Broithe

It always struck me as slightly 'odd' that they used a 'Soviet' aircraft, although it was a good PR stunt to get some positivity back from the delays. Being late was (is?) standard for British industry in my day. Both in terms of the initial product and in the responses to the subsequent failures. For many years, the British still had large 'captive' markets in the ex-empire, as well as at home, with organisations run by British managements. They could virtually rely on them to carry on putting up with the same sort of stuff, and there were often pseudo-commercial strings to the funding arrangements that made it very difficult to find the cash to go to other suppliers. Where I worked, we made some truly dreadful things, but we also made things that were almost perfect, but they were hugely expensive to buy and were really unsaleable in most of the market after 1970-ish, although they are still sitting out there now, working well, sixty years on - you would have spent a lot more money over that period buying, replacing and fixing the stuff we made later. People in Irish procurement were much more likely to look at the past, and a plausible projection into the future, and base decisions on that. You can still see it today in things like the Air Corps fleet and, dare I say it, Ryanair...

Sometimes with a bit of pomp and circumstance...

Exactly that! When I had a proper job, we were supplying capital equipment of a similar sort of nature. It was extremely difficult to get into the Irish market if you had any history of supplying less-than-perfect goods. The 'money people' in the state enterprises were much less short-sighted than British industry was used to dealing with. With fleets of hundreds, you can get away with problems that you can't with fleets of tens. Simplicity, reliability and, crucially, a reliable supply of spares and maintenance items will have had a much higher place in the thinking of the decision-makers than the British would have been used to dealing with. Irish procurers also had the very useful luxury of an "intelligence network" amongst most of the suppliers they were considering purchasing from. There was often more than just the initial failures that might sour the relationship, often the lackadaisical (and even deliberately bloody awkward) response to these failures was a more important cause.

OK, I have decided to admit now, that I spent ten minutes on Google Maps trying to decide what that was....

Saint Joseph - patron saint of carpenters and roofers.

It may not always be the case, but there can be copyright issues over such details as posters with trademarks on, etc., and it may just be easier to leave them off. However, the internet will often give you the means to replicate them yourself, almost exactly. You can then hone the adverts closer to your intended time period, too, than they might be, if provided by the building manufacturer.

The defibrillator the ambulance lads have looks a touch overscale...

You ain't seen nothing yet...

When I was at college, during the hot summers of the 1970s, a lot of the other lads on the course worked for the Coal Board. One of them mentioned that he was about to buy some new sunglasses. Another lad, who was very clever, but could be a bit naive, said "You won't need them down the pit!". This started a chain of events over a few days, which ended up with him believing that coal is actually brilliant white when it's first dug out, only oxidising to the familiar black colour over a few hours - and the blinding glare in a coal mine was quite a safety hazard. Every piece of evidence that he came up with for not believing this was shot down immediately. Miners are always pictured covered in black dust - this is because the dust has been on them for the whole shift, Bob. The reason they often have white rings round their eyes is because they've just taken their sunglasses off for the photo. Etc. The clincher was when a photo was produced, showing a roadway underground. This had just been "stonedusted" - where white stone dust was sprayed over all the surfaces, intended to mitigate the effects of any explosions. This sort of thing, but without the chap and the hose in the picture to give it away. I know that he still believed in the 'white coal' two years later - maybe he still does?

I went camping on an official site on a island in the Loire, at Amboise, in 1990. At that time, there was an electricity pylon right in the middle of the site, with absolutely no attempt at obstructing any climbers whatsoever. Here on the Big Island, you wouldn't have needed any street lighting in the area, the glow from the incinerated teenagers would have sufficed.

An 'interesting' feature of cartoon characters is that they usually have a thumb and three fingers, as four fingers just looks like 'too many'. A friend of mine has lost her ring finger to cancer, but it's hardly noticeable to the viewer.

I wonder if the glass was already gone, I don't see a hint of a reflection in any of the pictures.

I wonder if you could slide the boards up as the level went down, then fling them out through the windows, if the glass was gone? There might be the possibility of the doors still opening, though it would be an 'interesting' job to operate the catch with that lot behind it...

And this one - http://edwindavison.com/collections/shopexd.asp?id=18183 - is the one I originally mentioned as seeing in the book from Easons all those years ago...

Another Father Browne picture.

Whilst looking through Father Browne's turf pictures, I came across this one from the Titanic set - typical teenager, checking his bloody phone!

His reverence was not a fan of the newer presentations of the Thomas genre, suggesting that they sometimes showed "lamentable gross ignorance about railway practices".

Another aspect may be that Irish railways never really had a 'glamorous age', as most others did. It's always been a utilitarian transport provider. The lack of items available isn't always a bad thing, it does limit the expenditure, in fact... To some extent, the amount of Irish stuff appearing these days is becoming a problem to keep up with. With a current exposure to about one thousandth of the world's population, it is likely to remain a niche market. But, compared to the position just twenty short years ago, the leap into the future has been prodigious.

I believe that the No 1 end is the front, and the No 2 end is the back. That's certainly the case with children, anyway. But, I've never found it easy to control the sound level.

Ah, I might have some spare time tomorrow morning, but I would need to know your weight, as I would need to do a test with a couple of bags of cement. Also, it would be necessary for you just to bring a debit card - apart from the virus transmission issues of using cash, there is no way I could accommodate the weight of your wallet.