Castle Aching

[Northroader]

Coo, yesterday the Yanks, today the Russians! I gather the old Russian Army invented the goose step, and the Prussians copied them, I used to think it was the other way round. Then there’s that very peculiar thing where they screw their heads round sideways and look down their noses at you. The girls were doing it whenever they ‘dressed’ and the guards do it whenever Old Putin goes past, I’d want to clock them.

Anyway, on to printers, when you buy one, make sure it’s compatible with your brain, I got one and it worked well for a few months, but then it developed some problem which has me totally bamfoozled.

[runs as required]

Interior lines.  It's all about interior lines!

 

That's what i'd assumed but there all sorts of exciting passenger trains threading their way over the S-Bahn tracks:

Hamburg to Warsaw ICEs,

any number of Regional red liveried double deckers

and seriously romantic overnight sleepers being boarded by stylish old ladies with circular hat boxes and yappie toy dogs on leads..

This was all at the equivalent of Manor House wishing to travel to South Ken.

dh

[Martin S-C]

It was all those fiercely moving elbows in perfect unison that frightened me.  Could cut their way through any crowd like butter they could.........  

I suspect what we have stumbled upon is the graduation ceremony of the St Petersburg School of Silly Walks; Co-Ordinated Class.

[Caley Jim]

Chloroform. But probably not easy to come by this side of the Dark Web...

And trichloethylene (trilene) though that will also be hard to come by legitimately as it used to be used as a general anaesthetic!

 

Jim

[TheQ]

Harking back to an older post.

Of course Chester city walls were described as ruinous and rebuilt in 1707, since the all the gate ways have been enlarged for two way traffic and the last hole punched through was in 1966 for the inner city bypass.

[Regularity]

Generally I have found that it is certain men of the older generation who are so very free with their elbows at exhibitions, having honed them to a fine point over the years and reckoning that age confers immunity in the case of rude behaviour.  These, I am sure, are the same people who right to Railway Modeller to complain every time they suspect someone of having fun.

 

The back packers, the Second Menace, are generally younger and dangerously unaware of the aisle clearing blows that turning round at crowded exhibitions produces.

 

In my personal experience, it is possible to have a middle aged backpacker.

He sidled between my layout and the trade stand next to me, then turned sharply and whacked my layout with his backpack. If I hadn’t grabbed the layout, it would have gone over, and my short experience as an exhibitor (3 shows, 5 days) was very nearly shortened to 30 minutes!

 

You missed out an additional detail: halitosis, BO and black fingernails (that was his local nickname) all contributing to an impression of poor personal hygiene.

[Nearholmer]

He’s been at every big show I’ve been to over many years.

 

As it happens, I’ve pretty much given up going to big shows, and I do notice that he doesn’t seem to attend so many of the smaller sort of gatherings.

[Edwardian]

Let's hope he doesn't go to York,the one big show I try not to miss.

[Martin S-C]

He was at Warley but since I went on Sunday the aisles were empty enough so I could give him sufficient... personal space.

[TT-Pete]

I'd rather go to the pictures sarge...

 

[Edwardian]

I notice that one of my favourite works of G K Chesterton, The Club of Queer Trades, is currently on BBC Sounds. The very good adaptation of The Man Who Was Thursday comes up every so often; heard that a couple of times.  

[Regularity]

The French sub-titles make that even more fun.

[Compound2632]

I notice that one of my favourite works of G K Chesterton, The Club of Queer Trades, is currently on BBC Sounds. The very good adaptation of The Man Who Was Thursday comes up every so often; heard that a couple of times.  

 

There cannot be that many people around with a sufficient familiarity with Chesterton's corpus to have favourites.

[Compound2632]

Apropos of posts elsewhere, may I enquire when the WNR abolished (or perhaps, in 1905) will abolish second class?

Edited January 14, 2019 by Compound2632

[Hroth]

Harking back to an older post.

Of course Chester city walls were described as ruinous and rebuilt in 1707, since the all the gate ways have been enlarged for two way traffic and the last hole punched through was in 1966 for the inner city bypass.

Well, opened in '66 by Babs Castle, scheme probably ok'd by our old friend Marples, who'd permit anything for the usual brown envelope.

[phil_sutters]

Well, opened in '66 by Babs Castle, scheme probably ok'd by our old friend Marples, who'd permit anything for the usual brown envelope.

Barbara Castle, when Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, came to open the day centre, for younger people, with physical disabilities, which I managed. She stayed on for the bun-fight afterwards, but asked me if she could slip into the kitchen area, as she was in a rush to go on to the next meeting. Once there she tipped her tea into the saucer and drank the cooled beverage from there. That is my only brush with the higher echelons of government. In the current mad hatter's tea party they probably drink it from the tea-pot. Sorry I don't have a photo of Bab's, but I can do you one of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party - a mural from the Wells Way Library children's section.

Edited January 14, 2019 by phil_sutters

[Compound2632]

Now when I was very young - second Wilson government c. 1968 - my parents told me we were going to visit a castle. I am said to have asked, in awe-struck tones, "Will it be a Barbara Castle?"

Edited January 14, 2019 by Compound2632

[Regularity]

Once there she tipped her tea into the saucer and drank the cooled beverage from there.

That was once a very common practice.

[Nearholmer]

Oh, it still is very common, very common indeed.

 

(sorry, couldn't resist)

[Hroth]

Oh, it still is very common, very common indeed.

 

(sorry, couldn't resist)

 

Dead common, like.....

[Regularity]

Oh, it still is very common, very common indeed.

I’ll set them up, and you bowl ‘em...

 

(You should know by now that I usually choose my words carefully.)

(sorry, couldn't resist)

And yet oddly, I could...

[Regularity]

Dead common, like.....

Well, it was common, but it does indeed seem to have died out.

[Nearholmer]

Indeed. I remember that when I was small boy the local greengrocer, Mrs Tompsett, would stand in the middle of her shop, not a bit of plastic packaging in sight, and everything, her included, covered with a thin film of soil-dust, imbibing tea from the edge of her saucer, making strange slurping noises that have left a lifelong impression.

[phil_sutters]

Indeed. I remember that when I was small boy the local greengrocer, Mrs Tompsett, would stand in the middle of her shop, not a bit of plastic packaging in sight, and everything, her included, covered with a thin film of soil-dust, imbibing tea from the edge of her saucer, making strange slurping noises that have left a lifelong impression.

That wouldn't have been Sally's mum would it? Oh, no, she had an 'h' in her name.

Edited January 15, 2019 by phil_sutters

[Edwardian]

Apropos of posts elsewhere, may I enquire when the WNR abolished (or perhaps, in 1905) will abolish second class?

 

Well, of course, all I need to know is that it is sometime in the far future, say about 1912.

 

The material point is that, even if abolition had come sooner, the stock in service would largely have been built to accommodate three classes, so I would still need 3 different compartment widths.

 

The Midland was  exceptional in abolishing Second Class at a relatively early date.