English As She Is Spoke

What do you get if you try to write a phrasebook for a language you don't understand?

An incomparable work of comic genius as it turns out, which has been reprinted many times and still has a cult following today. It has inspired many other spoof manuscripts, not to mention Monty Python's famous Hungarian Phrasebook sketch, and its unique beauty is summed up thus by none other than Mark Twain: "Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect." Read on to find out why I love this brilliantly bizarre book so much...

Chevrons Rally Top Ten

It's winter, it's cold, dark and wet, and the car show season seems like it was an age ago. As I sit here in the darkness, I think back to the shows I've attended this year and some of my favourite things I've seen. Although I've never owned one, I do like Citroens and the Citroen Car Club holds its annual Chevrons Rally just down the road in Little Horwood over a weekend in September, so for the last two years I have visited in the Maxi and been made very welcome despite not even having a Citroen. Here I present my personal top ten of the cars in attendance at both events.

As you can see from the contrast between the cars above (a 425cc 2CV from 1957 and a 1998 XM V6), the Chevrons Rally is open to all of the many cars made by Citroen over the years, right up to brand new ones, and there is always a large and diverse turnout. The 2018 event also saw a celebration of the Citroen Visa's 40th birthday, with an impressive lineup of 14 cars assembled. So without further ado, read on for my top ten favourites from the 2017 and 2018 Chevrons Rallies...

Flickr fail?

Time for another tech post: fresh from the saga of Photobucket's disastrous changes of last year, I once again find myself discussing an unpopular change to an online photo hosting service but this time it does affect me personally. Back in the mists of time I had an account at Fotopic.net but since that company went out of business, Flickr has been my (and many other photographers') site of choice.

After a tough recent past that has seen a lot of ups and downs as part of the Yahoo empire, Flickr has now found itself in the ownership of fellow photography site SmugMug, which it was hoped would create a new era of focus and stability. However, in recent weeks a controversial and potentially damaging change to Flickr policies was announced, sparking a vocal backlash in the wake of Photobucket's similar actions. Read on to see the message in full and why I think this change isn't all bad news...

Unsung heroes: MG Maestro Turbo

The unsung heroes series seems to have become rather more occasional than I intended, but here at last is a new entry. This one has been on my list of candidates for a long time and I was finally spurred into featuring it by attending an event that celebrated its 30th birthday. Consider the Austin Maestro, a thoroughly uninspiring bread-and-butter car driven mainly by pensioners with nothing for petrolheads to get excited about. However, you may be surprised to learn that 30 years ago at the height of the performance wars, someone at Austin-Rover went berserk and added a large dose of spices to that butter, creating the hottest of all hot hatches...

Doesn't look that special, does it?

Motoring Misfits: Austin 'Minor' van

It's been a while since my last blog, and there's no particular reason, just everyday life getting in the way. Today I want to start a new occasional series looking at a subject that fascinates me: the 'motoring misfit', those odd vehicles that while not necessarily bad just didn't seem to have a place in the market, and my first candidate at first glance appears to be something very common.

Look at the van pictured above. Isn't that a Morris Minor, one of the most popular and beloved vehicles of its era, so how on earth can I claim it to be a motoring misfit? Take another look though and you'll see this is a Minor in disguise - there's a crinkly grille and an Austin badge where you'd expect it to say Morris. How come a Morris Minor van ended up wearing the Austin identity? It isn't a DIY job as you might think but a standard production model, so keep reading to find out why its manufacturer felt the need to create this pointless motoring misfit...

Invacar field test

I'm a very happy man at the moment. I've just ticked something odd off my bucket list that very few people have ever done and I certainly never expected to do. You may remember that a couple of years ago I told the story of the Invacar and expressed a desire that one day I might actually see one, but with so few left I honestly didn't hold out much hope of that ever happening. The day has come however, and not only have I looked closely at an Invacar in the flesh but I even had the opportunity to get behind the handlebars and take it for a drive! There was no way I could pass up a unique chance like that... 

Little TWC, star of the show

Festival of the Unexceptional: Concours Top Ten

As promised last time, here's the second of my top tens from the brilliant Festival of the Unexceptional. This one is a run down of my favourites in the Concours de l'Ordinaire and, new to celebrate the Festival's fifth birthday, the Invitational Class consisting of past winners, cars from manufacturers' heritage fleets and others specifically invited by Hagerty. As ever, the standard of entries was extremely high and they're all deserving winners so it proved very difficult to select only ten, but here after a lot of deliberation are my final choices...  

Festival of the Unexceptional: Classic Parking Top Ten

Saturday 14th July marked the fifth birthday of Hagerty's Festival of the Unexceptional, a celebration of mundane and ordinary motoring held for the second year running in the glamorous surroundings of Stowe House and Gardens. The Concours de l'Ordinaire and its hand-selected entrants may be the centrepiece of the event, but there were plenty more equally remarkable vehicles to be found quietly lurking in the classic car parking alongside. After much deliberation and hard decision making over what would make the final cut, here's a round up of my top ten favourites from that area. How many of these do you remember?

Range Rover field test

Modern Range Rovers leave me cold. I think they're hideous and vulgar and have absolutely no desire to own one. The original, retrospectively known as the Range Rover Classic, on the other hand has long been a favourite of mine and I think its simple, rugged yet elegant shape is a design classic that looks great. I'd never actually driven or even sat in one though, until now that is.

A proper Range Rover in what should be its natural habitat

The Saturday just gone was the fifth running of Hagerty Insurance's Festival of the Unexceptional and there will be a full report on that event in due course, but this year it was decided to make a weekend of it and hold an after party in the Field of Dreams for invited guests. A nice man called Ian from Hagerty owns the blue Range Rover that can usually be found at the events they sponsor, and when he turned up on Sunday I cheekily asked if I could have a go. "Sure", he said, "the keys are in it", so I clambered in and off I went across the field to realise my dream of driving a classic Range Rover.

Dream cars: Isuzu 117 Coupé

As you've probably guessed by now, I have rather esoteric tastes when it comes to cars. I don't want to fill my dream garage with the common-or-garden Ferraris, Porsches and Rolls-Royces that most enthusiasts lust after and instead I fantasise over more left-field choices that you may never have heard of. Isuzu for instance is not a name usually associated with road cars and is better known for trucks and 4x4s like the Trooper and Rodeo. Indeed, the company is no longer active in the car market but in the past there were some little-known yet very attractive Isuzu cars, none more so than today's object of my affection, the 117 Coupé.

Isn't it a stunner? That colour is great too
(Image: eBay via taketotheroad.co.uk)

A Maxi model

It's been far too long since my last blog as I've been very busy and going through some tough times at work. There has been some very good news amongst all of this though: my prayers for a 1/76 scale model of the Austin Maxi have finally been answered by Oxford Diecast so I am looking forward to adding one to my collection soon. The Maxi has been overlooked by the model manufacturers for far too long and has been requested countless times, not just by me, so the news of its addition to their programme has been received with much enthusiasm and I'm sure it will be a good seller.

At long last, an affordable model Maxi

Molotow Liquid Chrome

I have a new favourite thing in my modelmaking toolkit. I can't be the only modeller to have spent years searching for the holy grail of a convincing chrome effect that can be applied by hand, and I've tried all sorts of different things but never been satisfied with the results. Until now that is - the Molotow Liquid Chrome paint pens seem to be the answer to my prayers and I was so impressed I just had to share my feelings.

The magic silver bullet

The end of Atlas Editions

Back in 2016, I wrote about Atlas Editions and their strange business practices. Since then things have carried on in much the same way and they have continued to supply subscribers with new models, albeit sometimes erratically and not always to their satisfaction. Now however, with effect from May 2018 and confirming speculation that had been rife for a while, the Atlas Editions brand is officially being phased out. All of the once omnipresent advertising has disappeared and the Atlas website now states that while existing subscriptions will be honoured, no new customers are being accepted, with visitors directed to the 'Model Space' website of Atlas's parent company De Agostini.instead. So what has led to this drastic decision being made?

Originally issued in mainland Europe, then the UK coach series and now widely available

The Thame Time Traveller

I've previously bemoaned the lack of interest in the modern-day bus scene on this blog. Thanks to accessibility legislation, all the interesting old step-entrance buses are now illegal to use on normal stage services and are confined almost exclusively to school runs, where they are difficult to photograph and impossible to travel on. Thus it was with great pleasure that I learned of an enthusiasts' tour on Saturday 5th May, organised by Chris Martin (no, not that one) of the Leyland Olympians Yahoo Group. Called the Thame Time Traveller, the aim was to sample seven of the Olympian school buses that form part of the fascinating fleet run by Walters Coaches of Oxford on various runs through the Oxfordshire countryside.

Very rarely does anyone other than schoolkids get to travel on these big beasts

The best of Bicester

Sunday 22nd April was the annual 'Drive It Day' so that meant no shortage of classic car shows. My choice of destination once again was the Sunday Scramble at Bicester Heritage, one of the largest and finest events of the year. Even in the twelve months since the last Scramble I attended, the site has continued to develop and expand, and its world-class reputation grows year by year. The place truly is a petrolhead's paradise and the great weather helped this Scramble become the biggest ever, with over 4000 tickets sold and more than a thousand visiting cars.

The spirit of Onslow is alive and well

There has already been a lot of media coverage, but these features always concentrate on the exotic stuff with arty photos of multi-million pound Ferraris and Bentleys. That's not my style so my self-declared mission was to search out the mundane everyday classics that so often get overlooked yet hold far more personal memories. There were plenty of these quietly hiding among the exotica, so here's my own round up of the highlights, a very different take on the event from what you'll read elsewhere.

Unsung heroes: Rover 600

My intention to profile an unsung hero every month has rather fallen by the wayside this year. I still have plenty of deserving candidates but seem to be short of time to write about them, so better late than never, my first unsung hero of 2018 is a successful British car that celebrated its 25th birthday this month yet is overlooked and almost forgotten compared with the rest of its manufacturer's sometimes inferior products. The Rover 600-series may be dismissed as nothing more than a Honda in a posh frock and doesn't have the following of its successor, but it was actually one of the company's best cars so I think it really deserves better.

Honda in drag or proper Rover?

A Hull of an auction

How could any car lover ever forget that famous moment in 2014 when Jaguar Land Rover announced they had purchased the entire car collection amassed by dentist Dr James Hull for a rumoured £100 million? This was believed to be the country's largest private collection and consisted of no less than 543 cars, which Dr Hull would only sell as one lot as he wanted it to remain intact with the new owner. Four years on, there was much excitement when news broke in February that a hundred surplus vehicles from this collection would be sold in a dedicated 'Affordable Classics' sale by Brightwells at Bicester Heritage on 21st March.

Just a small selection. Not what you might have expected from Dr Hull's collection.

I unfortunately wasn't able to attend in person but I've crunched some numbers and come up with my analysis of the auction. All figures quoted are the hammer prices, to which VAT and a 10% premium had to be added so the final costs were significantly higher.

Corneal surgery update

There's been another long absence from the blog but this time with good reason. Long-time readers may remember the corneal graft surgery I had way back in November 2016. As that was so long ago, you can be forgiven for thinking I was fully recovered by now but you'd be wrong as healing is a very slow process where eyes are concerned. On Monday 5th March I finally had the stitches removed from the graft, almost 18 months after they were put in, which meant another operation at the John Radcliffe Hospital, but this would be a day case under local anaesthetic.

A Tricentrol tribute

With my interest in the present-day bus and coach scene on the wane, I've started researching some of the many firms who used to ply their trade in my area but are sadly no longer with us. Very little evidence of the group's existence now remains and younger readers may never have heard of them as they went out of business about 30 years ago, but throughout the 1970s Tricentrol was one of the biggest and most familiar names in Bedfordshire and beyond. The Tricentrol empire was a substantial business, comprising not just a large fleet of coaches but also many other ventures in the car sales and truck industries managed from the head office in Dunstable, but has now vanished almost without trace.

I'm too young to have ever actually seen any Tricentrol vehicles in the flesh and not much has been written about the coaching side of the business, so this article has been compiled from PSV Circle records and contemporary news reports and there may be some inaccuracies as a result. Special thanks go to Frans Angevaare from the Netherlands for allowing use of photos from his extensive collection.  Read on for more on the rise and fall of Tricentrol...

A typical Tricentrol Bedford in London on one of the express services
(Photo: Frans Angevaare)

February Funfair

One thing I wasn't expecting to see last weekend was a funfair. The bonfire fairs typically mark the end of the season so most showmen return to their yards for winter during November and apart from a few small Christmas and New Year events don't go on the road again until mid to late February or sometimes March. The Kings Lynn Mart is the traditional season-starter and that didn't open until Valentine's Day, by which time this fair in Milton Keynes had been there for a week, so it is very early in the season for them to be open for business.

It was quite wet. This was as close as I could get to Denzil Danter's Volvo because of that massive puddle

Corgi buses for 2018

I've been meaning to write this for several weeks now but the announcement coincided with my busiest period at work and life has just got in the way since then, so better late than never, here at last is my review of Corgi's model bus release schedule for January to June of this year, revealed exactly a month ago. I didn't even bother reviewing the models from the second half of 2017 as there were only two of them and neither were worthy of note: yet another Borismaster and a second Harry Potter Gemini very similar to the one released the previous year. Things are slightly better this time around, with four all-new liveries, each available with a choice of two destinations. There are still no new castings though (unsurprising given the company's poor finances) and nothing of interest to me.

Wright Gemini, Brighton & Hove, Pride - all themes Corgi have already done recently

Very un-appy with eBay

My first proper post of this year is unfortunately another rant about the bizarre actions of a tech giant, this time eBay for their inexplicable decision to remove their mobile app's compatibility with older Android versions and woefully inadequate response to the resulting backlash. It all started when I did a factory reset on my phone. It's a Samsung Galaxy S2, which may be old but I've looked after it so it still works fine and perfectly suits my needs of reading emails, Facebook browsing, a few calls and texts, and the occasional photo. I deplore the wastefulness of modern society and can't stand to see perfectly functional products thrown away simply because they're old, so I can't justify replacing the old S2 to myself while it still works.

The reset installed Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2, the newest version of the operating system officially supported by this device. Everything was going well and all the apps I installed worked fine - until I tried to install the eBay app, only for the app store to refuse to download it as it is "not compatible with my device". Huh? The version I had before worked fine, going from version 4.0 to 4.1 isn't even a major upgrade and Android 4.1.2 was released only about five years ago so it's hardly an ancient obsolete operating system that no one uses anymore. Being unsupported but still usable is one thing but incompatible and totally unusable is quite another, so how come the eBay app is no longer compatible with my OS and why aren't eBay doing anything about it?

Apologies for absence

Just a brief update to let you know I'm still here and the blog hasn't been abandoned, even though it's more than two weeks into the new year and I haven't published a single post yet. I was back at work on 2nd January after an all-too-short Christmas break and straight into one of our busiest periods, which has meant a hectic schedule and working some overtime, leaving little time and energy to type up the blogs I have drafted in my head. Things are starting to calm down now so normal service will be resumed soon. I'll take this opportunity to wish all my readers a very belated Happy New Year and thank you for your support over the past three years. Rest assured there will be new material coming soon so stay tuned for updates!