the watch was a jewellers account for work done for a previous owner: T E Shaw of Clouds Hill. The expert was on the ball and recognised the name as being one used by T E Lawrence during his search for anonymity.

The valuation for a First World War Omega pilot's watch was two thousand pounds. For a watch owned by Lawrence of Arabia? Maybe ten thousand pounds?

In one of those update shows that AR do it was reported that the watch had sold to a Swiss museum for a sum several times the upper estimate. I can't remember but it may have been forty thousand?

Lawrence was ummm different(?). At times after the war he was on the brink of starvation, yet he owned a series of Brough Superiors.

During the war he represented the British Government in discussions with various Arab rulers. At war's end though all of the promises were forgotten and Britain, France, and the US, sliced the pie so as to best suit their own interests. Many of the current problems in the Middle East can be traced back to then.

The movie "Lawrence Of Arabia" was available free on YouTube if you look around.

[awa355]

It's going to be a great read tonight, at work.

[J.A.W.]

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/rbotoole/entry/the_road_motorcycle/


Anyone here know if the BroSup VS Brisfit speed trial so well described in Lawrence's book is re-created at the Omaka Airshow?

It'll surely be a natural..


Now as for H.S.T's flat out H2/Kaw triple midnight fang with a head full of acid.. well, ah.. I couldn't possibly comment..

'cept to paraphrase Dave the astronaut in Kubrick's 2001, "Ye gods, do ya see all them stars!"

[pritch]

It's going to be a great read tonight, at work.

Well if you aren't too busy the whole book is here: http://www.telstudies.org/writings/works/the_mint/publication_history.shtml

There are two versions, the later one includes "barrack room language". I don't think Lawrence used profanity (unlike myself), and his swearing doesn't always flow as it should which is distracting.

[J.A.W.]

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/rbotoole/entry/the_road_motorcycle/



Here is a modern TV re-creation of Lawrence's bike VS plane race story.. its @ ~25mins in..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYK6eydYBXM


They don't use a Bristol Fighter though, but there is one at Omaka..

[F5 Dave]

If you skip to the very end it mentions something about bacon.

[Racing Dave]

As seen recently at the National Motorcycle Museum, Birmingham

[Grumph]

So to sum up, good writer, obsessed with bloody Broughs, accident prone rider....

And if you were a pilot, would you have wanted him working on your plane while thinking about the current book ?

[J.A.W.]

So to sum up, good writer, obsessed with bloody Broughs, accident prone rider....

And if you were a pilot, would you have wanted him working on your plane while thinking about the current book ?


Did he really get engine muck under finger nails - in the RAF?

Wasn't his post-war service a bit of a old boy network sinecure, after what he'd got up to - on behalf of King & Co?

& likely you wouldn't want some ex-'public school' toff daydreaming about flogging young bare-arsed Arab boys,
or receiving like treatment ( & more extreme) from some sweating Ottoman Turk - while torquing down your nuts..

Biggles! Damn it man, you've bloody well stripped 'em again..