Black Marlin

Alcohol, mostly...

Greetings all, and hello to Jason Isaacs / Jeremy Irons. Back to work, having safely achieved what I needed to achieve at the end of last week. First aid refresher training today. Because my company's affiliated with OPITO, who are a bit paranoid on the subject, my company (which has fewer than 60 employees) has 3 first-aiders, all of whom receive refresher training every 3 months. The training involves a lot of role-playing; apparently I make an excellent victim. I've also filled in last week's timesheet. This may sound like a minor undertaking but it's not, as we use a piece of software about as user-friendly as a shark with toothache. However, for reasons of internal politics (and, I suspect, managerial fear), we're not allowed to record 'time spent filling in my timesheet' in our timesheets, which means that those members of staff blighted with completing the wretched things are receiving first-class practical instruction in creative accounting. Best wishes to all as would like them. Tinkety-tonk, etc. Gavin

Afternoon all, and hello to Jason Isaacs / Jeremy Irons. A most peculiar day so far. This morning, instead of heading to church, I went to Crathes Castle, which is just up the road from me. The Antiques Roadshow is there today, and I decided to take along my great-grandfather's compass. It's both pretty and unusual. Instead of a needle moving about a dial, the whole dial rotates. Half of the dial is black; the other is mother-of-pearl. My great-grandfather bought it sometime in the 1910s before he emigrated to Canada; he brought it back with him when he returned in the 1930s (on the SS Athenia, which gained a subsequent notoriety as the first Allied ship sunk by a U-boat in WW2). I queued for several hours before presenting it to Richard Price, the Roadshow's clocks and watches experts. What would he make of it? What would he say about the unusual dial and its mother-of-pearl trimmings? What consideration would he give to its connection to the infamous Athenia? Here's the compass: And here's what he said: "Quite pretty. Worth about... £10 - £15." Rats. No early retirement for me then. Gavin

I look forward, come Brexit, to being Schrodinger's EU citizen.

A fringe benefit to being Northern Irish...

Note to self: politely refuse all invitations for 'cocktails' at the Stationmaster's Stationhouse. I can resist everything except temptation (as was famously said by a man who went to extraordinary lengths to change his accent!) Morning all; just on my way out to mortar the patio. That ought to keep the neighbours' heads down...

Good morning Tony. I suspect you find these accents incomprehensible due to their unfamiliarity. Glasgow is a good example; Aberdeen (particularly 'the Doric') is another. If you haven't heard them before, they may throw you until you 'get your ear in', so to speak. But... We have all heard you. For a very long time everyone on television talked like you. We've been exposed to your dialect and have grown accustomed to it; you have not heard ours and so are bemused. My point is that the way you speak is not inherently more comprehensible than other any version of English; it's just that yours is a more familiar patois thanks to a century of effort by the BBC and others. The appearance of regional accents onscreen is a belated effort to redress the balance, and should be welcomed* as both a recognition of the equal cultural validity of different parts of the UK and as an attempt to eliminate a longstanding bias. The Scottish poet James Robertson highlighted this in most amusing fashion by highlighting the difference between 'the news' and 'the news where you are'... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhL57cjN8xY Regards, Gavin *There is an extremely long and lamentable history of a particular kind of colonising linguistic influence at work in 'the regions', spreading from the south of England (as the centre of political and economic strength); in my native Northern Ireland this is an extremely live topic, as the issue of recognising local language has prevented the power-sharing executive from reforming since it collapsed. One notable historical fact is that the British all but eradicated Gaelic as working language in the north of Ireland in only 40 years. But discussing the power dynamics at play in linguistic homogenisation comes perilously close to breaking RMWeb's 'no politics' rule, so I shall tiptoe away from it again! edit: I posted this before I noted the stop to the discussion requested above. I shall leave it in place, simply because I think the points in it are worth making (and the youtube video is genuinely funny), but I have no desire to continue the discussion in the face of Tony's request to stop. My post was not made in defiance of that request but in ignorance of it! My apologies, Tony.

Greetings all, and hello to Jason Isaacs from a quite frankly ludicrously warm Aberdeenshire. People are audibly crackling as they go about their daily business. End of week and end of month; many, many projects to shepherd across the finish line this afternoon. However, modelling supplies have been received and I look forward to putting them to use this weekend. After spending months building bridges, I turn my attention to tunnels; apparently a change is as good as a rest. I've also got some DIY-ery to do in the morning, so a trip to B&Homewickes on the way home should see me right. I shall be mixing mortar and re-fixing the bricks on the patio steps. I also need to visit the Post Office: selling old but brand-new pointwork on eBay has proved surprisingly successful and netted me £80 in the last month. Kindly thoughts to them as would like them. Tinkety-tonk, etc. Gavin

Old? I'm 34! Fragile? I'm 6'4" and was previously employed knocking people's heads together (legally)! (Indeed, TW has suggested such an approach may pay dividends with the more intractable members of an MRC but I have gently demurred....)

My job title is 'Senior Quality Engineer'. As a result, I can confirm that 'quality', when used as an adjective, means 'good'; this is why I consider myself my company's Senior Awesome Engineer...!

With my linguist's hat on, I would - without comment! - observe that 'the Queen's English' or 'RP English' is, itself, merely another dialect, with no more claim to being 'the national language' than any other; in fact, given its comparative newness, its claim to be 'how English ought properly to be spoken' should be viewed as extremely suspect. A last fun fact for you: English is the language of Wordsworth who, in at least one poem, rhymes 'matter' with 'water' - because in his dialect, that was perfectly appropriate!

Good morning Tony! An excellent question. It should be 'may'. This is for two reasons. Firstly, 'it may be' is present tense. Thus we can eliminate one use of 'might', as the past tense of 'may' (although getting into tense issues with modal verbs in English is something of a minefield anyway!). This brings us to the second reason. Both 'may' and 'might' represent expressions of probability. Since something that 'may' happen is more likely to occur than something that 'might' happen, 'may' is the correct word in this instance, as it is very likely that improved electrical connectivity will improve a model's performance. Regards, Gavin

Actually, it may be important for a model but for a totally different reason: increasing the electrical footprint will assist smoother running. /end pedant mode...

Greetings all, and hello to Jason Isaacs. This morning,as I read about various dental woes while chewing on my toast, a filling came out. This is more trouble than might be expected, as half the tooth went with it; no pain, but a potentially troublesome dentist's bill coming... Today will require the girding of loins as one of our course-writers (not to be confused with a coarse writer) made a mistake in their work, which I then corrected, and then they changed it back again. As I am the final arbiter on grammar, this is the sort of thing that drives me up the wall, as it'll take 15 minutes to explain why I'm right and they're not - and that's 15 minutes I ought to be using to achieve other things. Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to do battle I go... Tinkety-tonk, etc. Gavin

A wonderful bird is the pelican. His bill can hold more than his belly can. He can keep in his beak Enough food for a week But I'm damned if I know how the hell he can.

Greetings all, and hello to Jason Isaacs. Payday! Which means bills day. But also e-transfer of modelling vouchers day! Orders placed, ready for delivery at work (coz I'm not a mug); I look forward to further modelling. I sat for an hour last night, looking at the baseboard; I did nothing with it at all, as I just couldn't think straight. The howls of protest I alluded to in my last missive have been put on hold: the likely howler-in-chief is on his holidays. This means the howls have been kicked two weeks down the road. Those who report in to him feel as thought they are on holiday too. 'Tis a suspiciously quiet end-of-month so far. I suspect that this means everything I have to deal with before Friday will arrive on my desk on Thursday and there will then be a mad panicky scramble to work through it. When I first started work here 5 years ago I was a member of a 5-person team; now I am that team, and there is absolutely nothing I can do to alleviate the bottlenecking that inevitably results. Still, at least the aircon is working for once. Kind wishes for them as wants them. Tinkety-tonk, etc. Gavin

That's interesting - I'd not heard that before. Although I'd have thought that 'gin and tonics' would be preferable, if only to avoid the potential for confusion in differentiating 'gins and tonic' from 'a double gin and tonic'? In any case, the solution is easy enough: avoid pluralising altogether. "I had a gin and tonic. And then another. And then one after that, and then a couple more to keep them company, and then one to lead a rescue party of a few more to find out where the first ones had got to - and that, darling, is why you found me under the table later, clinging on to the floor for balance."

I don't think I've ever even heard of anyone reaching the age of 'saventry' before...

I've just returned from a holiday in Elstal, in Germany, and I saw a couple of species worthy of note: a swallowtail, a pair of Queen of Spain fritillaries, and - the real prize, this one - a Scarce Copper. Which was an extraordinarily beautiful creature, which I totally failed to photograph!

Morning all, and hello to Jason Isaacs. Spent a couple of hours working on the baseboard yesterday evening - the first time I've done any baseboard construction since...err...2005 or thereabouts. Open frame has many, many benefits, but the amount of measuring, cutting, gluing and screwing is significant! Today, in work, I quietly killed a project that should never have got as far as it did. I await the howls of protest with interest. Payday soon - I have the Hattons basket ready and waiting...! Best wishes to them as needs. Tinkety-tonk, etc. Gavin

Ah! Here I can help. It should be 'Thane of Fifes', in exactly the same way that multiple models of 60007 are 'Sir Nigel Gresleys' rather than 'Sirs Nigel Gresley'. But if you really, really dislike the pluralisation (and I know you've said before that it just sounds wrong, which is a perfectly legitimate argument), simply refer to 'the number of 60505s you've built'. Regards, Gavin

Hello to Jason Isaacs. I have returned from a holiday in Germany bearing yet more bridges. I know it seems like that's literally all I do (to be honest, it seems to me that that's all I do) but it's such a fundamental requirement of this baseboard that I have no choice but to get on with it! So three Noch bridges (two large box girder bridges with - counterintuitively - an 'approach bridge' to go in the middle) form the chasm-crossing section of the Down Slow line. Given that they're steel structures, I might pick up a section of Peco steel-sleepered FB track to fit in them. Any suggestions on how those sleepers ought to be weathered? I've been using 'sleeper grime' elsewhere; it is this appropriate here too? The other purchase was a set of 6 Faller viaduct piers. The Oykish Viaduct requires 4, which leaves two for the box girder bridge, supporting the transitions between the 'box girder bridges' and the 'approach bridge'. Cunning, eh? I returned home to find a nice bundle of packages awaiting me. The PLA train mentioned in the previous post is here! The Janus in particular looks very neat - smaller than I was expecting, and quite characterful. And the big news - I have started building! The first baseboard is currently in the throes of construction in the lean-to. When I have more of it assembled, I will post pics. I'm particularly looking forward to being able to display trains in their respective positions. I will just have the metre-long twin-track Up & Down Fast bridge to construct, and that will be that for this end of the layout - there won't be another bridge for another...err...30'. That said, I don't yet know what that twin-track bridge will look like. Back to my book on British railway bridges, methinks...

Greetings all (and hello to Jason Isaacs). I'm back from Germany, where I was holidaying and visiting family who live there, in the small town of Elstal. A most excellent trip: several species of butterfly sighted that I had never seen before (including marbled whites, queen of spain fritillaries, swallowtails and - a real prize, this one - a scarce copper); some Noch bridges bought for the Down Slow line on Girtby Sea; a visit to the psychotropically weird Karls Strawberry outlet (if you can eat it, they will make it with strawberry flavour. Strawberry mustard, strawberry horseradish... and at the door we were greeted by a lifesize animatronic horse in dungarees that sang at us);and a visit to the Luftwaffe museum, where they have, among other things, a Messerschmitt Me-163 Komet and an Ilyushin Il-28 Beagle. The commentary on the exhibits was generally very good, although the statement that the RAF's bombing made no contribution to ending the war did raise my eyebrows. And now for an afternoon spent cutting, screwing and gluing timber to make the first railway baseboard beckons. This board will be 4' by 4'. Which sounds good, until I remember that the railway will be 40' by 20', and it's just me working on it... Tinkety-tonk, etc. Gavin

Home from work, in a breezy and bright Aberdeenshire, and heading out for a pizza dinner later with a friend from the office. Because of the nature of our individual responsibilities, his work is required to cross my desk (several times) and I am required to highlight and correct any errors I find in it. That we get on at all is extraordinary; that we voluntarily see one another outside normal working hours is little short of miraculous. It helps that we share leisure interests - he is a very keen fly fisherman,and while my ardour for the pastime is not as all-consuming I can at least cast a fly with reasonable accuracy - and a vaguely similar background (ex-Forces, though different services). From the weekend on my ability to access t'interweb shall be curtailed for a few days, but fear not, ERs; assuming I don't disgrace myself or have my ER privileges revoked in the interim I will return, like MacArthur wading up the beach in one of history's most glorious...err...photo-ops. And now, to sign off in the words of HRH the Queen Mother when she concluded her private correspondence: "Tinkety-tonk, old fruits, and down with the Nazis". Edited to add: Please, Olddudders, you have no idea how much I look forward to continuing episodes in the saga I have taken to calling 'Song of the Sarthe' (although I confess I am a little confused as to whether or not there's a difference between Tom and Francois), so should the mood take you, I hope that I and everyone else can benefit from the exercise of your observational and narrative talents!

Blimey, your dentist doesn't mess around. Reminds me of a wonderful line from an essay by GK Chesterton (on the subject of playing croquet badly): "'But', said I, caressing him affectionately about the head with a mallet..."