Broithe

The only time that I was ever arrested at bayonet-point was when I was innocently watching a civilian Trident do circuits and bumps. I didn't even have a camera. "Secretly", a NATO ally had aircraft there, 'hidden' down the far end - even though everybody knew, of course. I was apprehended by a very twitchy corporal, who presented the only time that I really felt in danger from the dozen or chaps that had me at gunpoint as a teenager. It was mostly a bit of theatre, to reassure the visitors - or should that be theater? But, I wouldn't have let him have anything sharp, much less the potentially noisy thing it was attached to.

Captain Sensible is, of course, still active in the punk and railway worlds.

In my town, of 80,000, in England, we used to have a truly marvellous model shop - everything from Lego to R/C aircraft. It slowly faded from lack of actual purchases and went around 20 years ago. We have two things left - an almost secret wargaming shop that seems to do well enough to stay going, over 30 years now - and a specific railway-only shop, which ticks over nicely enough, it seems, although there's rarely anyone younger than me in it. The railway shop is in premises that were a more general model shop before they moved in from the next town when that closed. I well remember the disappointment of seeing someone, who lived around 300 yards from that shop, buying an item on Amazon for delivery in a few days, when she could have walked there and got the identical item now and for the same price. It was in the window, as she walked past to her house. The shop closed about a year later...

It could be either, depending on the brake arrangement - all that really matters is that the chassis isn't black.

Parts Handler. That's a job title to aspire to...

Commercial entities can very rarely be rescued and restored into a previous state. Attempts to carry on as in the past will almost always end in utter collapse, sometimes badly affecting the rescuing party, also. I worked for what was, in my time, the largest private employer in the UK, it was clear then that it was just living on past assets, with little real investment in the future - and, indeed, it has essentially evaporated entirely now. Very little of the real business is left at all, mostly it is a few small sheds on trading estates, moving on equipment from other manufacturers - box-shifting, I suppose. What tiny bits are left of actual 'factory work' are only there because they already existed, mostly with facilities from the 1960s. The biggest things can fail - Woolworths, for example. Railtrack is another example, they essentially had a captive markets with bottomless pockets... In UK terms - coal, steel, shipbuilding, aircraft, cars, motorcycles, etc. - the list of attempted, and failed, rescues is long and depressing. Not being privy to the insider information, it does, however, seem to me that Heljan could just disappear entirely in the future, if things had carried on as they were. Perfection is rarely possible, but failure is always available. Whilst not to everybody's taste, this could well be the best available outcome. Time will tell.

True, but tests were carried out, successfully, to get one onto and back off an aircraft carrier - done without arrester gear or the catapult to assist.

Yeah, but that was more of a nickname for what was officially a Hercules. (Another category was general mythology)...

Or a Whirlwind. In a very slightly related subject, I once made a list of categories that aircraft were named after. Most had several entries - weather events, predatory animals, birds, prey animals, places, battles, famous people, general descriptions of attitude, insects, even (very oddly) fish, etc. But, I could only come up with a single plant-based name - the Bristol Sycamore. And, I often wondered if the RAF still had spares lying around for the original Westland Whirlwind when the very different later one turned up..?

I was doing a job for a wildlife trust in one of their nature reserves, not too far from both Shawbury and Tern Hill, in the 90s. The employee I was with had been expressing his concern about excluding non-native species from the habitat when he heard a sound in the distance, somewhat muffled by the dense foliage of the trees around us. "What's that sound?" "It's a Gazelle", I answered. This panicked him into searching around to find the interloper - there were Muntjacs about, but a gazelle would be just too much... Eventually, he recognised the sound as 'a helicopter', which was a sufficient generic term for someone with his interests. At least it wasn't a Lynx or a Puma, or he might have run off and abandoned me...

Perfection is difficult to achieve, but you have done it before, and will do so again, I'm sure.

The Guards here took to Facebook last week, warning people about leaving keys available. I was going to post this picture and say that I have never been so tempted to nick a car in my whole life - and what would they have chased after me with..?

Perhaps these houses have had the flue vaccination?

It would usually be 00 353 1 671 5809, from a UK phone.

Mmm, not as successful as it could have been for the return run...

For logistical reasons, I was in the bog, just before it crossed into Tipperary, but I did catch it, to some extent. I will make a better(?) effort on the way back up later.

The patron saint of Irish Railway Modelling.

The Russians already have a not-very-secret forward base in Laois. https://mapcarta.com/18950734

Or get the Chinese in and annoy the British, Russians and Americans in one simple manouevre?

Some might remember this trial run along the west coast a few years ago. That will have been a sharp landing where wearing seat belts would have been essential.

If aircraft carriers are to be bought, someone needs to carefully check that the toilets work...

Out with the dog just now, I was not sufficiently alert to spot that the sound that this was making was a train - so I only just caught it. Trundling along slowly and 'topped and tailed', it just wasn't the 'usual noise'. Heading south, in quite a sedate manner.

There's big money in childcare these days, he might as well keep the locos - and get some more.

Excellent news. I'll have the middle two weeks in July.

A sad loss. But, a wonderful legacy. Few people will have so many monuments in such scattered locations.