OddThinking

One Saturday night, years ago – well before the web – I was walking with a friend in some local back-streets when we came across some hubbub in the local community centre. We had no destination in mind, so we popped our heads in to have a look.

The gymnasium (Badminton on Tuesdays, Roller Skating on Thursday and Sunday, available for hire – apply within) had around 20 people with little balsa-wood model airplanes, with rubber-band propellers, practising their art. Precisely winding the rubber-band-powered propellers exactly the correct number of twists, using their special-purpose geared-up rubber-band-winders, they would tweak the wings, and set the planes free.

We were quite impressed – the little planes would circle around in a large helix, climbing slowly to the roof. Just before they hit the roof, they would start to run out of power, and slowly come back down to the ground, while their owners timed them – trying to beat their personal best maximum flight time.

I love the way that people like these have their quiet little anonymous hobbies that bring them joy in a way that not only doesn’t hurt anyone else, but just leaves others quietly bemused.

Here was a group of people who had an unusual hobby, but – pre-Google – they had found other people who loved the same hobby so much that they would spend their Saturday nights together sharing it. Enough people had grouped together, around the world, for commerce to get involved – there were ready-to-make kits for beginners and different brands of professional rubber-band-winders for sale.

I bet they had at least one little magazine trying to survive on a tiny distribution list – a newsletter that bumbled along in their own little argot, always trying to find new stuff to say that hadn’t already been said about rubber-band-powered balsa-wood airplanes.

Of course, these days the magazines are fading out as web-forums muscle in on their space.

However, I still get some joy when, trying to research an article about the marble runs, I come across little sites like this active forum for marble collectors, treating their hobby with the level of seriousness and intensity that it really does deserve.

[Declaration of Interest: While Julian is not a mibologist (marbles scholar), he does indulge in a few of these hobbies that cause people to be bemused when they happen upon a copy of the newsletters.]