Bill

Thanks for that - I think my computer is still repeatedly failing to upgrade to 1607, after more attempts and wasted hours and nerve wracking tension than I can count - I even got Microsoft's rather pallid help on the phone - and they failed to diagnose the problem - That is what is fuelling my pessimism about being able to upgrade to 1704 - Are you able to offer me a guarantee that I will be able to upgrade? So far Windows Ten has been a soul destroying experience... By the way what does AFAIK refer too? Thanks..

My machine is very nicely running Version 1511 - whenever did that version happen? - If you and everyone else are on version 1607 then it is probably a very, very good idea for me to never upgrade my machine again. It is simply never going to work with all that time lag difference... Now, Is there anyway of cancelling the upgrade notices so that I am never tempted to give it another try.?. Obviously 1511 is not going to be able to all of a sudden leap to 1704 and whatever 'so-called-threat' they have in store for us all next!..

Yes- Windows 10 has tried to update me again - I'm now on my third attempt with the current jumbo upgrade - It started 5 to 6 days ago and that ended badly after an overnight upgrade ending with the smiling and spinning dots of death. So I switched on and off manually twice and it re-installed an earlier version - Which version? I have no way of knowing.. Well for the last three days I noticed it had again offered to upgrade me.. So I stupidly thought - Why not have another go? - You think I would know better by now and just completely ignore these sexy offers it makes.... Any way that also ended badly with the smiling and spinning dots of death.. So once again the double restart and the roll back to sunnier days. Now I have just finished the third attempt at doing Microsoft's bidding - which this time ended with the black screen of absolutely nothing happening - nada - it had even managed to kill the monitor - the only thing working was the on/off button.. Not even a flashing light of hard disc accessing.. Now this might have been some kind of success - This time It took three shots at a restart before it proudly informed it was rolling me back to the previous version of Windows 10... And when I regained some measure of control over the machine - the Apple I cloud screen popped up and also Java wanted to mess around! So maybe - Just maybe, it worked but was too shy to let me know? Anyway my message to anyone who has not yet been tricked into using Windows Ten is - Keep up the fight - Resist - Don't let Windows Ten happen to you - You have a life to live - Don't let Microsoft ruin it!

That's funny - (It's right close by where I live..)

Speaking of litigation - When living in North London back in 1970 I received a strange Subpoena - I had to take me and my teeth to some place in the backstreets of Westminster to visit the Queen's Dentist for an inspection - The penalty for not going was massive - So I went.. No one told me what it was about - It was all very hush-hush.. I get there - on time, as I'm somewhat in fear and trepidation as to what this might all be about.. and I didn't want to make it any worse I am ushered into a large room with 'The Chair' in the middle - I tell you it was rather intimidating - a bit Kafkaesque.. My teeth get inspected by a very un-chatty and non-committal dentist (at least I assumed he was!) Luckily the fears I was having about some hidden and sinister governmental plot against myself were unfounded.. Then sometime later.. I get another official letter summoning me - again on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen - to go and visit my dentist in Camden Town.. Well I arrive and he's not there - Apparently he's now in prison or somewhere for defrauding Her Majesty's Government - And I now have to have all my fillings redone by his replacement.. (ouch!) - Who presumably is another from the Queen's army of dentists.. So.. The moral of the tale is - Be very afraid of Dentists from New Zealand

My machine must have hit the jackpot on the Microsoft Windows 10 Gameshow "Updates: Sink, Swim or Drown?" - It has managed to survive the last two updates unscathed... Will it get through to the next round? or

What birdcage coaches????? (I long since gave up on Bachmann ever producing them and cancelled my advance orders..) However.. I think its just great that Hornby are doing an H class... Very welcome I too was a bit disappointed when the email arrived from Hatton's announcing that the early crest version had been abandoned.. I can't for the life of me see why they would do such a thing.. As plenty of modellers focus on that era.. I do not think that I am the only one.. So.. Guess I'll have to go for a late crest and live with the anachronism of it all...

There's no man who can look his spouse in the face and lie - and get clean away with it... Her long range radars pick up on the lie from hundreds of miles away.. There's nothing you can do.... so accept your fate.. The only defence, and its not proven to work, is to point out that unlike most purchases, Model Trains hold their value. They can be viewed as a wise investment. Persuade her that she really ought to be encouraging you to buy more trains, and not discouraging you!

Yes - A very enjoyable one..

By way of re-stirring the 37 pot - and add in some 'pie in the sky' or 'somewhere over the rainbow' wishful thinking - A coal sector 37 would be just the ticket - there are not enough of these around.. For some reason 47's (I have never been able to fathom) just don't do anything for me, they look well - so horrible! Please don't all shoot at once..

A lot of York based 08 Black shunters appear to be "Getting Lost" in the W.R. -

Where do you live in Canada? I live in Halifax NS and our local model shop actually understands the meaning on the words '7mm fine scale' - which is a minor miracle in North America.. But all he has in stock is the Peco flat bottomed track - So I buy my track, Peco Bullhead from a well known supplier from somewhere near Liverpool in the UK - arrives in about a week (as long as the parcel is not registered) - and that's in Nova Scotia right at the wrong end of the Post Canada food chain... (Register the parcel and it will sit forever in customs whilst questions are asked about the contents in Parliament.)

Its probably a wonderful model if you are in love with 08's - However I'd rather sit admiring my Manor Class - That era had a lot more going for it - in my opinion. But having watched 08's I realise that they also make a vital contribution to any layout - Especially in O gauge as space can be very limited.. (I bought a blood and custard Heljan Mk1 but it is real pain to shunt and move around the layout..) Small is beautiful... And an 08 is small - compact - no trouble - performs as advertised - trundles amiably around the layout - really looks the part - and causes 1364 to fear for its future popularity!...

Perhaps the customary English alphabetic spelling, familiar and loved by us all is evolving in a direction that will eventually result in the development and usage of compacted letter abbreviations? Will then, at that point, written English resemble Chinese or Japanese characters? Will keyboards of the future..... ? .... I shudder...

Well the black Class 08 has arrived and it's everything I could want it to be - Its black and really looks the part - goodness knows if the number it came with, 13240 ever ran on western rails - I am sure someone knows? For that is the fictitious setting of my O gauge layout... It is being run on D.C. and the lights work forward and in reverse... And is very smooth in running. It can slow down to a crawl - which considering the way I lay track is a small miracle... I was getting fed up with the shoddily assembled models that kept arriving. And together with the various nameless manufacturers' ability to be stone deaf to complaints from abroad, which I found to be rather disheartening - But then Model Rails' USA tank arrives followed by this charmer and my confidence in the model manufacturers is restored... So I am back to thinking to get some more rolling stock from Dapol to go with it.. Whilst reminding myself to be careful and not to splurge - in O gauge a little goes a long way... Here it is coupled to a Lionheart Air Ministry Tank

Best advice - Ditch the whole plan - Arrive in Heathrow - Do your London thing - Relax and do what bests suits you - Just drive west at a leisurely pace in your rented camper. Get to Carmarthen - eventually and spend the rest of the time enjoying the Preselly Mountains and the land round about - Tenby, St David's Head, The Rain... Then take the ferry to Dublin and have a real good time in Ireland - Then fly in stages from Dublin back to Australia.. There that should do it!

You have my every sympathy - I could swear that Microsoft's computers have launched a personal vendetta against me... I have no proof other than they keep trying to update my computer to the latest - whatever-it-is-they-keep-trying-to-update-and-takes-forever-to-install,.. Which after a whole round of grunts and groans from the hard drive and seemingly going on forever, promptly hangs with a blank and very black screen - with or without some ridiculous little balls forever going round in circles... These balls "going round in circles" probably explain the whole problem - Which seems to be doing just that - going round in circles - rather than actually installing any software.. which whatever it is they forced me to download is incapable of doing.. So what am I to do.. Well, manually switch off the computer? - that's what I did. It then tried to go back to where it left off - which it did. A black screen with some nice little balls going around in circles... So what do you do then? Well manually switch it off and see what happens.. Fortunately it gives up trying to install software at this point and makes a promise... ....Well the promise is to go back to how things were before they attempted the latest exercise in futility (i.e. updating windows ten)... Which after half an hour they actually managed to do... This is the third time I have had to do this and it is wasting my precious life.. (The rest of this unending litany reads like a medieval report on the black death - so I'll spare anyone reading the trauma it might cause by omitting it..)

This was not some little update of KBxxxxxxx or whatever - It was a wholesale upgrade of many big KBxxxxxxx's for Windows 10 of the most ambitious kind.. Since it failed absolutely to install on my machine - I notice they have so far not tried again.. Perhaps the failure somehow gets reported back to Microsoft and they now know what a bunch of monkeys their programmers are? And hopefully they will now know, and are trying to find a fix for went wrong before they try again..? Who can possibly tell what goes on in t he mind of Microsoft...? It must be a great mystery even unto themselves..

Hello - Yup - absolutely massive upgrade of some kind... It asked me last night when I switched off whether or not I wanted to install it.. So dumb and idiotic stupid me - without asking any questions said YES! Wrong decision.. On Booting up this morning it started a laborious process of installing - warning me of frequent restarts - (like the stopping train from Waterloo to Guildford) Well we crawled our way by the hour to 52% or so.. Then it black screened me.. Just a baleful little row of dots going around in a circle.. Taunting me - egging me on.. Meanwhile the hard drive was doing zilch... So after 2 hours of this I switched off.. Then rebooted.. It then tried to rescue the installation.. And off we went again, hand in hand down the dark and lonely black screen road... So back to the switching off routine and it very nicely offered to reinstall the original version of Windows (Did not say which version - could have been 3.1 for all I knew...) So I am back up and running and will now refuse all offers of an upgrade between now and when Hell freezes over - which might be earlier than we might know! WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWS - AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SEVERE UPGRADE WARNING: BACK UP BEFORE ATTEMPTING THIS STUNT - YOU MAY NEVER RECOVER

Only in North Wales...?

Well - the Windows anniversary update has come and gone and with nothing unusual to report except its is the usual SNAFU... The playback of video sound has gone south again - just like when I first installed it.. 30 seconds then a long bzzzzt - repeated ad nauseam. Make listening to music impossible.. So, presumably, there will now be a battle royal of updates,just like last time... As first Radeon updates drivers and miscellaneous incomprehensible programs to fix the problem. Then Microsoft does something to fix the problem in Win 10.. Causing Radeon to do an update to fix the new problem caused by Microsoft fixing the problem and so on ad nauseam until one of the two quits! Ah! Ain't life wonderful when no one bothers to talk to anyone....

Yes they did and advertised them on their very own ashtrays..

You have my every sympathy... The way I fixed the problem was a twofold strategy... (1) Start working with O gauge - which has already provided hours of enjoyment as it has a high DIY component. (2) Start a layout based around Innsbruck or Dresden etc., in HO and narrow gauge HOe / OO9 - The German / Austrian stuff seems to work very well as soon as one has learned the basics and ironed out the surprises... Like the AC/DC thing... It is another world - they even have some superb US tanks to play with.. It has provided a whole new lease on modelling life.. The Horrors of Hornby, Dapol, Heljan and even Bachmann on occasion, will rapidly disappear in the rear view mirror. There is nothing like needing a diesel shunter and tracking it down to some town in Russia as it was long out of stock elsewhere in Europe.. The delight when it actually gets delivered, having bet the farm on the fact that Ivan Gudonov would honour the deal. And then to find out it works better than expected - Priceless... Its a different world..

If you find yourself in the USA - don't ever do that... Unless you are prepared to suffer the consequences.. Tailgaters can have severe mental problems and are quite likely armed..

Rails Of Sheffield are having a Holiday week-end sale (who knows what Holiday it might be at this time of year - but whatever it is we don't get it in Canada).. And they are offering S15s (amongst other bargains) at £99.00 a pop... Which minus VAT puts it in my price range... But in case the good news had not reached the UK I thought I'd post it here