Confessions of a Stobart sinner

As a new year is almost upon us and it's a time for making resolutions and fresh starts, I have a terrible sin to confess. Well okay, it really isn't at all bad in the grand scheme of things, but to a certain small sector of society I have committed a series of heinous crimes. So, what am I doing that is so awful? It's quite simple really - I've upset the Stobart Spotters with an intentional programme of destroying Stobart models by repainting and converting them into other forms.

Nice models, shame about the livery. That can be corrected though!

Calling All Stations

Retro Record Review: Calling All Stations by Genesis (1997)

 

Think of Genesis as a band and, depending which camp you fall into, you will either think of the vocals of Peter Gabriel or Phil Collins, so an album featuring neither of them seems unthinkable. Such a thing does however exist: the band's final studio album Calling All Stations was released in 1997 by the triumvirate of Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks and Ray Wilson, and it is the 2007 remastered version of this album I have recently purchased and review here as an antidote to all those Christmas songs currently being played to death on the radio.

"Who's Ray Wilson?" I can hear you asking. He is the forgotten man of Genesis, who had the unenviable task of replacing Phil Collins after his departure in 1996 to concentrate on his solo career, and was only a member for little over a year so his brief contribution seems to be largely ignored. I feel this is a shame really as Calling All Stations is a fine album in its own right but was not a massive commercial success and is so overshadowed by the fame of Gabriel and Collins as to be virtually invisible.

More disappointment from Corgi

Today was the day that Corgi revealed details of their new model release programme for the first six months of next year. Once upon a time this would have been an exciting and keenly awaited event, but those days are long gone and as has been the case for several years I once again greeted the announcement with disappointment, proving how far they have been left behind by the competition. As a collector of 1/76 scale models, Corgi now have very little to offer me: the Trackside and Roadscene ranges showed promise but are both long dead, leaving just the Original Omnibus Company in this scale, and recent releases in this series have lacked sparkle.

How many red Routemaster models do we need?

Mental Health matters

From some of my previous blogs I may have given the impression of being a happy and successful man, but in reality that is far from the truth. It's Mental Health Awareness Week so I want to do something very serious for once and explain the daily challenges I face, having suffered from serious anxiety and stress for several years as a result of a combination of unfortunate circumstances in early adulthood. While I have a satisfying job, a loving family and no money worries, which on the face of it seems to be a fairly good life, there are many other aspects of my life that are much less satisfactory and peace of mind can be very hard to find. I seem to live in a constant state of being on edge and find it almost impossible to relax, even when there is nothing to worry about, so writing this piece is very therapeutic for me as I try to understand myself. I really hope I don't come across as egotistical or self-centred as that isn't the intention and I am simply trying to draw attention to the hidden difficulties anxiety sufferers such as myself have to cope with.  

Model fleet focus: United Counties

The United Counties Omnibus Company is one of those fleets that although significant in terms of size and area covered doesn't have the same cult following as certain others, such as Southdown or London Transport for instance. UCOC is one of the main themes of my collection and is an operator of great personal interest for three reasons: my home town of Buckingham is served by the company's successors, my father was brought up in Northampton, where the head office was located, and my maternal grandmother spent a short period as a conductress at Stony Stratford garage. Over the years I have collected all known factory releases by the diecast manufacturers, plus a handful of code 3 repaints and kit builds that will feature in a future article, so this piece provides a hopefully definitive guide to what is available. There have been a dozen 1/76 OO models to date, mostly by Exclusive First Editions and in Corgi's Original Omnibus Company range, plus one in N gauge. With one exception they should be fairly easy to obtain and don't command premium prices like some of the cult fleets.

The man in the silver Rover

A strange encounter at the fair

 

The bonfire fair at Campbell Park in Milton Keynes came to a close on Sunday, and as is traditional I paid a visit yesterday to watch the showmen pull down their equipment and depart from the ground. There is a culture of mutual respect between showmen and funfair enthusiasts so the latter are to be expected and are generally welcomed as long as they don't cause trouble. The enthusiast community is very small and tight-knit so we are often known to each other and to many showmen, but I had a rather strange encounter yesterday with someone I had never seen before who didn't really seem to have a genuine reason to be there and was basically being a nuisance: the mysterious man in the silver Rover. Who was he and what was he doing there?

The fairground arcade - a thing of the past?

Go to the funfair and along with all the rides, stalls and catering units, what other form of entertainment are you likely to find? The amusement arcade of course, offering a range of video games, slot machines, prize grabbers and so on to test your skill and luck. However, it has become apparent in recent years that arcades are now in decline and becoming an increasingly rare sight on the fairgrounds of Britain - no longer are they an essential feature guaranteed to appear at pretty much any fair, and they are becoming conspicuous by their absence in some places.

On its way out, both figuratively and literally. Billy Gumble's arcade leaves Cambridge a few years ago; for now, this one is still travelling.

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...