whizzbang.biz Blog

Being a big fan of steam locomotives I thought it would be a great idea to get this very useful & wonderfully illustrated comprehensive guide which lists all of the ex-British Railways steam locomotives currently in preservation in the UK, whether they be currently in steam or undergoing overhaul, they are all listed. The book also lists new build locomotives such as the awesome A1 Pacific no 60163 Tornado or the BR Standard 3 2-6-2 Tank Engine no 82045 currently being built down at the Severn Valley Railway.

The book includes locomotives from four major railway companies – GWR, LMS, LNER and Southern Regions aswell as all the BR Standard Locomotives currently in service or undergoing overhaul, there is also a list of Narrow Guage Locomotives running at places like the Welshpool and LLanfair, Vale of Rheidol, and Talyllyn Railways.

At the back There is also a very useful directory of all the Preserved Railways in the UK, telling you how to get there, where they are, how to contact them & whether they have a website. I had not realised just how many Preserved Steam Railways there are in the UK until I read this book.

I recently bought this book. It comes From the publishers of Steam Railway Magazine and contains details of all the major steam events and locomotive stories which happened during 2008, complete with many fantastic colour photographs of the events.

From the 40th anniversary of the fifteen Guineas Special, to the building of the Peppercorn A1 no 60163 Tornado, The rebuilding of the damaged parts of the Severn Valley Railway and the first time GWR 7812 Erlestoke Manor raised steam after having been overhauled, aswell as many more fascinating articles.

It also has a review of the years various Galas and events of 2008, from the KWVR 40th Anniversary gala, the royal visit to the Severn Valley Railway (Which I thoroughly enjoyed), The LNER festival at the NYMR in March, Llangollen’s Patriot Gala, The Bluebell’s Autumn Gala, The SVR’s Autumn Gala (Which I also thoroughly enjoyed) plus a Narrow Gauge review of 2008 featuring The Welsh Highland Railway and many more.

There is also a list of forthcoming events for 2009, which has really whetted my appetite for more & I can hardly wait.

I bought Guns’n'Roses long awaited & much anticipated new album “Chinese Democracy” the other day and I think some of the tracks are awesome. I’ve read an awful lot of negative reviews in various newspapers, but being a long term fan I ignored them and bought it anyway and I’m glad I did
Here is the track listing

1. Chinese Democracy
2. Shackler’s Revenge
3. Better
4. Street Of Dreams
5. If The World
6. There Was A Time
7. Catcher In The Rye
8. Scraped
9. Riad N’ The Bedouins
10. Sorry
11. I.R.S.
12. Madagascar
13. This I Love
14. Prostitute

And here are a few tunes courtesy of YouTube

Chinese Democracy
Shackler’s Revenge
Better
IRS
Prostitute

I’ve been really looking forward to hearing the new album by The Killers entitled ‘Day & Age’, So I went out and bought it as soon as it came out – It’s a great album & I’m really enjoying it.

Some of The tracks such as ‘Losing Touch’, ‘Human’ and ‘Spaceman’ are like ‘Sam’s Town meets ‘Hot Fuss’ – The Killers at their best, and I also think that the tracks ‘Neon tiger’, ‘This is Your Life’ & ‘The World We Live in’ are really great too.

The Tracks ‘A Dustland Fairytale’ and ‘I Can’t Stay’ need a few listens but are growing on me the more I hear them, as is the final track on the album ‘A Crippling Blow’.

Here is the Track Listing

1. Losing Touch
2. Human
3. Spaceman
4. Joy Ride
5. A Dustland Fairytale
6. This Is Your Life
7. I Can’t Stay
8. Neon Tiger
9. The World We Live In
10. Goodnight, Travel Well
11. A Crippling Blow

Here are a few tracks courtesy of Youtube

Human
Mr Brightside
Somebody told Me
All these Things That I’ve Done
Read My Mind
For Reasons Unknown

Being a big fan of Mony Python, Life of Brian, Holy Grail & The Meaning of Life, and having all the movies on DVD, I was very excited when I heard that there was a Monty Python channel which has been recently launched on YouTube -now you can relive all your favourite classic Python sketches & movie scenes here

This novel is the follow up to Labyrinth and is available this week from WHSmith for £2.99 when you buy The Times Newspaper. Having read a number of reviews I think it sounds quite interesting so I may get it.

It starts in 1891 when a Parisian teenager named Léonie Vernier and her brother visit their recently widowed aunt Isolde who is living in the French spa-town of Rennes-les-Bains in southern France. There they discover a startling account of her late uncle’s pursuit of the occult, So decide to scour the property for the tarot cards and Visigoth tomb he described, unaware that more tangible peril in the form of a murderous stalker is seeking to destroy her loved ones.

Fast forward a few years and Present-day biographer Meredith Martin is in France finishing a biography of Claude Debussy and also tracing her ancestry when she sees a reproduction of the same tarot, which bears an uncanny resemblance to her. So She investigates the connection when she, too, arrives at the estate, which has now become a hotel and discovers a new battle between good and evil going on….

The Mail on Sunday newspaper in association with Optimum is offering readers the chance to get a DVD of The Prince and the Pauper Starring Oliver Reed, Raquel Welch & Mark Lester. In addition they are also offering loads of great DVD boxed-sets at half-price.

I’ve already got most of the Ealing Comedies & The St Trinians, having collected them when they were offered with various newspapers & I’m not really bothered about Agatha Christie or George Formby, having said that, I have looked at the site & there are many more great films I really fancy getting.

Boxed sets on offer are:

Definitive Ealing Studios Collection Volume 3
* The Ladykillers
* The Man in the White Suit
* The Magnet
* Scott of the Antarctic

Peter Sellars Collection
* Heavens Above
* I’m Alright Jack
* Only Two Casn Play

St Trinians Collection
* The Belles of St Trinians
* Blue Murder at St Trinians
* The Great St Trinians Train Robbery
* The Pure Hell of St Trinians

George Formby Collection
* No Limits
* Let George Do It
* Turned ou Nice Again
* I See Ice
* Spare a Copper
* It’s in the Air
* Come on George!

Agatha Christie Collection
* Murder on the Orient Express
* Death on the Nile
* The Mirror Crack’d
* Evil Under the Sun

Sherlock Holmes Collection
* Sherlock Holmes & the Secret Weapon
* Hound of the Baskervilles
Plus 12 more classic Basil Rathbone adventures

Richard Attenborough Collection
* Brighton Rock
* The Ship that Died of Shame
* The Angry Silence
* The Man Upstairs
* Dunkirk
* Private’s Progress
* Brothers in Law

Harold Lloyd Collection
Nine disc collection featuring classics like
* Safety Last
* The Freshemen
Plus many other great Harold Lloyd films

Next week inside The Mail on Sunday there is a free DVD of the Action packed swashbuckling adventure The Three Musketeers,

Based on the classic French novel by Alexandre Dumas, this film stars Michael York as D’Artagnan, a master swordsman who is the product of a poor French family. Unable to read or write, but filled with dreams of heroism, who travels to Paris where he soon meets three musketeers: Athos (Oliver Reed), Porthos (Frank Finlay), Aramis (Richard Chamberlain).

The four friends then embark on a series of hilarious and sometimes dangerous escapades as they try to stop the treacherous Cardinal Richelieu (Charlton Heston), and his villainous schemes…

The film also stars Raquel Welch and Faye Dunaway aswell as cameo appearances from comic legends Roy Kinnear and Spike Milligan.

The Four Musketeers

The following week, there is also a DVD of the sequel The Four Musketeers. which was filmed at the same time & is another cracking action tale featuring the same rousing mix of knockabout action and fast-paced comedy, aswell as the same stellar cast.

In this film the villianous Milady de Winter (Faye Dunaway) tries to lure D’Artagnan (Michael York) and his friends into a trap by kidnapping his beloved Constance Bonacieux (Raquel Welch), will she succeed….?

To get your copy of The Four Musketeers you must collect a token which will be published in The Mail on Sunday on November 30. and Take it to your local Tesco store.

Grandmas don’t know everything

Little Tony was 9 years old and was staying with his grandmother for a few days. He’d been playing outside with the other kids for a while when he came into the house and asked her, ‘Grandma, what’s that called when two people sleep in the same room and one is on top of the other?’

She was a little taken aback, but she decided to tell him the truth. ‘It’s called sexual intercourse, darling.’

Little Tony said, ‘Oh, OK,’ and went back outside to play with the other kids. A few minutes later he came back in and said angrily, ‘Grandma, it isn’t called sexual intercourse. It’s called Bunk Beds.
And Jimmy’s mum wants to talk to you.’
__________________________________

Computer dilemma

A Spanish Teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

‘House’ for instance, is feminine: ‘la casa.’
‘Pencil,’ however, is masculine: ‘el lapiz.’

A student asked, ‘What gender is ‘computer’?’

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two
groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves
whether computer’ should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men’s group decided that ‘computer’ should definitely be of the
feminine gender (‘la computadora’), because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is
incomprehensible to everyone else;

3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for
possible later retrieval; and

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself
spending half your money on accessories for it.

(THIS GETS BETTER!)

The women’s group, however, concluded that computers should be
Masculine (‘el computador’), because:

1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;

2. They have a lot of data but still can’t think for themselves;

3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time
they ARE the problem; and

4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that had you waited a
little longer, you could have got a better model.

The women won.

TEACHER: Maria, go to the map and find North America .
MARIA: Here it is.
TEACHER: Correct. Now class, who discovered America ?
CLASS: Maria.
____________________________________

TEACHER: John, why are you doing your math multiplication on the floor?
JOHN: You told me to do it without using tables.
__________________________________________

TEACHER: Glenn, how do you spell ‘crocodile?’
GLENN: K-R-O-K-O-D-I-A-L’
TEACHER: No, that’s wrong
GLENN: Maybe it is wrong, but you asked me how I spell it.
____________________________________________

TEACHER: Donald, what is the chemical formula for water?
DONALD: H I J K L M N O.
TEACHER: What are you talking about?
DONALD: Yesterday you said it’s H to O.
__________________________________

TEACHER: Winnie, name one important thing we have today that we didn’t have ten years ago.
WINNIE: Me!
__________________________________________

TEACHER: Glen, why do you always get so dirty?
GLEN: Well, I’m a lot closer to the ground than you are.
_______________________________________

TEACHER: Millie, give me a sentence starting with ‘I.’
MILLIE: I is..
TEACHER: No, Millie….. Always say, ‘I am.’
MILLIE: All right… ‘I am the ninth letter of the alphabet.’
_________________________________

TEACHER: George Washington not only chopped down his father’s cherry tree, but also admitted it. Now, Louie, do you know why his father didn’t punish him?
LOUIS: Because George still had the axe in his hand.
______________________________________

TEACHER: Now, Simon, tell me frankly, do you say prayers before eating?
SIMON: No sir, I don’t have to, my Mom is a good cook.
______________________________

TEACHER: Clyde , your composition on ‘My Dog’ is exactly the same as your brother’s. Did you copy his?
CLYDE : No, sir. It’s the same dog.
___________________________________

TEACHER: Harold, what do you call a person who keeps on talking when people are no longer interested?
HAROLD: A teacher