Ian J.

Track laying has finally commenced 🙂

After 'having' to replace my TV early this year with a large screen one due to not being able to see and read the increasingly smaller fonts on games (my eyesight is slowly getting worse with my age), I have finally got myself sorted out with an Xbox Series X. Nice graphics, etc. Also had to replace my amp though, as it couldn't handle eARC as it was too old (HDMI 1.2). The new amp is a bit of an upgrade, Denon AVC-X3800H, hopefully won't be needing to replace that any time soon 😀 Now I just need to find the energy to get back to some proper gaming, when not doing modelling or related activities.

🤢🤮

Charon, but not from the old sailing ships, instead from the Trapp's War series of books... 🙂

I am so much not in the pineapple on pizza camp. I honestly can't understand why people like it. For the record, I hate Marmite too. 🙂

50 051 - Peckham Any other ideas for suitable fictional names for 50s that were never made...? 😉

There's an outside possibility that if a PLA blue were done, I might buy it to go with my slowly building little collection of various Port Authority dock shunters...

I don't disagree, but you're talking about relatively 'random' purchasing. I'm thinking more of how I used to be able to do 'regular' purchasing 'on foot' with a near guarantee that an LMS or exhibition would have it. Points made by others have been that exhibitions needs traders and traders need customers to buy at the exhibitions, otherwise the exhibitions aren't viable. But if the traders don't have what I do need, I can't afford to buy stuff I don't need just to keep them in business and by extension keep the exhibition in profit. It's not a situation I want to exist, but it does.

Agreed, but with RMweb being a good source of news of new things I generally don't have situations where I'm not aware that something exists. However, I will still always to a circuit of any exhibition to check the trader stands first just in case I've forgotten something. This is a problem, but not easily resolved. In the past I used to be able to more or less guarantee that if I needed something I could go to an local model shop or an exhibition and get it. These days, there are fewer local model shops, and the traders at most exhibitions can't or won't stock lots of little things, especially specialist stuff. Warley might be one of the few exceptions in that regard. So, a once a year opportunity to get needed stuff for a model / layout build isn''t viable and I have to do most purchasing online. I simply can't afford to buy stuff that I don't need just because it's 'shiny' or to have a memento of an exhibition visit.

For a long time I had TomTom Navigation on a Windows Mobile device, without the traffic subscription. For any journey where I didn't know the route it was very useful, and saved having to research maps and try and remember the route. I have TomTom Go on my Android Phone now, with a yearly subscription to the service, which includes Traffic notifications. I don't like to be without it these days, as those have often saved me getting stuck in bad traffic situations. Not always, but often. The subscription is currently (for me) £12.99 per year. That's not bad, considering. Even if it doubled I'd still pay for it. However, I could live without it if absolutely necessary.

IMO, there is only one true livery for a 50 - Revised Standard. That is, Large Logo, without any embellishments and certainly no orange stripe. Everything else is heresy, and before LL was just experimentation, afterwards was just playing silly butters... 😉😉😉

Subscriptions for features on a car (any car, not just electric) sounds awfully close to 'renting' a car rather than owning it. I'd prefer to have ownership and not be paying ongoing subscriptions (as I do with media like music and films). It's an 'old-fashioned' view in modern times, but I stick by it, especially in these high inflation times when people suddenly have to cancel subscriptions so they can afford to heat their homes and put food on the table.

I don't think 'Flying Scotsman' is protected from being made by any manufacturer due to being in the national collection*, as its existence beforehand puts it in the public domain, I think. However, selling it as being part of the National Collection*, labelled accordingly, might be so. *note the capitalisations, intended.

I don't tend to think of model railway shows as shopping opportunities these days as so much that I might need effectively needs to be bought online when I need it. I first noticed this when Ally Pally effectively stopped their 'finescale corner' many years ago. I might buy something on an off-chance, if it fits any of my suitable era/geography combos, but little in the way of planned purchases. So shows these days are really just for that for me - showing the layouts.

The GTR seems to me to be one of those events that, for the model railway industry at least, it's safest simply to avoid. IMO, an event for commemorating the railway workers injured, and nothing else. As for this Class 40 announcement, does EOI not mean Expressions Of Interest? If so, then it will be interesting to see how many are willing to trust KR at the moment. I don't, but I want to.

That reminds me. If A/S do 50035 'Ark Royal' in LL without the orange stripe, whether directly or via a commission, it'll have to go on the purchase list so it can sit alongside my Lima and Hornby examples of it 🙂

Doesn't SLW normally attend exhibitions along with a layout (Mostyn?)

That'll be the Accurascale factory then. Needs to be that big to produce models of every railway item since Stockton & Darlington days... 😉

The Bachmann class 20 I recently bought has a Zimo sound decoder, and seems perfectly fine to my ears...

Still need a Southern/BR(S) U and Q... Just sayin'. 😉

The recently expanded score to 'Rudy', by Jerry Goldsmith. Lovely. Note the clip above isn't from the expanded edition, but it represents the score.

Nice to see these, but... ...it looks like the LL variants have the orange cantrail stripe. Could really do with versions without it, so will be holding off ordering until that variant is done. So same as the 37/4 and 31/4 for me, wrong liveries/versions at launch.

Three hours is about the average. Take the adverts out alone and games average about two hours. If more is cut out then elements of play not included in the actual game clock can get missed. The TV commercials don't as such 'stop' the game except on the breaks between quarters and at the half, but the TV companies will try to squeeze in adverts at any point where play isn't happening on the field (particularly on time outs and the two minute warnings) and I think there is communication between the field and the TV company showing the game to make sure an already started advert block gets to finish if it has started.

Point of order, m'lud. 'American Football' is so named because it inherits its name from 'Rugby Football', not from 'Association Football'. To be fair though, 'American Football' could probably be better named 'American Rugby'. However, the name is now so ingrained, it's not going to be changed. A bit like the 'touchdown', which hasn't been a touch down since the late 19th century.

I gather coach prices are very much dependent on when you want to travel and how far in advance you book. Things get much pricier if you want to travel at peak time and only book a few days in advance.