Chuffed

I decided that as the local model railway society were having their annual exhibition at the weekend, I'd go along and get a bit if inspiration for my own railway modelling activities.

It never ceases to amaze me how much care and attention to detail people will lavish on their layouts, so a couple of hours wandering around the various stands was well worth it.

There were some excellent examples of layouts in various scales from 'O' to 'N' modelled on prototypes from most eras of rail development, run with studied concentration by individuals or, on the more extensive set-ups, by teams of dedicated operators.

Hopefully, these pictures will give you some idea of the workmanship on show.

 

  

  

  

  

  

I particularly liked this small scene of industrial confusion.
It must have been based on a true story...

Nostalgia: It's not what it used to be...

I've had my first "Verbal Warning" that I'm subjecting the good folk of the blogosphere to an overdose of nostalgia.

She was about half way through the reminiscences about my late lamented Austin A40, when Blight-of-my-life enquired,
"Why do so many of your blog posts start with the words 'I remember when...' and  'back in the seventies...' eh?"

She has a point.
I always knew that there was a risk of this happening, but I thought it was a temptation that I'd be able to control. It appears that I was wrong.
It's starting to sound like I don't actually exist in the present, so I need to get a grip and be a bit more "now".

So here's the pledge.

"I will not refer to the 1970s or use the phrase 'I remember when' (or anything similarly nostalgic) for at least six months"

This will probably be tougher than I expect.

Dick Francis: Thank you.

There was a time when just about the only books that I read were Science Fiction with a smattering of Fantasy and the odd thriller. Then, one day shortly after Blight-of-my-life and I had moved in together, I happened to pick up a battered paperback by Dick Francis. Blight had read quite a few of his books, but I  had always been put off by the idea that, although these were thrillers, they were "all about horse racing". There was nothing else in the house that I'd either not read at all or fancied re-reading, so I thought I'd give it a try.

It was a revelation.

Certainly the story was set in the world of Horse Racing; the hero owned several race horses. And yet there was so much more to the tale and it was so deftly plotted that background never got in the way of a first class tale.

I went on to read many more of his books over the years and he has seldom let me down. His books draw you in and are pretty hard to put down. In fact, if I pick one up, even if I've read it several times before, I'll still read it yet again.

When I heard that Dick Francis had died, last month, I thought it would be a fitting tribute to enjoy one of his books again. After a quick search along the shelves in the spare room, I found that same battered copy of "High Stakes" that I'd first read over twenty years ago.

I've just finished it, and it is still a cracking good read.

Dick Francis : 31st October 1920 to 14th February 2010

That Jack Kerouac has a lot to answer for

The demise of Blight-of-my-life's Vauxhall Corsa has thrust us into looking for a replacement car.

For many people, the prospect of going shopping for a car will be a source of joy and excitement. We are less enthusiastic. It's just like most other shopping; time consuming and irritating, but with the added bitterness of being expensive.
Furthermore, it all seems to be a much more long-winded exercise nowadays too. All the trawling through magazines, brochures and websites, then traipsing round various dealerships asking the same set of questions and getting the same sorts of answers from the weary looking sales people.
Perhaps things used to be simpler back in the 1970s.  I can remember when...

...my first car had finally gone for scrap.
I was working as a self employed steel-fixer and living back with my parents. Money was pretty tight. I was earning a reasonable wage, but I had no savings whatsoever, so my search for a replacement car was severely constrained by my budget. In those days, the concept of readily available credit was unheard of. Unless you were prepared to tie yourself down to a 3 year "Hire Purchase" agreement, you didn't buy something unless you could pay for it there and then.

I went through the local newspaper and optimistically circled a few adverts, then walked to the nearest 'phone box to see if any of them sounded like they'd be worth seeing. The short list got a bit shorter and I arranged to see the likeliest candidates.
After a couple of false starts, including a decrepit Volkswagen covered in chicken droppings in a farmer's barn, I ended up, on a sunny Saturday morning, at a small garage where there were two cars that I could afford. I dismissed one as too shabby even for my limited resources and had a test drive in the other. It was OK. I paid the man £125, he gave me a receipt, the log book and the keys and I drove it away. I was the proud owner of a 1964 Austin A40.

On the way home, I called in at a local broker and a got an insurance cover-note. Then I went around to see my friend Ian and show off the new wheels.

Ian had been one of my best mates since we'd been at school. We had both underachieved companionably for several years. He had been one of the first of my friends to pass his driving test and thanks to his Dad, who somewhat rashly allowed Ian to borrow his Riley Elf, our horizons had expanded. Visits to friends or concerts in Birmingham had become that bit easier.

Ian was suitably impressed.

"Let's go and see Julie", he suggested.
"Yeah. Great idea...", I had a sudden thought, "Hang on, she's not at her folks anymore. Where's she living now?"
"Liverpool."
"Blimey, that's more than a hundred miles away."
"You could treat it as a proving run... You can see if everything works properly."
I was still a bit dubious.
Then he said, "She's having a party tonight..."
That did it.
We bundled Ian's travelling bag into the back, nipped back to my house for my stuff and we were off.
It was the first of many trips up the M6 in that car and it set the standard. We were barely at Birmingham before a hole opened up in the exhaust system that threatened to gas us, as the fumes found their way through the not entirely complete floor. We bought an exhaust bandage, mended the leak and continued. Another thirty miles and the exhaust was beginning to sound a bit throaty again. We bought some Gun-Gum and plugged up a fresh hole that had appeared in the silencer. We carried on until the first repair gave up the ghost somewhere near Manchester. More exhaust bandage was wound around the exhaust pipe, but this time we reinforced the repair by wrapping a butchered Coca-Cola tin around it too.

That got us to Liverpool.

The return trip on the following day was mostly uneventful until, thirty miles from home, with a tortured graunching sound, the horribly abused exhaust pipe broke in half and sagged feebly onto the tarmac. It was probably the extra weight of all that exhaust bandage, repair putty and soft drink cans that did it.
As I surveyed the damage from my, by now increasingly familiar position under the car, it was clear that the exhaust was wrecked, but if we removed the broken section completely, the noise would attract the interest of every police officer in the West Midlands. A final heroic repair was accomplished by removing the metal rod that normally supports the bonnet when you need to check the engine, and using it as a splint for the fractured pipe.

When I got home, my Dad came outside to cast a parental eye over the Austin.
"How was the trip?", he asked.
"Not too bad. Why?"
"I just thought the exhaust sounds a bit rough..."

"Moon": More good news

I was chuffed to see that Duncan Jones got a Bafta for "Moon", the other night.

Having enjoyed the film enough to post about it last month, it was a pleasant surprise when I heard that Jones had got the award for "Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer".

If you want to see the video clip of him getting His Bafta, you'll find it at this link.

As the child of a famous parent (David Bowie), Duncan Jones seems refreshingly sensible. If you watch the DVD of his film, amongst the extras there's a "making of the movie" feature where you get an opportunity to see him at work. This is a worthwhile bonus as it not only shows the mechanism of film-making, but it also gives an idea of the atmosphere within the working environment. Jones comes across as leader rather than a tyrant, and it seems that this style has paid off handsomely.

I suppose it should not be a surprise that he comes over as unpretentious. He was, after all, sensible enough to change his name to Duncan Jones, having been lumbered at birth with the wince-inducing Zowie Bowie.

I blame the parents...

This will upset Dr Beeching

About a year ago, I mentioned that I'd rescued my abortive attempt to build a model railway layout, from the spidery gloom of our loft. Over the last week I've finally got around to starting the rebuild.

The image of railway modelling is not good. If ever there was a pastime that seems to epitomise nerdy geekness, building and running model railways would probably only be second to train-spotting. At any gathering there are few quicker ways of committing social suicide than to let slip that you've been re-wiring the signalling on your model of Boghampstead Junction. Even if you try to redefine the hobby as model engineering, as soon as you admit that the particular engineering that you are modelling is a Great Western Railways Castle Class locomotive, you might as well put on your anorak and leave by the nearest exit.

I can't understand why there is such a willingness to sneer at this sort of endeavour.
What is the difference between somebody painting a landscape to hang on their living room wall and someone painting the scenic background for a railway layout? Why is it deemed "peculiar" for somebody to spend many hours building a tiny, working replica of a diesel locomotive and yet if the same person was to spend the same time crafting jewelry it would be seen as "artistic"?
Even computer geeks are less derided than railway modellers.

...but I digress...

The good news is that my model railway layout has finally got off the drawing board and I have even managed to get some of the track stuck down onto the baseboard.
OK, the speed of development is laughable, but it is only slightly slower than that of the proposed West Coast High Speed Rail link from London to Glasgow.

For those who aren't too embarrassed to be interested:

• The baseboard is a 4ft. by 2ft. piece of MDF, glued to a simple wooden framework of 2"x1".
• The track is mostly Peco Code 80 Flextrack with Medium Radius electrofrog points, although I've used some lengths of Set-track on the sections that will be "behind the scenes".
• I've glued down the track onto cork sheeting.
• The small wooden pillars are to support the upper level of track, which will be the next thing to be added.
• The rectangular hole is to allow access to the underside of the upper level when it is in position.
• The curved hole at the lower left of the picture is where the incline to the upper layer begins.

For anyone too young to remember Dr Beeching and his impact on the British rail network, this link will take you to his Wikipedia page.

I can't believe I hadn't noticed...

I'm sure most of us are familiar with those wierd little pictures where you are asked, "What can you see here?"
Quite what the answer that you give is supposed to say about you or your state of mind, I've no idea, but I'm not a psychiatrist... Well, I believe I'm not a psychiatrist.

Apparently this image is either two people looking at each other, or it's a vase... or two people looking at a vase, I suppose.

So what has brought this on?

I listen to quite a lot of music and although I've nattered on about Prog Rock in several posts, I'm also very keen on female vocal artists. With iTunes set to 'Shuffle', the pomp complexities of Pink Floyd, Spock's Beard, Porcupine Tree and all the other unusual suspects are offset by the simpler clarity of Sandy Denny, Kirsty MacColl, Kate Rusby and Judie Tzuke.

...and then there's Joni Mitchell.
I think the first time I became aware of her was in 1969, when a bunch of us went to the local cinema to see "Alice's Restuarant". As this was the first "18" rated film that I'd managed to get to see, it was always going to have a disproportionate impact on me, but although all the subversive-hippie-free-love-commune-anarchy action was heady stuff indeed for this seventeen year-old, it was "Songs to ageing children", sung by Joni Mitchell that really moved me.

Since then, I've bought most of her albums and was even lucky enough to see her play live at Wembley Stadium in the 1970s, so I guess that makes me a fan.

She can paint a bit as well.
Many Joni Mitchell albums have cover artwork that are reproductions of her paintings, including "Both Sides Now", which was released in 2000.
This is an unusual album, comprising mostly cover versions of jazz standards and a couple from her own back catalogue, with full orchestral arrangements. The individual songs are strung together to tell the story of a love affair, from the enfatuation of "You're my thrill", through the doubts of "You've changed" and the despair of "Stormy weather", to the hopefulness of "I wish I were in love again" and the resigned philosophy of "Both sides now". 

Even though it's a fairly melancholy selection, I was pleased to hear a track come on today as I was idling at the PC. I glanced at the image of the album cover on the iTunes display and suddenly noticed something I had never seen before.

I cannot believe that I'm the first person to see that she is wearing her heart on her sleeve.