Regularity

Seems reasonable to me, but you know what railway companies could be like sometimes - unpredictable!

That’s why I asked. The plastic on the back stopped the zinc from being etched on both sides. Trevor had trained in the printing plate trade. His coaches were etched one side only, and all the windows - and those slots - laboriously cut and filed by hand. Look carefully and sometimes you can see a file mark. If I had known about the back piece, I would have asked you how you managed to make zinc look like brass in a photo!

Left hand, right hand, NHS bureaucracy in the middle… I lost a friend to pancreatic cancer a few years ago. In his case, the signs were there but not spotted for 12 months, until someone reviewed the evidence of scans and tests, by which time it was far too late.

I am not sure they think, so don’t dread it too much!

Tim Watson has used dental gold for MR safety valve trumpets in 2mm scale, so it may not be such a bad idea, although the obvious question is, was it polished brass by then on the real thing, or painted?

What does the rear face look like?

Um. Although what the UK joined in 1973 was then called the “common market”, what the UK signed up to was quite clear: ever increasing political union. But virtually nobody read that part. And the other point was that when the next tier of major treaties came along (Maastricht and Lisbon) to effect this, the UK government took the view that we had already implicitly agreed to this in the 1975 referendum, so they didn’t need to consult the electorate, who had been drip-fed poison by people who had actually read the original treaty and who were making up stories about bureaucracy and immigration to get their own way. Some of them may have genuinely not believed in the European project as a concept, but mostly it was driven by a realisation that the EU, despite having major problems with internal corruption, was tightening up on exploitation of workers and mostly on the flow of dodgy money through London. On the extreme left, they didn’t like it as it was a combination of free-ish markets and social democracy, neither of which allowed them a sniff of power.

Are you sure? It looks rather brassy in colour, and Jidenco did an etched kit for this. (A run was produced in S.) Qlthough the sides were intended to fold up from the floor, the etched line for them was on the wrong side, so it was easier to remove the sides from the floor and solder them.

What about the Peak Freans “Trotsky Assortment”, that’s what I want to know?

Just passing through, were you?

Are rooms available in other towns?

Maybe they were dyed with the blood of LNWR proprietors? ;)

Ah yes, the “court of public opinion” as I recall Harriet Harman calling it, when playing that card, on something like QT or Any Questions. (Any answers being one of the most unintentionally hilarious programmes out there.) If we used that as our arbiter, we wouldn’t need politicians, just a permanent civil service and armed police to keep us in line and keep lynchings and blood feuds to a minimum. I was disappointed that no one, programme host, other panelists, nor member of the public had the nous to point out that we elect people to make important decisions precisely to avoid the “court of public opinion” as what we want are sound decisions made away from emotion and in terms of of the longer term. Whether that longer term be a low-taxation deregulated scramble or a high services over-controlled omelette is what we vote for…

Ah yes, Jim Naughtie on Today managing to say the thing he was desperately trying not to and failing to control his laughter was a highlight of Radio 4.

Hope you don’t mind:

Pretty much as it will be until the final 3, I think. Then it get interesting!

Labour’s policy under Starmer has been to keep fairly quiet and hope that Boris was still in power at the next general election, and portray themselves as basically “not Boris”. If the batsh1t-crazy swivel-eyed loons get their way and elect “Boris-lite” (as opposed to “Boris-lie” - see what I did there?) then they may have a chance. If Sunak becomes leader, then the Labour Party needs to get its act together pretty quickly and come up with some cohesive policies that improve public services without scaring the electorate over tax increases and the idea that Momentum isn’t behind everything. As with the Tory Party, the extremists might be popular with the activists and “party faithful”, but they lack electoral appeal, and Cameron/Osborne did a good job of making suspicion of immigrants acceptable, but Boris made outright racism acceptable, and the Tories can, and will, and did in the “red wall seats” play up to this and get votes out of it.

The point being made is that pre-Brexit, beef imported into the UK had to meet EU standards, over which the UK had a fair degree of input. Imports were assessed for compliance with these standards by the EU, firstly by reviewing the standards of the country concerned and then by assessing the degree of compliance with those standards within that country. If both of these reviews found the third party nation to have standards (welfare, management, disease control, feeding, etc) at least as good as the EU, then they country was permitted to sell its products within the EU. Such negotiations were carried out by the EU on behalf of all member states, which is why getting CE status for goods is such a big deal: it is quite simply the world’s largest trading block. After Brexit, the UK would not be able to use EU inspectors, etc, and absent a formal trade agreement, would need to enter into negotiations with every single country in the world, or simply take their word it that their food standards were good. O’Brien’s point was that the position espoused by Rees-Mogg was simply one of not checking on anything. It doesn’t have to be Australian beef, and arguably it would have been better to use American beef (laced full of hormones) and American chlorinated chicken as better examples, but Australian beef was a hot topic at the time.

‘Twas ever thus: each creates a format ripe for dictatorship.

They all think that they will be the one to trip O’Brien up, and “show” the world that he is wrong. It’s always fun to watch and listen.

I wonder if the members of the Parish Council can recommend a decent therapist, as today I wondered if I am living in the real world because Grant Schapps withdrew his candidacy?

To (mis)quote Puckoon, maybe it was yesterday’s train, running 24 hours late?

On top of that, he dropped his food!

Question, were the wagons used inbound with ore, or outbound with loads, and if so, to where?

The question was largely rhetorical.