cary hill

Meanwhile in other ANTB news two other "Ladies of Legend" make a welcome return for the Golden Age of RMWeb.

Caption Ganger's chat: "Not the best time or place to start building a dung midden" "You can't move it though, as I've read that them dung middens are a vital social networking system for Rhinos and the equivalent of Faecesbook Facebook for us humans" "Well I'm not letting all that good fertiliser go to waste........"

Another atrocious VAR penalty awarded in the Spurs v Man. City Champions League game tonight. Good job Aguero's penalty attempt was distinctly average and saved by Lloris. Definitely not looking forward to VAR in the Prem if these nonsensical awards are going to be a regular feature - the guidelines are just plain wrong and defy common sense.

What a pleasant change to watch an exciting F.A .Cup Semi-Final between two pretty evenly matched teams. It was the best for some years.

RMweb Gold members will also get exclusive sneak previews of the new motive power to be employed on ANTB for the 1958 Summer Season.........it's gonna get ugly........

There is another Peter Gray photo of a similar excursion working in "Past and Present Special The Paignton & Dartmouth Steam Railway" (P.W. Gray - Past and Present Publishing ). It shows 2-6-2T 5178 running bunker first piloting West Country Pacific 34033 'Chard' through Kingkerswell station on the return leg of a River Dart cruise excursion and is dated 26 June 1959. The excursion originated from Torrington and had dropped it's passengers off at Totnes earlier that day and then returned ECS to NA. The ECS was then taken from NA to Kingswear by King Class 6016 which then returned the train to Paignton for 5178 and 34033 to take over for the rest of the return journey (per Trains Illustrated August 1959) - anorak mode off........

Perhaps the excursion is one of those slightly weird excursions that the SR used to run occasionally from places like Torrington to Kingswear and Totnes incorporating a River Dart cruise, which would require re-positioning the ECS to pick up the excursionists at the end of the river cruise.

Great to see Jamie Vardy score his 100th and 101st goals in a Leicester shirt this afternoon and confirm that he has fully escaped from the purgatory that the Puelboreball system had consigned him to. He was also unselfish enough to pass up one clear opening to play Tielemans in for his goal and had more touches today than he would have had in a month of Puelboreball. I didn't realise until today that Vardy is the 4th highest aggregate goalscorer in the Premiership since the start of the 2014-15 season to date behind Harry Kane, Sergio Aguerro and Romelu Lukaku. Not a bad achievement, considering he has to feed on a fairly limited number of chances to score compared to the other three. Rodgers still needs to work on the defence though as another soft goal was conceded to a very poor Fulham side.

I'm dreading the introduction of VAR in the Premiership based on what I've seen tonight .......a totally ludicrous penalty award this evening.

Luckily Brighton left their shooting boots either on the coach or back home in Brighton tonight, because Leicester fielded the same team as on Saturday and could have suffered another embarrassing home defeat. Brendan Rodgers has at least had the chance to see the size of the task ahead of him. Having thought about his rapid appointment, I'm beginning to think that Rodgers was already lined up as a summer replacement for Puel and that process has just been bought forward. "I'll give my life to make the supporters proud of their club." (B. Rodgers) that's a good starting sound bite.........

The amount of influence that Vardy wields is a bit unhealthy these days, but he and Schmeichel are more or less the only regulars left from the 2016 "Old Guard Immortals" left to "rock the boat". With hindsight it was probably a mistake to give Vardy such a long contract as his "legs" could go at any minute and then he will be nothing special.

It looks like it could be Brendan Rogers : https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47368961 I wouldn't be averse to that appointment if it comes off, as he seems to like to give young talent a chance, which by the end of his tenure was the only plus point of Puel. The bar would be set quite low for him - a comfortable top half finish, decent cup runs and some entertaining football.

Disgraceful behaviour from the Chelsea 'keeper defying his manager - he should never play for Chelsea again - oh hang on a minute didn't he cost £75M - it'll be Sarri that goes then.

It's a game earlier than I expected ..........cue all the " be careful what you wish for " comments .......should never have sacked Ranieri etc etc.....

Our very own mad little Napoleon continues to plot his own downfall at the KingPower, but I'm getting worried because he might take my club down with him, although i'm hoping we can "accidentally" pick up the six or so points we need to stay up and avoid being another club that "blows up" in the second half of the season and ends up getting relegated from the Prem. The team's performances, especially at home, are beginning to match Puel's passionless incoherent press performances far too closely for my liking. We have now lost four successive home games with little sign of arresting the direction of travel. Apparently we had 65% possession and 27 goal attempts this evening, most of them pathetic in terms of direction and power (only 5 on target and one goal) , to Palace's 7 goal attempts (5 on target and 4 goals). Whatever is wrong with the team at both ends of the pitch Puel clearly can't fix it and I was still bored at the game with little sense that we would actually manage to score. Never mind we go again on Tuesday against Brighton, another one of the many mediocre PremIership teams that we should have a good chance of beating at home, but I fear the "Puel Revolution" has transformed Leicester into a very poor team at home in the Premiership these days with his incessant team and tactical chopping and changing and bizarre substitutions.

If they persist in using the mythological/biblical names of the old Broad Gauge "Hercules" Class it will be either "Sam(p)son or "Tityos" as they're the only ones left to use.,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Taking it at steady construction pace I'm finding it goes together really easily thanks to the excellent well illustrated instructions. I've still got some fiddly bits to do including the chimneys and the multiple strips (64 x 1mm !) which hold the canopy roofing material down but I'm sure I can get there with time and patience.

Gordon Banks RIP legend

Whilst RMWeb has been down or quiet and during the recent cold spell I have been quite busy in the garage. I've finally cleared all the junk off my old layout boards, recovered/removed the old track work which had probably been there for about 25 years, dismantled and thrown away the old chipboard baseboard tops and replaced them with good plywood tops and done a bit of loose "layout planning": I've also started a Timber Tracks island station building kit, although this seems to have kicked off a rooftop protest probably because it isn't fixed on yet. I just have to hope that my rheumy arthritis stays in remission for a bit although the weather's gone a bit moist again.

I think it's "short" for magnet adhesion which worked fine for about a fortnight until your Hornby "steel" track started to rust.

Interesting variation this lunchtime on "Puelbore" football - attempting to play and win without any sort of defence - scoring three goals away from home and getting nothing to show for it is still no good but I guess the game was "entertaining" for the neutral.

Another helping of Puelboreball this afternoon with masses of possession, plenty of ponderously slow predictable pointless and frequently inaccurate passing, very few clear chances created and yet another home defeat - you know you are in trouble when Shane Long actually manages to score a goal against you and you can't create anything worthwhile despite playing against 10 men for the whole of the second half. Still at least the fan unrest seems to be growing with stewards confiscating protest banners at the King Power this afternoon I don't mind losing, as it's what Leicester City have been good at for most of the last 135 years, but losing with a bit of excitement during the game wouldn't go amiss.

Oh well another F.A.Cup 'disaster' for Leicester City caused largely by Claude Puel's continued erratic and bizarre team selections. Why would you pick a midfielder who hasn't played a competitive match for 10 months to start and then replace him with another midfield player who is not even in the Premiership Squad and also hasn't played for a year when you need a goal? I'm heartily sick of Puel's disdain for Cup competitions as he has already tossed away two League Cup Quarter Finals vs Manchester City by picking weak teams. Just the epic struggle to finish 7th in the Premier League left now and probably nine more home helpings of Puel Boreball. At least we probably won't be relegated this season

The latest incoherent pre-match ramblings from Claude Puel: "We have a lot of disappointment from Saturday and afterwards a lot of teams can play this ranking in the table.The calendar is so difficult and a lot of teams can play a good ranking in the table until the end." I wonder which Leicester City side will wash up at Goodison Park this lunchtime - will it be Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde - who knows?

Turns out I was wrong then and it's been a wonderful Christmas with 6 points when I was expecting none. Playing without the ball may still suit Leicester better than Puel's pass it across the pitch aimless possession football - 34% possession today, but having nearly as many goal attempts as Man.City and one more on target with an enforced more direct style of play. Man. city seemed strangely "off " today with their passing not up to their normal standard and Aguero had clearly left his shooting boots on the bus. No doubt normal service will be resumed against Cardiff on Saturday, who I assume will probably park the bus, and Leicester will have no real clue how to break them based on past home performances against other mediocre or poor sides so far this season. Still I'll take being top of the Also-Rans Premiership Table at the half way point of the season after being all over place for several games in the aftermath of the helicopter tragedy.