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9:15am on Friday, 15th May, 2026:

Bletchley Park

Anecdote

We went for a day out to Bletchley Park yesterday, to look around the codebreaking museum.

It was quite interesting. I didn't know that there were 9,000 people working there at its peak, nor that there were 211 Bombe machines in action to help decrypt the Enigma code.

Whenever I look at human endeavours of the past, I'm always impressed by two things: the level of functioning organisation required, and the degree of initiative aforded the individuals involved. Bletchley Park was like a factory with people as components, but they were given a lot of freedom to act as they saw fit. The processes were sophisticated, but fluid. People weren't continually given more and more work until it occupied their every waking moment: they had the time to notice things, to experiment, to relax. This was true across the board, whatever your job was. I don't doubt that it applied to cooks and chauffeurs, too.

Contrast that with today, when people keep getting work piled on their plate until they can do no more. Management interferes, making demands that can only be met by cutting back on something else. The people in charge have ambitions to be more in charge. The people who do the work just want to go home and get some sleep.

The people of the past weren't as advanced technologically as we are today, but they weren't stupid.



I think they may have maybe put up a screen rather than projecting onto a wall with a radiator on it.




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Copyright © 2026 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).