Dave Batt

Not sure if there is anywhere in the Forums for news to be posted of a newly formed club putting the word around about its existence, but here goes. The Helston Scale Model Group is working through a self-imposed six month 'probation' until its first official AGM in February of next year and is seeking out new members from south Cornwall and the Lizard peninsula. Regular weekly meetings are held every Thursday from 7:00pm to a nominal 9:00pm but the venue alternates each week. Meetings with a social format are held at the clubhouse of the Helston Rugby Club, which provides a pub atmosphere (including a bar) and visitors are welcome to drop in and introduce themselves on any occasion. Bringing along a recently finished project or the start of the next is not obligatory but such an action is always a useful icebreaker in such a situation. These meetings alternate with Build Nights which take place at The Old Cattle Market Community Centre, where all the established members can indulge in some work on their chosen project for a couple of hours while swapping news and learning from each other. Newcomers are also welcome here without any expectation their being prepared to sit down and open up a tool box. An evening spent chatting is always a good place to start. The great thing is that these venues are barely a mile apart, so if a newcomer is out-of-step with the calendar and finds the first venue out of use, the other one is barely five minutes away. As the club is still being formed offical contact information is inapproriate, but a Facebook page is in place (search "Helston Scale Model Group") which can provide details of the locations and the diary. Hope this information makes sense and perhaps this approach may find some more members to add to the dozen or so who are already frequenting the meetings.

Not sure if there is anywhere in the Forums for news to be posted of a newly formed club putting the word around about its existence, but here goes. The Helston Scale Model Group is working through a self-imposed six month 'probation' until its first official AGM in February of next year and is seeking out new members from south Cornwall and the Lizard peninsula. Regular weekly meetings are held every Thursday from 7:00pm to a nominal 9:00pm but the venue alternates each week. Meetings with a social format are held at the clubhouse of the Helston Rugby Club, which provides a pub atmosphere (including a bar) and visitors are welcome to drop in and introduce themselves on any occasion. Bringing along a recently finished project or the start of the next is not obligatory but such an action is always a useful icebreaker in such a situation. These meetings alternate with Build Nights which take place at The Old Cattle Market Community Centre, where all the established members can indulge in some work on their chosen project for a couple of hours while swapping news and learning from each other. Newcomers are also welcome here without any expectation their being prepared to sit down and open up a tool box. An evening spent chatting is always a good place to start. The great thing is that these venues are barely a mile apart, so if a newcomer is out-of-step with the calendar and finds the first venue out of use, the other one is barely five minutes away. As the club is still being formed offical contact information is inapproriate, but a Facebook page is in place which can provide details of the locations and the diary. Hope this information makes sense and perhaps this approach may find some more members to add to the dozen or so who are already frequenting the meetings.

With respect I disagree. They seem to be working through the Classic Airframes' catalogue, in which case roll on the Whirlwind, Hudson, Attacker, and others.

Good point to bring us (well, me, who started with hot metal) up to date!

Trouble is (or was, thirty years back) that it was the page designers who took the lead because they dealt with the exciting colourful images that would attract the browsers' attention, while the editors 'just' focussed on the boring drab grey areas that the designers were compelled to shoe horn between the dramatic stuff. Telling designers they'd have to reposition and resize a couple of images to get the captions in the right place to make sense would see near-tantrums, which is why Editors may now only see 'proofs' after the separations are done (i.e., it's too late to make changes).

Gross profit, you mean, as opposed to Net Profit?

I accepted the masochist's badge a year or so back after a layoff of ten years or so, and learned quickly once again the joy of a submissive role. (Someone remind me how one changes an avatar image.) It really is a painful experience to lose such a companion.

All I can say is "Cor!". Having read the original book decades ago always felt let down by the representation of the 'thopters in the film and TV renditions, but this film made it up for me. It might be overlong (is it meant to be a two or three parter?) but the time is 'wasted' on some very epic panoramas and there's plenty of time left for the drama of the sandworms and the horrors of the Harkonnens and Guild Navigators to be fully explored. Best fiver I've spent all year.

There's possibly a little old lady around somewhere who has a bowl of wax fruit with the impression of my teeth in a pear . . .

Er, that wasn't the image shown in the posting to which I referred.

This is some sort of p-take, isn't it? That's not a box-art, it's a very well known wartime photo.

Ditto. For a moment I thought mine was going to head-butt the screen, which raises the question of what the insurance claim would look like. I have no idea how she stopped in time, she certainly shot off doing 0 - 60 in 0.69 seconds from dozing on the chair.

Finally got that Flickr sorted out.

Life has finally reached a point where a cat could enter my world after a decade or more as various ducks have been lined up. This was the result of an approach to the National Animal Welfare Trust during the Lockdown 1 - 2 hiatus. I had expected to have to jump through hoops because of the Covid requirements, with specific appointments to eliminate casual browsing, etc as things were a bit different. I was told to register via their website, but only if I could express interest in a specific cat. There were very few cats because of the plague (contrary to national headlines) but they insisted the process was there to be followed. I put the page into the shortcuts and kept an eye for a couple of weeks and Rosie continued as the only moggie on their books. She was described as a stray that had appeared in the carpark of the local Pets at Home and would prefer life as an only pet in a house with no children. (Hear that tinkling noise? It's a warning bell. Should have paid attention myself.) I contacted them as {in broad terms) she could be a good fit. The only video they could offer showed her up in a Marlene Dietrich moment ("I want to be alone . . ") and ignoring the feather on a stick they wanted her to play with and marching into her travel box den instead of playing to the camera. Couldn't blame her, I feel like that often enough myself, but that bell was getting louder. The final warning sign was when, after my name was apparently cemented alongside Rosie, only then did a load of amiable looking tabby toms and BOGOF packs of cute kittens start to appear. The whole process of "four to six weeks with my visiting at least once a week" had gone completely out the window. Came the day they wanted to hand her over after her vet's checks. "Could they have credit/debit card details over the 'phone, it's more secure that way, we don't have machines or readers, etc." I am a trusting soul, perhaps a bit naive, but I do have a high regard for this sort of charity so I still go along with it. The nett result was I travel on the first day of the second lockdown, arriving in Hayle like turning up at the Arrivals Lounge to collect a mail-order bride and I could only hope it wasn't Ting-Tong. Still no chance of going to the pens to actually see her ("Sorry"), instead a nice little lass with a nervous smile on her face came out with a cat box held at arms length and that was it. There's a big of childhood doggerel that came to mind. "There was a little girl with a little curl right in the middle of her forehead, and when she was good she was very, very good, but when she was bad she was horrid!" That is Rosie to a "T". Got her home to see her for the first time as the travel box was opened and I was totally love-bombed by a cat that was far from timid, but after about ten or fifteen minutes she vanished. She'd found her secure space under a sofa and promptly gone to sleep. That became a cycle for the first couple of weeks, first day or two secured in one room and then on a day by day basis opening a bit more of the house, and she would play along and then take herself away to sleep on what she had learned. I discovered that more than 90% of the time she is very smart, sometimes a bit uncertain and wary (it's weird having to act as a cat's wingman so she'll use the litter tray) and very dependant on human company. She seems to need to know where I am so she can ignore me. Trips into the garden are hilarious. She knows how the cat-flap works although she's obviously wary, she is much happier with me as a wingman, following me round as if she was a little dog. That situation of a 'stray in the pet shop car park' looks more suspicious each time I think about it. Things may change but this is not a cat who is out from dusk til dawn and likely to wander miles. However, the problem came in that once or twice a day she would be triggered into some sort of survival mode, a real Rambo moment in where she would run up and attack me and then back off and cower awaiting the repercussions. She knows when she's 'been bad'. She wasn't play-fighting either. It's hard to see and a lot of patience was needed, not to mention liberal quantities of TCP. Breakthrough came after about a month when I realised she wasn't using her claws any more (accidents still happen, but there's no intent) and although she bites she doesn't even leave a mark. However, she still has the "daily hate" and I can only imagine it is the result of some sort of feline PTSD. There doesn't seem to be any specific causes like a 'sore spot' or not liking being crept up on, it's her own demons. I imagine scenarios with people who are ignorant even if their not malicious and things "make sense", but there's no proof. People who tease a kitten with their fingers as 'creepy-crawlies' but then get aggressive when the kitten turns into a cat with adult claws, but think they can beat the cat into submission, that sort of thing. However, as I am not Dr. Dolittle I can't sit her down and adopt a mock-German accent to find out for real. I always seem to have found females with 'baggage', in this instance she's got four legs. Ho-hum. The story will continue, the times when she obviously wants company makes up for the jitters. No nervous perching with all four paws on one kneecap here, it's a full-body 'flump' from one knee to the other hip with her nose shoved under the elbow and purring like a badly tuned engine!