luckymucklebackit

The only way to pull off a lockdown afternoon 'quickie' with their 8-year old son in the apartment was to send him out on the balcony with a Mars Bar and tell him to report on all the street activities. He began his commentary as his parents put their plan into operation: 'There's a car being towed from the car park,' he shouted. 'An ambulance just drove by!' 'Looks like the Andersons are breaking lockdown, they have company,' he called out. 'Matt's out on his bike and his mum is telling him off' 'Looks as if the Sanders are going into full isolation!' 'Jason has had his skate board taken off him!' After a few moments he announced, 'The Coopers are having sex!!' Startled, his mum and dad shot up in bed! Dad cautiously called out, 'How do you know they're having sex?' 'Jimmy Cooper is standing on his balcony with a Mars Bar.' Jim

On the Turning Away - Pink Floyd

I had to look that one up too! Jim

Sadly around the time I was applying for jobs in the railways, that important question "Does your Father work for the Railway" still had a lot of weight behind it, and I had to honestly reply - no! Jim

Once went for an interview at Marylebone for a Student Sponsorship Position with BR. Interview was at 10am so I got the overnight sleeper from Glasgow which was due in to Euston around 6am, so plenty of time for breakfast and a walk to the venue. Woke up with the train stopping at a station about 5am and thought could be possibly Rugby - to my horror it was Preston! The copper fairies had been out that night and caused major signalling problems between Carlisle and Preston so we were running about 4 hours late. The train made up some time but it was still a sprint along Euston Road to make the interview on time, but I was ill prepared so I flunked it! Jim

I worked in a steel tube mill for many years and part of my job was to review customer specifications. Shell once submitted one for linepipe for the north sea, it specified the OD, Bore and Wall Thickness with a tolerance for each and if you rolled these pipes to the maximum wall thickness allowed, even if you were at maximum OD then you would be out of spec for the Bore. We always rolled to maximum wall Thickness in order to be able to grind away surface defects and still be in tolerance, so it went back to Shell for alterations Jim

And I thought the opening to Shine on you Crazy Diamond held the record for the longest sustained note. Jim

A chance Google of something completely unrelated brought back a memory of Sunday School Xmas Parties and the games that we were encouraged to play, some of which would not be tolerated in today's society. The one that I particularly remembered was "The Farmer Wants a Wife", which started off innocently enough following the old nursery rhyme with someone being picked as the farmer, then the wife etc etc. At the end of the versions of the nursery rhyme I have seen it ends up "pat on the bone" - not in our Sunday School, the victim picked as the bone was usually the weakest, most likely to be Bulleid child and you didn't want it to be you, as the last couple of verses were "The Bone wont break" followed by "hammer on the bone" at which stage the bone (victim) was pummelled mercilessly on the back until the last verse "the bone ran away" where if the victim was still standing was chased round the hall by a baying horde!! Oh what fun we had! Jim

And how many people in the UK can tell the difference between England, the United Kingdom and the British Isles? Jim

The Rain Song - Led Zeppelin

My daughter has fallen out with her boyfriend after seeing him packing washing powder on to shelves in Tesco's . She said: You told me you were a stunt pilot? He says: No. I said I was part of the Ariel display team!

Take it the stud contact guys were described as "splitters" Jim

As Uniroyal were part of the Continental group they obviously stuck to known advertising themes

My mate bet me £10 I couldn't do a Butterfly impression. I thought, that's worth a little flutter A week ago, my mother-in-law began reading "The Exorcist". However, She said it was the most evil book she'd ever read. So evil, in fact, she couldn't finish it and she wanted it out the house immediately, so she took it down to the beach and threw it as far as she could into the sea So the next day I went and bought another copy, left it soaking in the sink for a while then left it on her bedside table..... Jim

Does this regrading now mean that DCC will be known as UGG! (Which many people struggling to fit a decoder already know) Jim

Was watching a new TV documentary last night "Reported Missing", which as the title suggests follow the police investigation when a person is reported as missing by their relatives. This particular show followed the investigation of an ex-services chap which went missing form his home in Warrington. Much of the investigation centred around him boarding a train to head to Scotland at Bank Quay station and there were various CCTV shots of voyagers and pendos. For reasons best known to himself the producer then inserted views that were clearly of Crewe (which never had any mention in the story), one from the heritage centre signalbox looking south , and another general view of the station. Another case of "its only a railway station, nobody will know" Jim

Is the answer not, anything you like, he cant hear you? Jim

Hi all - I am delighted to say that work has begun on the re-incarnated Gateside and Northbridge! There have been a few false starts as initially it was to be in the loft, then in a shed in the garden and finally back in the loft. The problem has been access to the loft and a distinct lack of height up there, but I have persevered and most of the boards are now down. The plan is to have the same basic idea of Gateside as the Glasgow end of the layout and Northbridge as the Edinburgh end. Unfortunately after drawing up and discarding a few more complicated trackplans I have had to do without Mavisbank, but to compensate there are a few new features. Allanshaw and it's cradle will now become an intrinsic part of the layout and there will also be another "Spacesaver" type shunting yard - I plan a lot more freight operations as the old layout was run with passenger trains only 95% of the time. Many lessons have been learned from the last layout, it will all be on the one level, no hidden tracks, no inaccessible pointwork, no complicated pointwork, better quality wire used. The whole thing is also being planned as one big project, although it will be split into smaller schemes for track laying and scenics. Here is the basic plan, excuse the quality it was drawn using old fashioned pencils and set squares, scanned then modified using Microsoft Paint This view down the length of the loft shows how cramped it is! Allenshaw partially reassembled in its new home, lot of work to do to the yard as it was originally designed to be worked from the rear. Great to be back modelling!! Cheers Jim

Cue the resumption of the argument catch vs trap......

You might be quick Mr Fox but that's not a lazy dog!

And there I was thinking D8000 was a class 20, after all these years it turns out to be a class 24 in disguise! Jim

The National Library of Scotland have created a new area on their website for railway related material https://maps.nls.uk/transport/railways/ This includes railway company maps and many plans from 1806 - 1930 Jim

Just seen some of the new puppets for the return of Spitting Image, I think this one captures it's subject perfectly Jim

Dansicality - Even the spell checker says it doesn't exist, and there seem to be plenty more "calities" doing the rounds

Here is Greenfoot in all its glory, with Garnqueen North