Changing the clocks - a complete waste of time

Damn you, Mr Willett!

It's that time of year again when British Summer Time has just ended and everyone in the UK has had to set all their clocks back an hour to revert to Greenwich Mean Time. Every time this happens, I wonder at the point of it all as it takes an enormous amount of effort to give no apparent benefit. It is a procedure that could so easily be done away with, and it only takes one person forgetting to throw things into disarray, yet it has existed for almost a century and seems to be accepted as a fact of life and rarely questioned. The arguments against the practice clearly outweigh those in favour of it, and as a means of saving money its abolition is much less controversial than many of the government's other proposals, so I can't understand why we continue to abide by this antiquated and irrelevant tradition without questioning its real purpose.

Showbus part 2

Rather later than anticipated due to other commitments, here is the promised second part of my review of this year's Showbus rally at Woburn Abbey. Having already described the serious organisational problems in the first part, this one is rather more positive and concentrates on the exhibits themselves. At an event of this size, it isn't realistically possible to photograph everything, and I had seen several of the vehicles before at smaller local events so these were overlooked in favour of those I hadn't previously encountered. As discussed elsewhere on this blog, the big groups and their low-floor buses aren't of great interest, and nor are London buses, so I make no apologies for largely ignoring these too, and this review focuses on the vehicles that caught my eye.

This Plaxton Viewmaster was superb and one of my favourites.

Welcome to Cass County

Record Review: Cass County by Don Henley

The release of new material by Don Henley is an all-too-rare occurrence so September 25 2015 was a momentous day for fans as his much-anticipated fifth solo album Cass County finally went on sale. Henley fans have been waiting a very long time for this as it has been fifteen years since his last solo release Inside Job and eight years since the Eagles' Long Road Out Of Eden, and in those eight years all three of Henley's bandmates have released new albums: Timothy B. Schmit's Expando, Glenn Frey's After Hours and Joe Walsh's Analog Man, leaving Henley as the last Eagle to commit to a new release. So what is this long-awaited album like and does it live up to the weight of expectation? Read on to find out what I think...