johnd Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 Is making babies a hobby? I thought hobbies were supposed to pleasurable. Not a few minutes of pleasure followed by eighteen+ years of hassle and hardship. Only 18 years. Your lucky if it's that so few years Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted January 10, 2018 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 10, 2018 Only 18 years. Your lucky if it's that so few years In Andys defence he did put a + sign in there, otherwise I'd wholeheartedly agree! Mike. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium newbryford Posted January 10, 2018 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 10, 2018 Only 18 years. Your lucky if it's that so few years Just coming up to 21 and still counting....... Cheers, Mick 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Storey Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 Just coming up to 21 and still counting....... Cheers, Mick Yep. I ran out of fingers and toes on counting the days when puberty, hormones and all that, would retreat in favour of a rational being, before becoming a grandparent after 30 years (which was fine in itself - I don't believe teen mothers have a greater advantage in life overall, but I stand to be corrected on that of course). The great side effect was that I was suddenly talking to an adult (my daughter) about serious stuff, and now a second is on the way, even more serious, like schools, health care and sh1t. So, in the scheme of things, discussing whether or not this is a serious Guinness record or a model railway, or even a real reflection of what it actually took to make this completely daft, but highly enjoyable, programme, is pretty low down the order of serious stuff. I have spent the best part of a short afternoon, helping a really gifted, but part-lunatic, railway modeller, erect (ooh- missus) his extraordinary creation in an old furniture factory in the middle of western rural France. Now that's daft, and incredibly challenging, and it is most certainly a toy train layout. But one of the best toy train layouts I have ever seen (incredible is the adjective I would use). However, it is not a train set, because he forgot to bring the trains with him, so I will await the correct description from those that clearly have authority in these matters...... 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium PhilJ W Posted January 10, 2018 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 10, 2018 That attracted my curiosity too. Since the first most popular hobby is defintely potentially making babies that's impressive if true. I remember, many, many years ago, hearing (or reading) something to that effect. The second most popular hobby in the UK. At that time, the most popular hobby was said to be angling. I thought the most popular hobby was sitting on a riverbank in the cold pouring rain teaching a worm to swim. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoff Endacott Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 Nowadays the most popular hobby is winding people up online. Geoff Endacott Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dibber25 Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 I thought the most popular hobby was sitting on a riverbank in the cold pouring rain teaching a worm to swim. That data is about 50 years old. It was said in the 1960s that railway modelling was second only to angling. Can't imagine either is so well supported these days as there are so many alternatives. Back then, I think hobbies like golf were treated separately, as sports, and I doubt that making babies was classed as either sport or hobby! (CJL) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium newbryford Posted January 10, 2018 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 10, 2018 That data is about 50 years old. It was said in the 1960s that railway modelling was second only to angling. Can't imagine either is so well supported these days as there are so many alternatives. Back then, I think hobbies like golf were treated separately, as sports, and I doubt that making babies was classed as either sport or hobby! (CJL) Watching overpaid prima donnas kick a bladder full of air may be the #1 "hobby" these days. I only know three guys that teach worm swimming, but loads who spend (mostly) Saturday afternoons in the cold Cheers, Mick Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
durham light infantry Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 Is making babies a hobby? I thought hobbies were supposed to pleasurable. Not a few minutes of pleasure followed by eighteen+ years of hassle and hardship. My stepkids are 32 and 30 and causing no end of hassle and hardship, with no1 son being particularly arsey at the moment. With Dad (83) dying at the moment after 15 years of being problematic at the best, I am glad of the small and brief moments of pleasure my hobby gives me. Who thought being middle aged would be so stressful? Mike Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pacific231G Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 "......That attracted my curiosity too. Since the first most popular hobby is defintely potentially making babies that's impressive if true....." Would explain why railway modellers tend to be elderly then. Also surprised at the assertation that modelling is the 2nd most popular hobby especially if so many of us do not admit to it. Leaving aside mammalian funtions, I'm boringly assuming that the most popular hobby is gardening (though I suspect some of that is akin to regarding vacuuming as a hobby) Looking around WHS, the hobbies (defined widely) with multiple titles. include gardening, photography, computers, full size railways and model railways, aviation. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jol Wilkinson Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 Nowadays the most popular hobby is winding people up online. Geoff Endacott I enjoyed Alan Bennett's comment in his collection of diaries "Keep On Keeoing On" and which I think is more apposite. ""It's good to talk" is the most specious and misleading injunction since "All you need is love". It has prompted millions of opinionated and empty headed people to take to the internet and regale the world with their fatuities". Winding people up online suggests a mischievous intent. I think many people don't get that far along a thought process, just hit the keyboard with the first "clever" thought they have. I prefer the word pastime to hobby "an activity that is done for enjoyment". Something that requires a bit of effort, rather than a pacific, inactive or mindless soaking up of what others people present you (often for a commercial end). Now, Is that a wind up or a thought provoking comment? 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobby Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 Leaving aside mammalian funtions, I'm boringly assuming that the most popular hobby is gardening (though I suspect some of that is akin to regarding vacuuming as a hobby) Looking around WHS, the hobbies (defined widely) with multiple titles. include gardening, photography, computers, full size railways and model railways, aviation. Cars take up a fair chunk of the stands as well... Not just the What Car type but lots of manufacturer specific (I think there's 6+ mags each for Ford and VW for instance) and Classics... 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobby Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 I prefer the word pastime to hobby "an activity that is done for enjoyment". According to the online dictionary Hobby is a synonym of Pastime and the definitions are pretty much the same... Pastime sounds better though, more relaxed! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Colin_McLeod Posted January 11, 2018 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 11, 2018 Now, Is that a wind up or a thought provoking comment? Yes of course it is. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold chriswright03 Posted January 11, 2018 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 11, 2018 According to the online dictionary Hobby is a synonym of Pastime and the definitions are pretty much the same... Pastime sounds better though, more relaxed! So are you going to change your user name then? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobby Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 Walked into that one, didn't I! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted January 11, 2018 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 11, 2018 Pastime sounds better though, more relaxed! Too close to past it for my liking! Mike. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pacific231G Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 I prefer the word pastime to hobby "an activity that is done for enjoyment". Something that requires a bit of effort, rather than a pacific, inactive or mindless soaking up of what others people present you (often for a commercial end). Now, Is that a wind up or a thought provoking comment? My OED defines pastime as "1. a pleasant recreation or hobby 2. sport or game." but hobby as "a favourite leisure-time activity or occupation." So hobby seems to be a bit more serious and probably does imply some level of commitment. Walking may be one of my pastimes; it's certainly not one of my hobbies though for others it might be. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium PhilJ W Posted January 11, 2018 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 11, 2018 Leaving aside mammalian funtions, I'm boringly assuming that the most popular hobby is gardening (though I suspect some of that is akin to regarding vacuuming as a hobby) Looking around WHS, the hobbies (defined widely) with multiple titles. include gardening, photography, computers, full size railways and model railways, aviation. I still take a couple of classic vehicle magazines as I once owned a 'classic' van. It ended up mouldering on the drive due to lack of facilities to restore it so I sold it on. Cars take up a fair chunk of the stands as well... Not just the What Car type but lots of manufacturer specific (I think there's 6+ mags each for Ford and VW for instance) and Classics... But how many readers/purchasers of those magazines are active in the pastimes that the magazines promote? Many, including model railways require skills and abilities that very few of us have in total. We all have some skills but other skills are like a dark art. For example I am quite happy to build scenery but mention electrics and I am lost. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted January 11, 2018 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 11, 2018 For example I am quite happy to build scenery but mention electrics and I am lost. Go DCC, it's only two wires dontcha know? Mike. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pacific231G Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 (edited) Slightly I still take a couple of classic vehicle magazines as I once owned a 'classic' van. It ended up mouldering on the drive due to lack of facilities to restore it so I sold it on. But how many readers/purchasers of those magazines are active in the pastimes that the magazines promote? Many, including model railways require skills and abilities that very few of us have in total. We all have some skills but other skills are like a dark art. For example I am quite happy to build scenery but mention electrics and I am lost. Typically fewer than half seems to be a general rule of thumb but "active in the pastime" may be difficult to define. Back in 1989, when Desktop Publishing was the coming thing, I made some programmes about self-publishing and one of my subjects was David Hewson, former features editor of "The Independent", who was launching a new magazine called "Flyer" for private pilots. He was producing it from his own home and that was what made it relevant to my programme, but his research suggested that fewer than half of the potential readership would be people holding or training for a pilots licence. The rest would either be wannabees or people with a general "informed spectator" interest in flying. "Flyer" proved successful, at the time its main competitor was a bit stodgy, is still on the shelves and the estiimated readership proved correct. General Aviation was unusual, in that the need for a licence and a current medical made active participation relatively easy to define, but I've heard similar estimates for magazines covering other pastimes including railway modelling. My occasional purchases of MRJ are not evidence of fine scale modelling Edited January 11, 2018 by Pacific231G Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Colin_McLeod Posted January 11, 2018 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 11, 2018 Slightly Typically fewer than half seems to be a general rule of thumb but "active in the pastime" may be difficult to define Are we still talking about making babies? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejstubbs Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 (edited) I eventually managed to tear myself away from the intriguing philosophical discussions about what constitutes a model railway (I was particularly intrigued by the concept of "real model track"), and people's right to hold and express opinions (or not), I eventually watched Sunday's programme last night on my PVR. (Does anyone still use these, or does everyone use catch-up these days? I couldn't have watched it on 4OD myself, because it's awful: interminable and unavoidable ad breaks - or perhaps more annoyingly, occasional ad breaks with no ads in them, so all they do is interrupt the programme for no reason.) I didn't find the programme as interesting or engaging as I'd hoped. I found the interminable harping on about "the Victorians" "failing" to build a railway up the Great Glen got annoying pretty quickly, especially since it was a fatuous simplification of what actually happened. In the context of a programme which was fundamentally about engineering - given the participation of Dick's Drawbridge, Claire Barratt and Hadrian Shouty Man (no idea why he got the biggest round of applause when introduced) - I thought it was verging on misrepresentation. It certainly wasn't fair to "the Victorians", given that it was primarily commercial and political issues that stopped it being done (after all, "The Edwardians" did build a railway from Spean Bridge as far as Fort Augustus, and then found that it lost money). So I couldn't shake off the feeling that it was based on a false premise. I thought the track idea was fairly innovative, but it seemed to be let down by the built-in track base being inadequate over even an only moderately uneven surface - witness the loco plunging off the track within minutes of setting off. I did think that the big pile of chippings/hardcore/whatever-it-was that someone was standing admiringly next to at before they started the track laying was going to be used to provide a better base for the track. Perhaps that was the original plan, but it got nixed at the last minute by the PTB. Of course what these programs are all about is showing the various different personalities and how they all meld together, or not. I was looking forward to this aspect of it, but I thought they didn't really capture it very well at all. I didn't really get a feel for personalities, and in terms of how they melded together or not all I saw was some soundbite-sized clips, not real interactions. Which brings me on to my next beef with the programme... Shouty man and the ferry (hmm, that could be a good name for band?) As far as I could tell the track laying team had tried to follow the brief given to them by Mr Drawbridge, although they had expressed concerns about the stability of the pontoon (ironic, given that the trailer for the next episode showed the "ferry" that Dick had committed to providing them with capsizing, with the loco on board!) If it was subsequently decided to adopt a different approach then that should have been shown, rather than skipping straight to Shouty Man bawling the team out for not doing it a different ("his") way. So there could have been other stuff that happened ahead of the meltdown that was edited out for some reason. What we did see was simply unacceptable "management" behaviour - it actually made me feel quite uncomfortable watching it (I'm not one of those who enjoys seeing people being made monkeys of, a la The Apprentice) . If I'd been the leader of that track laying team I'd have taken Shouty Man to one side for a word. And if that didn't work then I'd have escalated to the production team. After all, Shouty Man's actions could well have alienated a number of the volunteers to the point where they un-volunteered themselves, and without volunteers there would have been no programme. (I do wonder if the stuff that was edited out was even worse. I note that his contribution doesn't seem to be widely acknowledged on the Channel 4 web pages about the series. Could it have been one reason why the broadcast was so delayed?) The bridge was disappointing, I thought. It's been explained in this thread that they had limited materials to work with. If it was supposed to be a 'challenge' ("the team has got to build a bridge that'll carry the train safely across the canal using only three old orange boxes and a roll of gaffa tape" type of thing) then it might have made more sense. As it was, it just looked like a cock-up. All that money spent on custom-made track sections and trailers to carry it, and they couldn't afford a few more lengths of timber? If you're going to impose artificial constraints to make it more interesting then at least say so, so that the audience understands what the participants are trying to achieve and what they're up against. Overall, I'd say that it sounded like a bonkers idea when it was first mooted, but they managed to pull it off to the extent that <SPOILER> the railway got built </SPOILER> and the programme got made. I do think, from what I've seen so far, that the programme that emerged suffered from not having a clear purpose, and possibly from inadequate planning. I know that these types of programme are always edited to "tell a good story" but I'm not at all sure that this was achieved. I think it ended up as a bit of a mess that tried to be too many things at once: history lesson, social interaction study, technical challenge and light entertainment all in one. I think I'd agree with whoever said that it might have been better as three programmes rather than six: that might have focused the producers' minds a bit, and helped them to create a cohesive package rather than a here-there-and-everywhere pudding with no real substance. Judging by some of the content-free footage that did make it in to the programme, I do think quite a bit more could have been left on the cutting room floor... I'll probably record the remaining episodes but might not get round to watching them. Certainly the missus (who quite likes - or at least tolerates - Portillo, and has enjoyed programmes like The Joy of Train Sets) seemed bored with it very quickly, so it likely won't be something we'll watch together. Edited January 11, 2018 by ejstubbs 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold chriswright03 Posted January 11, 2018 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 11, 2018 I am not actually sure how you expect to get away with that review. How dare you come in here and discuss the 'actual topic;? You will not get very far on here doing stuff like that. Can't say that I find anything to disagree with though. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dibber25 Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 Leaving aside mammalian funtions, I'm boringly assuming that the most popular hobby is gardening (though I suspect some of that is akin to regarding vacuuming as a hobby) Looking around WHS, the hobbies (defined widely) with multiple titles. include gardening, photography, computers, full size railways and model railways, aviation. Well, if the floor that Model Rail editorial is on is anything to go by, (and we're all 'hobby' magazines) there's a lot of motoring, car and classic car titles, as well as walking, gardening, horses, and photography. Golf and angling are downstairs. The railway titles sit between 'Practical Fishkeeping' and..........Mother & Baby!! So, maybe the latter IS a hobby? (CJL) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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