rodshaw

Ah well, I suppose you're bound to improve with practice. I've only ballasted two layouts, and both of them were small verging on tiny. I suppose I may come to love it third time round! There are certainly a few tips in this thread I could do with trying. One thing I did do, as I'd read about it somewhere, was to spray a bit of WD40 onto the moving parts of the points just to make sure they didn't seize up. They certainly didn't, but now they look very black around those areas and stand out somewhat. So more weathering is called for.

I agree, the goal was good. Neither player was in an offside position when the ball was passed to him. In any case, anything that makes the offside rule favour the attacking team is ok by me. The speed of movement shows how hard these decisions must be for the linesman to call. But I hope Spain don't go on and win the championship with a succession of 1-0 wins. I'd rather a team that can get the ball onto the wing quickly and cross it, it's much more exciting.

Nice method. But are you sure that's red primer on the tracks, not red wine? Anyway I seem to have got away with it. It's all dry this morning, the points are moving and all electrical connections intact. A quick tidy up and vacuum, and all should be well. That's got that over with till next time!

I ballasted my first layout some years ago with Javis grey ballast. It ended up with a distinct green tinge. I don't know whether this is common or was because of the green washing-up liquid I used! This time I used Woodland Scenics, maybe its lightness was part of my problem, but I do see the value in going carefully along the edges first. Oh, well, I'll know next time. Won't be for a while though.

Belatedly, I decided to ballast the track on my switching layout. I had wanted to avoid it, so I laid the track onto ballast mat, but when everything was finished it just didn't look right, especially in the photos I took. So I ballasted it in the "time-honoured way" - almost the last job on the layout, rather than one of the first. I laid the ballast neatly enough, but no matter how careful I tried to be, I found that it all got disturbed as soon as I dropped the ballast/PVA/washing-up liquid mix onto it with an eye dropper. Some of it sank down, some of it rose up in little blobs, some of it went on the sleepers. Then of course, if I tried to smooth it over again, it just made things worse. I'm waiting for it to dry now, and I think it may end up looking reasonable with a bit of "post-processing". But do other people have problems with this tedious job? Does anyone actually like doing it? Am I in the wrong hobby?

Yes, you get to watch football and brush up your maths at the same time! Considering it could have been so close, the spread of points in group B in the end coudn't have been wider - 9-6-3-0. The goal differences had a symmetrical look about them too.

Just another scoring celebration routine, I suspect. It must be hard to think of something original...

For the first time, I actually enjoyed watching Spain play. They were clinical and attractive, without being frustratingly unable to break down a defence. And they actually scored more than one goal for a change. But Ireland made it easy for them, and against tougher opposition no doubt Spain will revert to 1-0, if that. There are times when I want to scream at them to be more direct.

I agree about keeping the old guard out. To an extent, I think that also applies to Rooney. I also think Hodgson could get them to perform well above expectations. But that in itself is raising expectations. D'oh!

The offside rule was abolished in hockey some years ago. Apparently the game got more defensive, presumably to prevent goal-hanging, but at the same time more goals were scored. That suggests more goalmouth scrambles. In football it might end up a right mess, but I think it would be interesting to try it out.

I disagree - it's penalties that don't resemble a normal match (except ones with penalties, of course...) Extra time would be like a normal match but with fewer players, opening the game up and making the likelihood of scoring greater. It could be reduced to 20 minutes. Yes, after extra time they'd have to play on till somebody scored, but with even fewer players per side that wouldn't take long. At least you'd still have two teams contending in open play. Having a replay at the higher levels is impractical, and the whole idea of the exercise is to get rid of penalty shoot-outs, not have them anyway in the end.

Apparently Franz Beckenbauer has been asked by Blatter to come up with an alternative to penalty shoot-outs by 2014. (Could this be anything to do with Bayern losing this way to Chelsea, I wonder?) Personally I'd play extra time with seven-a-side, no offsides, unlimited substitutions, then if it's still square go down to four or even three-a-side, with the first team to score winning. If scoring is too easy that way, make the first team to be ahead by two goals the winner. What would your alternative be?

It will give you a bottleneck where the points join but maybe for a TMD that doesn't matter.

Let's hear it for York City. FA Trophy winners at Wembley last week, play-off winners at Wembley today and back in the league!

I'm just happy when my models look like models.

The TV producers' stratagem of providing a steady stream of glamorous, mostly young, women to boost viewing figures is obviously working. I imagine, though, that they all look pretty ordinary at close quarters, with no make-up, with a hangover. Except maybe Kirsty Young.

Near where I live in York.

Craig I am in process of building my first ever shunting layout, and I would echo the advice not to fix any track down (not even with track pins) until you’re happy with the layout. I took mine up a few times. You can provide temporary power with loose wires attached to crocodile clips. I also think it’s worth doing a few drawn mock-ups and playing around using, say, small boxes or pieces of card as the stock until you’re happy you’ve got the shunting moves you want. Of course, if you keep taking the track up and changing it around you may end up with shorter and shorter pieces... I decided I wanted at least three industries (I managed to squeeze four into a 4ft by 1ft space) with a run-round loop to add interest. I didn’t want any of the industries to be on a run-round spur or in the loop itself, and I ended up with this, for what it’s worth - though there's only room for one car at each industry, and the run-round spurs only just accommodate a loco - but you have more space to play with:

In My Life - The Beatles

Get Up And Go - The Rutles