[UPDATE: apparently no-one in the office, let alone the rest of the world, got this post! My own fault. It's a kind of satire on the whole Steve Jobs/iPad/Apple thing which is once more descending on us ahead of next week's rumoured Apple launch. I hereby promise to be more direct in future.]

Rumours reach us from correspondants as far afield as Prussia and the British Central Africa that Mr. I.K. Brunel will once again attempt to befuddle the unenlightened with the announcement of the “ha’penny farthing” – a contraption that according to some will spell the end of such outmoded contrivances as the horse and cart, hansom cab, the Iron Jenny and even the sensation of the last year – the ‘boneshaker’.

The inventor has acquired somewhat of a cult following with his trademark hat and fob watch, and his public prognostications are greeted with a clamour of speculation from those who believe him to hold some degree of imaginative foresight.

Mr. Brunel’s associates are notoriously reticent to discuss future inventorial innovations and this publication has been threatened with foreclosure should it divulge the secrets. Nonetheless, we feel that our esteemed readership would be most desirous to be informed of these contrapulations. At his annual address to thousands of soot-faced oiks and such people who handle iron, Mr. Brunel is given to unveiling many ‘futuristic’ devices – to use the common phrase invented by our American cousins and next weeks Great Eastern Expo will see many of those who “wear the stove pipe hat” telegraphing news around the isles.

His Tamar Suspension bridge certainly created a commotion amongst bridge users. It was not as if Mr. Brunel invented the bridge – merely improved on it in such a way as to render previous methods of river crossing seem quaint and sullied with inefficiency. Those who are given to criticism of Mr. Brunel’s innovations point out that many people will continue to prefer other methods of traversing watery concourses – the ‘swimmers’ and the ‘waders’ still far outnumber those who prefer to perambulate across rivers on foot. Some of those given to the “Futurological Bent” propose that one day many of us – perhaps a majority – will one day think nothing of walking across our rivers.

We digress. Speculation is mounting that next week will see the unveiling of Mr. Brunel’s transportation device. The rumours are persistent but unenlightening but seem to focus on the adoption of a revolutionary ‘two size wheel’ configuration. For your diversion, our lithographist has created this small imagining of what form such a device might take.

Courtesy: Wikimedia