The brilliance of engineers

I consider myself fortunate to have failed dismally, twice, in my half-hearted attempt to get a degree in Mechanical Engineering, for I know I would never have been any good at it However, this has not in any way affected my admiration for engineers, which has not been shared by many of my countrymen since Victorian times when Brunel and his peers were working wonders. The Germans have always respected engineers and allowed them to distinguish themselves with an appellation, so if I had graduated and gone to live in, say, Stuttgart (where they invented the automobile), I could have called myself Herr Ing. Heinrich Fußboden, though this is not actually my name.

It was not to be. But even now, after a career in which engineering featured not at all, I still think how nice it might have been if I could have made things like this; full instructions are given so anyone who wants to can do so, though not me.