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Small world, in a roundabout way! Dad's cousin's fiance was 3/O on the Ohio, so I know a fair bit about that particular convoy. again, by early 1941, the Germans had begun to gain experience in attacking ships (which they didn't have earlier in the war; they were essentially long-range artillery for the army), so it became a lot more difficult. In reality, of course, Malta should have been indefensible, given its position; and, getting back to Pedestal, the convoy should have been annihilated really.

Doesn't Leeds get an HS2 station alongside the existing one in phase 2B? Also, in phase 2B, my understanding is that there is a link onto HS2 from Sheffield. HS2 runs between Derby and Nottingham; there is a station being built to serve them both at Toton, again in phase 2B, no?

A couple of questions, if I may: 1) Does this museum still run? In my forays around Whitley Bay/North Shields, etc. over recent years, I've never seen it signposted; and 2) Are either of those two ex-LNER coaches still extant?

Friend of mine worked for the revenue, at one time in the investigation team. One day, while in the office, he had a telephone inquiry from a "Lady", asking if she could claim for a boob job. The short answer was, she couldn't! Sorry for the O.T.

Possibly the only "major" city it won't serve is Stoke-on Trent. On your call centres in central London point; The call centre for the London Borough of Islington is located just up the road from me, in Ashton-under-Lyne, for all the reasons you mention.

Is it worth pointing out that operating under similar conditions to those that might have obtained over Britain in September 1940, that is, British fighter aircraft that could intervene intermittently over the front, the RN managed to evacuate 336,000 troops from the port and beaches around Dunkirk; although destroyer losses were fairly high, only two actually lost to aircraft; off Crete a year after that, the seaborne part of the German invasion attempt was utterly defeated, and the RN evacuated about 60% of the garrison, despite the Luftwaffe having complete command of the air. OK. shipping losses were fairly high (a cruiser and several destroyers sunk), but given what was at stake in September, are you suggesting that the C-in-C home Fleet would have been any less determined than A.B. Cunningham in the Med. Lastly is it worth pointing out that only Goering really thought that he would succeed. The Wehrmacht high command thought it was a suicide mission; admiral Raeder thought so as well.

Surely some of the ones in The Fens might be?

Indeed; there may even be a "bounce" effect, as after WW2, when a lot of restrictions were lifted on what people could do, or not. Having said that, I don't think things will be completely the same. In what ways, I don't know, but we'll see.

It would have failed, thanks to the Royal Navy. The Germans might well have got ashore, they could choose their time and place, after all, but once the navy arrived, that would have been it.

Only the third is 'professional' in the sense we're talking, though, having an income stream not at the beck and call of someone else. You have a choice of how you earn your money.

Lmsforever in "I don't know how the construction industry works" shocker. HS2 Ltd. has no responsibilty for the H & S for the workers on the ground. Most of those will probably self-employed or limited companies, who are working via an agency, and as such are contracted to the various companies actually piecing the job together. HSE law makes it clear that as such, they are responsible for their own H & S. At the moment they have a dilemma; do they carry on working for as long as they can, or throw themselves on the tender mercies of the Social Security system? The minimum 5-week wait for your first Universal Credit payment has not been waived.

No, but it's achingly familiar. I was thinking one of the ones on the Micklehurst Loop.

With this and your previous graph: correlation is not causation. You have chosen only one single possible cause, i.e. privatisation. The turning point comes just before privatisation came into effect. I would suggest that was from the pick-up after the UK was forced out of the ERM. As well as the state of the road system encouraging people onto rail, there is the increasing effect of exporting employment into city centres from outlying districts (and I don't just mean London), Those people who still have sufficient disposable income are travelling more frequently, by road, rail, air and sea. As to "Socialism for the rich, and capitalism for the less well - off", what is meant is governments stepping in and paying eye-wateringly large sums of money to business entities deemed too big to fail, and then loading the costs onto ordinary people and shrinking services for those at the very bottom. It happened in 2008 - 12, and it will happen again after the present crisis has gone. Anyroad up, here we are, arguing about fine points and splitting hairs, while those at the top laugh at us on the way to their tax havens.

Not turned up on mine yet!

May I pinch this?

Completely left field; were the D102 with RCH 4-shoe (and no doubt Morton brake, as in the one closest to the camera in the second photo) originally meant to be built unfitted?

Why am I thinking No. 12 is somewhere on the Grain branch, in Kent?

Great Eastern Railway '1500' class 4-6-0 in its original form, and painted in GER blue, with red coupling rods.

Ferryhill Station, on the ECML south of Durham?

The film sequences shown weren't well-researched, were they?

Aaaargh! Warsash!

You forgot Fool's Nook. In some ways, the A523 is a great road.

Baguley Fold Junction, with the cattle pens for the abbatoir left and top?

The France of old, there; complete lack of discipline. They were giving away penalties in the first half like it was going out of fashion.

Gresley's wooden-bodied stock was wooden panels screwed to steel frames, a quite common method of construction pre-war. There were quite a few steel-panelled non-corridor diagrams built from about 1936 on, but their construction was contracted out. I think the the problem the LNER had was that their workshops were equipped for construction of wood-bodied coaches, and they had to think long and hard about investing in change, given their financial situation.