Jilian Spagthorpe (~1950–)
People
 Rare snapshot of Lady Jilian Spagthorpe in front of the servant's entrance of stately Spagthorpe Manor, preparing to test drive the first production model of the Spagthorpe Whippet (gaily painted by factory workers). Lady Jilian survived the test drive intact; the motorcycle, alas, did not. |
Sister of Lord Julian, and inventor of the Monopole Magnet, designed to “stick” to a motorcycle tank while not erasing credit card stripes, disks, et cetera. The initial project proved a failure when Jilian discovered that Julian was using aluminium petrol tanks. Despondent at her wasted effort, she turned a water cooled experimental high power monopole on herself. Having ridden slowly and taken Geritol, her blood was iron rich and her entire brain was degaussed. She remains a sad but drooling shadow of her former self, whose speech is only intelligible to Stephen Hawking.
Here’s an exceprt from one of her correspondences...
The scene: a nondescript service station in a nondescript town somewhere in central California. We have stopped here for tea and petrol. Michael and I, dressed in boots, jodhpurs, flight jackets and white silk scarves, goggles pushed up over our tousled hair, have unbuckled the strap and folded back the louvered bonnet to appraise and admire, respectively, the gleaming innards of the silver and grey Morgan +4.
Michael: [technical discussion picked up in progress]...the speedometer’s been reading 50 mph, but we've actually been travelling 10 to 15 mph faster than that.
Me: Oh yeah? How do you figure?
Michael: [insert incompletely understood explanation of gear ratios here] therefore, in top gear at 33-1/3 rpm we're actually going about 60 mph. The odometer is similarly configured--it shows fewer miles than we've actually travelled.
Me: I see. So if the speedometer shows x miles per hour over y hours, when we're actually travelling at z miles per hour, the odometer should read zy miles instead of xy miles, a number that can be calculated from the actual odometer reading assuming a) we are able to determine y with sufficient precision and b) we are able to determine the relationship between z and x, the equation for which is linear but dependent on which gear the car is in....
Michael: Which is, of course, dependent on the car’s speed.
Me: Precisely.
At this point we agreed that an onboard Babbage engine would be of inestimable benefit to the motoring public. Where to put it was somewhat problematic due to space constraints but I recalled that this design challenge had somehow been met by Lord Julian Spagthorpe in the Spagthorpe Wolfhound, and that if we were fortunate we might spot one at the rally and possibly discuss the situation with its owner. Elated at the possibility of contributing to such a milestone in British automotive engineering, we folded the bonnet into place, strapped it down, shoehorned ourselves back into the car and set off for the south at some unknown but theoretically calculable speed.
Lady Jilian Spagthorpe
Spagthorpe Motorcycle Company