Sorry about the clickbait, but I just couldn't resist! It's so funny! Not only H.G. turning in his grave, but Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise et al will be utterly mystified...
I once (for my sins) wrote a short story trying to explain why the Martians tottered around on three legs. I tried to make it funny - but this coin takes the biscuit!
So what'll happen now? Will they all be melted down and re-struck? Or will someone have to re-write both War of the Worlds and Invisible Man?
Incidentally, although Wells is famous as one of the 'Fathers of Science Fiction', he wrote better stories than those. I'd bet Half-a-Sixpence on it...
Four-legged tripod?
Four-legged tripod?
Suppose that this room is a lift. The support breaks and down we go with ever-increasing velocity.
Let us pass the time by performing physical experiments...
--- Arthur Eddington (creator of the Eddington Number).
Let us pass the time by performing physical experiments...
--- Arthur Eddington (creator of the Eddington Number).
Re: Four-legged tripod?
You have to wonder what kind of miserable git has led a life so sheltered that he/she/it didn't know that the Martian war machines were three-legged.
Maybe the aforesaid had a scunner against the Isle of Man.
Maybe the aforesaid had a scunner against the Isle of Man.
Have we got time for another cuppa?
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Ride-sleep-repeat
- Posts: 382
- Joined: 24 Nov 2020, 11:58am
Re: Four-legged tripod?
It makes me wonder if the designer actually knows who H.G.Wells is and what the books were about.
Reminds me of a Camera Mono-pod I had for sale on ebay a few years ago.A potential buyer asked why I was selling a Tri-pod with only one leg
Reminds me of a Camera Mono-pod I had for sale on ebay a few years ago.A potential buyer asked why I was selling a Tri-pod with only one leg
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merseymouth
- Posts: 2519
- Joined: 23 Jan 2011, 11:16am
Re: Four-legged tripod?
Hi all, H.G. Wells slept a lot? He was a man who took many "Kipps"! 
Over in a "Flash Bang Wallop"! 
MM
Over in a "Flash Bang Wallop"! MM-
Mike Sales
- Posts: 7898
- Joined: 7 Mar 2009, 3:31pm
Re: Four-legged tripod?
Wells was a keen cyclist. He wrote Wheels of Chance about a young man called Hoopdriver pursuing a woman on a bicycle.
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
Re: Four-legged tripod?
It's probably got four legs coz a £2 coin will only be worth 4pence by the time they're in circulation 
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"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
Re: Four-legged tripod?
There's been a perfecly good and accurately-portrayed Martian standing proudly in Woking shopping centre, for years now. Pity the Mint guys didn't go down to take a quick look (or a quick google...).
Suppose that this room is a lift. The support breaks and down we go with ever-increasing velocity.
Let us pass the time by performing physical experiments...
--- Arthur Eddington (creator of the Eddington Number).
Let us pass the time by performing physical experiments...
--- Arthur Eddington (creator of the Eddington Number).
Re: Four-legged tripod?
661-Pete wrote:There's been a perfecly good and accurately-portrayed Martian standing proudly in Woking shopping centre, for years now. Pity the Mint guys didn't go down to take a quick look (or a quick google...).
I find that 'sculpture' quite bizarre to say the least
-----------------------------------------------------------
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
Re: Four-legged tripod?
merseymouth wrote:Hi all, H.G. Wells slept a lot? He was a man who took many "Kipps"!
Well, he did wake up eventually - ref. The Sleeper Awakes. Mind you, that was after a very long "Kipp" - over 200 years....
I suppose Woking isn't on your regular itinerary - specially not during Lockdown. But if you do pass that way, do take a look! It's quite fascinating.reohn2 wrote:661-Pete wrote:There's been a perfecly good and accurately-portrayed Martian standing proudly in Woking shopping centre, for years now. Pity the Mint guys didn't go down to take a quick look (or a quick google...).
I find that 'sculpture' quite bizarre to say the least
Suppose that this room is a lift. The support breaks and down we go with ever-increasing velocity.
Let us pass the time by performing physical experiments...
--- Arthur Eddington (creator of the Eddington Number).
Let us pass the time by performing physical experiments...
--- Arthur Eddington (creator of the Eddington Number).
Re: Four-legged tripod?
661-Pete wrote: ....I suppose Woking isn't on your regular itinerary - specially not during Lockdown. But if you do pass that way, do take a look! It's quite fascinating.
I'll(have to presently)take your word for it
-----------------------------------------------------------
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
Re: Four-legged tripod?
At the last count:- Peugeot 531 pro, Dawes Discovery Tandem, Dawes Kingpin X3, Raleigh 20 stowaway X2, 1965 Moulton deluxe, Falcon K2 MTB dropped bar tourer, Rudge Bi frame folder, Longstaff trike conversion on a Giant XTC 840 
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Ben@Forest
- Posts: 3647
- Joined: 28 Jan 2013, 5:58pm
Re: Four-legged tripod?
661-Pete wrote:Sorry about the clickbait, but I just couldn't resist! It's so funny! Not only H.G. turning in his grave, but Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise et al will be utterly mystified...
I don't know what it is, but it's not four legs, three legs come from the central stalk below the disc shape - the fourth one doesn't and in any case doesn't look like the other three. There's a tentacle which could be like the steel 'ropes' that HG Wells described but it's not similar.
And this Thing I saw! How can I describe it? A monstrous tripod, higher than many houses, striding over the young pine trees, and smashing them aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering metal, striding now across the heather; articulate ropes of steel dangling from it, and the clattering tumult of its passage mingling with the riot of the thunder. A flash, and it came out vividly, heeling over one way with two feet in the air, to vanish and reappear almost instantly as it seemed, with the next flash, a hundred yards nearer. Can you imagine a milking stool tilted and bowled violently along the ground? That was the impression those instant flashes gave. But instead of a milking stool imagine it a great body of machinery on a tripod stand...
Seen nearer, the Thing was incredibly strange, for it was no mere insensate machine driving on its way. Machine it was, with a ringing metallic pace, and long, flexible, glittering tentacles (one of which gripped a young pine tree) swinging and rattling about its strange body. It picked its road as it went striding along, and the brazen hood that surmounted it moved to and fro with the inevitable suggestion of a head looking about. Behind the main body was a huge mass of white metal like a gigantic fisherman's basket, and puffs of green smoke squirted out from the joints of the limbs as the monster swept by me. And in an instant it was gone.
The illustrated Jeff Wayne album had tripods which had 'death rays' - could it be some depiction of that? Anyone who thinks that one on the coin has four legs needs better glasses.....
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Tangled Metal
- Posts: 9509
- Joined: 13 Feb 2015, 8:32pm
Re: Four-legged tripod?
Beat me to it. Fourth "leg" is a tentacle thing like the one that came out and searched the basement in that Tom cruise version of the film. It comes from the body above the point the three legs come from? You can't see the end. The three legs have pointed claw tips. What you can see of the fourth tentacle is that it's a more uniform width on the parts you can see. It is totally different and I can't understand why people have noticed that.
I think all those tripod Martians in the original radio programme had a tentacle too. Perhaps this coin is a good representation if you noticed the difference with the fourth protuberance that leaves the body higher up as in the habitation part not the lower drive part. That's my view of it.
I think all those tripod Martians in the original radio programme had a tentacle too. Perhaps this coin is a good representation if you noticed the difference with the fourth protuberance that leaves the body higher up as in the habitation part not the lower drive part. That's my view of it.
Re: Four-legged tripod?
Tangled Metal wrote:Beat me to it. Fourth "leg" is a tentacle thing like the one that came out and searched the basement in that Tom cruise version of the film.
The flexible tentacle emerges from the base of the central section and appears to be the fifth appendage. The other four having apparently identical articulation and proportions, one being raised as if the machine were moving forward.
The older I get the more I’m inclined to act my shoe size, not my age.
Re: Four-legged tripod?
peetee wrote:Tangled Metal wrote:Beat me to it. Fourth "leg" is a tentacle thing like the one that came out and searched the basement in that Tom cruise version of the film.
The flexible tentacle emerges from the base of the central section and appears to be the fifth appendage. The other four having apparently identical articulation and proportions, one being raised as if the machine were moving forward.
+1. There's a tentacle (coming from the base) and four legs. At first sight one of them looks like it comes from a point higher than the other three, but if you look carefully it doesn't.