Gareth Collier

I, too, bought the suggested Tamiya one and it arrived yesterday. Just no comparison between it and my Xacto one. It cuts beautifully and more importantly straight! Cheers

Unfortunately I fear we will have a grid of clones. Not much has changed rule wise so all the teams will have spent a season looking at their opposition to see what they had done and replicate it if it looks to have been working better than their attempt. The odd team will test the rules to see how far they can push until RB complain and the FIA outlaw their innovative idea and they all go back to looking the same.

I've been an F1 fan for 50+ years but don't know if I can face another season of primarily dull, processional races only really livened up by a bit of rain and by that I mean light drizzle as anything heavier just results in the race rule lottery. I am sick to death of Red Bull who, despite being on top, still spend the whole season bitching about the other teams, usually to cover their own dodgy dealings and despite being found guilty basically get away with it. I know you need to have a level of confidence/arrogance to be an F1 driver but Max takes it to a whole new level, it is really hard to like him. As for the season I don't see much changing from last year. Red Bull/Max will win the drivers title again as they throw everything behind one driver whilst Ferrari will start well then self destruct again with the Mercs putting on a better show but will be hampered by backing both drivers. Williams will potter around at the back again before being taken over and renamed. As for the rest the order will just shuffle around a bit like it does every year. At every chequered flag Crofty and the Sky commentary team will still sound breathless having watched another epically exciting race but still trounce the C4 coverage. I so hope I'm wrong.

I'm sure Ronaldo has gone to Saudi to further his career rather than the deal worth a reported £173m a year including image and commercial rights.....

In answer to 2) Trent has just scored 3 points for me for an assist in my Fantasy Premier League team.

Terrible to hear another member of the Blakes 7 cast has left us. I met him a number of times through my love of Blakes 7 and what a genuinely nice guy he was, quite unlike his Travis character. It was only July when we last chatted at the Blakes 7 convention, that was me over his right shoulder.

Well that was a rollercoaster. Arguably the best final ever.

And now penalties. What a game!

Just your typical Facebook rants from the ill informed. Who honestly thinks that an N gauge manufacturer would only use pickups from the Bo end on a new loco and then feel the need to make themselves looked stupid on social media? Same as those outraged and ranting at Rapido that it comes with no instructions only to be told to look under the foam insert then don't apologise.

I sincerely hope this is fake news but anything is possible 🙁

Have to agree. I pop down to watch my local team. Eastbourne Borough, in the National League South. I suppose they play proper football if proper football is hoof it upfield at every opportunity in the vague hope the striker may be able to reach it. If not the opposition will then hoof it back down the other end whilst the midfielders stand around chatting. When much younger I played up front for the mighty Icklesham Casuals in the East Sussex premier league. I was the clubs top scorer for 5 years on the trot but never scored once with my head. The reason? No one had the ability to put a decent cross into the box but it was 'proper' football. I guess the same people will argue proper beer is only proper beer if it was brewed within 5 miles in a shed, has bits floating in it and maybe cause blindness😉

Having built a model of Waldron and Horeham Road on the Cuckoo Line these small rural stations were often rather sparse affairs with this and Hellingly not having goods sheds. Indeed they didn't even have yard cranes or cattle pens, animals were led onto a loading dock where temporary fencing could be erected. Furthermore there was very little coal traffic at Waldron probably because the lack of any real population nearby. What Waldron did have though was 2 signal boxes! Leaving these off your layout may give the more prototypical openness of a LBSCR rural station.

At about 34 seconds the craziness starts 😉

Album - Toss up between Fallen by Evanescence and Appetite for Destruction by Guns n Roses. Song - Johnny Cash's version of Hurt which is probably also my favourite video.

We're going home, we're going home.....

You can always rely on Harry, oh, wait ☹️. Why do I watch these stressful matches?

Well, that's the first half over. Some questionable refereeing/VAR decisions but otherwise the England team that turned up against the USA seem to have been drafted in again 🙁

Never have understood that strategy. Get off to a good start rather than risk them not even getting to take one. Anyhow, boy do Croatia know how to grind out results but thought they were dead and buried when Neymar scored.

I agree, it was spectacular, but it should have been Ackbar not a character no one knew so had no investment in and as it was so easy to do why sacrifice all those pilots attacking 2 Death Stars when they could have just flown an old cruiser into them. Basically why stick to the established physics of a series when you can ignore them in favour of special effects.

And of course a single x wing can take out every gun turret on a Dreadnought but perhaps Poe had bamboozled them with the 'funny' "holding for General Hux" sketch.

Episode 8. I have already mentioned the ridiculously slow pursuit through space and how it could have been ended in seconds and did say I wouldn't bore you all with a list of things that annoyed me but here's a few in case anyone wants to discuss them. Bombers in space - slow moving bombers that drop bombs through the gravity free vacuum of space where someone has to push a release button like a WWII bomber. No shields and the pilot couldn't push the button. What has happened to missile, lasers etc? The whole resistance fit in a handful of ships against a massive, well equipped military that was allowed to appear from nowhere. Leia turning into Superman (correct flight pose as well) and surviving the vacuum of space despite never any hint of force powers. Carrie Fisher had passed before release and didn't have much of a subsequent role so that could have been a satisfactory ending for her. Suddenly you can destroy capital ships by just flying at hyperspace at them. That would have solved a lot of earlier problems, Death Stars? Also Admiral Ackbar was back so it would have been in character for him to pilot the cruiser but instead they bring in Laura Dern, a new character that no one was invested in to make the ultimate sacrifice. No one cared whilst Ackbar was just blown out into space. A moment lost. They land on a planet that was red but covered in white powder so the convenient fleet of resistance craft that for some reason had to be tethered to the ground could leave red stripes which looked good to the CGI guys. Hold on, I completely forgot the completely pointless trip to Canto Bight that Rose and Finn took. It had zero impact on anything else so was just a time filler for character they didn't know what to do with. There is much much more but I'm already getting bored 😉

Going way off topic now but possibly relating to footie training:

The biggest disappointment of Andor was the Covid interruption before filming could start at a secret location in Buckinghamshire/Ferrix. A certain costuming group was due to provide a dozen Stormtroopers but when restrictions were partially relaxed they still prevented us them from being able to be on set and loiter in the background. The first step towards stardom and a Star Wars dream was dashed for us them.

Rogue One directly leads into ANH but you had to wait 39 years so no need to resist the urge to watch it. Sit back and enjoy 🙂

I think their expectations have been affected by the farce of VAR. Who knows if you've scored as VAR looks for any possible reason to disallow it. That said Cameroon scored a few days ago but there were no celebrations as the linesman had put his flag up for offside but then all of a sudden VAR intervened as a toe nail had played him on and it was a goal. I wonder if he'd have scored if both himself and the goalie thought he was on?