Pipes and Piping (If the Cap Fits)
Local Defence Volunteers. The original name of the British Home Guard (Dad’s Army).
Dad’s Army: Part II
After posting the last blog and sitting back and allowing the little grey cells to wander it occurred to me that Dad’s Army must have explored the bagpipes. Sure enough with a little bit of searching we have managed to find the clip from If the Cap Fits included here for your viewing enjoyment. An easy path of discovery this time around but not always so with some projects. Some work (actually much work) is required to pull research projects together. Each sentence in a story or book takes an hour or more of searching and writing, checking and rechecking.
Thoughts on Research with Banzai Pipeline and Paper Clip Analogies
These wanderings of the grey cells however, are always fun and they remind me to keep digging and searching. It reminds me, as well, to encourage others to keep ferreting about, to think of new ways to find information. What we seek is the key that unlocks the door to our discoveries and sometimes these doors are not always obvious. My quest for discovery is always around the corner, or the next corner. One more thought, one more striking of the enter key and where will I wind up? Try thinking of different ways to ask the same question. What combination of words takes me to where I need to go? (And don’t forget to search out old reference books hidden in the mezzanines of your local libraries, archives and other repositories.)
There is one project that I have worked on for many years, and as it started before the home computer and the internet, the gathering of information was, at one time, few and far between. Now, and at least a few times a year, I run the soldier’s names and units of my project through the pantheon of search engines and databases in a continual surfing of the web that has become my Banzai Pipeline. It is the challenge I enjoy and after all this time I still must remind myself “What was the Google search that got me here?” Still it is fun to ride the tube and see what comes out at the end. If only I could actually have that picture of me within the water’s curl!
Of course some ideas come to me quicker than others. Occasionally one becomes lost for words, these vowels and consonants becoming twisted paper clips with no purpose and no hope of regaining their form. So today’s ramblings are a tribute to the quest and discovery, the words that come from the references we have found and to the analogies that help us propel our ideas forward providing colour and imagination to our world of knowledge.
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