AndrewC

I know of your condition. Onlyitis. I had a couple of Canadian & BNSF locos. Only for display you know. Oh, I'll build only a small diorama with the station building kit I have. Met Roundhouse and Warbonnet of this parish in the Rake quite by accident as they were discussing Digitrax. Ok, I'll only build a small module for the Thamesiders layout. I'll only build a layout of Essex Montana. I'll only build a set of Freemo modules. Several years later I've only got over 100 cars, only 30 coaches, only 50+ locos, and only a 12' by 24' shed filled with layout and Freemo modules. (and a lot of crap from the house but that is another story) Today I'll only get these 2 locos to add to the few old Slaters wagon kits I have. They'll only run under the Christmas tree, maybe only a small shunting plank, and only................. If only I had more space.

Uhm, yes. Bloody Hattons and their sale.

OSIM from the boring borough. More idiots last night with fireworks than on Saturday. <insert joke about going off prematurely here> Not looking forward to the clean up of the alley and gardens tomorrow. For some reason we seem to collect all the remnants of the bloody things. My new O locos are due to arrive sometime today. You know it's sad when you are on first name terms with the DPD drivers. We have 2 regular ones. I have a feeling it will be Stephen today in his smaller van. Aaron tends to get the larger parcels. No noticeable improvement in the ear so far. I have a feeling I'll be back to the quack on Friday. Meh! Update: Stephen will be delivering my new toys scale models between 13:00 and 14:00 today. Just enough time over my lunch break to grab some track from the shed and a couple of wagons from the loft. Time for more coffee. Enjoy the day.

Greetings from a cloudy but warmish boring borough. A week short of 8 months and after a lot of work yesterday I've finally moved into my new home office. All mod cons, and more importantly equidistant between the loo and coffee maker. Today I shall mostly be shifting a rather heavy filing cabinet and some other bits from the shed. The quack confirmed an outer ear infection and quite a lot of inflammation in both ears. The spray prescribed is starting to help but my right ear still feels like it is full of cement. Last night's fireworks did more to p*ss off the cats than frighten them. We are caught in the middle of a triangle between the Blackheath extravaganza, Danson Park's fireworks, and a smaller (unofficial) display that seemed to originate in Bexleyheath. Luckily it was all over by 10 and there was a distinct shortage of others setting off their noisy fire sticks. No doubt saving them for tomorrow night. After a long 6 months the previously dire cafe across the way finally reopened. It's now much more than just a greasy spoon. We popped in last night on their opening. A distinct Caribbean twist to the menu and the food was excellent. What was also excellent was the place was packed with their family and friends. Try the home made ginger beer they said. Wow. Keeping with today's theme, breakfast was a maple latte followed by some Canadian style pancakes with...... you guessed, maple syrup. Tonight will be Pacific Sockeye salmon cooked in the BBQ wrapped in cedar paper. I'm currently allowing SWMBO to use MY kitchen. With the amount of garlic wafting up the stairs, it is doubtful that any residual Halloween vampires remain within a 100km radius. On that note, time to wander down stairs for a coffee, a hug, and to start shifting more furniture out of the shed. Enjoy the day.

Dear, Mr Hippo Thanks for your concern. I will of course be as careful as possible not to let the infection become too ingrained. However I do have one form of treatment for 7mm itis. It's called SWMBO. While it is not a cure it will help to keep the symptoms in check. SWMBO has decreed that I must finish all the current 7mm kits and bits languishing in the loft before any more will be allowed. There is also the plague like infection I have that keeps my wallet occupied. HO Canadian. A Rapido loco with full DCC and Sound is more expensive than the Dapol small steam engines that have caught my eye. With luck, this will be sufficient to reduce the more extreme symptoms. Thanks and regards, Dooooooomed of DA16 addendum: I've just seen the nice people at Invicta have a few O wagons and track available. Maybe I could just pop over later this afternoon and .................oops.

Greetings from a sunny but chilly boring borough. Bob, Andrew. IT'S NOT A COMPETITION. You don't get travel points from riding in an ambulance. Behave yourselves. Little of note. Off to see the quack in 20 mins. Ear infection methinks as well as time to get the referral for my dodgier than ever knee. Despite the practice (lowest rated in the borough for 3 years running) being on their 3rd online appointment system in the past 5 years, it is still faster and easier to walk over before 8am and get an on the day appointment. The online appointment system shows the first available as Nov 19th. TFIF. Just enough time for a small coffee before venturing up the high st to the GP. Enjoy the day. Enjoy the weekend.

I'm doooooooooooooooooooooomed. Debs: warning muddling related content below. Dapol O Terrier ordered from Hatton's. It looked rather sad lonely in the checkout basket so I added a friend to keep it company. An LT pannier. This weekend I'll be cleaning the loft to try and find the storage tub of O scale wagon kits and bits. I found a bunch of ancient Atlas O track in the shed including 2 points. Should just be enough for a small circle around the Christmas tree.

<Insert obligatory joke about cat scan and laughing gas. > Good morning all from the soggy bottom of the boring borough. Been piddling down all night. At least it seems to have dampened the "I'm compensating for my micro-pen1s by spending £500 on fireworks" brigade. For the 15th year running, no children at the door. Hooking the wrought iron front gate up to a car battery seems to do the trick. (see what I did there) Friends of ours in Braintree love Halloween. Well she is Canadian and for her it is tradition. Halloween was always a big event for her. Their house is done up to the nth degree and he was dressed as Cookie Monster handing out the treats. 77 munchkins dropped by their's last night. Very tempted by an O Terrier and John's hard sell pitch about Peco settrack may have just tipped me over the edge. However, SWMBO has reminded me there is a box of O kits and bits in the loft including a half built Terrier. She's too smart to buy a bait and switch so no chance of passing off the RTR for the kit. On that note, time for more coffee. Enjoy the day. edit: ducking autocorrupt

Brian, any more pics? It's nice to see someone else on RMweb modelling Western Canada.

It's London. Smile at a young lady and you are a perv. Smile at a child and you are a paedo. Make eye contact with anyone else and you risk getting stuck with the carriage's resident loony. (I made the mistake of replying to a lost person the other day wanting to know if he was on the right train to Greenwich. That's 20 mins of solitude I will never get back) Not just the tube either. Mainline services, bus, tram, etc all have become zones of isolation. Until I stopped the daily commute I hadn't realised that I'd become a commuter zombie as well. On the odd time I venture into Central London I adopt the mantra of the pic above. For many people though it is a narrow window of opportunity to catch up on personal email, watch the latest episode of strictly bake X talent, or just chill. I agree though the self important double-half-caf-decalf-soya-vegan-mud swilling bunch are much worse. SWMBO has a "Please offer me a seat" badge due to her hip and knee. Invariably it is either a youth or an over 40 that offers. The hipsters tend to look away and pretend they haven't seen her.

We know a song about that. Greetings all from the boring borough. (well except people from Toronto because they suck. ) Happy Birthday Dom. Little of note apart from a fustercluck at work. Seems our new reorganisation made a major coque up. None of the paperwork for the annual pay reviews was submitted in time. Oops. Within a week 3 people have found other jobs and given notice. I'm just waiting to hear on a potential offer and I'll likely be off as well. Burger all else happening so I'll just bid you a good day. Coffee awaits.

Probably EDT. As we all know Toronto is the self appointed centre of the universe.

Good morning from a dull and dreary boring borough. A belated Happy Birthday Michael & a Happy Anniversary Sheila & Brian. New toy for the BBQ arrived yesterday. A digital temp controller. Tried it out last night. Very convenient as it means I can concentrate the prep in the kitchen without having to check and adjust the vents every few minutes. Set and forget, with a ping on my phone once the required temp is reached. I predict a lot more cold evening cooks now that I don't have to stand outside over the Q constantly. I also cooked a large vat of stew that will provide lunches for the rest of the week. Work still sucks like a mad sucking thing with a degree in suckage from suck university, attending a suck convention. (with apologies to Blackadder) After the p*sstake of time demands over the past few weeks I've taken to being strict with my hours and refusing out of hour work as not being available. Nearly 30 hours of unpaid overtime last month alone. My Skype goes on at 09:00, off at 13:00 for lunch, on again an hour later and off at 17:30. No more evenings, stupid early mornings, or night work. It ain't in my employment contract. Not a lot else to say. Things seem to be back to a dull roar. Coffee & bagel time before I get to work. Enjoy the day.

Same length but with 20 min less Fawley Filler. * * too tempting a target.

Where is the I bloody love this button? Nice. Of course it would be better with more CP and less CN.

Greetings from the boring borough. OSIM. Happy Birthday, Jamie. Happy anniversary Sherry and Ian. Little else of note. Managed to get most of the hall painted with an undercoat. If things stay quiet today I may even get the top coat on. One more nibble at the DIY elephant. Still no response from the builder. Looks like an uncontested judgement. Just need confirmation from the court. Also managed to dismantle the massive Ikea Galant corner desk that I'd been using in the shed as a workbench. It has a new home with the offspring. That has freed up a lot of space. The goal is to be able to erect the module by Christmas in order to get a bit of remedial work and some new detailing done before Freemo South in March. I had planned on retiring it but haven't managed to get anything new built, so one more time. Coffee and bagel time. Enjoy the day.

I don't know what happened and that is between you and the jerk that caused your absence. Just happy to see you back. I've missed the updates from the hill of berries de strawb.

In my case I can use my corporate card to top up the Oyster and offset each trip against the appropriate charge code. Bit of a kludge but it means I'm never out of pocket. About £700 a year in London work travel.

Greetings from a chilly boring borough. Early run to the shops is about to launch. Doing this as early as practical to avoid the temptation of a post shopping pint. I've got way to much DIY to do this weekend after taking a few weeks off. Today Matthew I shall be painting the upstairs landing, finishing the second coat of paint in the office, and slicing & dicing components for the stair railings and spindles. The skip lorry driver screwed both of us up on our bet. He arrived an hour after his window in the early evening. At least the damn thing is gone now. Keith, 2000 on the car sounds about the same as I'm doing these days. In January it will be 4 years since the Landy hit 100,000 miles. I still haven't passed 108,000. A far cry from when I was putting nearly 800km per week on the Toyota back in Canada. Looking back since I started driving at 16 (41 years for those that give a crotte) I estimate I've driven at least 1,800,000 km before leaving Canada 15 years ago, and only about 120,000km since. Another 12 years at this rate and I'll get to 2,000,000km driven. One last coffee before we hit the road. Enjoy the day.

It doesn't need to. The Oyster balance and transactions are all stored server side. Only a token containing a copy of the balance resides on the actual card. The only reason why I still use Oyster and not contactless or ApplePay is I sometimes need to submit my journeys as work expenses. Oyster makes that easy. Getting back to the cashless aspect of how the world is going, there will always be pros and cons. Like using a mobile phone, the provider knows who you called, when, where you are, etc. If this scares you like the thought of a bank knowing what you spent and where, you should be using coins in a phone box. It's a trade off. Convenience against anonymity.

Oyster app does card balance, and top up. And yes you leek waving lot are stuck in the dark ages. * * for those who have had a humour bypass this was a gentle extraction of urine in a non-serious way.

Square's reader is a one off purchase of £39 +vat. Just looking at their website you can get it for £19 +vat just now. Its only downside is you need to connect it to an iPhone or iPad. It can also be argued that Dutch & Belgian railways are pretty much cashless too. In the Netherlands I use the Chipkart and in Belgium I just hop on the train I want and buy the tickets on the go via the SNCB app. Simple. No queue, no fiddling for cash, or dealing with a dead machine. (I'm looking at Southeastern and their poor machine maintenance)

Just to throw another spanner into this, an ever increasing number of small businesses, pop-ups, and yes even pubs are going cashless. (about a dozen pubs and tap rooms in London have gone this way in the past 6 months) There are firms out there now that make their money on micro payments through their networks. Have a tap room? Don't want to have to manage cash or schlep to the bank all the time? Simples, get a xxxxx card processing account , connect the reader (around £40 one off purchase) to a tablet or smartphone and voila, touchless or pin transactions. Cost is about 1/20th of a traditional bank pin machine and most of these companies offer next day deposit instead of waiting 28 days. Of course the small businesses have added on the 1.5% to 2% transaction cost to the product cost to start with so no worries about bank charges. Personally I hate cash or cards and pay through my phone whenever possible. If my phone is stolen, no big deal. The thief needs my finger print to activate or pay for anything. They can't access a complete card number or cvv from the phone even if they did manage to unlock it. Erasing & disabling the stolen phone completely is simple with the iPhone location app. A couple of related articles below. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/jun/24/cash-is-just-grief-why-shops-and-bars-want-to-make-you-pay-by-card https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pub-cash-payment-uk-first-the-boot-freston-ipswich-suffolk-a8543181.html Edit: grammar & a speeling boo boo

You might want to correct the spelling of Invicta in your list of traders.

It's another sunny morn in the boring borough. Little of note here apart from waiting for the skip lorry. I've got £5 bet with SWMBO that the idiot will show before 10am when there won't be access to the skip. Long boring story but neighbour has a corner shop, works odd hours, & is parked against one end of the skip. Not around to move car until 10am. Skip company has managed to ignore the post 10am caveat on 3 of the 4 delivery/pickups. asshats. Tony, when you said "Canadian Hat" I thought of you looking like a Mountie or a lumberjack with a toque. Strange, as my mum's 1980 vintage original Tilley hat is sitting next to me. If Thursday is the new Friday, why the hell do I have to go to work tomorrow? Coffee awaits. Enjoy the day.