The Astronomer and The Hat
There’s been a lot of activity recently on social media, and perhaps even between real people, relating to Game of Thrones (which is, apparently, a television fantasy drama series of some sort). I don’t have a television at home so I haven’t seen any of this series at all. I do have a laptop with a DVD player so I suppose I could watch it that way but I suspect I’d find it rather childish. Being more interested in serious programmes I have instead in recent evenings been watching a selection of episodes from my complete boxed set of Ivor the Engine, a gritty documentary series about life on and around the Merioneth and Llantisilly Railway Traction Company Limited, which operates in the `top left-hand corner of Wales’.
Not many people seem to know that there is an astronomical connection with Ivor the Engine, seen above in the form of Professor D. Longfellow. He lives in Observatory Villa, Llaniog, has his own personal telescope and is sometimes consulted for answers to various problems. He thus provides an excellent illustration of the wider impact of astronomy in everyday life. In the screen grab above he is being interrupted by Dai Station who needs to know the location of the nearest volcano as he has found some dragon eggs that need to be kept warm.
Professor Longfellow makes an extended appearance in the following Episode, entitled The Hat, the central character of which is Mrs Porty, who is rich – so rich, in fact, that she has new hats sent to her all the way from London. At the risk of upsetting people with a plot spoiler, Mrs Porty goes around with a telescope cover on her head because she collected the wrong box from the railway station thinking it was a new hat.
P.S. If anyone knows where I can buy an outfit like Professor Longfellow’s please let me know. I feel I could
advance my career in astronomy even further if I wore more appropriate clothing.
In the Dark 
May 4, 2019 at 3:12 pm
I’ve never been able to take Ivor The Engine seriously. The programmes were based geographically in Northwest Wales but the characters almost universally spoke with South Wales accents.
An English equivalent might have been a version of Coronation Street in which everyone spoke with Cockney accents.
May 4, 2019 at 3:45 pm
I think Mrs Porty is meant to be English anyway.
I was always confused that Coronation Street was meant to be set in the North, but all the characters speak with strong Midlands accents.
May 4, 2019 at 3:53 pm
ps. There seemed to be two of your comment so I took it upon myself to remove one of it.
May 4, 2019 at 4:13 pm
The first comment was in a North Wales accent, the second in a southern accent.
May 4, 2019 at 4:23 pm
Sorry I can’t tell the difference.
May 4, 2019 at 9:11 pm
I should have used different fonts.
May 6, 2019 at 4:25 pm
I’m not sure Ivor the Engine was meant to be taken seriously, but it is one of those ‘classic’ cartoons’ that seem fun when you’re young and then when you go back to them as an adult seem even more fun. Another is The Saga of Noggin the Nog’
May 6, 2019 at 4:30 pm
Agreed. I think they’re wonderful dotty, but written with a beautiful simplicity that I think you admire even more as an adult because only then do you realize how hard it is to write like that.
May 4, 2019 at 4:59 pm
I don’t know why I watch something as brutal as Game of Thrones but I look forward to every episode (and I read every book). Sometimes the novels disobeyed so many cannons of fiction writing that I found myself smacking myself on the forehead, but I read on.
May 6, 2019 at 9:47 am
When I think of Fred Hoyle, I always think of him dressed in a V-neck pullover over a collared shirt.