runs as required

Gosh! A Ford Y type? My (pretend) uncle Reg had one he used to let me drive when he came to see us. A splendidly Spartan vehicle. But I once tried driving it back home along the Ashbourne-Buxton road in a (June!) snowstorm and the vaccuum wipers kept being overcome on the rising gradients. You'd have to stop at the top, wipe the screen clear and set off down the other side in hope but the wiped area would quickly contract to a narrow slit then stop completely on the next rise. A whole lot of fun for a spotty 17 year old trying to navigate by looking out of the open side window. I regret not having ever owned a Citroen Traction - and was given rides to school just after the war in a neighbour's black Lancia Aprilia. You still occasionally see them as everyday cars in Italy. dh

This is what we all do when we don't have access to a Scale rule. Teaching new architecture students, it was always a delight for me to see in the first few days how students realised that using their new scale rule they could actually sketch out directly to scale doors, furniture, rooms (and one another) they had measured up in pairs with a steel tape and recorded. They marvelled that they needn't resort to mental arithmetic using a rule (which has to change according to the scale you need to best fit on an appropriate sized sheet). A few days later they'ld be able to sketch out freehand (on a pad of tracing paper perhaps over a sheet of squared paper), plans and sections by eye that were roughly to scale. They would enjoy checking one another with their scale rule how accurate they were on, typically, door sizes! I recommend this simple sketching roughly to scale skill is ideal for a model maker - to check against now and again with their home made appropriate paper scale. A few weeks later they would be excited by the fact they could input their measured data into a CAD programme full size. Many would enjoy the possibility that within a week or so they could be speedily loading their favourite football stadium (an ideal repetitive copy and paste task) into the CAD programme full size yet have it print out at A4. By year 2 they were streets ahead of me dh Ed you know the old adage: if you can't do it; teach it!

Scale changes One of the best bits of kit that ever came my way was from a delightful old Greek owner of a drawing office supplies about 50 years ago who, after taking a liking to me, explained how to use and dashed me a pair of these proportional dividers. They are absolutely brilliant for precision changes of scale (and you can read off the actual proportion change on the scale if you want to do it backwards by trial and error). dh

I'm sure RMweb can come up with a 'meet' for 1:1 scale live steam models dh

I duplicated the above post in error. Now having deleted it with Edit I see So I've got to think of something useful to post instead....Oh I know..: A Real World question for you James:- Having discovered the key 1913 deed proving access rights, are you considering seeking some form of redress from your neighbour for having denied you access and possible buyers ? Because one thought I had about your property is that its location (close to P'boro and ECML), character, and plot size would make it ideal for the modern 'live over the shop' type of working typical of a lot of IT based operations. My (solicitor) son lives near Oxford and that DB operated former GW mainline through Bicester. He has IP clients dotted around that area who work from home with about 3 or 4 sharing a common workspace on micro-engineering; control systems etc. Like him they seem to go up to town perhaps once a week to meet clients, but spend their quality time back at the ranch reflecting/playing or on their computers. Typically the location might be an old vernacular farmhouse and mature garden, bereft of its farmyard barns (having been sold off as house conversions). Actually my son seems to do most of his document drafting and communicating on his iPhone while fettling his various car projects. In short is it worth trying for a mixed residential business use outline permission with the neighbour agreeing not to object? It might assist the sale.

Annoyingly there is not a button to press for "I like this very much!" Nothing upset me more than staying up for hours honing the proportions of a design to have some bush builder say "I could only find this" or "I substituted this because I had it lying around". It happens more around County Durham than it ever did in the deepest Dark Heart of Africa. dh .

I just did it by a stock (1948 pre-eleven plus) piece of proportional cross multiplication E.g. 4mm scale is 83.333333333333% of 4.8 scale, so, if I have a scale drawing in 4.8mm I can print it out at 83.33333% of the original to achieve 4mm. It seemed to work for me, but your mech. eng. fans will no doubt scoff at an old architect who always has to half shut his eyes to properly appraise the proportions. I always imagine characters like SW Johnson did it like that peering over an Assistant's board in the drawing office. dh Ed sorry forgot to write it: If 4.8 = 100 then 4 = x so 4.8x = 400 x=400 4.8 x= 83.33333%

Is the above any kind of Mini Moke derivative ? I can't believe how my young wife used to put up with us driving around Malta in a Moke in the mid 1960s with a (car mad) 3 year old and a new born baby! But I really hankered after a one piece plastic 2CV Mehari. dh Ed sorry, I've only just read your screen sticker, presumably it's a kit.

Have you tried 83.3333333333333333333 ? dh

After hearing that 27 British soldiers were killed in Iraq by roadside IEDs, I was curious to see how the Americans responded to roadside IEDs in Iraq. I found: "Humvees proved very vulnerable to IEDs; in the first four months of 2006, 67 U.S. troops died in Humvees” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humvee So the US military developed the MRAP (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAP But I was interested to read that this in turn evolved out of the original South African https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casspir police personnel carrier with its characteristic V shaped hull. This (I think with Benz mechanicals) seems to have become one of the most common military vehicles through Africa (except maybe for Japanese pick-up 'bakkis') and I read has been adopted in India. Both the MRAP and the £1M Ocelot do look a lot more expensive than the stock SA police Casspir. dh [i wish I could share the widespread love for the classic Defender; my sister (in a coma for 3 months) and I were lucky to survive being stuffed violently under the back of a flat truck in a 1950s canvas tilt 88". Had we been wearing seat belts we'd have been decapitated]

Is your answer to be found here ? s scale is 1:64 or 3/16" : 1 ft (4.8mm:1 ft) 19% larger than 1: 76 or 4mm : 1 ft

Do I understand it is the (effectively 1948) Defender that is singled out as the IED killer in the Chilcot report? dh

Now you have me confused.com The northern coastal strip I avoid from about late May till early Oct is the A149 through Wells to Cromer (and actually on around to Eccles). So where in your head is Kings Lynn N or E? At Swaffham heading back from Norwich sister-in-law to the A1 (and safety) we either turn left across to west Norfolk and Downham Market or continue north (on our mental map) via Kings Lynn. If it is a pleasant early afternoon and the A47 traffic is crawling we may turn north to Castle Aching Acre and Castle Rising off that sad 'railways into roads' straight. dh

The really rather wonderful thing about Castle Aching set within its Edwardian epoch is that it is unknowing about all the miseries that were about to be unleashed by WW1 that in one way or another continue to beset us over a century later. That maybe why we so enjoy escaping into its north Norfolk bucolic intricacies No bl00dy cars, just good horse manure for the vegetable patch Perhaps an Eastern Daily Press paper arriving by the afternoon train - maybe I should drop by the shop for it and also fetch back a bar of carbolic soap 'cos its bath night for the missus and me. dh

...and Italian Lancia lorries until sometime in the 1960s dh

Not a big prob. Don't go near the main dealer places - they carry huge overheads. Best to find a small guy that also acts as/ or has close access to a testing station . An elegant classic Saab* like yours must have a multitude of spare roll bars available closeby in Tees valley yards. dh *my lawyer son caught his car collecting bug from watching tortoise shaped Saabs (he termed them 'roop poop-poops)' in the East African Safari.

Very impressed at the tenacity demonstrated in the above post ...and at your honesty! It reminds me we used to have a very witty and very Welsh (nationalist*) tutor when I was a student at Liverpool in the 1950s. Dewy would come around and push you off your drawing board seat, scrutinize your work, scowling all the time - then turn and look at you owlishly through his thick glasses.... ...pause... ..."Well?" "Well what? Mr Thomas". "Well, why have you not continued your voussoirs around the corner?" "Bbbecause no one will see them Mmmr Thomas. Concrete will be a lot cheaper, or, um, mmmaybe reinforced brickwork ?" "Ah! But God will see them. God sees everything you know!" and with that he'd walk away, folding his black heavy rimmed specs into his top pocket. dh *in our first year he had us constructing placards in the cellar of our Department, painting slogans copied carefully from his Welsh language drafts. It transpired they were 'Hands off our Welsh water you Scouse scum!" "Death to the English" - I suppose mild compared to present day football chants

Unless I'm completely mistaken, isn't that a classic Edwardian music hall song? With a refrain that goes "...and they're all the bl00dy same!" dh

Basic coup survival drill from our Africa years: Keep vehicle fuel tank(s) topped up, some cash safely concealed, basic foodstuffs in house, (these days) comms devices charged up. Reckoned to last a couple of weeks or get you safely over the border avoiding road blocks (to Deadwater, NB Border Counties line) dh

Which is why I appended the question mark. But it does highlight the need for 'fail safe' protocols for 'assisted driving' as distinct from fully 'automated driving'. I read DiN standards are being drafted for autobahns, and believe are being discussed here (whenever we are lucky enough to have some kind of government) dh

More on fatal US Tesla crash - had the dead Tesla driver been watching a Harry Potter movie? dh

After days of sitting on the Indian Pacific (do they still have a piano on it to sing around late into the night?), I'd much sooner look closely at "Bakewell" than enter that anti-climax 'Public Transport Centre'. In its penny pinching meaness it's more or less identical to the grotty little 'Welcome to Sunderland' station after crossing your excellent bridge in real life. And has it really got an underground bus station? Ugh, unless they are hybrids: on electric only with engine/generators switched off underground 2 Think you thoroughly deserve a 1.5 kilometre walk in the sun after all those self harm nights with the plasticard on the cutting mat. 3 Except for the bloodstains, the Bridge is looking great. dh

Wow! Amazing (but very gruesome) pictures ...and now for something completely different We have a grossly fat Ring Dove thriving off our vegetable plot that coos 'Milord' endlessly:. da da da da di da da da da da di da... I've got to find that catapault dh

Some very enjoyable reading here, thank you so much for posting. 1 From my time working for Salop County Council in the 1950s, I do recall the passenger set signals on the the S&M but can't remember whether such existed on the Cambrian. 2 I used often to go home on the Much Wenlock - Wellington line (to Coalbrookdale for Ironbridge) and that is where my delight in these distinctions first arose. Mind, it was a fairly short journey, and the pannier always dealt with its single coach very smartly, so timetable elasticity caused by variations in the number of stops appeared not to be an issue. 3 And (before the days of a mobile cell phone) how might you go about getting a train to stop in the wilderness to pick you back up again? dh

Almost there ...but... IMHO it needs a bit more 'Contrast' - it looks like one of my faded old 1970s Agfa colour slides of my kids' step grandfather on 2 till 10 backshift in Peakdale box. dh