PhilJ W

I can remember riding on a London tram c. 1951.

When my dad was told by the doctor to stop driving he handed his car keys to me and signed ownership of his car over to me. This was only two weeks before he died.

It was on Corfu where I did a bit of nude sunbathing. Me and another guy were with a group of four girls and we found a small isolated beach, the girls immediately stripped off and insisted that we men did the same.

Morning all from Estuary-Land. I woke up an hour early this morning but half of it seems to have disappeared into the ether, probably because there's no rush. Best of luck with your job application AndyRam, its about time you had some. DD, to save on the baggage allowance have you ever considered a nudist holiday? I must admit to having done a bit of nude sunbathing in my yoof. According to the weather reports its going to stay dry hereabouts today but tomorrow will make up for it with a vengance. Thats it for now, be back later.

Goodnight all.

Morning all from Estuary-Land. A bit grey here this morning but at least its stopped raining, for now. When I started working for a London Borough back in 1970 the senior management had four of everything, for example there was a Borough Treasurer, an Assistant Borough Treasurer, a Deputy Borough Treasurer and a Deputy Assistant Borough Treasurer. Four people doing a job where there was barely enough work for one, one of those concerned came in in the morning, signed a few papers then spent the rest of the day playing golf. This came about after the 1964 merger of two older boroughs to form the London Borough both of which had a Borough Treasurer and his assistant (no women involved as in 1964 it was an all male domain). This situation carried on until the late 70's when they became due for retirement, 15 years after it should have been sorted. I note that Smiffy has changed his Avatar on Facebook, that confused me a few days ago when they told me it was his birthday, I didn't recognise the handsome young fellah in his avatar so I didn't wish him happy birthday, so belated birthday wishes Smiffy. Thats it for now, be back later.

Brake lights are to indicate that you are slowing down not stopped. Like indicators are intended to show other road users that you are about to change direction not that you already are changing direction..

My dad took his PSV test on a pre-war Bristol K fitted with a 5-cylinder Gardner.

Goodnight all.

Also the overhang of the upper deck above the windscreen.

If they had been observing the traffic properly they should be aware of traffic in front of them slowing/stopping.

Theres no excuse for using the footbrake instead of the handbrake when standing in traffic. The handbrake if working properly is 'locked on' whereas your foot could always slip off the brake pedal. Using the footbrake when you should use the handbrake on a driving test is an instant fail. If you were waiting in a line of traffic and someone piled into the back of the line and your hand brake isn't on you could be held liable for the damage to the vehicle in front of you. With automatics you should always use the handbrake as it prevents 'creep' this is why many automatics have a stronger handbrake than their manual counterparts.

Did we win Eurovision?

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Woken at about five by the rain rattling the windows but soon went back to sleep. Found a large carrier bag full of carrier bags the other day when clearing out the shed. Somehow I have filled them all with old clothes and books for the charity shop. Talking of charity donations, I get no end of bags through the door asking for donations of old clothes for different charities. All these are from commercial concerns who pay the charities up front to use their name (and charity number). Very little if anything that you donate goes towards the charities coffers it is all towards the company distributing the bags. With that in mind I collected up all the old clothes that were unusable and old worn out shoes and put them in one of the 'charity bags' that was in the name of a charity I had never heard of and didn't have a charity number and left it out for collection, its now been collected.

Goodnight all.

Sorry no photographs, the model itself was sold on about 25 years ago. The LT&S had some similar very short passenger luggage vans and indeed some even shorter, no longer than a goods van.

Evening all from Estuary-Land. The plasterer failed to turn up and my only means of contact, my neighbour, his FiL was also absent for most of the day. As it turned out the plasterers wife who is heavily pregnant has been taken into hospital as a precaution, the baby isn't due for a few more weeks and fortunately the local hospital is little affected by the computer virus. At least its given me an opportunity to arrange for more shelving and give the walls of the shed a going over with the wire brush, so much so that in places its back to bare brick. Luckily I was able to do a bit of shopping when I delivered the chairs so staying in all day wasn't a problem.

Finding a suitable chassis in 1/76 is why I'm going down the power bogie route. Another advantage is that many American locomotives have 8 foot wheelbase trucks, 28mm in HO which translates to 7 feet in 00.

Anyone on Windows 10 affected by the hackers who caused so much disruption to the NHS? There shouldn't be but Windows XP users are apparently the worst affected.

There is/was a model of the USS Nimitz available in 1/72 scale. No idea of the price but you'd need a lot of space as it works out at 17 feet long.

I coverted one to a full brake, its quite a simple job. Dismantle the coach and you will find that the roof and glazing are one moulding that clips into the body. I removed the glazing from the roof except for that for the doors of the outer compartments, this enables the roof to be clipped back into place afterwards. Take a razor saw and cut down the inner door shut line (if your starting from the left, the right hand side of the door.) of one of the end compartments and do the same on the other side so that you will have removed two thirds of a compartment (one window + door). Repeat the exercise on the middle compartment cutting the same side of the door to leave window+window+door. Its now a simple matter of turning the centre section around and gluing them together adding a floor to reinforce the structure, this should be w+D+D+w+w+w+w+D+w. On my conversion I just had the guards door window glazed and one of the luggage compartment doors glazed. I cut the glazing parts removed from the roof moulding to suit the new arangement and glued them into place. As I wanted blank panels I filled the gaps and painted over the windows. I also filled the cut line which was not a door shut line but if you wish you can disguise this by adding a duckett. Once painted all that is required is to clip the roof with the remaining glazing in place and fix back on the chassis.

Except when turning right, many drivers when doing so seem to get as far over to the left as possible and if traffic is coming the other way there can be a queue built up behind them before they turn right.

I saw one of those portakabin toilet/shower units used on the larger building sites yesterday, the name on the side was 'Karzee'. On the same theme the portable toilets used at the Dagenham Town Show for some years were provided by a company called Cox Cabins.

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Chairs delivered, breakfast eaten, tea drunk and now just waiting for the plasterer to turn up now. As you can see my computer has not been hacked but I have no idea what would have happened to my old computer that was on Windows XP. Apparently the NHS was not specifically targeted, the problem is worldwide. I hope they identify the perpetrators and put them away for a long time. Thats it for now, be back later.

GWR or Metropolitan?