Unsung heroes: Skoda Favorit

Nobody laughs at Skoda nowadays. Thanks to the influence of parent company Volkswagen, the brand has become an award-winning mainstream producer of appealing, well-built and highly-regarded cars, and choosing to buy one is a perfectly sensible decision that won't make you the butt of any jokes. Things weren't always like this though and such a remarkable change has come about in less than thirty years. Although they had a small loyal following in the UK, until the 1990s Skodas were generally considered to be crude bargain-basement transport and objects of derision in popular culture. While Volkswagen must take a lot of the credit for Skoda's transformation, it actually began some years before the takeover with the Favorit, the car that marks the start of the transition from the much-derided rear-engined Skodas of old to today's smart modern range and a worthy choice of unsung hero.

A typical early-90s supermini and not something to joke about
(from http://classics.honestjohn.co.uk/reviews/skoda/favorit/)

The plague of disintegrating diecasts

There seems to be a growing epidemic in recent years of diecast models simply crumbling to dust for no apparent reason, leaving many collectors perplexed and upset at the loss of a model through no fault of their own. Known variously as 'metal fatigue', 'zinc rot' or 'zinc pest', this is caused by impurities of lead and other metals in the zinc alloy used in diecasting and should be avoidable with modern production methods, but sadly it seems even expensive high-end models are not immune from it and there is no cure once it has taken hold.

Dream cars: Gordon-Keeble GK1

With Christmas fast approaching, now is a good time to reveal my ultimate dream car in the hope that Santa might be reading. The cars featured on this blog so far reflect my love of the unloved and obscure, and my fantasy lottery-win garage would probably be filled with old everyday transport rather than rows of the supercars and luxury vehicles that most people lust after. I do however have one exotic favourite that is top of my list. Could it be a Ferrari or Lamborghini? No? Then perhaps a Rolls-Royce or a Bentley? Nothing that common, so maybe a Pagani or a Koenigsegg would fit the bill? Nope, it's something even more exclusive than those: the car I would like to own more than any other if money was no object is a Gordon-Keeble GK1. Unless you're a hardcore car geek you've probably never even heard of it so read on to find out why I want a Gordon-Keeble so much...

The object of my desire. Just look at it!

The ethics of unfriending

Some more musings on Facebook, this time the ethics of unfriending and when it is acceptable to remove someone from your friend list, an action that can easily cause offence and awkwardness if not handled properly. I have recently been suffering fairly regular unfriendings by people I considered good friends and over the past few months have seen my friend count steadily decrease. Of course, a user is perfectly within their rights to control their friend list and unfriend anyone at any time, but these unfriendings often come completely out of the blue so why they have chosen to unfriend me is something I struggle to understand. Personally I consider unfriending someone to actually be quite rude and something only to be done with very good reason as there are plenty of alternatives.

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.

Facebook and the tag-comments

I haven't written a tech-related post for a while, so here's one on what seems to a relatively new phenomenon on Facebook that is spreading at a rapid rate and really detracts from the user experience: the 'tag-comment'. I can't be the only one who, when viewing comments on a post, wants to see people's opinions and reactions to it, rather than a huge and meaningless list of names who have been tagged by their friends just to draw their attention to the post.

Unsung heroes: Triumph Acclaim

It's fair to say the dawn of the 1980s was not a great time for British Leyland. The company had managed to survive the turmoil of the seventies but not without gaining a very poor reputation, and their well-documented financial problems meant the product range was not in the best of health. The evergreen Land Rover and Mini were still selling well and the Metro was the great new hope for the future, but new legislation in the USA had killed off their popular sports roadsters and caused the closure of the Canley and Abingdon factories, and the mainstream family car lineup was looking very much past its best.

The Allegro 3, Maxi 2, Ital and Ambassador were all crude facelifts of ageing and unpopular designs that were long past their sell-by date and had bad reputations and very little appeal, so something new and better was urgently needed. Salvation was to come in the form of a joint venture with Honda, the first fruit of which would be the Triumph Acclaim, an underrated car that I think is deserving of greater accolades for being the first in a long line of successful Anglo-Japanese collaborations. I could easily have written 'greater acclaim' there but such puns are cliched and everyone uses them when talking about this car. 

A new beginning for EFE?

They say a week is a long time in politics. It seems a week (or two) is also a long time in the model bus industry, as much has happened since I published my last piece on the demise of Exclusive First Editions just a week ago. Bachmann Europe have recently issued a press release announcing their acquisition of the range, a very welcome development considering how uncertain EFE's future looked just a short time before. Bachmann have reportedly purchased the EFE name, tooling and stock, but not the Gilbow Holdings company itself, and it is too early to tell what the future holds for EFE but collectors breathed a sigh of relief at the news that the business had been saved and production is expected to continue.

Thanks to Bachmann it looks like there will be more from EFE for our collections in the future

The end of EFE?

The model bus world has been left reeling by the weekend's announcement that Gilbow Holdings, the parent company of Exclusive First Editions, has gone into liquidation and ceased trading. While not entirely unexpected as it had been obvious for some time that all was not well, it still came as a great shock when it happened. EFE will be missed as they were the pioneers of diecast model buses in 1/76 scale and revolutionised the hobby with their widely-available, ready-made and well-detailed models, as until then all you could get were white metal kits and the occasional toy from Dinky or Corgi. On a personal note, it was the products of EFE that introduced me to collecting in 1/76 scale around twenty years ago and I now own dozens of them, so I have much to thank them for.

EFE made many different versions of the Leyland National. This is one of the infamous overprints.

Road Roving

In my most recent unsung heroes piece I suggested the Matra Rancho may have been the world's first crossover. As a production car that is probably true, but I have been reminded of another project that predated the Rancho by more than two decades. It never made production but came very close and had it done so could certainly have been considered an ancestral crossover. The vehicle I'm talking about is the Road Rover, which you may not have heard of before so read on for the full story...

BL Autumn Rally report

Last Sunday (25th September) saw the fourth annual BL Autumn Rally, billed as a celebration of British Leyland's unsung heroes and held at Milton Keynes Museum. We had never been before but as we now own a qualifying car and live just a short distance from the venue it would have been rude not to attend. The show is principally made up of the owners' clubs for the Allegro, Maxi, Landcrab, Metro, Maestro/Montego, Vanden Plas, and new for this year, the Marina and the Rover 200/400 series, plus an open class for all other BMC, BL and Austin-Rover cars. Despite being fairly poorly publicised outside of BL club circles and not even mentioned on the museum website, almost a hundred vehicles were in attendance and it was an enjoyable day out.

Isn't Tara Green a great colour? It even makes the Vanden Plas Allegro look good.

Shitefest take three

Back to the field of dreams

By now you should be familiar with our friends Chris and Claire and their field of dreams, location of this year's Shitefest. Having been a bit disappointed with the turnout at the first post-Shitefest get-together and with more vehicles in need of tinkering, they decided to open up the field once more to visiting Autoshite members while the weather was still good, so off we went again, this time in the Maxi with its huge boot filled with tools. Other guests were James (another local chap), Richard from Surrey and Hugh from Hampshire on Saturday, and on Sunday Anthony returned along with new face Julian from Stoke-on-Trent, so people were prepared to travel long distances to attend and were hopefully rewarded with an enjoyable weekend.

Tinkering in progress. Maxi makes an excellent mobile workshop.

Unsung heroes: Matra Rancho

Walk down any street in the UK nowadays and there is one type of car you're pretty much guaranteed to see: the crossover, combining the chunky looks of an off-roader with conventional two-wheel-drive underpinnings and exemplified by the best-selling Nissan Qashqai. You may think crossovers are a 21st century phenomenon, yet there is a car that could lay claim to pioneering this market sector way back in the late seventies, long before the term 'crossover' had even been invented. I'm talking about the Talbot Matra Rancho, a vehicle derided in its day for having the looks of a 4x4 without the off-road ability but arguably just too far ahead of its time, which had it appeared thirty years later could have been a great success.

The first crossover, thirty years before its time?

A fortnight of Maxi-ing

Today marks exactly two weeks since the Maxi arrived in its new home, so this is a good time for a quick progress update. My dad has spent almost all of his spare time since then on the car so a lot of little jobs have been done and it is continually getting better, not that it was at all bad to start with. The postman, himself a classic car enthusiast who took a keen interest in our new purchase, has been kept busy with regular deliveries of Maxi parts, which have so far proved surprisingly easy to obtain as many are shared with the Mini. It has now done more than the previous owner's entire annual mileage in just ten days and is in fine fettle mechanically, so confidence is growing with each journey and it is proving itself to have been an excellent purchase, despite breaking the golden rule of never buying a car in the rain!

The first show, three days after collection

It's a Maxi adventure

As you'll probably know from previous posts, we've been looking to buy a classic car, preferably but not necessarily an Austin Maxi, and had narrowly missed out on a fine example a couple of weeks ago. Since then we've been keeping an eye on various car sales websites, but nothing available locally on eBay jumped out at us and the good stuff all seemed to be overpriced and/or hundreds of miles away. Thus disappointed, just on the off-chance we decided to check the Maxi Owners' Club website again in case anything new had been listed. The reward was a car advertised that very morning, which quickly became the latest addition to the Rusty Old Rubbish fleet and means the Maxi urges have been satisfied and we now have a British Leyland car in the garage again after selling the Triumph Dolomite several years ago.

Second time lucky. There's a BL car on the drive once more.

The Roger Burdett collection

I imagine most bus enthusiasts will know the name of Roger Burdett as he is one of the country's leading preservationists and has a large collection of interesting vehicles that can often be seen at events. Yesterday I had the privilege of visiting his premises in Coventry thanks to my friends in the West Midlands area of the Model Bus Federation and it was a most enjoyable evening surrounded by fascinating vintage buses that was well worth the slightly fraught 50-mile journey through roadworks and rush-hour congestion.

Gentlemen, your carriage awaits. Coventry 244 ready to give enthusiastic MBF members a trip.

Success on a plate?

Getting the right numberplates...

Today I want to vent my feelings about one of my pet hates when it comes to classic cars, a small and fairly trivial thing but one that irritates me far more than it should: so many fine cars are ruined by the wrong style of numberplates. You may think that's not important and as long as it's legal who really cares, but the numberplates are what give the vehicle its unique identity and you can find out so much of its history from the registration displayed on them so to me they are the focal point of the vehicle and can make or break its appearance. After spending thousands on a restoration, why spoil it for the sake of a few extra pounds to buy some correct-looking plates?

Nice car, shame about the plate. It's legal now but wasn't when new and a reflective one would be much better

Shitefest take two

A dirty weekend

Remember the amazing spectacle that was Shitefest about six weeks ago? We descended on Chris and Claire's field from all parts of the country, wreaked havoc and churned up their land, but far from being put off by the experience, within a week he had decided he wanted to do it again once the field had dried out as the poor weather and ground conditions meant we couldn't do a lot of things! So it was that this weekend the now bone-dry field of dreams once again hosted a small gathering of shiters and much mayhem ensued...

The Maxi that got away

I'm sure all car enthusiasts have been through it many times: the excitement of a potential purchase followed by disappointment when things don't work out and you end up leaving the seller's house without the car. Rusty Old Rubbish may be mostly about old cars but there is one important thing missing as we don't actually own one at the moment, although efforts are being made to rectify that situation. With forthcoming changes in circumstances hopefully meaning the loss of a dull modern car and me being able to drive again soon, the time has come to get another classic, but the first attempt to buy one sadly failed despite our best efforts in slightly odd circumstances. Nonetheless it was an interesting experience and not a complete waste of time like some car viewings turn out to be.

The perfect Maxi that narrowly escaped our grasp

Fixing the sharing problem

How to fix Facebook showing the wrong text and image when sharing a Blogger post...

Like most bloggers, I share my blog posts on Facebook to attract more readers, and it used to automatically pick up the right image and description. Since I added the Featured Post widget there on the right, things started to go a bit wrong and no matter what I shared, Facebook always used the text and image from the featured post instead of the one that was shared, which was really confusing for my readers. Having spent quite a bit of time researching the problem, it turns out this is a well-known and long-standing issue with the way Blogger works, and various workarounds have been proposed but the one described here definitely solves the problem. It isn't particularly advanced but does require a little use of the Blogger HTML editor.

Unsung heroes: Austin Maxi

I haven't championed an unsung hero for a very long time so a new entry is well overdue but this one may seem an odd choice: the Austin Maxi. Have I lost my mind? Surely everyone agrees the Maxi was a terrible car that epitomises everything wrong with British Leyland? Well no actually, I think that reputation is rather unfair and the poor old Maxi deserves a lot more credit than it's given. I've been seeing a few Maxis at shows recently and become quite fond of them, so let me justify myself...

The much maligned Maxi. Pile of crap or unsung hero?

Restaurant review: Nelson Street, Buckingham

Delusions of grandeur?

I don't make a habit of reviewing the places where I eat as they are generally so good, but I felt I had to write something about a rare disappointing experience I had today at the imaginatively-named Nelson Street Restaurant in Nelson Street, Buckingham. This seems a popular venue with a good reputation so I was expecting great things from my first visit but it quite frankly left me underwhelmed. I went for lunch with a group of colleagues to celebrate a birthday, and the whole experience, while not unpleasant in any way, was just a bit too average compared with the many other fine places I have eaten at in the past.

Sao what?

South Africa: a country with a fascinating domestic motor industry (Austin Apache, Ford Sierra XR8 and Volkswagen CitiGolf to name just three of the interesting cars built there) but not one known for exports. Apart from the Ford P100, which doesn't really count as it was a pickup truck or 'bakkie' in the vernacular, you'd probably struggle to think of any South African car that was officially imported to the UK. In fact there has only ever been one and it has long since vanished into automotive oblivion. What was this mythical beast then? Read on to find out...

An even more Unexceptional day

Today saw the return to Whittlebury Park of Hagerty's Festival of the Unexceptional, which I first blogged about last year. Now in its third year, it is an event that just keeps getting better and I can honestly say this was probably the best car show I have ever been to in terms of the type and variety of exhibits (and it's completely free of charge too). This year the date had been moved to avoid clashing with the nearby Silverstone Classic, having established itself as being strong enough to stand alone, and this seemed to do wonders for visitor numbers, as of course did the fine weather.

Allegro points the way to the field of wonders...

The collectability paradox

One question I am often asked is why I buy collectable models only to destroy their originality by repainting or converting them, as surely that is a waste of a rare and valuable collectors' item and I'm losing a large sum of my hard-earned money in the process. I approach my collecting with a healthy dose of realism so I justify it purely as an interest that makes me happy and not one that makes me money, and it is taking a common mass-produced model and creating something personal and unique from it that gives me most pleasure. Sadly for those who believe the hype, logic dictates it is very rarely the case that something advertised as a 'collectors' item' will ever actually become collectable, and buying these models as an investment is extremely unlikely to pay off.

Chris Evans and New Top Gear

Love it or hate it, you can't ignore BBC Top Gear and its new incarnation has certainly provoked a huge reaction right from the start, culminating in Chris Evans's recent resignation after making a single series. The show has always had a very vocal fan base, many of whom have been very quick to criticise everything the new presenters do and had already written off the latest series as a failure before it even aired simply due to the absence of Jeremy Clarkson. I took a more open-minded approach and tried to watch it without letting my preconceptions of how it used to be influence my view too much, but I do feel Evans may have made the right decision as despite his best efforts he just didn't seem to gel with the show and wasn't the right man for the job.

The holy grey grille

It's all about that Base...

It's amazing how certain car registration marks become memorable considering they're just semi-random combinations of letters and numbers. Take GVG 510Y for example. This may not be particularly famous and probably means nothing to most of you, having never been owned by a celebrity or featured on television, but the car spotting community on Flickr will recognise it immediately as a legend among them, and those lucky enough to have encountered it speak of it in hushed tones of reverence.

Why are those guys looking so happy to see a crusty old Sierra?

So what is the vehicle this ordinary-seeming numberplate belongs to? A priceless supercar? Maybe a unique prototype? A car involved in an historic event? Nope, to the casual observer it's nothing more than a grotty old Ford Sierra that looks fit for scrap and isn't remotely exciting, so what's so special about it? Well, it's the only known surviving example of the rare early base model with the unpainted grey plastic front grille, long thought to be an extinct or mythical beast that existed only in the brochure and was never actually built, so the discovery of this specimen in the wild a few years ago caused a sensation among those who appreciate the underdogs of the motoring world.

Shitefest shenanigans

I've just returned from a fantastic weekend at a festival in a muddy field attended by people from all corners of the UK and beyond. No, not Glastonbury - I'm talking about Shitefest, the annual get-together for members of the Autoshite.com forum. Past Shitefests have been held in Wiltshire, Yorkshire and Wales, but this year I was able to attend for the first time as it took place not far from home at a secret location in north Buckinghamshire.

So what is Autoshite and what is Shitefest all about? The forum's ethos is hard to define but it sits on the fringes of the classic car movement and encompasses aspects of bangernomics and what the Germans call Youngtimers. Some members have cars that are true classics but it's mostly about unloved everyday transport of the recent past, with cars present dating from the 1970s to the early 2000s. Shitefest first came about in 2012 and is a very informal gathering where forum members get together to admire each other's cars and have a good time, usually with at least one optional visit to somewhere nearby of transport-related interest.

Corgi disappoint again

Six months ago I bemoaned how disappointing Corgi's release schedule for the first half of this year was, and predicted that the Original Omnibus Company models to be released in the second half would be little better. The full release schedule is due to be announced tomorrow but the list of OOC releases was made available by another website today and it gives me no pleasure to say I was right and the first words that came to mind on viewing the list were 'dismal' and 'pathetic'. I was hoping this was incomplete and there would be more to follow, but nothing was omitted so there is even less variety than last time and this batch of releases is far worse than I imagined it could ever be. If you don't like modern Wrightbuses then there is nothing here for you.

Rainy Gaydon and the Truck Show

The British Motor Museum at Gaydon seems to be something of a second home for me at the moment, this being my fourth visit in a year. Just a fortnight after last time I was back again for a repeat of the Classic Truck Show, and in case you're wondering this was a deliberate decision so I could have plenty of time to look around the Collections Centre on my previous visit and wouldn't be rushing around this time trying to see everything in one day, knowing the size of the truck show.

The most apt numberplate of all?

Nora Kudrjawizki's World of Violin

A look through my music library can be an interesting experience. Alongside some world-famous artists that everyone knows are a growing number of obscure and unfamiliar names, and my ambivalence towards the modern mainstream chart scene means I take great delight in seeking out rare gems from lesser-known artists. You may have thought Ray Wilson was an unknown, but he is practically an A-lister compared with the subject of this piece, the delightful Nora Kudrjawizki. I guess that name means nothing whatsoever to you, and until recently it meant nothing to me either. Allow me to enlighten you.

The lovely Nora. So much more than just a pretty face.

Genesis play Polo

Remembering a rock band special edition

The late eighties and early nineties were the golden era of the special edition, with manufacturers and dealers alike jumping on the bandwagon. In those days when base models really were basic and had little more than a full set of wheels, many of these 'specials' involved simply taking the base model and tarting it up with some stick-on stripes, maybe a sunroof or a better stereo if you were lucky, and a daft name (who remembers the Nissan Micra Wave? Yes, it genuinely existed and was a factory-built model!). There were a few better ones though that really were special with decent performance and/or luxury upgrades, and a recent sighting at a show reminded me of an interesting but forgotten example that neatly combines my interests in cars and music, but the version we got in the UK sadly wasn't a patch on that available elsewhere.

In the mid 1990s, Volkswagen became the major sponsor for European tours by several of the world's biggest rock bands, and a suitably-named car was produced as part of this sponsorship deal. The first of these was Genesis, who in 1993 were at the height of their commercial success with the line up of Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks, and were embarking on a mammoth worldwide tour following the release of the We Can't Dance album. This tie-up with Volkswagen led to the production of the Polo Genesis, not just any old special edition but one endorsed by the band themselves. What more could a fan want? Now you could listen to your new Genesis album while driving around in an official Genesis car...

All change at Gaydon

What was the Heritage Motor Centre at Gaydon has recently been through one of the biggest upheavals in its history, closing late last year and reopening in February with a new name and a new building, so the time had come to pay another visit and see what had changed. I have been there several times over the years and seen the place develop since it first opened in 1993 in the ownership of the Rover Group; it was included in BMW's sale of Land Rover to Ford and is now owned by Jaguar Land Rover. Following a refurbishment and the opening of the brand new Collections Centre it is now known as the British Motor Museum and is responsible for three principal collections, the original British Motor Industry Heritage Trust assets being joined by those from the Jaguar Heritage Trust and the former James Hull collection.

The Jaguar Heritage Trust collection is now at Gaydon. I like this XJ6 estate but it never made production.

A Genesis revelation

Retro Record Review: Genesis Classic: Live in Poznan by Ray Wilson and the Berlin Symphony Ensemble (2011)

 

 

My musical tastes are increasingly starting to favour artists many of my friends and contemporaries have never heard of, and today's subject is a particularly esoteric album that I would be surprised if any readers are even aware of, yet alone have ever actually heard. In my previous piece in defence of Ray Wilson, I made mention of his Genesis Classic shows with the Berlin Symphony Ensemble. Having seen various YouTube clips of these performances, I recently discovered that an official recording is available and have now purchased it.

Ray Wilson may not be a household name like his Genesis predecessors and hasn't appeared in the UK charts for many years, but he still has a cult following (which is especially strong in his adopted home country of Poland) and has been far from idle since leaving the band almost two decades ago. Alongside a solo career and a revival of Stiltskin, his other recent project has been the Genesis Classic, an innovative fusion of Genesis hits with classical instruments, and after years of listening to the band's own live and studio versions this album is a refreshingly different take and really is a revelation.

Stondon a year on

It has now been over a year since the Stondon Motor Museum closed its doors for the last time and the fuss has started to die down, so this seems an appropriate time to look at what became of the former exhibits following the much-anticipated disposal auction. Many have not yet reappeared and are hopefully undergoing restoration, but others were rapidly listed on eBay in the hope of a quick profit, and those that were not included in that auction have recently started to come to light. It is surprising how many were purchased by dealers rather than private buyers, considering the high prices that left little room for profit, but the classic car market seems to be on a high at the moment and the Stondon collection no doubt benefitted from this euphoria.

A yellow Reliant without Trotters signwriting! It didn't take long for the inevitable to happen.

The puzzle of the London premium

Why is London so expensive?  

 

London is the place many of my graduate friends inevitably seem to be gravitating to in search of work, and many are now settled there and employed in well-paid jobs. That's perfectly understandable as the city offers the best job prospects in the country, but as one of those 'simple country folk' there is one thing about London I have never been able to get my head around. Why is the cost of living so much higher there and why does everyone accept this? I genuinely do not understand this state of affairs, and whichever logical angle I approach the question from, I always reach the conclusion that London circumstances should mean the cost of living is cheaper there. Allow me to explain...

Tipping point

Today's post explains my views on something else that seems to have become an accepted fact of modern life, yet really shouldn't be so: the insidious practice of tipping staff in the catering and hospitality industry. When dining out, it is expected nowadays that you should pay a tip to the waiter or waitress who served you, and this is often added on to the bill automatically and in some cases is a compulsory charge, but why should that really be so and why should the service charge be an extra on top of the cost of the meal itself? Why is the hospitality industry so different from others in expecting tips from its customers for doing its job, and making its staff rely on these tips to supplement their wages?

A futile Quest

Quest 80 and the U-drive

I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds the failures of the motoring world so much more fascinating than the successes. So much has already been written about the most celebrated and popular vehicles that there is nothing new to add, but those that failed to make an impact are far more worthy of study and raise so many interesting questions. Why did they fail? Could they have succeeded under different circumstances? And in some cases, what the hell were they thinking?! Today's subject tends to fall in the latter category: unsurprisingly you may never have heard of Quest 80 buses and coaches as they went out of business more than thirty years ago after building just a handful of vehicles, but their claim to fame (or should that be infamy?) was a notoriously cumbersome and inefficient drivetrain that frankly defied engineering logic. Read on to find out more about this strange and forgotten manufacturer and their range of blunderbuses.

A compendium of bad error messages

The subject of computer error messages is something that is guaranteed to get me riled. Errors are a sad fact of life in computing and something no one really wants to happen, but so many IT companies really don't help themselves with their unhelpful and often flippant attitudes towards them. It shouldn't be difficult to write a clear, concise description in language the average user can understand of what went wrong, what caused it and how to solve it, yet even in the short time I have worked in IT I have seen so many error messages that are quite frankly terrible and unfit for purpose and become utterly exasperated by them.

They range from the indecipherably technical to the overly 'friendly' and vague, via total gibberish, patronising nonsense, inappropriate frivolity and instructions that are quite simply impossible to follow, but all have one thing in common: they have singularly failed in their sole duty of helping the unfortunate user to understand and recover from the error. Here, in no particular order, is my own personal compendium of the worst error messages I've ever had the misfortune to encounter. You may find some of them hard to believe, such is the scale of their sheer awfulness, but I can assure you every one is genuine and has been seen on a real live computer system in the 21st century.

Only Connect

A tale of three four Transits...

It's the curse of modelmakers. You have a great idea to make something unique that isn't available commercially and spend hours working on it, but no sooner is it finished than a manufacturer announces something very similar that can be bought off the shelf and would have saved all that effort. I'm sure we've all suffered from this curse at one time or another, but it's managed to strike me no less than three times in a short period while modelling Ford Transit Connect vans! Here's the story of this run of bad luck...

In defence of Ray Wilson

Genesis seem to be one of those bands that have a strictly divided fan base, with fans who either like the Peter Gabriel era or the Phil Collins era, but very rarely both (personally I fall into the latter camp as I'm not a huge fan of Gabriel, who is a little too bizarre for my taste). One of the few things both factions seem to agree on though is that neither of them think very much of Ray Wilson, and he has gained a reputation as the man who ruined Genesis and caused them to split up. Having spent a lot of time recently listening to Wilson's work, I've come to the conclusion that this reputation is entirely unfair and unjustified, and the unfortunate Wilson deserves much greater recognition in the annals of the band's long history.  

Is this man really guilty of ruining Genesis?

A Perkins peculiarity - the Automatic Diesel Montego

I seem to have neglected this blog for rather too long due to other circumstances. Did anyone miss me? Anyway, I'm back now with another example of my favourite subject, an obscure and unknown car that few know ever existed - I certainly didn't, even after I had seen it with my own eyes!

A scruffy old Montego that hides an interesting secret.

Among the many interesting vehicles in the car park at last year's Festival of the Unexceptional was a rather scruffy looking maroon Rover Montego estate that was just the sort of car that looked right at home at this event but didn't seem that remarkable in this context. I photographed it and then thought no more about it until I came to upload the photo to my Flickr site the next day and checked the vehicle details on the DVLA website. Imagine my puzzlement when it reported "fuel type: diesel, transmission: automatic". I was intrigued but knowing the DVLA data is riddled with silly errors and finding no evidence of such a combination ever existing, I put this down as nothing more than a mistake in the vehicle record but queried it anyway in my Flickr caption. A couple of days later, along came its owner with a very informative comment confirming not only that it is indeed a diesel automatic Montego but it was also an official factory-backed project and not an aftermarket conversion. Even AROnline, the encyclopaedia of all things Austin-Rover that is filled with all sorts of fascinating prototypes, makes no mention of this vehicle, so this may be the only place on the internet where you can read about it. Hard facts are in short supply so I admit this piece includes a lot of speculation and assumptions in the absence of anything definite.

Your abusing are language

Today I want to vent my frustration at some of the careless grammatical mistakes that seem to be becoming increasingly prevalent in written communication and are gradually mangling the beautiful English language into something incomprehensible, yet when the offenders are challenged they fail to even understand what they've done wrong. While I have no formal language qualifications beyond a GCSE in English and I'm not immune from getting things wrong, I do feel I have an above average grasp of my native tongue (which I hope is apparent in my writings on this blog) so what to me are such basic mistakes really do annoy me as it should be very easy to get these right. Don't get me wrong, I would never have a go at anyone who has a genuine communication difficulty such as dyslexia or similar, and I'm talking about what should be basic fundamentals of grammar learned at primary school.

Consider the following sentence: "Your write, we except Paypal has payment for are products". There are so many things wrong with that, yet it is made up entirely of valid English words and to a growing number of people appears to be a perfectly coherent sentence as they don't know any better.

A burning issue

Please don't set fire to your models!

Something I've noticed recently that is spreading among the younger members of the model bus community is a trend towards depicting a burnt out vehicle by setting fire to it. For many reasons this really isn't a good idea at all so I cannot condone such behaviour and I feel I must write something to warn of the dangers and hopefully put an end to this idiotic practice before someone gets hurt.

This makes me cringe. So dangerous and not even realistic.

Clearing up a Facebook misconception

Facebook seems to be one of those Marmite things that you either love or hate. For all its faults (and there are many) it serves a useful purpose, but there is still strong resistance to it in some quarters, especially among the older generation who may not fully understand the world of social media. One particular misconception is especially prevalent among those who don't use it: there is a widespread belief that Facebook is one of those platforms that is completely invisible and unusable unless you have an account, which is not the case at all and there is a great deal of content that can be viewed without a Facebook account being necessary. Read on to find out how so much of the world of Facebook is available to you even if you don't have an account.

The worst F1 car ever? That's Life

Formula 1. Supposedly the jewel in the crown and the pinnacle of international motorsport, but quite honestly something that no longer interests me at all. With entry fees alone costing many millions and an extremely complicated and restrictive rule book, only the largest and wealthiest teams can afford to compete and the racing has become very clinical and boring as a result. It wasn't always like that though: in the late eighties and early nineties, the fees were much lower and the rules more favourable to smaller independent teams, resulting in entry lists so large that many races had to feature a pre-qualifying session to weed out a few of the weaker cars before the qualifying proper. All sorts of small and now forgotten outfits came and went during this period, usually trundling around at the tail end of the field and rarely even managing to start a race, yet alone finish. The strange stories behind them provide far more interest than the mundanity of today's top teams, none more so than the ill-equipped and ill-fated Life Racing Engines. The very reason for this team even existing is hard to fathom...

Putting the car before the horse

Uriah Smith and the Horsey Horseless

One of my favourite places on the internet is the Autoshite.com forum, a little corner of the web where those who appreciate old and unloved cars gather to share their mutual interest. Like all good communities it has its own collection of memes and in-jokes that outsiders wouldn't understand, one of which involves regular mentions of a mythical veteran car called a Horsey Horseless. I had assumed this was something that had been made up by a forum member some time before I joined, but it turns out the Horsey Horseless was a real car - well, sort of: it certainly existed on paper but there is no proof any were actually built.

The only known image of the Horsey Horseless. Would this mutant horse-car fool our equine friends?

Atlas Editions get weirder

My recent article on Atlas Editions and their strange business practices has proved popular and readers generally agree it accurately reflects the truth, but far from persuading them to buck their ideas up, in recent weeks they actually seem to have defied all expectations and got even worse, if such a thing is possible! Instead of learning from criticism like most other companies, they're simply burying their heads in the sand, censoring complaints and pretending all is well, which is a truly bizarre mentality.

R.I.P. Glenn Frey

Just a week after David Bowie's death, another of my musical heroes has passed on. The name Glenn Frey may not mean much by itself to some younger readers, but I guarantee everyone will have heard of his band, the Eagles, and their biggest hit, 'Hotel California', as they are among the greatest of all on the American country-rock scene and have sold simply vast quantities of music over a period of almost 45 years. Even more so than Bowie, the Eagles, both as a band and as solo artists, have had a profound influence on me: they rank among my all-time favourite musicians and have provided the soundtrack to my life through good times and bad ever since I discovered them in my early teens, so Frey's death came as a great shock and I couldn't let it pass unmarked.

The weird world of Atlas Editions

Today's post focuses on a company with the strangest business practices I have ever encountered. You may have heard of Atlas Editions as they advertise extensively; their business model is offering subscriptions to collections of items, principally diecast models but also such other collectables as ornaments and plates, with much emphasis on them being exclusive to Atlas and not available anywhere else, which isn't always true. Each collection begins with a loss leader at a very low price but subsequent goods are more expensive, and they will continue to send items at regular intervals unless you choose to cancel. This all sounds quite reasonable but Atlas often go about their business in strange, disorganised and amateurish ways that have resulted in them not having the best of reputations.

In my favoured 1/76 scale, Atlas have produced a number of collections: Eddie Stobart, Great British Buses, Trams of the World, Fire Engines of the World, the Greatest Show on Earth (funfair and circus vehicles), the World of Stobart, and Classic Coaches. I am personally subscribed to two of these (Greatest Show on Earth and World of Stobart) and my experience so far has been satisfactory, but there is an Atlas Editions Collectors group on Facebook where complaints vastly outnumber positive posts, and numerous threads about the company on consumer advice forums. Read on for more about the weird world of Atlas Editions and their bizarre ways of running a business...

R.I.P. David Bowie

This week got off to a rather shocking start as I woke this morning to the completely unexpected news that David Bowie has passed away. I was reading through my Facebook feed and wondering why so many of my friends were talking about him, then I saw the announcement of his death on his official page and let out a few involuntary profanities, such was the shock. While I wouldn't class myself as a die-hard Bowie fan and there are parts of his work that I don't like, particularly some of the more bizarre material from his later years, I do enjoy listening to the classics and his music has had a great influence on me. It's not an overstatement to say the man was and is a legend: everyone has heard of him and he was very influential over a long period, not just through his music but also for his persona and stagecraft.

Facebook's secret feature change

I'm sure many of you will agree that a lot of the changes Facebook make don't improve the user experience at all, and I have been very critical of them, but for once they have actually made a beneficial change that is genuinely useful and solves a real issue. However, they seem to have neglected to tell anyone about it as the majority of users haven't realised anything has changed and the problematic behaviour it was supposed to prevent is still occurring so I feel more attention needs to be drawn to this change. It affects what happens when you reject a friend request: that person now no longer has the ability to send you another request so you won't be bombarded by those annoying persistent users who keep sending a new request every time you reject one, and this should have put an end to that irritating practice of friend requests being left pending indefinitely.

Jeff Lynne: is he Alone in the Universe?

Record Review: Alone in the Universe by Jeff Lynne's ELO

November 2015 saw the release of Alone in the Universe, the new album by Jeff Lynne, the creative force behind the Electric Light Orchestra, which is the first to bear the ELO name since the disappointing and largely forgotten 2000 album Zoom. After some years in the wilderness, the band have recently come to prominence again as a result of a critically-acclaimed concert for the BBC in Hyde Park during 2014. I am a fairly recent convert to the music of ELO, having heard much of their work without really knowing it was theirs, and have become very fond of their greatest hits compilation, Light Years, so I was curious to find out what Lynne's new music was like and asked for this album as a Christmas present. It isn't entirely what I would have expected from ELO and left me a little disappointed as a result, but is nevertheless an enjoyable little album and a welcome return for one of the greats of the seventies.

Ctrl-Z again!

Just a quick one to vent my frustrations. Remember my angry post about the stupid Ctrl-Z behaviour that deletes the entire text of your work-in-progress post? Even though I now know about this there is a further twist that I've just fallen foul of, resulting in the total loss of a piece that had been at the draft stage for several months and was nearing completion - I can't be bothered to rewrite it all so now it will never be published. What happened is that I once again pressed Ctrl-Z too many times and wiped the text, but knowing I would be snookered once the autosave function ran I immediately pressed close to exit without saving and preserve my work. Sure enough, a message popped up saying "You have unsaved changes that will be lost" so I clicked OK expecting my changes to be discarded and the text to be preserved, but no, it appears to have saved anyway and all my hard work was gone with no way to get it back. It seems you can't win and as soon as you make the fatal mistake of pressing Ctrl-Z your work is as good as gone.

I know people have suggested Blogger posts should be drafted outside of Blogger, e.g. in Microsoft Word, so you have a backup copy, but that really shouldn't be necessary and defeats the point of a cloud service that should provide better safety and availability without needing to keep multiple copies. If I thought for one minute it would make any difference I would be writing a strongly-worded complaint to Google, but sadly this is a company that is not immune from the attitude I so deplore of large IT firms not giving a damn about their users and completely ignoring any criticism. I guess I'll just have to train myself not to use Ctrl-Z in Blogger, but that will be difficult as it is a universal shortcut that I use all the time and works correctly everywhere else, and the proper solution is for Google to remove this behaviour. Beware once again - the power of Ctrl-Z is even mightier than I thought!

The last Healey

As you've probably guessed by now, I am a self-confessed car geek. I pride myself on my knowledge of obscure cars as they are one of the few things in life I am really passionate about, so when I come across something I had never heard of before, curiosity always gets the better of me and I have to find out all about it. As my first car was a Mark 1 Ford Fiesta I naturally have a sentimental attraction to them and it always pleases me to see one, but surely everyone knows what a Fiesta is and it can hardly be considered even remotely obscure. How many of you are aware however that the Mark 1 was sold in the USA and along the way has a surprising connection with a famous British sports car manufacturer? I certainly wasn't until I recently stumbled across the car in question...

A Ford Fiesta but not as we know it