PatB

Marvellous bit of film, made more so because Newcastle in the mid-80s is a very special place for me. Quite apart from the modellyness lent by the viewpoint, there is much of interest. Mixed rakes of loco hauled stock, shiny new 2nd generation DMUs in PTE livery and the odd (to my eyes; no doubt those more knowledgeable will tell me it was perfectly normal) mismatch between power cars and coaches on the IC125. Not to mention the reference material for roof weathering. Loved the 31 with single van too.

When did the last autocoach leave service? Given that blue/grey appeared in ~1965 it might be just theoretically possible to justify a blue/grey autocoach, even though none existed (I suspect) in reality .

The Belstaff style seems to have been up and coming for a while. Whilst I'm no longer able (or particularly motivated) to directly observe UK fashion trends, in recent years I've noticed an awful lot of Roadmaster and Trialmaster styled jackets in contemporary UK TV drama. Mind you, I'm not so sure that the Barbour is a copy as such. I've always been under the impression that, once upon a time, Barbour did their own range of motorcycle jackets similar to that of Belstaff. Can't say I've ever seen one though.

Then, of course, we have the cheese sausage. Ostensibly a foodstuff but more accurately described as a cross between a sea-slug and by-products of the rubber industry. Consisting of an envelope of hydraulically recovered carcass material enclosing a pressurised chamber of glutinous synthetic cheese, it's normal body temperature lies somewhere beyond the melting point of lead. When bitten by a predator its natural defence mechanism is to spray its attacker in the face with a generous and seemingly inexhaustible stream of scalding fluid, which then sticks. The resultant pain has the dual benefits of causing the predator to drop the sausage, allowing it to roll into cover underneath, for example, the front seat of the car or the heaviest piece of furniture in the room, and blinding them, rendering them unable to look for it. Barring the availability of a suitable hiding place, the sausage will simply find the nearest patch of fluff or grit and then roll in it, thus rendering itself even more inedible than it was previously.

I got 37, which is quite pleasing, given that I'm a fair bit older than that. As for all the young 'uns getting high scores, take heart. It could be worse. Many years ago my then best mate, at the age of 14, declared the Austin Maxi (ask your dad ) to be the pinnacle of automotive perfection. I haven't seen him in decades but I calculate that he must now have a mental age normally only experienced by Galapagos tortoises.

Speaking of Capri conversions, back in the early 80s I remember a couple of magazine articles/advertorials for the Bobcat, which was, IIRC, a pickup conversion on a Mk3 3000. Does anyone know if any of them were actually sold or still exist? And while I'm on "hack-and-fill" jobs, how many Rover SD1 based Ferrari Daytonas have survived from the same era?

I'm pretty sure that was on the front of the Railway Modeller in about 1967 .

Well, there is the attraction that the whole transaction can be completed online, which, last time I looked, wasn't the case with GW. A significant advantage for those of us overseas. Whether I'd pay a 25% premium for the convenience though.......

Given the crudity of the toy conversion, I hope the seller's dad wasn't one of the engineers .

Just won this. http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/221567903560?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649 It was up for a BIN of 85 quid a couple of weeks ago (which I still didn't think was too bad) so I'm quite pleased to have got it at something of a discount. There was a 101 as well but someone evidently wanted that one more than I did. Just need to cough for some 2mm Association wheelsets now.

That's not foliage, it's some stray cat fluff.

Hmm. Would have looked better if they'd used code 55 .

Noisy and odd,certainly, but the slow bit is only true if you try to drive it like something which actually has some power but needs to slow down for corners. The trick with a 2CV is to wind it up as hard as possible and then not back off for anything. Yes, it'll drag its outside door handles on the ground under hard cornering, but once you realise that it's not actually going to fall over, you discover that the boingy suspension does an excellent job of keeping all four tyres on the ground and, consequently, gripping.

Given the general standard of 1970s r-t-r, yes.

Back in 1981 I managed to persuade Dad to take me to a few meetings at Smeatharpe in Somerset. The main items on the program were bangers, hotrods and F2 stocks, the big F1 monsters not seeming to have much of a presence in the south. The bangers were always particularly good fun. At the time, the two models of choice were the BMC Oxbridge variants and the Mk1 Triumph 2000. The latter were fast and handled well and so did well on the straight racing, but the Oxbridge was staggeringly tough.and was the victor in every "last car rolling" demolition event that I saw. The first meeting we attended had, as the program closer, a banger caravan race. I don't think Dad or I ever laughed harder at a motoring event. By lap 2, one end of the oval had disappeared under a huge pile of twisted aluminium and shattered hardboard. Every so often the heap would heave a bit and another Austin Cambridge would emerge, dragging a couple of lengths of angle-iron and the remnants of an axle which, under the rules, were sufficient to deem it still attached to its caravan . Great fun.

The wonderful thing about the 2CV is that you can take all the seats out, open the roof, and get ~15 people into it to get from your rented cottage in rural Wales to the pub. Apparently .

Which, whilst magnificently loopy and a major technical achievement, doesn't appear to have worked terribly well in practice. The gentleman in question has run regularly at the Lake Gairdner speed trials and it's notable that he no longer uses the Merlin special. I seem to remember its times were not as impressive as might have been expected.

I was always under the impression that Pipers Mead was a permanent layout, although I vaguely remember the many of the buildings were constructed on separate bases. I may be wrong, though, given that it's nearly 40 years since it was Railway of the Month in RM and 25 since I binned my original RM collection.

Less than 3 quid a yard for O gauge track wouldn't be too bad if it hadn't been held down with 6" nails through every other sleeper.

I've always felt that Mr Fish has been unfairly pilloried for the hurricane incident. Had the public been forewarned, what, realistically, would any of them have done, or, indeed, been able to do any differently? I contend, M'lud, that the most likely answer is "not much".

Not down to the seller though, as it started at 99p. Could the unsuccessful bidder m***n be our old friend micmcn I wonder? Would explain a lot about his pricing .

Presumably run by the company behind the Holiday Homes for Pets Pie Co.

Fantastic little layout. The only negative comment I could possibly make (and this is not a dig at you) is that the close up shots are not kind to the Peco points. Like I said, not a dig at you, but more a comment on the lack of r-t-r alternatives to modern standards.

A few years ago, a party of bushwalkers got lost in the forest in the south-west of Western Australia. They were found, safe and well, a couple of days later. I've always been amused by the announcement by the search and rescue authorities which included (wtte) "Fortunately the party included a person who had been lost before and so was experienced in what to do". My immediate thought was that maybe they'd have been better off if they'd had people with experience in not getting lost. Or, at least, been careful about who wsas allowed to read the map .

You haven't lived until you've experienced the precision gear selection of the Heath Robinson linkage that Land Rover saw fit to use UN the IIa forward control. Especially after its suffered two decades of desperate bodging. I remember spending eight years grateful for any gear I could find and being very practised at finding uphill parking spots. Even Land Rover acknowledged the system was rubbish when they fitted something much simpler and more robust to the rather better IIb.