The Greatest Show on Earth

Atlas Editions 'Greatest Show on Earth' series review

 

I have previously written about Atlas Editions, so you should be familiar with their business model of offering subscriptions to collections of items. One such collection, announced in 2014, was 'The Greatest Show on Earth', a range of fairground and circus models in 1/76 scale, and as a collector of fairground vehicles in this scale I naturally subscribed to this series. Although I have not received any confirmation that the collection is complete and no further models will be sent, it has been over six months since anyone received a new model and I have exactly thirty so it seems as if it has indeed come to an end and thus I can do a review of the entire collection.

Unsung heroes: Volkswagen K70

If I was to mention the name Volkswagen, there are certain iconic cars everyone will immediately think of: the legendary Beetle, the trendy Type 2 camper and the game-changing Golf GTI. All of those are very much 'sung heroes' though and so much has been written about them that there really isn't anything new to add, so instead I'm going to turn my attention to something a little more left-field that may seem a strange choice to nominate as Volkswagen's unsung hero. This is a pretty obscure car so I guess a lot of you are now wondering just what a K70 actually is, but its rarity belies its great significance as the first front-engined and water-cooled Volkswagen.

The decline of Little Chef

Today I'm going to look at something that not so long ago was a familiar landmark that could be seen almost everywhere and a welcome sight for hungry travellers, but has disappeared in large numbers and is now quite an unusual thing to see: the humble Little Chef restaurant. I had noticed the gradual disappearance of Little Chefs from British roads but didn't realise just how drastically the company had shrunk until I discovered the brilliant Motorway Services Online and ended up spending many hours reading the fascinating information there, including a full history of the Little Chef brand.

This told me that from a peak of over 400 restaurants just 15 years ago, there are now a mere 70 Little Chefs left, which is the lowest figure since the early seventies and a hell of a decline for such a once-popular chain of eating places. Although in many locations they are now a rare sight, there are still two of them within a few miles of each other on my route home from the hospital, at Weston on the Green and Bicester, so for old times' sake I decided to eat at the former after an appointment this week and found it a very nostalgic experience. This is one of the handful of restaurants that were given the 'Wonderfully British' refurbishment a few years ago and has a reputation as one of the best Little Chefs in the country, and certainly I was pleasantly surprised by the clean and welcoming atmosphere and good quality food

A rare sight. The Little Chef at Weston on the Green in its current guise.

Keratoconus and corneal graft surgery

It has been a while since I last wrote on this blog (and to be honest I was expecting it to be even longer than this), but there is a very good reason for my absence. Regular readers may know I have suffered for several years from a condition affecting my vision, which had become very frustrating. Hopefully not for much longer though, as the time finally came this week for me to undergo corrective surgery, and as I write this I am recovering well from the operation. It is a great relief as the eyesight problems were really starting to have a negative effect on my life, causing constant headaches and fatigue and difficulty with simple tasks such as driving and reading, so I was starting to become deeply frustrated by my poor health. 

New records from Ray

Record Review: Song for a Friend and Makes Me Think of Home by Ray Wilson

It is rare for an artist to release two studio albums in the same year, something that would normally leave them short of material, but Ray Wilson has done exactly that in 2016. July saw the appearance of Song for a Friend, followed in October by Makes Me Think of Home, meaning he has put out no fewer than twenty new songs in just a few months. Although these two albums are quite different in feel and were released separately, Wilson had originally intended them to form a double album (provisionally titled Backseat Drivers) and I bought them both at the same time so to me it makes sense to review them together.