bluebottle

I remember it too, and I certainly don't miss it. I detested the acrid smell of cheap cigarettes, particularly when I had to carry it home on my hair and clothes.

When my wife was expecting and people asked if we wanted a boy or a girl, we gave the sensible answer - that we didn't mind as long as it was healthy and liked trains. So we had names ready for both a girl and a boy. My brother suggested, for a boy, "Benito" - after Benito Juárez, the first native president of Mexico. We pointed out that he'd probably be followed around by the other kids impersonating Captain Bertorelli from "'allo 'allo" and saying "Heil-a Mussolini". My brother replied sadly that he hadn't thought of that. Anyway, it was a girl, she's healthy and she likes trains.

But what have you got against non-Jews?

My oldest friend's lung cancer - please God.

Back in the early sixties, when I was learning to print B&W photographs, I showed some of my would-be artistic efforts to a workmate. He told me that I was wasting my time and showed me some colour photos of his rather plain daughter standing to attention in front of the cabbage patch, with a tree growing out of her head. "That's the kind of photos you should be taking", he said. I diplomatically admired his handiwork... But why is a pencil or charcoal sketch often more effective than a coloured drawing? I suppose it's because the picture captures the form of the subject, where colour might be a distraction. The stonework of medieval churches was originally painted in bright colours; today we can see the beauty of column and arch without these distractions. And many people preferred "Tornado" in grey - am I right in thinking that one reason for painting railway engines in "works grey" was to show the form and detail of the engine, leaving it to others to apply coloured liveries? One does see a lot of B&W pictures seemingly taken purely because they are seen as fashionable, yes, but there are times when they might be preferred for practical or artistic reasons.

A wry consolation if you get the worst of an argument: "Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test". (Samuel Johnson) The trouble with Johnson was that he sometimes took the second of these rights literally!

Might be something about Audi drivers - I had to spring out of the path of one who drove about a hundred metres along the pavement rather than bump down the high kerb by where he'd parked. Judging by his frenzied use of the horn and picturesque gesticulations, I was in the wrong.

This poem; "A Bag of Tools" was composed by the American R. L. Sharpe (1870-1950). He does not appear to have done anything else of note, but that his lines are remembered serves to prove his point...

After defeat in the Battle of Crete in 1941, the Royal Navy rescued most of the Allied soldiers; with no air cover, the RN lost several ships during the evacuation. As Admiral Cunningham remarked, when asked if the cost would be too heavy: "It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition."

Ah, but they've made a start, using both systems at the same time on certain unmanned Mars missions. And, according to future historical documents (AKA Star Trek:TNG) we'll all be fully metric by the 24th century!

I know this joke hasn't been posted on this thread before, but it has appeared on RMweb before. You could always check these things by typing the punchline into the "search forums" box. I just did... Or would RMwebbers rather jokes were recollected where they would be easier to find - perhaps with an acknowledgment of the OP?

At the risk of being accused of cultural willy-waving, I replied to a post by Diesel Dayz (in "Banksy Unmasked at last"; Wheeltappers), chiding him for joking about an oldster smelling of wee; quoting from Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2: (DD took the reproof in good part)

As one who has never (literally or metaphorically) followed the crowd, I was disappointed at Accrington Stanley's failure to secure promotion to FL1. I had been looking forward to saying to my brother in law - whose team has been relegated to FL1 - (adopts scouse accent) "Well, your team's only good enough to play against Accrington Shtanley!" Maybe next season...

As Tony Capstick commented, when visiting a small West Yorkshire town well known as a model railway show venue, "If you're posh, you call it 'Slaithwaite', but if you're common like me, you call it 'Slathit'". I think the locals have got it down to "Sla(h)wit" now.

Some years ago, an Edinburgh man phoned his wife from London to tell her that he'd finished his business and that he'd go for a meal and catch a show before getting the sleeper home. She said that was fine, but would he mind buying her a travel ironing board she'd seen advertised which could fold up into a suitcase. This he promised to do before going on to enjoy his evening. Later he arrived at the station just in time to catch his train and was pointed to the last remaining berth. Carefully undressing in the dark so as not to disturb the other travellers, he climbed to the top berth and was surprised to find the berth opposite occupied by a woman. "Oh, I do beg your pardon", he whispered. "That's quite all right," she replied, "there was a mix up with the bookings and the two gentlemen in the lower berths kindly waited in the corridor while I got into bed." They carried on a whispered conversation which grew more intimate, and the emboldened businessman suggested that they could talk more freely if he came across to her berth. "Oh, that would be nice", she simpered, "but how will you get across without disturbing the other two gentlemen?" "Well, he said, I just happen to have something here that, when it's ready, will stretch all the way from my berth to yours..." At that a voice from down below expostulated: "Well !! - I don't believe it - and anyway, how is he going to get back afterwards?!"

I think I found these jokes a bit funnier when you posted all the same ones back in October last year, Simon...

Yes,quite so. My point was that the merits of BLTs which 7013 stresses are not unique to the GWR.

Because the GWR branch was part of your growing up experience, 7013, it is only natural then that it is a popular subject? Such solipsism! When I first read "Railway Modeller" in the 1950s, I got the impression that the BLT didn't exist outside GWR territory. The layouts (nearly all based on St Ives in Cornwall) were very attractive, to be sure; clean, dinky in size with nice rural scenery, and wasn't the "Bulldog" the prettiest engine you ever saw? Nothing like the scruffy mainline stations where I did my train spotting. Nowadays, of course, the magazines tell a different story - yes, of course the rest of the UK had its branch lines too, and this is reflected in such gems of layouts as "Amlwch" (LNWR), "King Cross" (GNR/L&Y) and Oxenhope (MR). But surely, 7013, you don't think that the only small stations with facilities for freight were those on GWR branches? From my landing window I can see the remains of one of the intermediate stations on the former GCR Woodhead route: this had a goods yard and coal sidings and links to nearby quarry, brickworks, scrapyard and processed food factory. Most of the stations on the line had some goods facilities, and this was true for nearly all the pre-Beeching railway. For a single track branch with a freight raison d'être, look no further than the KWVR, built to serve the woollens industry. I agree with your basic argument, of course, but lets not make it all about the GWR!

During World War II, one of the least well known yet most effective weapons deployed by the Allies in the Battle of the Atlantic was the Green Paint Discharger. When a convoy escort vessel suspected that a U-boat was lurking below the waves, it would execute a search pattern over the area while discharging oil-based green paint over the stern to cover the water surface. When the U-boat came to periscope depth to reconnoitre, the periscope was coated with green paint, and its commander, thinking that he was still under the surface, continued to rise. The Allied ship waited until the U-boat got to 500 feet, then shot it down with its anti-aircraft guns. Not a lot of people know that...

I was under the impression that '0' gauge was so called as the next smallest gauge after 1 gauge and so was numeral 0, pronounced "oh" in the same way as "oh-six-oh" for an 0-6-0 locomotive, for instance. "H0" ("aitch-oh") or "00" ("oh-oh" or "double-oh") were so called because they were about half 0 gauge. After having tied myself in noughts typing the above, you can call it whatever the booggery you like as far as I'm concerned.

Oh dear, did I trigger off this slight unpleasantness with my "Johnny Foreigner" post? I was trying, apparently unsuccessfully, to poke fun at the overconfidence followed by the "How can we lose when we're so sincere?" reaction in the England camp. Plus, I couldn't resist the Shakespeare/Russia pun. (Pretentious? МЕÐЯ?)

I was afraid that England was heading for a fall in thinking that Johnny Foreigner would be able to resist the temptation to tweak the "three lions' " tails. Alas, it was "exit, pursued by a bear"...