Willie Whizz

There’s a layout with logging scenes exhibited from time to time called ‘Karolina Falls’ which still isn’t “quite” there, but is the best I’ve ever seen with real water.

I suspect it’s a residual echo of the stereotypical medical practices mocked even back in those old Fifties comedy films, where Sir Lancelot Spratt and his like only see an “interesting liver” (or whatever) and not the person it happens to be part of. Old habits die hard.

Our recent experience with Lady Whizz having two quite major medical issues requiring surgery, and almost contemporaneous, plus another non urgent matter, suggests that when you actually get it the actual ‘care’ element remains usually pretty good. What one might call the ‘admin’ element - getting you promptly in front of the right people, at the right place, at the right time, and then not having to lose an entire morning or afternoon hanging around for the different elements of what adds-up to a half-hour procedure to actually happen - is a very different story. It is these people and processes who get the NHS such a bad name, and I would tend to agree that many of them “wouldn’t last five minutes in the Private Sector” if there was any competition or proper measurement of ‘Customer Satisfaction’. The eternal cry of “More money!” is not the answer to that, in fact it merely allows poor practice to be perpetuated. [Rant Mode OFF]

And you are perfectly within your rights to do so. Just please don’t fall for the delusion that all those who take the opposing position are blind fools or evil by default. Nor that everything printed in it is automatically wrong or biased. It no more is than any other newspaper, just a different perspective. I learned long ago, with particular reference to my ‘local rag’ in the days when such papers still had some power and influence in their communities, and I was working on an important and contentious local project, that one should only ever believe that 50% of what is printed in any newspaper is actually, factually correct. The trick is, of course, deciding which 50% - and one’s own preferences are not a reliable guide to deciding.

Always makes me smile how some people love to sneer at a newspaper that has one of the highest paid-for circulation figures (print and online) in the country and regularly wins awards for the quality of its journalism. Yet the ‘right-on’ one many of those same folk allegedly love to read has to appeal for contributions to keep it afloat. Perhaps the people on those courses pass single copies around between them so as to study the public sector job ads on the cheap?

Yes, I have used that method before, but I find the screws are too visually intrusive for comfort, even if painted, except in a brake-end. And getting the nuts in the false ceiling to stay securely fixed can be a challenge in itself.

That may just be what is known as a “Lightbulb Moment”. My fear in internally detailing any carriage is always that something’ ‘detaches’ and cannot be accessed to fix without damaging the roof or contrail and/or paintwork. Thanks, I will try that!

Does that make it a Good Thing or a Bad Thing that the British Army has so few these days, then?

Apparently in the Civil Service it used to be the practice to chide an over-eager or pompous subordinate by saying: “Smithers, you have broken the Third Rule: you have taken yourself too seriously” ’Smithers’ would then typically answer: “I didn’t realise - but tell me please, so I don’t err again, what are the first two Rules?” At which the senior would give a thin smile and say: “I think that rather proves my point … “

When I explained to a teacher at school that my hobby (at the time) was stamp collecting, he looked down his nose and said: “Well if you must, you must; but remember: Philately will get you nowhere”. ALL hobbies and interests attract sneering comments by people who simply don’t ‘get it’. Our own hobby is, or should be, a broad church. If some of us prefer to wear a hair shirt while doing it, good luck to them if they enjoy it and get a lot out of it. Personally, although I do make and modify some things, I don’t have enough years left to do it all the hard way. Besides, “real” hardcore railway modelling without the use of bought-in components already fit for use has scarcely - if at all - been practiced since the early days of John Ahern and Peter Denny. Reading the letter’s books and realising what he could do with an empty cat food tin, a yard of wire and a piercing saw was impressive beyond belief; but he and his like were exceptional and no-one I’m aware of today goes to such lengths, or needs to. The times also allowed them to have simpler lives with fewer distractions, and probably (if married) wives who expected and got little by way of support in the home and with children/grandchildren. So a little less virtue-signalling and a little more realism about the realities of modern life please.

I never bothered much about the fruit, but it was some way into the 21st Century before I could bring myself to purchase either South African or (for a different reason) Argentinian wine.

Entirely agree. It is a fascinating experience to go to the area north of Lake Garda, view the terrain and the surviving Austro-Hungarian fortifications (mostly quite 'modern' at the time) and see the 1915-18 War Memorials in the towns and villages, which typically have lists of names as long as any you will find in the UK. My "other hobby" is Naval History, and it is interesting that in the last decade or so there has been a significant reassessment of the achievements of the Italian Navy in WWII. They were seriously hampered by dire top-level leadership, the fact that their ships had primarily been designed for fighting France rather than the Royal Navy (which required a very different approach), and a lack of the most modern technology (especially radar) and night-fighting training; but until serious fuel shortages began to restrict mobility in c.1942 they are now recognised as having done better at achieving their strategic goals than the RN did at its own. History sometimes takes time to overcome the memory of propaganda, especially when the propaganda was one's own country's.

Deepcar is certainly very good, and worth seeing if you haven’t already. The trouble is, being fairly local, over those four decades I must have seen it getting on two dozen times now, and it doesn’t have the underlying “charm factor” that would make me want to see it yet again. Sorry …

Isn’t that what parts of the media, especially the BBC, might define rather as ‘product placement’ I suppose? But I’d accept it probably doesn’t count as direct advertising …

Ah, deadlines … in the immortal words of Douglas Adams: “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by”.

I can happily pay a small supplier by any means they care to specify. The more common issue for me has been identifying that they exist at all and establishing what it is they sell and whether that meets my needs. We need to be careful of the distinction between a basic (but updated periodically) website - which I suggest is in this day and age highly desirable for any who is indeed a ‘small trader’ rather than just someone who will produce a dozen of something and sell you the four they don’t need themselves IF you can track them down - and a proper E-commerce ordering and payment system, which may indeed be ‘overkill’ for the size of range and amount of business they do.

I know that for some people, 100% accuracy is essential and without it any model, however good otherwise, will be fatally compromised. But I have to say that, looking at those lovely A3s, even though I knew what I was meant to be looking for, discerning the different numbers of spokes was practically impossible for me without physically putting my finger on the picture and going: “one, two, three …”. Maybe some people just worry too much for their own good.

“Proxima paragem - Cascais” if I remember the announcement correctly… It is indeed in Portugal, a few miles along the coast from Lisbon, near to Estoril. It’s a pleasant seaside resort probably unfamiliar to most big British tour companies (who only seem to know The Algarve), and with an excellent suburban railway connection to the Capital. Lisbon itself is a lovely, albeit a bit old-fashioned, city well worth the visit.

There used to be a Crownline detailing kit for the 4P which included replacement brass tank sides. I did this modification in (I think) the late 80s and was very pleased with how it turned out at the time. Unfortunately it never had much use due to my failures to complete a working layout for various “wheel of opportunity” reasons, but I still have it and with good progress now being made I hope to find out whether it still works later this year!

I was tempted into looking it up. I do wish I hadn’t; I don’t think I can un-see that in my mind’s eye now …

As an ex-bank manager who was supposed to rely on businesses’ Audited Accounts and (sometimes, when you could get them) Management Accounts as an indicator of whether we should lend (or continue to lend) them money, I will simply add that I soon lost count of the number of Customers who told me, when I asked to see their figures: “Of course, you will remember that these were written for the benefit of the Tax Man, won’t you!” The implication being that “reality” was more than somewhat rosier …

Must stress I have no knowledge of the Warley Club and it’s members (“fine body of people” I’m sure!) but as an observation of my experience in life, it is often simpler to manage employees than it is volunteers. Employees, in the end, pretty much have to do as they’re told. Volunteers feel they are fully entitled to have a mind of their own, and to use it; and if they don’t like what they’re being told to they do have an unfortunate tendency to walk out. I suppose that’s the price you may have to pay for them being ‘cheap’! In that context, let us all be grateful the wheels were kept on the Warley wagon for all those years.

A good show, well worth the trip. Seemed very crowded in the morning, but eased considerably in the afternoon. People have commented adversely about the ratio between layouts and traders at the Warley show in recent years; if anything the balance here seemed a bit the other way. Worth saying though that it wasn’t just a matter of ‘numbers’; the quality of traders seemed generally quite high and varied, and not by any means mostly ‘box-shifters’.

Not one steam locomotive in OO? Not even ONE re-run? P-poor IMHO.

Shipstones was one of the four medium-sized Nottinghamshire breweries I mentioned in an earlier post. Local deliveries used to be made until very near the end by traditional red-painted horse-drawn drays pulled by lovely white horses. It was most peculiar, because more than any other 'real ale' bitter I've ever known, the taste really did depend how well it was "kept". Go to the right pub on the right day and you would struggle to find a better pint anywhere. Catch it in the wrong pub, or on the wrong day, and it was almost as undrinkable as fizzy keg Watneys Red ...