Ah!...harken to the Jackboot...

Have you ever belonged to a forum?

Or a Yahoo special interest group?

Have you ever felt the need to have a go at sections of society that get your goat or make a perfectly valid comment on the world wherein you are showing your completeness as an individual?

Oh dear me. I said it, didn't I? Individual. Oh Lordy, the "I" word. The word that differentiates us from the crowd, that makes us independently who we are.

The one word you must never get close to on a Forum...Or they'll come for you. The sad little men whose miserable lives are given some semblance of importance by their having been "elevated" to the internet peerage of MODERATOR. Oh the glory!...oh the respect at the Parish Council Coffee Mornings! Oh!, the admiration of those poor also-rans who aspire, but have never managed to, lick enough derriere or cowtow and forlock-tug to the "right" people in such a way as to be asked to spend the rest of their hobby time lording it over people with a point of view and a sense of humour.

For mentioning how, if you told a kid in the street to pick his litter up these days, you'd probably get a kick in the nuts, I have been strongly censured on a forum called RMWeb, the biggest model railway forum. My posts were doctored by a man whose avatar is a fantasy reptile!!

I imagine, when he retires at night, that he checks for any under his bed.

So, I am not to say what everybody else on any forum that I've been on would say with complete impunity, what every journalist, letter writer, vox pop member of the public is saying about modern life on our streets. But say it in an overly precious and self important model railway forum and you are held as "likely to be inflammatory". What, tell me, is inflammatory about the truth, about something which is on the lips of everyone, in homes, pubs, clubs, offices, on the streets...everywhere!

Perhaps I should make a small model scene of a street full of council houses in which an old lady is being knocked off her pavement scooter and and a still active old chap has come out of his house to find the local yobs have up-ended his Reliant Robin for the third time. Would Lizard Man stop my model being shown on his forum?

Yet I know of exactly those cases having happened recently in just such circumstances. Truth, you see?

Ziegheil, little Lizard Man. it all starts like this.

Let the Fox see the chicken

Having been carless for a while due to having lived afloat for a while, my wife and I decided that perhaps we could risk a little money on getting mobile again. Just a bit of independence from having to borrow our daughter's car.

It was necessary to have a car which was at the lowest tax point or even tax exempt, but equally important to have one with low insurance (i.e. Classic Car insurance) and to be very economical.

Our original plans to use an Austin 7 came to nought when the Ruby project fell through and another could not be found, so a bit of lateral thinking came up with..... the Reliant.

Now I'm fine with the idea of 3 wheels, but Chris couldn't get used to it, so a four wheeler it had to be and when I asked around the Reliant firmament, a Fox was offered.

A rugged, simple, 848cc, 12" wheeled, pick up with a lift off van body. All in fibreglass with a galvanised steel chassis.

We went to see it, Chris loved it and now we await the little gem having its MOT test and some tidy-up.

Our plans for it are to paint it in a nice rich mid-blue called Sapphire and to detail it in very pale blue and aluminium, me being a keen basher of that metal. It sits in beige at present and, like golf, I hope I am never so feeble as to like biege.