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A few more ECML photos at Cramlington today. Cramlington 56135 up coal containers May 91 J12004.jpg Cramlington Class 47 Edinburgh to Poole The Dorset Scot Jan 91 J11731.jpg We've had a similar photo to this before. Cramlington Class 142 Newcastle to Morpeth 2nd Aug 95 C20341.jpg Cramlington 91015 downMay 93 J13828.jpg Cramlington 158762 Newcastle to Alnmouth July 92 J13269.jpg David

And now.... t'other side of WP Allen.

Railcar waiting in bay platform for passengers to load from local service.

I've been absent for a couple of days as my lower back, which is in a mess anyway, went into spasm two nights ago and started a bout of sciatica to keep it company so I didn't really feel like doing much except the variou exercises the physioterrorist gave me until this morning when it eased off somewhat. The problem is that I was on the anti inflammatory Naproxen but after my TIA last September the consultant told me to stop taking it and just use Cocodamol for pain relief. Unfortunately that regime is nowhere near as effective as the Naproxen was. I'm going to try to get a telephone appointment with a GP next week to discuss the situation. So far I haven't finished reading the ER pages that have been filled since then and don't know what I've missed. TTFN Dave

Talking of A2 stroke 2s and also weathering, I have weathered my 'Thane of Fife' and I think got rid of the strange shade of green. In the process of doing so, I increasingly realised what a brilliantly designed model this is, sadly let down by the colour and in some cases, assembly defects.

Talking of tension lock couplings. Here's one that I forgot to pull out of the NEM socket!

I can't believe it ! I have finished the ********** At long last I have arrived at the end. There are one or two things I could have done better particularly the windows but I only had a few slide cover glasses and once I broke those I went back to plastic. I will be having a break from the workbench to do some jobs around the house so we can put it on the market and hopefully move. Sorry if this has been a saga but thanks to everyone who has stayed to the end, I hope it was worth it.

Morning all. My apologies. There are only so many views of an unfinished station building one can post. However, as the sun streamed through the windows.......

Hi, It's been a while since I last posted anything. About the start of November, I was becoming increasely frustrated with modelling. I seemed to be suffering from diminishing returns. The more I tried to get stuck in, the less I achieved. So I taken three months off (with a couple of exceptions - repairs and mucking about with scenery) and in early November I thought I'll try something different. So I've taken up learning French! I've got an O level in it but none of that stuck for more than a few weeks. Anyway, it's really quite a difficult language but I've been really enjoying it. The point is, it's given me the breathing space to develop the desire to get back into modelling again. So from just pottering around a bit and achieving very little, I've managed to do something that has made a bit of difference to the layout. Anyway, I've included a photograph and a couple of video clips of how it's beginning to shape up at the eastern end of the layout: I've tried to capture the feel of the line I knew as a child when visiting my grandparents at Kimberley. Lots of fields, paths, styles and railway! Still a long way to go but it's a start! Au revoir mes amis, bonne journée! Clem

No social distancing needed here, Richard! The day went well, 5 old farts motorcycled around Fraggle Rock without falling off, ate breakfast (two opted for the shovel, but iD wouldn't have been impressed with the fare, a bit ordinary and pricey) and it has been simply gorgeous out - 11c but so sunny and clear, one of those glad to be alive days. Rounded off by finally sorting the dreaded chainsaw, a little pressed in cover in the carb wasn't in the service kit I bought, so didn't remove it before. Being as there was nothing else I could see wrong, out it came as a new service kit had arrived with the required part in it, and there was what looked like a tea leaf, a little speck that obviously was moving and blocking a hole when fuel was required. Full power test undertaken, and all is well, finally! Treated it to a new spark plug in celebration. Firewood chopping weekend beckons. Naproxen is holding my hip at bay quite well, Dave. I thought it was getting better so tried stopping it, ha, no chance.

Whilst I was at the butchers this morning, a friend of mine who works there ( he was our best man) came out and had a chat whilst I waited to enter. Sadly, it was to inform me that an old pre wedding drinking buddy of ours had passed away of this bl00dy awful Covid decease, he was only 63! It’s always the nice guys who go isn’t it, never the right barstewards. R.I.P. Graham Nelson, 1957 - 2021.

I came across this old photo in the bottom of the drawer and hopefully it's seen to be in the spirit of the thread. A Peckett pauses on Sheep Dip. Rob.

Thanks for the nice comment and yes indeed it is my best effort at Dawlish Warren. Here are a few more photos that I don’t consider are quite worthy of this thread but may be of interest in showing just a little more of the layout. These couldn’t be taken as being real rather than being a model so don’t qualify as being top drawer realistic. On the other hand they do portray a recognisable replica of a real place so maybe that makes it realistic in a slightly different way.

Good Afternoon I have reached the ripe old age of 44 today We had houses at high school Atkinson De lacey King Edward Lyon All to do with the school and the town.

Afternoon all, In other news the NHS website has (as of midday today, apparently) lowered the age limit to book Covid jabs from 65 to 64. I tried again expecting to be flicked off for being too young as I have been consistently before. No. It allowed me to book It seems to be the case that they account for the date of your second jab and take that as the age. I turn 64 before the second jab. Of note it only offered me dates after my birthday for that one. Also of note - and for those playing at home I follow the fortunes (or otherwise) of the Brighton & Hove Albion ball-kicking club - I was offered the jab at the home of arch-rivals Crystal Palace FC, Selhurst Park. I'm not setting foot in there even for a Covid jab and will be going to Tommy's instead as that is readily accessible from the House of Fun. The first jab is Tuesday; on my annual leave but an excuse for a trip into London for the first time on over a year. As opposed to the daily commute to the House of Fun which is definitelyt suburban rather than central. Oddly enough a phone call to the local GP surgery not five minutes before I booked online produced the response, as it had before, that as I am not "over 70" I have to wait my turn to be invited ....... fail. Friday Drinks will now celebrate the imminent inoculations of both of us. SWMBO gets her first in the morning.

Oh dear, a late arrival from sunny North Somerset. The main reason for this is because I had a call from the care home to say my father has tested positive for Covid - again. He is one of three who refused the vaccine and will now have to isolate in his room for 10 days. I hope this may concentrate his 97 year old mind into actually agreeing to have the jab; but I'm not holding my breath. Suitably distracted, I spent the next couple of hours in the garden as the day is so nice and spring-like. I was amazed to see my clematis now had new green shoots up to 6 inches long, so the frosty winds seems not to have affected it. I decided on more flag irises for the back of the pond, because the ones I have seem rather reluctant to spread. 12 plants for £9.99 on Ebay seemed like a decent price - and I should have them sometime next week. Then I was pestered by Currys because the guarantee on my oven is about to end and they wish to try and sell me an expensive extended warranty. Unfortunately for the nice lady, I was not so keen to part with my money, but at least I now know the identity of the strange number that has rung half a dozen times this week, but I couldn't be bothered to answer.

Morning (almost afternoon all). Firstly, I would like to wish everybody all the very best wishes and hope that you are safe and well today. Secondly, I would like to thank everyone for the supportive ratings and comments. They really were appreciated and proof once again of what a great place ER's really is. In response, to the above post I completely and wholeheartedly agree with Bear's assessment of the gentleman now christened Oscar. He is certainly and most definitely carrying an extra appendage in the middle of his ugly forehead. Unfortunately I am not able to simply forget it and I am not sure I will should I see Oscar again. Currently I feel like making sure I have a copy of the Highway Code on my person and passing it to said person if and when I encounter them again, probably along with some kind of comment about getting facts right before they insult and threaten anyone in the future. Whilst I may be crippled at times by the black dog, I do not take fools gladly, as I have said in relation to other incidents, and if somebody upsets / offends me or my family they have a lot to do before I will let things lie. Anyway, onto more pleasant matters. The sun is shining, there is some warmth in the rays and I have enjoyed getting out in the garden for some fresh air, even if it is simply to put the washing out. The walk to the Post Office should be quite nice later, unless one legged joggers get in my way. Stay safe Andy

Good evening everyone Well I made a start on the 1/4 scale (of the model) engineering company, I first drew out a track plan that both fitted the area and that I was happy with. I then started making some building in the same scale and they looked fecking enormous, I definitely won’t get all that I wanted to get in the space available, so a rethink is in order. However, this morning work was interrupted by Sheila needing my assistance with the DWP. They’d sent her an email and a text message asking her to ring them urgently. She initially thought it was a scam, but after I’d checked the email address and found that it was from .gov.uk and that the attached phone number was an 0800 freephone number, she was reassured and rang them. After 20 minutes she gave up and replied to the email instead. Having not had a replay by dinner, she rang them again after we’d eaten, jezzz, the music they play whilst you wait for someone to pick up is the worst we’ve ever heard, but she finally got through about 10 minutes before the lines closed! Anyway, it’s all sorted out now, she should get a letter confirming her pension in the next few days, her pension will arrive sometime next month, when she’ll officially be a pensioner!

The Westerham Flyer.

I find that very interesting. I used to follow the geology lectures on the Open University and considered taking it up but I never found the round tuit I found the round tuit and it hung on my kitchen wall for years. SWMBO moved into my life but didn’t find it amusing. It was one of the items which had to give way to her newly-arrived stuff. I also still have my BSc (Hons) (Lond) Geology with Geography though I no longer have much material evidence of it. Having only worked in those subjects for 18 months after graduation the files and books merely gathered dust and occupied space. Most books were donated back to the university. The lecture notes were recycled in the Great Reduction of All Things which was required upon departure to Australia in 2000. My mapping project and associated dissertation, plus a couple of books which I still occasionally use are what I have to show for it. I’m sure all geologists of a certain epoch still have “Rutley” on their shelves; I do. That, the memories (some good, mostly not, a few which should never resurface) and a few mental and physical scars. It was once said that I had more letters after my name than my boss had in his. Both his given and family names had five letters. At the time I was still BSc (Hons) (Lond) MRGS MGS but I saw no value in keeping the memberships going. I was hardly likely to be elected a fellow of either society.

Some from yesterday, 196 training Tyseley Wouldn’t have minded taking this out instead We should have been going to crewe but as there were issues we ended up doing 2 trips to Stratford Not convinced about the colour of the new footbridge! 2nd trip 2 trips to crewe today and pass out on the unit

Empties through Sheep Dip.

Whoops, very busy with the "client" yesterday so managed to miss ER <sigh> POETS - quite likely to happen as the flurry yesterday should see me clear of anything client dramatic today, the weekend beckons even in these times. Managed a nice walk with Whitney yesterday as the weather continues to improve - all RELATIVE remember A couple of streets over someone is building one of the most obscenely large homes to date. I think it could house a football team or two! Not anything much planned for the weekend, continue to solve out murder mystery and probably more dog walks - where IS that model railway again??? -3 and cloudy first thing, heading for +3. May have snow on Sunday. Tally ho... POE we hope.

My brothers wife is in her mid 60s and is very unwell. She was offered the vaccine and had it. The feeling was that it probably wouldn’t work but the evidence from other similarly ill people was that it didn’t do any harm.

This is a somewhat narrow minded view. This has cropped up before. To the poster, their image fulfills the criteria. You may as well quote the image and comment 'Not good enough. Please remove ' Well it is to them. As you say, scroll past those images that in your opinion shouldn't be here. This thread contains a wide range of images demonstrating all levels of ability. If the image posted is, to the best of the members ability and in their eyes as realistic as they can do, then it deserves to be here. As the vast majority of my photos include stock fitted with tension locks then I guess that rules me out as well. My apologies. Please note- Image contains a tension lock. Rob.

Hmm Barclays sent me a "how did they do?" email... They've cut the hours so I need to take a 1/2 day off to go into branch, That concentrates the number of people in branch at any time.. How do you think I clicked their questions? This morning I thought the roads were busy, Coming home they were the busiest I've seen since before lockdown 1, The big orange sheds car park was near full. This evening, bits on TV about stay home save lives... Do you think the covidiots are listening? Certainly the line of cars, with couples in, coming back from the beach this afternoon.. Those virus test kits were distributed round various people in my department to day.. For some reason not me... My blood sugar level was 12.2.. those vaccinations certainly do stuff your figures up... I think it's making me grumpy too, I think a need a Large Highland Park and a lie down..

Happy Birthday Simon. Well, what do you know? It turns out that Jonathan Van Tam is a railway modeller! Today SWMBO wanted bushes sorted viz cut down to a set level. I had noticed that one of the buddlea was pushing the fence so said that I would cut it back. Well, cutting that off seemed to cut of most of the living bush/tree (whatever). Thankf.ully the sun was shining! So, investigating gradually found even more that was not producing and ended up cutting most of it down to discover that one part had grown round an internal fence. 6 hours later finally swept up after cutting it and all the bits SWMBO had cut down to fill a dustbin and a second dustbin. Darkness ensued and then I remembered the thick pieces ... still not cut ... perhaps a trip to the tip is needed rather than get the chopper saw out. Strange as it may seem I have thoroughly enjoyed the day.

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Happy birthday Simon. Even if I was able to turn the clock back to when I was younger I'd probably make the same mistakes all over again. Just as well there wasn't that many of them. Just went to pour my tea and found that the milk that was open in the fridge was off, checked the date and it was the 24th. I have two dash cams that have never been fitted to the car, the reason is that they both came without any instructions. The first one when I took it back to the shop the shop refused to help as I did not have the receipt but what I did have was proof of purchase by means of a click and collect. After a bit of toing and froing I eventually got a refund and I was told to keep the dashcam (it was a model being discontinued). The second one ordered on-line also had no instructions and when I tried to contact the vendor they had ceased trading. I am tempted to fit them to the car as dummies and wait until Halfords have a 'we fit them for you' offer.

Mentioning of black V2s yesterday sent me delving into my archive......................... I sometimes wonder whether it's worth actually lining a BR black V2, given that many of them looked like this for most of the time. Still, I think the livery is quite attractive, even with weathering................... As demonstrated by this Crownline V2; all the work of John Houlden. And another of John's V2s. This is running on Retford now, after I erected an EM chassis for it. I can't recall who brought this one (coincidentally numbered as the same one I've just done). It looks to be a Bachmann body on a Comet set of frames. Though I must have seen dozens of BR black V2s, this is how I remember them best...................... Weather a model to represent this and it'll look wonderful. I've never picked up the courage. This is about as far as I've gone. All this is my work, built from a Nu-Cast kit on a scratch-built chassis. The painting/weathering is all sable-applied, with transfer lining. When I started building professionally, a top paint job was called for........... I built this Nu-Cast V2 for a friend (it's running on a Branchlines' chassis). Ian Rathbone painted it. As he did on this Crownline V2 I built for myself. I wish I could paint to this standard, but it's best to know ones limitations.

Anyone like pictures of Wagons?

Morning all, Bright sunshine following a mild touch of frost. I'm not sure if spring has sprung but buds are a budding and a local blackbird was clearly singing yesterday in the hop of attracting a suitable Mrs Blackbird although his tune wasn't in the very impressive category. Apparently vaccination of over 70s here exceeds 90% = c.113,000 (by a couple of decimal points). That equates to c.16% of the population of the county, a very different shape age pyramid from Norfolk. I understand a shopping expedition is in planning for this morning but I believe teh GD will be doing the driving part of the job. Purchases will include the local 'paper where a councillor (who can be a bit of a nit) is front page news after suggesting that those who are fed up with HGVs passing their front doors should move. The HGV thing is quite an area of complaint locally and although this particular councillor lives in our road he represents the ward where the HGV 'menace' is the cause of complaint so I doubt he'll be returned unhurt (if returned at all) at the next council election. His ladship is highly amused by all of this as his opinion of his fellow councillor is be not mentioned in poiite company. But the poor bloke - no doubt soon to be the subject of an effigy burnt on a bonfire - does have a point in some respects because while the woman leading the anti-HGV is talking a bit of sense she is also spouting never ending streams of nonsense and invention. And best of all she moved into a house on the official HGV route a year or so after the County had published its HGV route strategy - easily accessed on the CC's website including pretty colours on a very clear map for those who don't understand the road numbering system. So, understandably, if you don't like the noise and vibration caused by the passage of HGVs (and double decker 'buses which use the same route) it is hardly logical to buy a house right next to such a nuisance. Bit like folk who move in next to a railway line and complain about the noise the trains make or moving into the country and complain ing about the noises made by farm animals. On the other hand I'm perfectly entitled to complain about aircraft noise because i was here before we became a turning point on one of the LHR approach patterns (and in fact before jet turbine engines had appeared on most civil s aircraft). I can hear the trains but they were here long before me. Have a good day one and all and stay safe.

Pure self indulgence on my part, but whilst rummaging in my stock boxes, I came across three locos, an A2, an A1 and Deltic. None had been touched since I bought them years ago when I was working. Seemed like the ideal time to take a break from storage roads and cassettes, so out came the soldering iron and an hour later, two of them are running well on ET. The A2 will be sorted today, if I can put my hands on a decoder. Now rewind 60 odd years and there was me, standing in my usual place at the end of Wood Green platform looking up the line towards Hornsey, where I knew a decent plume of smoke would mean another Gresley Pacific would soon come thundering through. I'm guessing I would have been 8 or 9 years old, when I heard a really strange noise and this emerged as a light engine from Wood Green carriage sidings, Wow! Having never seen anything like it, I was reminded of the Triang Transcontinental Diesels and of course Deltic has held a fascination for me ever since. Saw it several times after that at Euston and then a few more times at Kings Cross, but nothing prepared me for that day at Wood Green, so the camera had to come out this morning....

While the NHS can waste money they are doing far better than the Swiss in getting vaccinations done.. mind you that might be due to the British Army sorting the delivery logistics. Bas

It goes like this: You order the breakfast whilst sitting in the car. When the breakfast is seen approaching you wind down the window. The breakfast is then thrown in for you to devour. A family of five will get one in each corner and one down the middle. Socially distanced catering at it's finest!

Seven Mills Sidings and Resident Shunter 08173 is coming out after dropping off an Oil Tank.

Mooring Awl Inner Tender Hare, Inner tender? well my arm is.. I think Mister Pfizer punched it ... Hard.. Actually that's all the symptoms I had, until I stepped out of the Landrover at work, now my legs feel like I've run a marathon.. SWMBO was only complaining of a sore arm when I left, but she hadn't tried to get out of bed by then.. 2 hour sleep then short awake then 2 hours sleep , then long awake, 1 hours sleep then semi dozing, for an hour, Ben was only 3 minutes early today.. Ben the very happy Collie wanted out this morning.. Full moon , no cloud, dawn beginning to arise, he was very happy to have a good snuffle around.. He got a cold nose though, it's very frosty, So I started the landrover before the patrol, and by the time I was ready to set off the wipers cleared the ice. It's now very light outside. Can't be long before I see the great fried egg in the morning.. Then they'll switch the clocks again.. Interesting piece on TV this morning the boss of the biggest producer of Vaccines in the world, an Indian company, he took a bet with his own money, expanded production facilities and got a contract with the Oxford Astra Zenica group starting production of the vaccine last August... Said he had worked with them before and trusted the company.. I'll head to the orange shed after work, to get the blocks to raise the trailer, also I'll pick up a couple of bags of gravel to top up the driveway a little. Quite what I'm going to do today I don't know, for the first time since I came back off furlough I've caught up with the back log.. Time to.. go to pretend to do something..

Happy Birthday Simon, but I wouldn't want to be younger and do much differently, I got up to plenty of mischief the first time round lol.

Many Happy Whatsits Simon, I wish I was 44 again, cor blimey, would I do things differently.

Some from today, passed out on them so I can drive them on my own now, had a good blast to crewe on it at 100mph on the wcml between Stafford and crewe new st crewe Interesting move going on in crewe, rodless 08 being dragged by 57307 TFW mk4 passing by Back to new st Back to crewe with the NMT lurking And back to new st where I got off in all a good few days, nice to do something different and sign some new traction, looking forward to actually getting out and doing some testing on them for real

Happy Birthday Simon Having started off this round of reminiscing I should add the houses from the other two schools I attended. The school in Singapore (largely for expats of course) had 4 houses, St George's, St Patrick's, St David's, St Andrew's. My secondary school was highly imaginative; Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta. At that school, there was a lot of inter-house rivalry, but when the head retired (which I think was the year I left) the incoming head abolished houses. Once he'd gone, houses re-emerged, named after famous alumni such as Duke (Neville Duke, WW2 ace), Lewin (Terence Lewin first sea lord during the Falklands I think) and others. When I last looked up the Alma Mater, I saw that due to expansion the houses had increased and had been renamed after former heads - including the guy who had abolished them!

Put up three bird houses on the trees at the bottom of the garden today. Put one up last year and found it had been used in Winter. Lovely feeling But the house had broken, so added some more to my Christmas list. Got 4! Hope residents take up the homes

Norfolk Southern SD80MACs on an intermodal train crossing Gator Creek, SC:

Bear feels sure that Andyram will forget it very quickly, if not already. As for the clown, he'll always be a Nob. Nothing will come of it - the Police have no evidence or independent witnesses etc etc and Bear feels sure Mr. Nob was just trying a scare tactic. Forget it. Bear has front & rear dashcams hard-wired in. a couple of suggestions: 1. Remove them if in any doubt about the area you are parked in - a smashed window and a nicked cam would be a right pain (though they are so cheap now that many reasonable makes are hardly worth nicking - Bear's rear cam is often less than forty quid). 2. Use a decent memory card, and erase/re-format it regularly - don't rely on the auto record-over function that most (all?) have. 3. It's worth mentioning that whilst a dashcam can be your friend, it can also be your enemy - in an accident of any significance the Police will look for and seize cams, mobiles etc. as possible evidence. If you were doing 50 in a 30 limit expect to be bounced.... Bear gave the coving yet another coat of paint - it won't be getting any more. Happy bunny. The paint sample that Bear purchased yesterday appears so like that you can hardly see it on the lining paper. A fiver down the drain - turdycurses.

Morning, blue skies and sunshine after a slight air frost earlier, we are off to the hospital at Stracathro later, SWMBO has an appointment related to her Arthritis, hoping they are well organised, take care all.

You don't have to remind me. The Swiss government (National and Kantonal) are getting all kinds of stick from all quarters about the slow vaccination roll-out. This hasn't been helped by SwissMedic not approving the AZ/Oxford vaccine and the slow and low delivery of vaccines from the EU producers of the other vaccines. I believe, but I'm not 100% certain, that Switzerland signed up to the EU vaccine procurement scheme that has turned out to be such a fiasco (thank you very much, Ursula...). I note, with not a little bitterness, that the French and the Germans are sitting on stocks of AZ/Oxford Vaccine that are not being used - thanks to Macron's and Merkel's scaremongering. This morning, in a fit of rare optmism, the BAG (Swiss Health Ministry) claims eveyone in Switzerland (who wants) will be vaccinated "by summer". I'm not holding my breath

Well that was nice, a touch of frost, but the Sun is really warm. My local woods that I walk through when its dry has been sealed off with a sign saying, = Temporarily Closed for Rejuvenation and conservation. I can only go through when its dry as its very muddy, so maybe they will put in some proper paths of Cinder or Tarmac. Its a major cut through for the School kids, or about a mile walk around, so they had better get it done pretty quick. They've only had a year to think about it.

Greetings one and all At my time of life I should know how bad an idea it is to be untidy. The lesson was learned yet again yesterday when i was replying to a PM from a fellow RMwebber. I needed to refer to a magazine from January 1964 and went to the shelving wherein it reposed in an Easibinder with the other 1964 issues. The binder was not where it should have been. To cut a very long story short it turned up several hours later. I remembered at once why it was where I found it but not why I had not put it back in its proper place. Old dog, new tricks perhaps. For light relief (?) I revisited one of the draft itineraries that I have prepared ahead of a future holiday. What I had written no longer accorded with the advice on "The man in seat 61" website which had led me to incorporate an overnight train from Tangier to Marrakech in the plan. That trip was never going to be first on the list when our civil liberties are restored. My favourite travel company has a trip to Morocco in its current brochure, much of which is already waste paper thanks to that ruddy virus. It would have participants fly to Marrakech, taking to the rails only on arrival. I would rather do the journey by rail and sea, thank you very much! All my trips in gestation include Eurostar, which is on its knees from losing 99% of its business thanks to the virus. I may have to think again. Today I need to reset the auto-pilot for the fodder run. My local Tesco does not sell own brand custard powder, so I must go somewhere that does. Four drums of the stuff should see me OK for a while. Best wishes to all Chris

Good morning all, Due to work commitments I have been a relatively intermittent visitor to these pages as of late. But hey-ho, that’s the way it goes. A number of thought-provoking comments about waste in the NHS. It does seem to me that, like many government run institutions, the NHS is penny wise and pound foolish. One thing that particularly rankles is the disposal of perfectly good equipment because some idiot with a spreadsheet has decided (based on God knows what criteria) that it is cheaper to dispose of them rather than to sterilise and recycle. An approach which would’ve horrified the head of supplies in the hospital I worked in, in the US. Every piece of surgical equipment, once used, was taken to a central area where it was thoroughly cleaned, washed, repackaged and then sterilised: either in an autoclave or with ethylene oxide. As for the fact that some fool claimed that buying some Sellotape from a local poundland would impede the NHS from getting bulk discounts? Well that’s a load of total codswallop and make no mistake. The entire NHS purchasing apparatus needs to be completely shaken up. When the NHS is the world’s largest purchaser of fax machines (yep, that’s right, fax machines!), when it buys OTC medication at a multiple of the cost of the same thing at Boots or when it buys single-use sterile items in multiple packs (so when you only use one item from the multiple pack, which frequently is the case, you have to throw away the rest of the pack because sterility has been broken) then you know that a lot of the people making decisions about procurement and bulk purchasing really don’t have a clue about what the front line needs. It does seem that the NHS suffers from the fact that incompetence and failure seems to be rewarded as opposed to punished. Some well known and publicised NHS “scandals” seem to have resulted in the responsible managers being rewarded with promotions and new jobs. in both the US and the Swiss systems, such incompetents would be out the door so fast their toes wouldn’t touch the ground. At the risk of getting a bit political, I wonder if it is because in the US and in Switzerland patients have a choice of hospitals, clinics and clinicians - which have to keep a high standard and keep a good reputation so that their patients do not go elsewhere. Whereas with the NHS, no matter how bad the service, there is no choice and no alternative. Another busy day awaits and I don’t expect to knock off before 8 pm this evening. Although it makes for a tiring day, it does increase the amount of modelling tokens that end up in my piggy-bank every month. Such has been my productivity as of late, that I am considering raising my sights from the entry-level Fender “Player” Telecaster to the more expensive and more early-Fender authentic Fender “Vintera” Telecaster. Regarding this change of goal, I hope that my chums on ER will keep this news “under their hats”. Although I have mentioned to Mrs iD in passing that I regret selling the old Squier Telecaster and I plan to replace it, she remains blissfully unaware of the true nature of my devious plans! All shops in Switzerland will be reopening on the 1st of March (albeit with mask wearing requirements and limited numbers of shoppers in the shop at any one time) and I’ll be off to look for my Telecaster. And on that cheerful note, another cup of coffee awaits then my morning stroll with the Wolfpack. Have a great POETS day iD

Evening all from Estuary-Land. I know of someone who sounded his horn at a van driver who had cut him up. The van driver took offence at that and tried to force the other driver off of the road. When the van driver returned to his base he was called into the office and handed his P45. The other driver just happened to be the owner of the company who's van it was and employed him as a driver.