Iain Popplewell

Just to say brilliant service from Chris sent order in by email and card details by phone last week. Chris replied he was waiting for gear supplies but would send out this week. Gear boxes and Mashima motors arrived today. In the runup to Christmas I consider this excellent service. Well done lad.

Thanks for pointing out the thread Nearholmer looks good. Another one well worth a look for freelancers is" Nile's mostly freelance bodging bench" inspirational and instructional. In fact useful for anyone contemplating a bit of RTR. engine and stock bashing.

Bit embarrassing that Phil. Many years ago myself and my father walked the West Highland way.Several days into the walk we were traversing what should have been one of our easiest days of walking, a mere eight miles across the moor to Crianlarich. Unfortunately for me for the first and hopefully last time in my life I was afflicted by a bad case of piles. It was a scorching hot day and with sweat trickling down my back as I winced along my agony can well be imagined.After the longest four miles of my life and in the middle of nowhere we came to a wooden bridge over a shallow gorge in which flowed a babbling stream. Luckily for me my father had been a medic during his national service and was well versed in treatment for my aforesaid affliction and suggested I douse and cool my backside in the stream. In my desperation I quickly removed my boots and stripped down from the waist I picked my way into the centre of the stream and squatted down.As the ice cold mountain water closed over my rear I can only state that my feeling of relief was considerable.Believe you me it has to be experienced to truly know what I mean. My elation was quenched however when I was distracted by the sound of loud laughter and quickly glancing up the hillside I saw my father rolling around in a virtual paroxysm of mirth. Looking up to the bridge above me I was greeted by the horrendous sight of a pack of five girl guides gazing down upon me from the balustrade of the bridge!! My father had some how contrived to fail to warn me of their approach. A bit embarrassing you might say.

A cynic might say this is because they never finish a job before starting another. When I consider the number of part completed modelling projects I'm responsible for however I'm forced to concede this may not be just a female trait. Another thing females are better at is communication, allegedly. I don't know about you but I endeavour to please my loved one in all I say and do.(She's a third Dan blackbelt in Tia Kwon Do so I've got a strong reason to do so.) But I'm always getting it wrong. If females are so good at communication why the hell don't they tell us what the hell they really want! Or is it that being male I'm just too poor at communication to understand what she's telling me? (Of course that's it, I KNEW IT WOULD BE MY FAULT it always is.)

Funny you should mention Christenings Mallard.I was a Godfather at my nephews Christening and was surprised to find that six families were attending for Christenings that day.We all stood around the font and the babies were baptised in turn. Unfortunately we had all been issued with small lit candles that you had to balance on your fingers on a fiendishly devised bit of folding paper that made balance all but impossible. The inevitable happened and one poor fathers candle overbalanced and spilled scalding wax over his hand, he then uttered the sacred words,"FXXKING HXXL YOU BAXXARD!!" Cue disapproving look from vicar and loud sniggers from the rest of the congregation,not from me I might add as I was deeply shocked at such language.

Not forgetting to sooth the poor unfortunate's resultant anal lacerations with the judicious application of Fiery Jack.Perhaps best applied on the end of a stick.Result should be a bit like a firework rocket,(light blue touch-paper and stand well back.) and watch that beggar go!

Ok Horsetan I know I'm going to regret this but what does ROFLMAO mean? I notice no one else has marked it indecipherable so it's probably obvious to all, but not to me. Edit; It's all right Horsetan I looked it up on that internet thingy. Glad you found it funny, I assure you it wasn't. Mind you it wasn't as bad as what happened to a mate of mine when he applied Germolene ointment to his piles only to find he had inadvertently applied Fiery Jack instead. 2nd Edit: A definite case of ROFWHAOF! (Rolling On Floor With His Bottom On Fire!)

I know what you mean Phil.I remember many years ago inadvertently cleaning my teeth with my mothers Immac. I thought I was about to die from poisoning, it tastes blxxdy awful.Mind you, I've never had hair on my teeth since.

I suppose one potential way of getting lynched could be to prod a recalcitrant operator with a walking stick.................... Preferably adding,"Oy you, gunna run summat or what?"

I agree with Peter one of the great unsung charms of this thread is you never quite know what direction it might take next. I remember a while back when everyone was happily discussing cathedrals,welsh slate mines and other subjects relevant to modelling, like how to derail an express train with a pram full of stolen coal or some such topic.What happens I go away for a couple of days and log on again, only to find everyone discussing big game hunting, and you think, "What! where did that come from?" What this threads about has been lost in the mists of time, and nobody cares anymore, but what is certain is it's the quality, not to mention the quantity of Allan's exceptional modelling and of course Allan's wit that provides the ever present central core of one of the best threads on RMWEB. Long may it continue.I love it.

Careful as you go Allan, make sure you take the fire cement crumble out of the tin before you microwave it.I once got some rock hard Lurpak butter out of the fridge,(I know, Lurpak,we're right posh in our house.) and I'd heard somewhere,(probably on this thread.) that you can soften it in a microwave. So I bunged it in the microwave, instantly the inside of the microwave began to look like the inside of Frankensteins lab with lightening in all directions and the butter rapidly burst into an inferno. I now realise that Lurpak wrappers conduct electricity much like tins do, so be careful Allan.

SACREBLEU!

Hi Dottore.You probably won't believe this, or perhaps you might,but knowing your marvellous sense of humour,(very funny post by the way),when I read your post I actually thought this: "Oh my god! is quenelles de perche french for fish fingers? if it is that's so clever and so funny." Unfortunately for me when I looked it up I found out it was not.That I should have considered that the French, or indeed the Swiss in this case,would even countenance the eating of fishfingers beggars belief and only goes to demonstrate my ignorance of fine cuisine and the french language.

You're right Mullie no more drink for me,I'll stick to the modelling in future,although I normally find my modelling tends to stick to me! I'm not so sure about watching "Escape to the fantasy bathroom by the sea" though, surely thats enough to drive you to drink.

Oh Dear, as I feared it appears I did go on RMWEB after I got back from the wedding last night.Lucky that I only posted on the Downes Robinson thread there's only 66 followers and most of them are as daft as me.Shouldn't be too embarrassing, in fact I bet I'll probably get away with it. I can't believe I managed to type that posting in straight lines. Think I'll go and have another lie down my head hurts.The birds seem to be singing very loudly today. Ha Ha, why didn't I think of this before? My get out of jail clause hidden within the small print of my signature.Of course. Statement of absolute truth. It has come to my notice that scurrilous tongues have suggested Iainp was the worse for wear last night, this is not true.The above posting was nowt to do with him,someone must have stolen his RMWEB password and posted the above post. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if it was the bloke at No12 he's never liked me since I reversed my car over his Christmas tree last Christmas.* *To be fair to the bloke at No12 the tree was in his living room at the time. And another thing I hardly ever drink nowadays, well not a proper drink anyway,not since I got me ASBO.

On second thoughts; Whay aye man heavy engineering man bring it on me marra! WHAY AYE I'VE AD A FEW TODAY!! and I'm not joking.

Whoa heavy man, this looks like heavy engineering man bring it on dude. Edit:OK I've been drinking but it is Saturday night and I am from the North East.

Good to see we're still friends and have so much in common.The trouble with stirring things up is quite often you inadvertently poke your stick in a veritable hornets nest,take it from me I should know!

Actually aren't we all British and as everyone knows they've probably fought in or against almost every nation on the planet at sometime or other.

That's Knaresborough castle and viaduct brilliantly modelled is it yours White Rabbit? Lovely modelling. Edit:Thanks for this posting White Rabbit.Peter Goss's latest model, I should have known, if you ask me he's surpassed even his sublime architectural modelling standards this time.I lived in Knaresborough for many years and I can tell you his castle is just so accurately modelled.

Sorry Graham I'm not a secret EM person I'm quite open about my OO modelling I came out about it years ago.However it has to be admitted that I do have a sneaking respect for what the EM P4 SCALEFOUR modellers do.Awe inspiring stuff most of it.Of course that doesn't stop me poking fun at them when I get the chance.A little bit of gentle rib poking never did any harm.Well hardly ever did any harm. I suspect you may not have read the Model Railway Journal 234 thread yet,if you do you might see why your original posting prompted me to post my original response. In a nut shell some one's advocated running EM wheels on P4 track and it's caused a teensy weeny bit of controversy as you can well imagine.So you can see how your demonstration of OO wheels on EM track appealed to my admittedly warped sense of humour as a means of getting some cheap laughs at the expense of our laudable finerscale brethren.

You see what I mean Graham the scalefour lot have their standards and quite rightly enforce them rigorously and ruthlessly.Never mess with them thats my advice. PS Jol. A little harsh I felt on the unwashed OO modeller, some of us do have all the afore mentioned instruments of torture and some of us even know how to use em.Why you've only to look at my avatar to see my workbench and me wielding my Fine scale OO hammer.