Dave Hunt

How annoying. How did you manage to get these adverts in the first place? Just asking out of curiosity you understand.... Dave

As a kid I saw Bob McIntyre do the first 100mph lap of the TT course, which was reckoned at the time to be reaching the practical limit. That it has reached another 35% is nothing short of amazing and is testament not just to the manufacturers but to the skill and courage of the riders. To call them mad is insulting as I'm sure that only someone who is sane enough to be able to recall all the tiny details of the course and make the number of split second decision necessary could achieve what they do. Dave

In the years 1910 - 1914 the only British company that bettered the Midland in terms of income over operating costs was the L&SWR in 1911. Dave

On March 12 I rang my GP practice because my sciatica has got much worse and is often debilitating until well into the afternoon as well as my lower back giving much trouble. I managed to speak to a locum on March 17 who decided that I need to see a musculoskeletal consultant and said he would refer me to the hospital I requested. By 21 May I had heard nothing so I rang the GP practice again and after nearly an hour managed to speak to a receptionist who said that I would have to ring a referral booking centre and gave me a phone number. I also asked her for a GP appointment to discuss pain control and the best she could offer was a telephone call on June 13, which I took. I rang the referral booking centre over fifty times but simply got a recorded message saying, "This system is busy, please try again later." I therefore emailed them and received a reply the same day to say that it was not a matter for their attention but I needed to speak to the musculoskeletal referral centre instead. That I was given this incorrect information by the GP practice receptionist is, I think, indicative of the incompetence/indifference they seem nowadays to display. After more fruitless attempts at a phone call I then emailed the musculoskeletal referral centre and after two days received a reply to say that they had my GP's request for a routine appointment and when one became available they would contact me. No thought of acknowledging the referral or anything resembling patient care. I will therefore get to speak to a GP again next Tuesday after over three weeks wait and will let him or her know how I regard the treatment I am (not) receiving. At this rate I can see me biting the bullet and ringing the hospital directly to try for a private consultation, which I suppose is what they actually want. Dave

On the available evidence I suspect that SM42 villa is like the Forth Bridge - once he's painted everything that doesn't move, Andy starts at the beginning again. Dave

Ah, I didn't realise that McV's digestives still contained palm oil - should've read the ingredient list I suppose. I'll look around in future to find a make that doesn't. Dave

Lindt or Black & Green's 85% cocoa solids chocolate are my favourites. I don't know what percentage the dark chocolate is on Hobnobs or McVitie's digestives but although I doubt it is as high as 85% it suits the biscuits. Dave

Next time remember there's me only 20 minutes away! And I'd be happy to scoff Polish Andy's ration. Dave

That was from some correspondence David Tee had with P. C. Dewhurst just before his death. Dewhurst trained in the MR Locomotive Department and left much valuable information in his papers; he was said to be working on a book concerning MR locomotives when he died. Dave

Happy birthday Dear Hippo. Dave

Obviously government jobs then. Dave

Maybe he was just sizing the job up? Dave

I haven’t looked into this matter but certainly the weight per foot run was a limitation additional to the axle loading. Dave

And coincidentally, stabbing yourself with a ball point pen doesn’t help one iota with negating poisoning. Dave

We never had briefing days as such but at the beginning of every month we had to sign before being allowed to fly that we had read and understood a mountain of orders and procedures that emanated from MoD, Command, Group and Station. Additionally, whenever an amendment was issued to any one of the documents we had to sign as having read and understood it before flying. Eventually it became virtually impossible to do anything other than pay lip service to the system and everyone simply signed each month, although most people did actually read the amendments. The straw finally broke the camel’s back when one month major amendments appeared for several documents simultaneously and by documents I mean books of several hundred pages. The result was that one Phantom crew decided to refuse to fly until they had, in fact, read every line of every document, which took them over two full working days. They couldn’t be censured as they were simply obeying the overriding order. This event rippled up through the command chain and eventually prompted a thorough root and branch reassessment of the system, deleting overlapping orders, amalgamating documents and taking other measures to make the whole thing more manageable and realistic. A rare triumph for common sense. Dave

Whilst milk chocolate Hobnobs are good, my favourite is the plain chocolate variety but recently they have been impossible to get locally. Has anyone else had the same problem? Dave

....but mainly bullsh!t 😋 Dave

On Bob Essery's Dewsbury layout there were quite a few fictitious wagons featuring the names of friends who had contributed in some way to its construction. Unfortunately I don't know what happened to them as when I was dealing with Bob's estate they were nowhere to be seen. Dave

I quite agree. Since 1984 we have frequently been going to stay at a friend's house in a small Andalucian village and until a few years ago the only milk available locally was sterilised or UHT. We always used to stop at a supermarket on the coast on our way from the airport and stock up on semi-skimmed fresh milk but occasionally it would be impossible to get and I'd have to drink black coffee. Nowadays the local shops have fresh milk. Sadly, though, they don't stock Hobnobs but our friend makes a mean oat biscuit. Dave

Oh dear, not handbags at dawn coming up I hope. Dave

Having a bit of a lie down at the moment. I thought I’d got away with yesterday’s and this morning’s garage clearing and tidying but no such luck - my lower back and sciatica have kicked in big time. Pah! Dave

If we were all constrained only to make models that are guaranteed 100% historically accurate we probably wouldn't get much done. Even those layouts based on real world places generally have some sort of alteration to suit the space available or some components that are to some degree guesswork. My own MPD layout is simply a conglomeration of Midland buildings, trackwork and other features that are fairly accurate but are in a fictitious setting. For instance, the trackwork is as near scale Midland practice as I can make it with scale timbering, chairs, pointwork etc. but the point tie bars are not true scale. The old goods shed is based on that at Ripple, as is the overbridge, whilst the coaling stage is from Bedford, the water tower from Sheffield and the offices/stores are a conglomeration of several places. The track layout is mainly based on Hellifield and the shed is a truncated version of Hellifield but the turntable is 60ft rather than 50ft - simply to get my Compound with its 'water cart' bogie tender on comfortably. The locomotives, breakdown train and other vehicles are also as close as I can get to simulations of the real thing but would in all probability not have been seen at the same location. So what is the point of all this rambling? Just to say that whilst it is a fictitious place, all the structures and features are obviously and fairly accurately Midland and each one is a reasonable simulation of what it would have looked like in 1906 (with a few small exceptions) and, most importantly for me, are things that I like and want to build. So, my take on the above posts concerning wagon livery is that in a fictitious location there is no disgrace in having fictitious wagon liveries providing the wagons themselves are accurate (within reason) models of what would have been used. And as for trying to establish the exact livery of a particular owner's wagons, if properly carried out research fails to establish beyond doubt what it was, who can correct it? Dave

Ah, homemade blackberry jam - mmmmm. Makes a note in diary to get out among the brambles come September. Dave

I’m with you; tea is the drink of Satan and is yucky. Coffee is the only hot drink worth having - hot chocolate served in most places is far too sweet. Dave

As a point of order Mr. Chairman, in America biscuits are like scones, which to us are really cakes so is the ban on anything to do with cakes likely to lead to a diplomatic incident? Dave