Streamlines

I was walking home from the chemist today when I noticed this double-triangular drain cover.  I saw it on a previous walk and filed it away in my mental blipbank under "quite interesting".

Those of us of a certain age may recall a legendary and manic video game called Tempest, a so-called 'tube shooter', and which was actually featured briefly in the arcade game scene in Rush's video for "Subdivisions".  I wonder if the designer of this drain cover was similarly influenced?  Of course it could be an incredible coincidence and that it's actually a highly stylised depiction of water streaming down a plug hole.

While inventing the title for today's blip I recalled that the late Art Deco movement, "Streamline Moderne" took its influences from nascent wind tunnel technology, using thin smoke 'stream lines' to visualise the airflow around cars and aeroplanes and things, and whose technological form later became fashionable.  This is why buildings that incorporated flat roofs and curved window panes also often featured multiple thin, horizontal coloured contrasting bands against white – a representation again of those wind tunnel stream lines.

After work came a long chat with lovely BikerBabe, and after that while the sun was still out, just, I went round the block the long way to buy something for tea and to try the new, not-quite-the-same-as-the-old crank placement on Mirabel.