Gwiwer

I queried the application of a stencil headcode panel but photographic records show CC1 ran thus equipped for a very brief period when new before it was plated (or ? painted) over and a lamp stuck onto it. Therefore not a mistake. We await a response on the roof colour question which may or may not be resolved with reference images.

And a good opportunity to compare real and model front ends. Of the Vep.

Exactly what Dr SWMBO suggested but she was unable to recall the name of the process. Hers might be so treated. The hand-painted design lends itself to that option. Mine would look distinctly odd. Its future is not yet decided only because there is significant sentimental attachment to it.

I would also be supporting the business that brought them to market rather than an unknown after-market source who might (or might not) be attempting to make a fast buck.

Aft-a-noon all. Well quite a busy last-24-hours has been had. Friends arrived for dinner last night but only five instead of the six expected. The other is apparently having relationship issues with her wife (who was here as planned) and politely went elsewhere. New portable proximity lamps were hastily obtained to allow our disabled guest ease of illuminated access to the bathroom at night in an unfamiliar location. Four of us were out for breakfast at the local café which, as usual, was fully booked and provided superb service and food. After a leisurely chat around the table we re-entered the chilly wind-tunnel of the town square before calling into the “Bric-a-brac” sale. It smelt of old clothes in the way charity shops often do and in a way which I find unpleasant. I wandered out and took a few photos instead. After another coffee at another café we said our farewells and came home. To find that His Furship had ventured up onto the kitchen bench and objected to two mugs on the draining rack. Which he somehow managed to relocate to the floor. So we bid sad farewells to our two favourite mugs each of which had some degree of personal connection to us beyond just being a thing to contain liquids. Neither can be replaced like for like. So now with guests gone and floors swept it only remains for me to wrap the sharp edges before disposal and to crack on with a shed-load of laundry. All the extra bedding / towels etc won’t clean themselves and the fairy doesn’t work weekends.

I am on record elsewhere as considering that the new-generation of boxes from Hornby and others are ridiculously wasteful of finite resources. From card to foam to space. Having received upwards of 1000 deliveries by mail and courier in the past 20 years, most of which were in transit from China to the Uk and on to Australia, I have never had an issue with the more sensible size of packaging being a cause for transit-related damage. The Hornby "Mk2" Veps have had the motor sensibly relocated to the other end of the motor coach where they are less visible than they were in the open passenger saloon. Hornby released images of this change very late in the day meaning it is easy to find versions still showing motors in the saloon. The motors are still of the "can" type which should have gone out with the ark. I await with interest some owner's reviews of their performance but at least on pinpoint bearings the units should roll much more freely. The "face" is still not quite right though is an improvement. It should be nominally identical to the Bachmann/ Kernow MRC 4-TC units but isn't. The headcode panel seems to be the wrong size and the cab windows / pillars, whilst an improvement, are still not right. Stick-on headcodes should be the stuff of toy train-sets not mid-range railway models. Dave Jones was widely criticised for these on the class 22 and 52 models some years ago now. I had thought they were a thing of the past. The only exception I will make is for the correctly-represented stencil-plate headcodes on the Hornby Bil, Hal and Bel models, plus the recent EFE / Kernow "Booster" loco all of which had the stencils fitted externally to the prototype. Roller blinds should be modelled inside the glazing. It's not hard.

Plenty of space inside but an unproven track record as yet

Kia Sportage or Dacia Duster? Both would be in the running were I in that position

That has indeed done the trick. The clip also proves just how little talent is required to top the music charts. It peaked at number 2 thereby performing better than many (arguably) better songs by - among many others - The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Kylie Minogue and U2. I have clearly followed an incorrect career path. If performing a very basic choreographic routine to a very basic instrumental track gets you to almost top the hit parade then what might a (formerly long-haired) wannabe patella-percussionist and no sense of pitch but a half-decent baritone / bass range have been able to achieve?

That's just a cunning disguise. In real life he's a railway modeller but doesn't want everyone to know 🤣

Hornby has updated their stock images very recently. Some retailers have followed suit. It would seem that common sense has at last prevailed and that the (still a can) motor has been swapped to the less intrusive end of the coach. Now if they had a decent modern power unit instead .......

We were threatened with that. Until several of the local town councils got together and protested. The unitary Konsel Kernow / Cornwall Council then relented and will continue its use of weighted (so they stay put in the wind) bags. For each home to have four bins would result in many of our tiny streets being literally lined with them. Some cottages have no land outside at all. Some have very little and it can sometimes be shared with neighbours. There just isn’t space for everywhere to have four bins. Neither is there a need. The bag system works well enough, provides more than enough capacity and they can be kept anywhere handy until required. Unlike wheelie bins.

I try to use a knife and fork when dealing with steak. Or tongs if it still requires warming. I never hold it.

Earworm 🥵

I get that some areas are better-equipped than others to sort and manage recyclables. Upon the Hill of Strawberries we had two bins - one for waste and one for plastic and glass. Only petro-chemical engineers know for sure which plastics recycle and which don’t so we adopted the widely-held belief that crunchy plastic does not recycle - all the rest does. The “facility” can then sort what they want from what they don’t. Paper, card, garden waste etc all had to be taken to neighbourhood skip sites - ours was on the corner of the road - which were widely abused and fly-tipped because the council charged £70 to collect electricals and all other hard waste. £70! No wonder folk just dumped it. Currently we are blessed with two bins again. Green for household waste, brown from garden waste. Glass goes in the black box, card in the orange bag, paper in tge blue bag, plastics and tins in the red bag and anything else (including tetrapaks which we use a lot of for Dr SWMBO’s almond milk and cranberry juice) has to be taken 15 miles to the recycling depot. That’s not such an easy system although fundamentally all that differs is the degree of pre-sorting. But when we go to fortnightly waste collections later in the year our green bin will be replaced with a black bin. Why? They are the same size. Why? Because someone somewhere decided that rubbish bins should be black. Cue a cash-strapped unitary council having to pay out for tens of thousands of new bins to replace an equal number of perfectly serviceable green bins. And where will the green bins go? To recycling, of course. If you care to pop it in the back of your car and drive 15 miles ….. In Australia household waste went in the green-lid bin and all recycling went in the yellow-lid bin. Garden waste was composted or fed to the chookens. Make it easy. Keep it easy. Oh - and where is the 50% reduction in that part of our Council Tax to match the 50% reduction in collection services? No. It’s all going up by 5% which must surely be some sort of “shrinkflation”

Remember most presentations are just bulls hit

Good morning from the Distant (Signal) West. A golden shiny thing rose from behind the carn and seems to have made all the small people very chattery on their way to school Dr SWMBO was up at 4am due to being unable to sleep any longer. She has kindly left me a pile of dishes and pans in the kitchen but tonight’s meal is already prepared. She also just asked me something as she read through her various pages of interest on the web. “What does it mean to abe?” “Abe?” I peered over her shoulder. Her command of the language (though not its grammar) is as good as mine so I wondered what she had found. “Abe. A - B - E. Like here where it says Jennifer was abed before anyone else in the house”. What does “abe” mean. . . “It means she was in bed first……” 🤦‍♀️ “Were you mizzled by that?” - “Mizzled” -“as in misled” Welcome to Brain-dead Day

There speaks a man with tongue in cheek 🤣 Collingwood are the butt of humour. And I have many more teeth and fewer mullets than their supporters do.

Three random out-takes.

Those who follow “Gordon’s Minions”, the 3417 crew who care for the unit at Strawberry Hill depot, will be aware of a significant increase in activity of late. Not only the actual restoration work but an awful lot of compliance paperwork. (42)3417 was also restored to the Rolling Stock Library database a few days ago which allows it to move on NR metals. If all other requirements are met.

Which is good to know but frustrating for those of us with a problem loco. My ‘02 is a derailer. I had a closer look yesterday and it seems that there is a significant issue with one bogie assembly. I’m not sure, because the bogie doesn’t pop apart readily as some others do, whether this is balance, wheel mounting or distortion but as the model has sold out I have two options. Attempt a “fix” myself or return it for refund. I am somewhat reluctant to do either. ‘01 however is a good ‘un and has now completed its running in and acceptance and has been weathered. This improves the overall appearance of a working locomotive.

Not at all in keeping with the 1960s theme but somehow sitting comfortably anyway. The steam railmotor is a superb little machine which ran perfectly in both directions on the test track. Porthgarrow’s OO line remains a stayic diorama for now.

A brief visit to Camborne today resulted in the collection of No.61 An exquisite machine which, whilst not at all in keeping with the 1960s theme, doesn’t seem out of place at Porthgarrow.

Unless you count my occasional incursions to the Night Mail then no 🤣