Thankyou very much for the camper Adolf , thank you very much , thank you very very much !

Sure America may have nice shiny labs and big Universities; Marie Curie needed just an old scabby laboratory. Darwin needed only the world around him. Einstein merely his own thoughts. Resources just make progress easier. It does not promote better ideas or the people who have them. This little backward island of miscreants has punched well above its weight for centuries. That kind of tenacity does not disappear overnight. I'd rather be rich in ideas and poor of pocket. Money is uninteresting and its pursuit diversionary.

I'm pro European. I'm also a socialist.

 

Yes it does but before he turned full on murderer at least the idea of a cheap easy to service car to move the masses and build good roads made sense (even today) although we knew it was for totally different reasons then....

Sometimes good comes out of evil if people allow it to lets hope it never ever happens again

 

Umm...haven't Bedford and Axminster gone bust . As a devout Miele owner, I'm offended by seeing Hotpoint on the list...

JCB are good 'uns tho' - one of the (regrettably few) world-class UK companies around.

 

Unfortunately, if companies don't earn money, they go bust.

 

Has anyone mentioned the computer, the jet engine, the telephone, the i-pod, the light bulb or the television. All British inventions that the world would be lost without, yet all given away for other nations to profit from.
But thanks go to Germany for the T2.

 

Think you'll find the telephone and light bulb were invented in the States. I was unaware that the iPod was a British invention - there's me thinking it came from Southern California .

 

I'd agree with you here - British management over the years has been pretty awful. Never seemed to be that hunger to truly commercialise our good inventions. Companies don't prosper, so there's never the money around to invest in the next big thing. We never quite seem to make it, or we do get there first and have to wrestle with all the initial problems - always best to be second!

Case in point was the deHavilland Comet, which genuinely was a world first. But, hit unexpected probs, and folk like Boeing learnt a lot on the back of our experiences.

Still, we do have companies like Rolls Royce, ARM and the pharma folk, so we can do it.

 

The comet is still my fave plane of all time! Fab looking bugger , it was only because they did not realise square windows had too much stress on the frame and hence cracked, which is why planes ever since have rounded off windows, so everyone benefited from the Comet, unfortunately to the loss of life . But look at it , those faired in engines , like the Spitfire , it just looks right! We have so many great inventors and ideas but half the time we just dont know how to get them off the ground so to speak or it takes too long to develop or well the time is just not right? C5? Would that be in today?

 

The lightbulb was invented by Joseph Swan. It was marketed and moved to mass production by that intellectual thief known as Edison.

Graham Bell was also an intellectual thief, albeit a British one. It is currently moot whether he invented anything other than good PR.

Money is a distraction. The pursuit of human endeavour should be about moving humanity forward, not lining the pockets of executives. The sooner the world realises this then the sooner we can move out of this dead end.

Inventors generally do not do it for the money. They do it for the idea. Then along come the greedy money men. Frankly I'd line em up against a wall. How dare they line their nests whilst people starve. A moderately comfortable life is one thing, an opulent wasteful extravagance is quite another. Sure people are entitled to profit from their endeavours, but I fail to comprehend the lengths some will go to for a buck. Whilst kicking down underfoot those less able or fortunate, they stretch over their corpses grasping for cash as if possessed by some demon. Its *****ing sickening. Sorry for the expletive but there you are. I feel strongly about this.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...Briton-DID-invent-iPod-hes-getting-money.html

 

That unfortunately is just history repeating itself.

Not quite the same but in a similar vein, I have always been interested in how things work and when a kid in the 70's I used to take things apart, fix them and put them back again, as you do! anyway I loved cars! Apparently my first word was Car! So I used to wonder how we could use the power of the engine to charge up batteries and use electric motors to drive the car when the fuel ran out? Hmm I thought of that idea in about 1978? Missed opportunities eh? Just think I could be sat in a lab somewhere behind my own desk in charge or a team of engineers inventing the next leap in electric hybrid cars, in Japan or Germany, but no .....................instead I have a rusty old van working my b@lls off like everyone else trying to pay the mortgage up and ensure my little one has a good start in life! Ah money does not make you happy does it, like mentioned above, inventors love the idea and making it work not selling it, although I think Dyson has managed both.

 

America sat out the war until Pearl harbour, they had no intention of getting involved prior to that, other than to profit ,i.e. I think we just recently paid off our war debt to them .Germany ? Having lived there , when you go to the bank with a request for money re say ,a Morgage,a business start up idea ,the officials take the long term view/approach to your request ,they want details (lots and lots of), the will have many meeting with you ,they will discuss endlessly your request,they work with you. little wonder they are a "powerhouse"unlike BritISH Lenders ,Ist Question is usually,"what you got that's valuable"? The GermanV2 rocket was the forerunner of practically all modern rockets,post war the Allies done a lot of (dirty) deals with senior German military persons to get there hands on research documentation.True ,money does not make a person happy, but it allows a person to be comfortable in their misery.

 

We paid the national debt around 2000 I seem to remember? You are correct the Yanks only got involved because we went over and said 'look if you help you can have this lot etc etc'
All countries including the Uk had dirty deals at the expense of others misery and suffering after and during the war.

 

Agree Stan, as (myself)something of a "true" history buff, I reckon most people would be horrified if they knew what went on during/after the war re "deals done" one thing that shouts ! at me is the 30/60 100 /for eternity " (years)not for public viewing law this country/other countries have re official documents oh, I wonder why?anyhow ,me going off the initial point of original post comment ,I"d better stop ,"when we stop teaching history ,we will repeat it".

 

I dont know about that one? But agree if we stop teaching history, all of it not just popular history everyone will rely on Wikipedia online and take it as the gospel truth!
Then that becomes the truth in peoples minds, scary times ahead!

 

Technically this is the first aircraft to fly under jet power, the Heinkle; He178

 

History is written by the victor. Plus His Story is written from the dominant male position. All you can do is take a reasoned and logical approach to the 'facts' and make up your own mind based upon your education/gut feeling/moral view.

The only comfort we can be sure of is that the truth will out. Eventually.

Why would any reasonable nation go to war if it did not have to? Do not blame the Americans for not wanting War. We denied it long enough until it caught up with us, ill prepared and in disarray. Sure they profited, but thats the price we paid for denying and putting off the inevitable. Had Parliament listened to Churchill in the decades leading up to the war, things may have been different. We have only OURSELVES to blame for our debt. Without the American manufacturing our arms we'd all be called Adolph. Many many brave American GI's died for our freedom to slag the USA off. Sure they were late, but they came and made the difference. For that I am eternally grateful.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.