PhilJ W

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear, I think that we should keep to BST all year. I even thought up a name for a pressure group to promote the issue, STAY Summer Time All Year.

A few years ago Royal Mail were saying that they were cutting deliveries due to people using text and e-mail. Now they are contemplating Sunday deliveries. Competition is fierce in the parcel delivery business which has grown enormously in the past few years even without the corvid factor.

As I see it Hornby are going to produce a model of Lion and Rapido are going to produce a model of the Titfield Thunderbolt. No doubt each model will have its pros and cons and when and if they both become available purchasers can make their own minds up to which model to choose by their own criteria. I do get the impression that there is a 'lets bash Hornby' element similar in a way that British Leyland was bashed and we all know what happened to BL. What we have here are two models of the same prototype aimed at different audiences which is far better than no models at all.

I seem to attract dogs and the bigger the dog the more they seem attracted to me. I would love to have a dog but I couldn't look after one properly now. If a strange dog comes rushing towards me I just stand still just in case but nothing untoward has happened indeed the last time it happened was a couple of months ago when I delivered some old towels to a dog rescue charity when this little black mongrel rushed out and proceeded to wrap herself around my feet and wasn't prepared to go back in until I'd made a fuss of her.

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Damp and grey this morning and Arthur Itis was banging on his drum this morning but paracetamol has been deployed and has quieted him down. My printer is a Lexmark (X543 laser printer) and indeed the cartridges do cost a lot more than the others but they are a lot larger than other makes. They can cost twice as much or more than other makes of cartridge but they hold four to six times the amount of ink and are easily refillable. Also my printer is nearly ten years old and I have only had to have one cartridge (cyan) re-filled.

Goodnight all.

No wonder last year when I had my printer repaired I checked the prices of the same printer on E-bay. An identical one refurbished was on offer for £500, without any ink cartridges.

Depends on which way up its positioned. A German friend of mine had a shed/summerhouse made from a large wine cask, two metres in diameter and about four long.

I have taken a table at a toy fair a couple of times. I don't think I will be troubled by HMRC unless they have a tax refund for me as at the end of the day there was only a very small profit. I was disposing of surplus items and a few things from a deceased member of our MRC that were of low value and/or no club members were interested.

That would make a fantastic shed.

Evening all from Estuary-Land. I'm with Neil on keeping summer time all year for the reasons stated. The objection about it being dark in the mornings in the more northerly and/or westerly parts of the country is in my opinion facetious. As said before people used to rise with the sun and go to bed when it was dark. It would be a simple act to avoid dark mornings by opening schools and businesses later in the morning during the winter months. The reason DST was introduced was to aid production of munitions during WW1 and it has now become an anachronism.

When the society to which I belong had Simon Kolner as guest speaker back in 2019 he told us that the publishers had approached Hornby for permission to use the name. Permission was granted and royalties changed hands (and still do).

Thanks for that information. The organisers of the Brentwood toy fair (www.j-jwebbtoyfairs.com) will not be restarting any toy fairs until September at the earliest and the Brentwood fair is listed as 'Subject to confirmation'.

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Successful trip to Tess Coes earlier and I now have sufficient meals for the next few days. I've seen the aftermath of a RTA and thats something I never want to see again. That was way back in the 1960's on the A12 near the Gants Hill roundabout. A Bedford Viva van had hit a lamp post on the meridian strip. The front end of the van was wrapped around the lamp post and the van was facing to the way it had come. A couple of people were attending the driver but it was obviously too late, there were no collapsible steering columns back then. My cousin who was driving was too busy checking the inevitable traffic jam to look, just as well. In the 50+ years since I have never had the inclination to rubberneck when I see an accident.

Sadly the two toy fair/swap meets local to me may not be back after covid. The one at the Brentwood Centre, one of the biggest in the country and a lot smaller one at Rayleigh. The first as the management company has called in the receivers and the second because with social distancing the number of tables would be halved making it unviable.

And another advantage is that later in the day you can pick up even more bargains because the dealer doesn't want to take it home. As said above you have to hunt out the bargains.

He never asked where they got the water from to make his tea then?

The only way to make them safer is to restore the hard shoulder.

Tess Coes oven ready chips in my case. The ones found alongside the cheesy baked spuds. They leave the skins on, delicious.

I don't have a dishwasher, I wait until the pile of dishes by the sink gets to high or I run out of clean crocks. I did have four Hornsea mugs that I'd had since the early 80's but three of them have committed suicide (muggicide?) in the past year by leaping from the kitchen worktop to the floor. Replacements have been acquired and now no two mugs are the same.

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Arthur Itis woke me up this morning but a brace of paracetamol soon sent him on his way. I will need to go to Tess Coes today to stock up, the fridge is looking empty at the moment but first to run a bath.

Goodnight all.

I am (or was before covid) a regular attendee at a few swap meets and toy fairs and many traders gave me a discount or even found some hard to get items for me.

Just looking through the kitchen cupboards I found a jar of home made ginger marmalade. When I opened the jar there was the reassuring 'pop' of the vacuum being released so I gave it a try, delicous.