Valid or ersatz?

To what extent should we re-invent history?

There is, for example, No. 60163 Tornado, the Peppercorn A1 steam locomotive that never was, until The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust made it happen:

Mean, moody and magnificent, but better-maintained and always in the just-shopped-condition that real working engines rarely were —and 60149 Amandis (as right)
no way is in bad shape compared to many, particularly once one left the main lines.

Anyway, what’s a proper steam railway without the grit, smuts and grime that normally went with travel in those days?

Liberty Belle

A similar case can be argued for the reconstructed B-17G Flying Fortress that, until the last few hours, was offering circuit-and-bump tourist flights, masquerading as Liberty Belle.

There was no manner in which such an experience could convey the actuality of the original operations of B-17s. At best, the sheer sound and distant sight is the best that could be on offer. Seeing a solo B-17 (or any war-time bomber) was rare enough — and ominous — where were the rest?

Malcolm has no pleasure in the news item showing, yesterday, the wreck of that aircraft burning in an Oswego field. Fortunately, only one of the seven on board suffered even a minor injury.

Worthy …  but a trifle meretricious?

This Liberty Belle was a stitch-up.

The basic air-frame (serial number 44-85734) never saw WW2 deployment, but went through the hands of Pratt and Whitney as a post-war test-bed for T34 turbo-prop engines. Later, in the ownership of an east-coast air museum, it was written off, split in two, in a hurricane. An enthusiast bought the wreck to cannibalize it and 44-85813 to produce this facsimile.

The difference with 60163 Tornado is that one was created from the original authentic plans. Nor is this the place (Malcolm doesn’t have the expertise, but see elsewhere) to debate the difference — it’s mainly the deployment of the guns —  between B-17F and B-17G variants.

The original Liberty Belle was a B-17F, serial 42-30096, part of the 385th Bombardment Group, 549th Bomber Squadron, flying out of RAF Great Ashfield. It was lost in an on-board fire and crashed at Penlan Hall, Wakes Colne, near Colchester, on 30 November 1943, with four aircrew killed.

Not everything is as Virgin Atlantic might intend

As a marker of “authenticity”, is it fair to compare the nose-art of the original, above right, with this reconstruction (below)?

Redundancy

P. Staines (below, left — a.k.a. “Guido Fawkes” — though the dung-shovelling is being done by Harry “Tory Bear” Cole these degenerate days, thus allowing P.Staines to spend more time with his favourite bars) has one of those usual “scoops”:

Unemployment Has Peaked

… small firms are hiring workers driving job creation, and according to the authoritative Manpower survey [PDF] hiring intentions are up 8% in the coming quarter and overall nationally recruitment is 3% above trend, a level not seen since the height of the financial crisis 3 years ago.

 

Phew! What a relief! And from such an untainted source, as well!

Just don’t look at the small print:

 The Manpower Employment Outlook Survey is based on responses from over 2,100 UK employers about whether they intend to hire additional workers in the coming economic quarter. 

There were well over two million UK business registered for VAT and/or PAYE, according to the National Statistics:

Manpower’s survey involves around one tenth of one per cent (0.1%) of them. Such a return, with no attempt at making it representative, has absolutely no statistical value.

 Within the private sector, it is only small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that are predicting job creation with a +8% Outlook. However, worryingly, hiring intentions among the UK’s largest businesses have fallen for the third successive quarter and now remain flat. 

Across the whole UK economy there are going on five million enterprises. Over three-quarters of them are one- or two-person firms. Fewer than 5000 operations  (o.0009% of the whole number) have more than 500 employees — but they amount to 55% of all employment.

In the real world, very few authorities are are chirpy as P.Staines & Co. Try this, from one (Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight) who really might have a glimmering:

We suspect that likely below-trend growth will mean that the private sector will be unable to fully compensate for the increasing job losses in the public sector that will result from the fiscal squeeze that is now really kicking in. Indeed, we believe that private sector companies will become increasingly careful in their employment plans in the face of a struggling economy and elevated input costs. Specifically, we forecast unemployment on the ILO measure to rise to 2.67 million by end-2011 and to peak at about 2.75 million around mid-2012. This would see the unemployment rate rise to 8.4% by end-2011 and to a peak of 8.6% by mid-2012.