MrWolf

I really must get this painting finished, then I can get on with posting about some (vaguely) model railway matters!

Good grief no! My other half is much nicer to live with. She's also (IMHO) much nicer looking. No, she didn't make me say that!

Do Panniers breed? In a word, Yes. I don't think that I want to start counting mine. Eight, possibly nine, but there's boxes I haven't looked in since we moved house.

Which may consist of flagging down a passing Volga taxi to try and jump start your ICBM...

It's started raining here in Blighty, but it's warm and dry in the depths of the workshop known as The Profanium.

Afraid not Teakers old stick. Even the memsahib is less Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew and more Brolin, Pitt and Ryan Reynolds.

I'd always assumed that it was a clever reference for having been hoofed out of the navy on spurious charges? Imdb

One of my friends always takes a PP3 battery with him to sales and exhibitions, as not that many vendors have a proving track or power. If any vendor refuses a quick power test (which is surely a great bargaining chip in either direction) he simply walks away, no sale.

Last night the dodgy internet connection wouldn't allow me to tell you that is a splendid and well observed use of colour, keep 'em coming!

Hard to say, but I've heard that a lot of kitties have a secret thing for firemen, provided of course they're the Hollywood fire brigade...

It's nice to see that your gallant side is worried about the embarrassment that would be caused by a major wardrobe malfunction. So here she is in her motorcycle gear which offers considerably more, er, support. It's from the Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises and I suspect that he wasn't the only one..... Still going a bit insane with preparations for the exhibition, but I have been unable to resist attaching some odd little details before I manage to lose them. (Like I did with the trespass notice for the level crossing!) 🙄 This is the station's official fresh drinking water supply, modified from a Ratio cattle dock spare part. There's a useful number of repeats on the sprues.

I understand that he was investigated for performing backstreet sex changes....

That does look nicely sun bleached with the highlighted joints and faded maroon.

That does appear to be pretty fracked....

Thanks @Bucoops, I have always thought that the sniping system operated entirely without eBay's acknowledgement.

The only possible snag there is that Kevin is unlikely to be able to fit your house in his kitchen oven...

I was simply asking whether it violated any of eBay's myriad of rules, they seemingly being a law unto themselves, perhaps I should have been clearer about what I actually meant. Having attended, (or rather not attended) plenty of live auctions for everything from classic bikes, cars, antiques and militaria I'm quite aware of how the distance bidding system works. I generally put in my maximum bid and walk away. Getting into auction fever online or a t1t for tat battle with a rival in the sale room only ever results in busting any possible profit if you're reselling or regret if you're keeping an item.

Perhaps we should call it Lightning Cottage, given the speed at which it was built compared to the daily goings on in Little Muddle?

Ah, a bit before my time I'm afraid. I'm going to have to look and see if it's still in Roger's Profanisaurus. 😉

Interesting / worrying... I can resist anything but temptation!

We've all been hit with that at some point. I'm not even sure that it's legit?

That's a very Turner-esque sky. It really fits with the lighting and colours of the scene.

One thing that I would be interested to know is how the backplate of the level indicator was painted? Was it all white with the level markers painted on or was it alternate black and white bands as I have seen on a preserved example?

The look of that picture seems quite appropriate for what is the first cold damp morning around here. I hope they have the kettle on the stove somewhere in the gloomy depths of that loco shed!

JIT was adopted by too many companies. One company I did development work for made bespoke machinery and decided to cut their stocks back to the minimum. The sales team took a rush order from our major customer in Germany to replace a machine destroyed in an accident and promised to have a new one on the next lorry to Wesel as a contract with time penalties would be held up. Cue frantic machining, painting of castings and stripping the relevant parts from three other machines that were sat waiting for despatch elsewhere. Followed by management congratulating themselves that the system worked, never mind the losses!