spikey

Dunno mate. You don't know what's going on. Maybe Hatton's see you as a threat?

And while we're on about track cleaning ...

And even then, it'll still catch on something or other. Verily, hardboard is the biz.

I didn't know that, so thank you. Hmmmm. I guess that would make "your generation" prime suspects to work in BBC newsrooms, in which case it might well explain the lamentable standard of English to be found regularly on the BBC News website ...

Really? I wasn't aware that spelling is still taught in UK schools.

Oh dear ... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50713616

And now I'm really grumpy. The title of this thread sent me off on a search earlier for an item which now appears to have gone for good - the lovely 3" diameter RAF button badge which I've treasured since my flying days, with the slogan ... UFOs are real. The RAF is an hallucination.

If voting was likely to change much, they'd make it illegal.

... so that the police can use it to practice controlling unruly passengers. At least that's the gist of it according to Mrs Spikey, whose German is way ahead of mine ...

I'm getting the hang of this scratchbuilding lark, and am generally happy so far except for one thing, and that's the best order in which to do the final bits and bobs. Right now, I have a plastic card factory building on the bench, the shell of which is Wills brick sheets and the roof of which is Slaters tiles. Still to is (brush-) painting of the walls and roof, then the fitting of the pre-painted window frames and doors from inside. After that, it's a couple of noticeboards, gutters, downpipes, and a pair of external sliding doors plus the track from which they hang. Question is, is it best to paint such fiddly bits then subsequently fit them to the walls having carefully scraped the paint off them where I need to glue, or what? Once you have the basic shell, what's your normal order of doing things to complete the building?

Just in case anybody who might be interested hasn't seen it yet, here's a link to a rather good video of a bloke in a jet suit flying off HMS Queen Elizabeth ... https://www.forces.net/news/record-breaking-rocket-man-flies-hms-queen-elizabeth

Ref third picture down of Mr Penfold's post above, might I suggest to the owners of that nicely modelled mill that when folk tut tut about the spelling, they explain that Messrs Thirsk didn't realise until it was too late that the signwriter was a Yank who knew no better?

It probably is. But both times I've tried making my own model soil, I've been defeated by its high organic matter content. By the time I'd picked bits out, dried it, picked more bits out, sieved it, sieved it again a couple more times and then seen how little usable stuff I had left, I'd decided that life's too short for any more such faffing about when I can buy a consistent first class product from Treemendous for a fair price. Same with Green Scene's ballasts, which I suspect are nothing more than walnut-shell blasting medium coated in emulsion paint. But do I fancy making my own ... ?

This earth powder stuff does the biz very nicely indeed for me ... https://www.treemendus-scenics.co.uk/groundwork/

Based on my own experience, two firms I wouldn't touch with somebody else's bargepole are British Gas and Domestic and General.

Believe me, what the local Morrisons was playing this morning wasn't a cover version. It was the original single by Dylan himself, which made such an impact on me when I first heard it in 1964 or thereabouts. That's what made it all the more surprising.

On more than one level, too. I swear I'm not making this up ... At about 7.30 this fine Wednesday morn I rounded the end of an aisle in the local Morrisons and noted the cardboard stand pushing clemenine-flavoured Coca-Cola , past which I was unable to proceed until two enormous women had decided which enormous bag of crisps to buy and moved one of their carts. And at that very moment, I realised what my ears had locked onto but my brain hadn't yet told me to pay attention to. No, not that Slade Christmas record, but ... Bob Dylan singing "The Times They Are A-changing". Oh to be able to find out who puts together the playlist for their background music, and see if they're up for adding Neil Young's "Piece of Cr ap" ...

Oi! You're not allowed to say that nowadays!

Not many, at a guess. And besides, it's their kids they're concerned about - not anybody else's. In the case I reported, the school is no more than a quarter of a mile from the police station, but that doesn't open until after the kids have gone to school and it's shut again before they leave. And even if it was open, the Old Bill hereabouts stated publicly over a year ago that they're no longer interested in anything to do with parking, so it's a 24/7 free for all. In any case, as any fule kno, things like zigzags (be they yellow or white) only apply to others.

Well this might not be new to you, but it's something I've not seen before. When cycling home from the shops this morning at about 8.45, I decided to vary my route so as to have a go on the usual fun and games outside the local primary school. As expected, there were the customary 6 or 7 enormocars parked on the yellow zigzags on the school side of the road plus two on the white pedestrian crossing zigzags which start where the yellow ones finish, but strangely not one vehicle parked on the opposite zigzags. However, what there was instead was two cars double parked alongside those on the yellow zigzags, both with their drivers holding doors open to discharge their offspring, this process stopping passing traffic on account of the double parking and open doors taking up all but a yard or so of the width of the road ...

I thought I'd been following this thread diligently but I can't have been paying attention at the relevant point. Pray tell me, sir, how does one get into the happy position of getting money out of an energy supplier if they keep hassling me after I've invited them to kindly gubber off? What do I have to do next time I'm invited to have one of these silly contraptions?

No need for any greater thickness AFAIC. I've always found No 6 pan pozi self-tappers of the appropriate length (e.g. 0.25 inch for Gaugemaster SEEP point motors) to be perfectly satisfactory - and unless you use the stainless ones, they have the big advantage of sticking to the bit of your magnetic screwdriver.

I can't imagine why anybody would use 12mm ply for a normal indoor model railway. If nothing else, decent quality 12mm ply is hellish dear, and heavy too. 6mm birch ply on a 70mm x 20mm works well for me and has done for the last three years in a room which gets more than its share of temperature and humidity changes.

Hah! Thanks Bernard. That Slater's stuff looks to be just what I need. Wonder when they discontinued it ... Anyhow - sheet and batten. What was the "sheet" made of, and what sort of roofs is/was it used on?

In view of the discussion earlier in this thread about the depletion of the North Sea gas reserves, I was interested to note just now that for the period 1700 - 1730 hrs today, with it still blowing a gale outside and wind warnings still in force all over the place, wind made up 21.24% of UK electricity output ... but gas-fired power stations made up 38.23%!