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Recently His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall paid a visit to the Severn Valley Railway to unviel a plaque celebrate the re-opening of the full line, following last years devastating storm and flood damage.

They first arrived at the Severn Valley Railway station in Kidderminster aboard no 67006 “Royal Soveriegn”, and then travelled the the full length of the 16-mile Severn Valley Railway to Bridgnorth, Hauled by the GWR 4-6-0 King Class Locomotive No 6024 “King Edward I “,

A second steam locomotive, the LMS Princess class Pacific No.6201 Princess Elizabeth, had also been called up by the Severn Valley Railway from its regular home at the East Lancashire Railway at Bury, to act in a standby capacity.

This was the first time the Royal Train had run over SVR metals, and the first time it has been steam-hauled on any heritage railway.

Afterward Edward was uncoupled & The “Royal Sovereign”, then took the royal train back onto the mainline back to their destination. Meanwhile Edward & Elizabeth both stayed at the Severn Valley Railway to operate the weekend service and I was able to get some great photographs (see above).

This Novel is being offered by The Times Newspaper and the cover caught my eye, and having read a bit of it, it sounded really interesting too, so I may get it

The book is about A Character named Ariel Manto, who is a young journalist and polymath scholar whose chief interest is in 19th-century thought experiments. Ariel is well read, but her life is a mess and she lives in a grotty mouse-infested apartment.

One day her thesis adviser mysteriously vanishes and Ariel discovers a second hand bookstore, where she chances upon a rare antique novel entitled “The End of Mr Y”, which is supposedly cursed.

So of course Ariel reads a the book, and the deeper she gets into the story, the more convinced she is that the author could enter a dimension called the Troposphere, a realm made of human consciousness. where you can meet gods or hitchhike on people’s thoughts in order to travel through space and time.

So Ariel determines to find it as well. From there, things get entertainingly, mind-bendingly weird.

I’m a big fan of Radiohead & lately I have been listening to their Greatest Hits Double CD, which was released by EMI after Radiohead released In Rainbows independently on-line & they parted company. It’s got all the singles and some of the best songs from their many albums on it.

Here is the track-listing

Disc one
* Airbag
* I might Be Wrong
* Go to Sleep
* Creeep
* No Surprises
* Exit Music (for a Film)
* My Iron Lung
* Knives Out
* Lucky
* Optimistic
* Anyone Can Play Guitar
* How To Disappear Completely
* 2+2 = 5
* The Bends
* Pyramid Song
* Street Spirit
* Everything in its Right Place

Disc Two
* Just
* Paranoid Android
* Karma Police
* Let Down
* Planet Telex
* High & Dry
* The National Anthem
* There There
* Talk Show Host
* You
* Fake Plastic Trees
* Idiotique
* True Love Waits