THE GREAT MULLARD MAGIC BLOG — crystal set

The following picture from 1922 made me smile, it shows a young chap earnestly listening to his (newly built?) crystal set.   Unfortunately, his finances didn't stretch to buying  a set of 2000 Ohm headphones so he ingeniously re-purposed the earpiece from his parent's pulpit phone.  As you can see, mother is NOT impressed!  Super stuff......

   I just love this advert from 1926 for Ebonite from Trelleborgs which is only sold by high class dealers.  That quaint phrase puts me in mind when a military radio collecting friend and I were branded high end dealers but I digress.   Some of you - those with or even without a Brownie crystal set may wonder precisely what ebonite is........well....   Ebonite is a brand name for very hard rubber invented by Charles Goodyear in 1842 that is resistant to solvents, acids, alkalis and halogens whilst stable between ambient temperatures of -10º to +90ºC with an expansion coefficient 7...

It was with a sense of dread that I received an invite to a dinner party from an eminent scientific ex-colleague of mine.   Although I "love her to bits" in a one to one situation, (NO that isn't a euphemism for something salacious!!!!) her dinner parties can be a bit of an ordeal.   Anyhow, we accepted and come the fateful evening out we set.    The amuse - bouche (hint- pretentious canapés that didn't come from Kwik-Save) were hard, tasteless and filled by a miser, the pre-dinner conversation was about as turgidly painful as my attempts to hold...

 'What are the Wild Waves' saying was such a catchy little phrase, everyone was jumping on the bandwagon after Igranic's clever dodge,  here you can see a 1922 advert by British Central Electrical whose similar take is "What are the Air Waves Saying.