Former F1 mechanic turned TV broadcaster Steve Matchett is trapped overnight in New York, in a fogbound JFK Airport with some fellow motor racing enthusiasts. With no sign of the fog letting up and a long twelve hours to get through, talk inevitably turns to Formula 1. During the course of the night, and fuelled by regular trips to the departure lounge bar, the three protagonists, drawing upon Matchett's encyclopaedic knowledge of life in the F1 pit lane, decide to piece together the perfect Formula 1 Grand Prix car... Starting with the monocoque (or chassis) and moving through the engine type, gearbox, exhaust, suspension and aerodynamics etc, no bolt is left unexamined in Matchett's comprehensive and detailed, technical expose of the inner workings of the fastest cars on the planet. In straightforward, clear and concise language, Matchett explains how the F1 teams have arrived at their current state-of-the-art designs; how, exactly, a Formula 1 car is put together.

The invention and development of the chariot around the third millennium revolutionized the art of warfare and dominated the battlefields for some 3000 years. It seems to have evolved in the borderlands between the steppes and the riverlands. It is believed that the Āryan borrowed the idea of chariot from Sumerians around 2000 bc. It is presumed that these Āryans entered Iran and departed in three branches. One marches westward towards Syria, another eastward towards India and a third stays back in Iran. The absence of chariot in Indus valley civilization suggests that chariot arrived in India with Āryans, who settled here around 1500 bc. They used it as a lethal war machine to conquer the natives. The Chariot has played a vital role in Indian warfare through the ages, spanning over Vedic, Epic, and Puranic times, as attested to by literary and archaeological evidence. The Turk invasion marked by the dominance of cavalry arm brought the curtain down on chariot as a war machine. However, it survived in the Indian milieu in some other incarnations.

This book is a full-length study of a single caste - the artisan caste of the Visvakarma. The Visvakarna comprise smaller divisions of sub castes of the blacksmiths, carpenters, goldsmiths, sculptors and coppersmiths. The book is divided into five parts. Part one discusses the theme of the book and its theoretical and ethnographical perspectives. Part two describes Visvakarma crafts in detail. The supply of raw materials the processes of manufacture, the delivery of finished products, and the rituals which accompany the various phases of a craft. Part three begins with an interesting geological, geographical and historical account of the state of Kamataka; the regional back drop of the book. This is followed by the 'ideal' of caste and the 'reality' of their fragmentation of sub castes. This part ends with an analysis and an interestingdiscussion of the mythology of the origins of the Visvakarmas. Part four describes the Visvakarma sub-castes of southern Kamataka, central Kamataka and northern Kamataka. Part five brings the different parts of the book together in conclusion.

“I address you across more than three thousand years, you who live at the conjunction of the Fish and the Water-carrier,” speaks Daedalus, an artisan, inventor, and designer born into an utterly alien family of heroes who value acts of war above all else, a world where his fellow Greeks seem driven only to destroy—an existence he feels compelled to escape. In this fictional autobiography of the father of Icarus, “Apollo’s creature,” a brilliant but flawed man, writer and sculptor Michael Ayrton harnesses the tales of the past to mold a myth for our times. We learn of Daedalus’s increasingly ambitious artifacts and inventions; his fascination with Minoan culture, commerce, and religion, and his efforts to adapt to them; how he comes to design the maze of the horned Minotaur; and how, when he decides that he must flee yet again, he builds two sets of wax wings—wings that will be instruments of his descent into the underworld, a place of both purgatory and rebirth. A compelling mix of history, fable, lore, and meditations on the enigma of art, The Maze Maker will ensnare classicists, artists, and all lovers of story in its convolutions of life and legend. “I never understood the pattern of my life,” writes Daedalus, “so that I have blundered through it in a maze.”