A great story

Forget the television and the cinema. If you want a gripping story of murder, greed, stupidity, infanticide, treachery, war, and lust; grab yourself a few books about the Kings and Queen’s of England. I just can’t put down the one that I am reading at the moment regarding great British Battles i.e. those fought on our soil. It is astonishingly good stuff. Each page bringing with it news of a new twist, in what feels like and never ending saga. Phew, I can’t wait for Series 2. Oops, it isn’t TV and therefore it can’t be ruined by an unnecessary stretching to and beyond the limit sequel.

Senator John McCain

I think that the Republican Presidential Candidate of 2008 Senator John McCain spoke exceptionally well on the BBC Television Programme 'Newsnight', broadcast live tonight, regarding events in Libya. Presidential Candidate McCain was 'Presidential' in the way that he handled the questions, represented the people of America and more importantly demonstrated a Humanitarian side that is all too often missing when commentators speak about world affairs involving injury and death.

Others should pay particular attention to Senator McCain's call for Humanitarian medical aid for the many thousands of injured people in Libya and the inability of the local infrastructure to effectively cope with the extensive medical problems. I agree that American Medical Ships should be deployed and European countries and the United States of America should take in those that have been injured and help with their care and rehabilitation.

They fought for democracy and to make our world a safer place - the least we can do is step in and prevent and ease suffering.

Well done Senator John McCain , well said, I applaud you.

Silk

My 'Big thing' at the moment is de-stressing and relaxation along with my morning midweek swim Monday to Friday. So with a nautical them in mind, it's a good job that my current relaxation project is a rebuild of a Model Pond Yacht to form the Centre Piece of a Scalextric layout.

I have found out that the Yacht that I am renovating as a Scalextric Centre Piece is a lovely wooden hulled model sailing yacht made by GINER of Spain.

The original model is a double masted beast unlike the single master that I am building. The original model has “Guaranteed to Sail” written on the label, whereas this model ain't sailing anywhere. Indeed when I get around to it the harbour has to be drilled in two places and the Pond Yacht screwed home from underneath the layout. The Model Yacht has a drop down metal keel that I dismantled to make it flat bottomed for the Scalextric layout. The hull is approximately 23½ inches long with a width of approximately 4¾ inches. On the original model the height from the top of the mast to the bottom of the drop down keel is approximately 33 inches, whereas on my re-build, the height of the single mast to the deck level is 32.5cm.

The photograph shows the boat unfinished but after a considerable amount of modelling work undertaken over several weeks. This work has included dismantling the original model yacht, sanding off thick paint, priming, airbrushing several layers onto the hull, lining the hull with white acrylic, and then over-lining the white band with gold acrylic. The deck barrier posts were made from cocktail sticks, with the hull marked and drilled to receive these. The deck post wire is a single strand of unravelled picture frame wire that has been threaded through holes drilled in each cocktail stick. The bolting base for each post was cut out of an old ice cream tub. Well it wouldn't be a new one would it? Because if it was where would all of the ice-cream go? Now if there was enough of that, then that could be swimming heaven....

Models

I have just added a 'Models' page and put up one of my best photo's onto that page as I think of ways of improving this Blog.

How things change

I just realised that my Dell Laptop has travelled more than most people. It has been to Gibraltar, Spain, Italy (several times), Portugal, France (several times), Austria (several times), and Germany (several times). Along with various trips to each of the home countries. But the real question must be; why on earth did I lump it around. In the pre-digital information technology explosion our messages to family and friends would have been restricted to a late arriving postcard of dubious sentiment and content, along with post holiday social intercourse between the overly excited traveller and anyone who was foolish enough to sit and listen.