StevieD71

FIA is an old County Antrim regisration. The first letter denotes the year, the other two are the area. For example, Coleraine (where I live) was *IW, then changed to *NZ (my car is YNZ) and has just changed to AYZ. The photo must be from England as the 16 ton BR mineral wagons weren't used over here.

I will be attempting to contact the surgery tomorrow for advice, but would welcome your views on it.

I'm slightly confused by the underlying health conditions advice. I'm 49 and have had asthma since childhood. Almost every winter I end up with a dose of amoxicillin at some point and I have had pleurisy in the past. As a result I have the flu vaccination every year. I'm not sure if i'm in the group who should isolate for the next 12 weeks. I work in retail and i'm sure my boss wouldn't be too pleased if I told her that. The announcement today was as clear as mud.

The first 2 Medal Of Honor games are among my all time favourites. They were so atmospheric. I vividly remember my first time playing the first one. Dropped by the plane in the clearing and walking towards the house when a German soldier appeared. I took a shot, hit him in the head and his helmet flew off. At that point I paused the game, went to the phone (landline, not mobile), phoned a mate who was also into WW2 stuff, and just said, "you have to buy this game". That was after about a minutes play!

That would be me. I was there in '77, aged 6. I remember standing outside Coleraine Playhouse cinema, Luke Skywalker action figure in hand (the one with the retractable lightsaber), almost overcome with excitement. I've enjoyed every movie since, even the ones I'm not supposed to and I play Star Wars Battlefront badly at times. I have a mate who has been banging on at me to give Fallen Order a go.

I built a stand for mine from a couple of cheap B&Q shelves and some lengths of the cheapest suitable timber I could get. I sprayed it with a can of red paint that was left over from another job. The problem I had initaially was that my PS4 was in the kitchen and I sat on a bar stool while playing. The stand was quite tall to accomodate this, but it had to stay in the train shed (where it invariably got in the way) and it using it was a faff which involved carrying it across the garden and shifting the kitchen table and chairs around. The TV in the kitchen was also mounted quite high, which meant I was always looking up at the screen when using the wheel. When my son moved out to live in Belfast and my daughter took his bedroom I seized the opportunity to move the PS4 up to the spare room, mounted a spare TV at suitable height on the wall and brought the wheel in. I share the room with my daughters art desk and a clothes airer, but now i have a corner where everything (spare controller, headset, game disks etc) can sit together.

Tons of good stuff about. I had to buy an external drive to hold my collection. At the minute I am rotating round GT Sport, Project Cars 2, Fifa 20, Battlefield 5, Train Sim World (trans pennine and Tees add ons) and now Warzone. I occasionally stick GTA on and just muck about on it. I've heard good things about Horizon Zero Dawn. Must take another look at it.

I've been driving my Ioniq hybrid since Oct 2018 and I am sold on hybrids now. When I qualified for motability I wasn't looking for a one, just an automatic. This was a dark horse, but when I went to the dealer and tried one, I was sold. It's good looking, comfortable, well equipped (mine is a premium SE) and sport mode is entertaining on back roads and for shocking people in more sporty cars. I couldn't go back to a manual car now. Even with my knee replacement using the clutch if I have to drive my wifes DS3 is a nightmare. I don't think I could abandon the hybrid either. When it comes time for me to change next year I think the next car will be another Ioniq, or possibly a Kia Niro, which is built on same platform with more of an SUV body.

I'm not sure if it qualifies as old enough, but i drove this 1998 Fiat Coupe 2.0L 20V na for a couple of years (2015 -2017) after my knees got really bad and I had to sell my VFR800. It was lovely to drive, sounded great and turned heads. It was also a bit of a money pit and eventually when something went in the drivetrain a year after having the gearbox rebuilt my wife called time on my mid life crisis and it was sold on eBay for £400. (I paid £900 for it and put about £1500 into it). I still miss it

I've just discovered this thread by accident (haven't really had a look in Wheeltappers before), and as I've been a gamer for almost 40 years, I thought i'd join in. It started for me in late 1981 with a ZX81 and a 16K memory pack. Asteroids and 3D Monster Maze were my favourites on that, as well as going to a mates house for Manic Miner marathons. I progressed on to an Acorn Electron. The standout games on that for me were Strike Force harrier and Elite. Then I had a few years with Amiga 500's and 1200's. There are too many good games to list, but I had an extensive selection from the Microprose catalogue and destroyed many joysticks on Sensible Soccer and Geoff Crammonds Grand Prix. My first console was the PlayStation (yes, PlayStation before it became the PlayStation One). My best mate and fellow Sensible fanatic knew it was on the horizon and that one of the lead games was going to be Ridge Racer. We spent a lot of the summer at a local arcade playing it and enthusing about how we'd soon be able to play it at home. As it turns out, he got his PlayStation first and when he turned up at my house with it he didn't have Ridge Racer, but Wipeout. My mind was blown! Once I got my own my favourite games through my time with it were TOCA Touring Cars, Medal Of Honor ( my introduction to FPS games) and the game changing Gran Turismo games. I didn't get a PS2, but instead took a diversion into the murky depths of hardware upgrade chasing PC gaming. This brought an introduction to online gaming, especially FPS games, starting with Medal Of Honor 3, The first few Call Of Duty games as far as Modern Warfare, Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, Joint Ops, Vietcong and Battlefield 2. I did play some racing games instead, but most sessions would find me running round shooting at people and blowing stuff up. I got a bit fed up chasing continuous graphics card upgrades and when I was given a PS3 for my fortieth birthday I was back into console gaming. The racing bug bit again with GT4 and the Battlefield games provided the shooting fix. I was lucky enough to pick up a PS4 on release day without a reservation and I have continued to play and enjoy the Battlefield series and GT Sport and FIFA. I've added a Logitech G29 wheel and pedals which really improves the racing game experience, especially with Project Cars. I'm StevieD71 on PSN and this week I have been dabbling with Call Of Duty Warzone.

I still have the original Mainline catalogue, along with several Hornby ones from the late '70's / early' 80's. They aren't in great condition now because of the amount of times they were pored over.

I have nothing train related, but my daughter was playing these gals (and guy) in the car on Saturday (she saw them supporting 21 Pilots), and I thought they might be right up your street with their Californian pop-punk.

Here is Northern Ireland, model shops are few and far between. I'm lucky then that I have Bills Hobbies to visit here in Coleraine. It's a general model shop and Hornby stockist with a few Dapol and Javis kits and scenic bits and pieces, but has a good selection of paints, glues etc. Anything non Hornby has come from various internet sources. I also get to Sheffield once a year when attending the Hard Rock Hell Sleaze festival so I make a point of visiting Rails,

I've nothing railway related to add tonight, but thought you might fancy some Die So Fluid.

I'm using 15mm x 6mm pine stripwood covered with brick paper for platform wall and topping it with 3mm balsa for the surface, which seem to work well. I've used some thicker balsa for the ramps. The bonus for me is that balsa can be scribes and cut with a knife, which is handy because I'm another who cannot cut a straight line in wood. I just have to work out how to finish the platforms now. Sandpaper sprayed dark grey is my current front runner.

Boats sailing from Stranraer would either be going to Larne or Belfast (depending on the era/company). They now sail to Cairnryan as it makes the crossing time shorter. I cam recall a car loading /unloading dock at the end of the station quay from trips to the mainland as a child. I presume it was either for the new vehicles going to Northern Ireland or motorail services.

Don't even go there! I visited Aushwitz-Birkenau during the summer and put some photos of the cattle truck and sidings of the Judenramp on the British railway modelling Facebook page. I asked if anyone would ever consider making a model of that line which resulted in a short, but intense debate. It culminated in the thread being deleted before my bus was even half way back to Krakow, so it is obviously a very touchy subject. I did find it quite emotional to stand on that spot by the gate of death, knowing what had happened there. No television programme (and I thought this one was quite well done) can prepare you for the sheer scale of the Birkenau death camp. Aushwitz 1 is by comparison quite small and neat, having been a Polish Army camp prior to occupation. Walking into the gas chamber there was extremely unsettling.

I'm glad the team who did my knee last week had someone who could sew...

Working in retail I too know the pain of customers asking for discount. Whether they get it or not depends on how pleasant they have been during the transaction. I know the margins I have to work with and appreciate that knocking even a couple of quid off something expensive (mobile phones and laptops in my case) can feel like a win for the buyer and can be very good for fostering good will and making someone into a repeat customer. I don't ask for discount in the local model shop, but as I have been in on a regular basis since taking up the hobby again and am now on first name terms with the guy who runs the shop, I usually find my bill is rounded down by a small amount each time I buy something. It may still be cheaper for the same items online, but I enjoy going into the shop, having a nose around and a bit of a chat. The personal touch counts for a lot.

I watched it again earlier in the week on YouTube.