Jenny Emily

If that really were the case then all drivers ought to be issued with a crystal ball to stick to the dashboard. How can anyone know exactly when a traffic light is about to change? Given also that there are some traffic lights that cycle very quickly (I'm thinking of some of the peak time signals on motorway slip roads for a start) as others have said, that would leave a vehicle permanently stationary and gridlock for miles at rush hour. Clearly that quote comes from somewhere that the person doesn't actually understand the law properly; to remain stationary at a set of traffic lights indefinitely would clearly be an offence of blocking the highway. Some legislation is so badly worded as to be unenforcible.

Thanks for the replies. I'll just see what happens and hopefully, as some of you point out, it will probably be nothing. I think Top Gear proved that short of being pushed along by an English Electric Lightning with full afterburner lit up, if the Merc triggered the camera, it will be on the picture.

Funnily enough, there was something on Jeremy Vine's show yesterday about something like this. I didn't catch a lot of it as I was busy at the time. The last house I lived in the windows were such a cowboy job that we surmised Roy Rogers had fitted the windows. Instead of using a ladder, he had just lassoed the chimney stack to get himself up to the first floor.

Those wacky Scandinavians. Just what, I wonder, did he expect to happen if he had got his kitchen to reach critical mass? Though I suspect he was way short of the amount required to precipitate a chain reaction. I shared a house at University with a physicists who is now has a doctorate and is involved with cutting edge research into superconductors. We always used to say that she had the knowledge to split the atom safely on the kitchen table, but we wouldn't trust her to boil an egg - she lacked a lot of real world common sense even if she did have a staggering mind for theoretical physics.

Fair point. Let me rephrase: the truck in front missed a gear meaning that he didn't speed up, checking my rate of acceleration and forcing a brake application to avoid hitting him. I therefore went across the junction at a slowly diminishing speed rather than accelerating. He didn't stop moving and I was in the junction longer than I might have otherwise been. Yes, I know you're right. But it doesn't shut the paranoia up. Still, worrying about it won't change the outcome. And yet my personality type makes me worry nonetheless. The prize, by the way, for keeping your licence clean is slightly more affordable car insurance and retaining your job with an employer that demands clean licences for being retained on the contract. Well, it is in my case. And it was the best day job I've had in a while too (authorised freebies from many of the factories we pick up from and generous expenses package).

I'm still using a variety of street atlases. I tried a Satnav when they first appeared, and got sick of it trying to send me the wrong way down one way streets, or that incessant "perform a U turn when safe to do so" that completely belittled the feat that performing this act would have entailed pulling a forty foot trailer through congested city streets. I went back to the atlases and my Father inherited his first Satnav. I am aware that updates mean that Satnavs will become more up to date. I also know you can get add ons to cater for people driving heavy/tall/wide/long vehicles, but I've seen too many lorries stuck under bridges or wedged in back lanes to be feeling like trying any time soon. At the company where I currently work, there is a tale of one hapless driver who when following the Satnav to the postcode of an abattoir in Preston, discovered the hard way that the Satnav thought the postcode was at the end of a narrow road that went nowhere leaving the lorry requiring a crane to remove the trailer back onto real roads. Using street atlases also means I can visualise my route better and work out best ways to approach a destination given I can clearly see the surrounding roads. It also allows quick on-the-fly calculations of best and safe routes to do a U turn if I either miss a turning or have to find another way to reach a destination because of roadworks, illegally parked cars and other such irritants. Maps also mean that I pay attention to my surroundings and roadsigns far more than a little screen and nagging voice more reminiscent of the lamer Gameboy games I remember from the early 1990s than an alleged 'help' to finding my way. Then again, I hate a lot of technology - which is probably a bit odd for some-one who writes science-fiction. I still buy music on LP, and drive an old car because I fear complex autoelectrics that come with newer vehicles.

Today on the A580 I reached the stop line in lane 1 at a box juction that has one of these red light Gatso cameras just as the lights turned to amber. I was doing 20 (in a 50 zone) and had a vehicle too heavy to safely stop without skidding or shifting its load (around 30 tons gross vehicle weight) so continued, as the lights were amber. The lorry in front slowed on the junction, appearing to miss a gear change, forcing me to slow and the lights would have been on red by the time the trailer wheels passed over the trigger loops. The camera flashed twice, however there was a Mercedes in lane 2 going it some who clearly did run the red light as he would have been way behind me when I entered the junction who could have been the reason the camera activated. I'm rather annoyed at this, having had a clean licence since I passed my test in 1997. However having searched all information I can find on the internet, I can find no reference to how the cameras deal with vehicles that have more than two axles (mine had five - two on the tractor unit, and three under the trailer) as how does it know that these are the same vehicle as opposed to two separate vehicles? I also cannot find anything that says whether the camera knows which lane the vehicle running the lights was in. Given the Mercedes passed at warp speed and my trailer was a tall reefer that would have obscured the car from the camera, would there be any evidence recorded to prove that the picture of the rear of my vehicle was in a different lane from the vehicle running the light? All the sites I can find are assuming that you are in a car and not a very long lorry. I tend to be a worrier, and it may be that a human operative looks at the pictures first and discounts those that clearly would have activated the Gatso with rear axles on a long trailer, or have been activated by a vehicle in another lane that may not show properly in the picture. However it isn't nice having the sword of Damocles dangling over my clean licence for the next month just in case the fuzz decide to shaft me anyway. Can anyone provide any enlightenment over the way these things actually work and dish out points and fines?

How long did the real ones last, and did any pass into departmental service? It looks a very nice model; it's good to see that Hornby do occasionally bring out a model to rival Bachmann's otherwise dominance of the RTR market for modellers. I await the iron ore hopper with anticipation too.

I recently visited into this shop, as I was in the Bradford area and took the opportunity to pop in. It is easy to find, and offers ample free parking (large enough that I turned and fitted a 44ton articulated lorry there so a car should pose no issues) which is something that has made several other shops I have passed on my travels awkward or impossible to visit. It had a very extensive range of stuff, including all the useful little bits and pieces that are usually not carried by the larger box shifters. I bought a number of their specially commissioned Bachmann wagons (TTA tanker and private owner open) as I feel it is important to support retailers prepared to go to the risk of committing to a limited edition. The open wagon ('Charles Sinclair') is lettered for return to L&Y making it a nice companion in my display cabinet for my NRM GCR 8K. Just a satisfied customer.

I've just had delivered mail order three wagons. Excellent quick service, with postage charged at cost (well under the standard flat rates from other shops I've seen). The wagons were 33-177T/U/V specially commissioned for the shop from Bachmann. The wagons themselves are well weathered, looking like a little more thought has been applied to the process than just leaving them downwind of an airbrush. Just a satisfied customer.

You can see where they ran out of weedkiller on the weedkilling train! Where is that? I presume somewhere in South America where things grow really fast. You have to have faith heading into all that, that no-one's had it away in the night with the track. It reminds me a little of this location (third picture down)

Is hooters the place where all the waitresses are dressed as if on their way to a wet t-shirt competition? It's a while since I last went to Florida. I did the Disney thing, and found it all right though extortionately expensive. Epcot Centre struck me as a waste of time, but MGM studios and the Magic Kingdom were great fun. We also did Universal studios (brilliant place) and Busch Gardens where I made myself rather ill on too many rollercoasters. I realised that rollercoasters must come as very expensive off-the-shelf kits, as the one that was called 'the Scorpion' was in fact identical to the one they have at Camalot theme park near Chorley. One restaurant that stood out was a place called (IIRC) 'Bronco Billies' and was a barbecued hunks of meat type place all themed with a Wild West type show. It reminded me a little of Medieval themed banquets I've been to, but in a Western style. Well worth it if it is still there in Orlando. I have relatives who live over in Tampa Bay and we spent a lot of time over there. They took us to all the places the locals go to, and we spent a lot less the week we were there eating at restaurants that were just as good or better than those on the tourist trail. We also spent a lot of time on some very nice quiet beaches that the tourists don't seem to know about. Steer clear of Hard Rock Cafés as they are as much a rip off there as they are anywhere else in the world.

Bad news indeed. I hate Sky, and refuse to subscribe to it to keep watching. I also dislike watching edited highlights, preferring the full race every time. Just as F1 gets interesting again, Ecclestone's greed steps in to ruin it for the fans. As I have most Grand Prix recorded to DVD from the last six years, and a few I salvaged of older VHS recordings going back to 1996, I may just throw in the towel watching new races and re-run some old seasons instead that I haven't seen in a while. Olivier Panis on the podium in Monaco looking shell-shocked anyone?

I have my Grandmother's old WRAC uniform in my wardrobe, and it's amazing just how much it ticks all the boxes for that. Such a shame that all the UK armed forces and services except the RAF seem to have jumped on the unisex uniform bandwagon. Though I suppose their principal aims do not include making their females members look hot and sexy. I miss: The top 40 charts being worth buying into. Actually, I miss singles in general on an actual physical disk being widely available. When all this download nonsense turned up I pretty much stopped buying music except for the odd album I find. Old Jamaica chocolate bars School dinners - I loved industrial strength catering. Affordable bus fares - when I was young I remember 17p used to take you pretty much anywhere the bus was going, no questions asked. A time before mobile phones when I couldn't be mithered all day long by idiots trying to waste my time from a distance. Decent underwear readily available. This seems to have gone hand in hand with a drive by business/society to unisex everything.

All the hauliers I have had dealings with who run such vehicles have a means to fill them on site, rather than relying on places on the road. It did make for an interesting trip a couple of years ago though when doing a trip from Bolton to Newport South Wales to find that the previous driver hadn't filled the tank properly; it isn't like you can do a splash and dash at the services with one of those things. These days fuel prices are so steep that the average truck driver will get paid less to drive a lorry than the value of diesel it will use over the same period.

I hate "new and improved" because, logically, something can either be new, or improved; it cannot be both at the same time. Usually it is used referred to my favourite food stuffs, which means I will no longer like them.

We realised much the same that we ought to identify people in photos before it was too late, and have been able to piece together at least some names of people and locations in old family photos. There are a lot of faces who no-one knows who they are, though the family resemblance means they must be related. The trouble is that for a lot of the really old (1920s and before) pictures nobody in them is still alive. Luckily my grandparents' and great grandpaprents' wedding pictures were thoughtfully annotated on the back with who was who as well as the colours of the dresses, which has been a great help. Learning from the mistakes, I now leave clues as to the people in current family photos in the filenames for the benefit of future generations.

Some superb pictures! Some of my own taken many years ago when I first bought a digital camera (around 1998)

Futurama was a surprise cancellation. However those morons at Fox that fired the planetary express crew were themselves fired. Then beaten quite badly. *ahem* The films that follows were pretty good though, and it did come back. The A-team and Quantum Leap are two that I would have liked to see run longer. Although rewatching season 5 of the A-team, I can now appreciate that its quality had slipped by the end.

It looks totally wrong without frames or wheels. But then I have occasionally been caught counting rivets, so what do I know?

When I had mine done the boffin that surveyed it claimed we had to even take up the boarding too - a task that proved impossible because of the way they were fastened down. Luckily the fitters who arrived were more realistic and laid the insulation over the top (tucking it in thoroughly at the eaves so that it didn't create a wind tunnel under the insulation). My Father was in the "my loft is too full of $h!t£" category and he baulked at the effort of moving it all, electing to forego extra insulation. I think the grants are being phased out though aren't they? If anyone here does qualify for them, now would be an excellent time to apply. From application to doing was less than a week for here, because the insulation company had so little work on. I did not realise it still got made? If it is old stock it must be equivalent to one star petrol or worse by now as the octane slowly evaporates and water gets absorbed into it. Are you sure it isn't LRP dressed up as what it replaced? Put it in a modern car at your peril though - it will destroy the cat and those things are rather expensive to be replacing any more than you have to. And don't get me started on the pollution caused by mining and processing the rare metals that go in them... It would have been far greener to have invested in improving fuel economies of newer engines instead. But of course, the pollution is released in places other than Europe, so politicians can pretend that it makes Europe greener.