please empty your brain below

If relevant, please start your comment with a number from 1 to 31.

(questions will not be answered)
7 - a narrow escape indeed. Unusual to wear trousers without pockets during the winter though.
21 - they are great, and relaxing too.
24 - for which I am thankful. Even you would've struggled to find anything interesting there.
25: St Mary Cray!
21: Thank you for the link to the train journey site - it's many years since I lived in Exeter and Dawlish and still remember finding out about Brunels 'Atmospheric Railway' in the pub at Starcross! that journey along the coast to Torquay!!
Happy days!

Ian J
4 - the first time I visited Belgium I was excited about trying their chips. Imagine my disappointment on discovering that the 50 or so sauces on offer didn't include vinegar!
10. They were filming in St John’s Smith Square over last weekend and Monday. In a nice touch, some costumed actors could be seen carrying lunch bags from Pret A Manger.
19 - this time you'll need to stock up on rations in case inflation goes badly.

21 - Don Coffey worth a look too.
15 - Back when I used to be able to cycle over Hammersmith Bridge, everyone cycled right at the edge, as it was the least patched and bumpy bit.
23 - when I was in University, I had a part-time job doing deliveries around the campus. One of the most nerve-wracking was delivering chlorine to the pools around campus. We used to tire the cannisters to the side of the truck, and drive really slowly and really carefully. I imagine health and safety will have stopped that practice by now.
17 I similarly saw the Flying Scotsman at Plymouth a few years ago. Quite impressive and always best when it is unannounced.
11 Not just Essex mums, this was a national offering by the chain concerned.
7) I'm almost paranoid about my phone (probably indirectly after having seen someone's grabbed by a boy on a bike). I usually keep it in a zipped jacket pocket or in a trouser pocket with my hand constantly on it. On trains I don't hold it whilst boarding or standing near a door in case it somehow slips out of my grasp into the gap.

18) & 27) Why are some places so against photos? That sort of attitude would only encourage me to take more; it's not as if you're breaking any law.
5. I stumbled over him as I left a train arriving at London Bridge about twenty years ago - he was sitting by the door and it was in the days of slam door carriages.
4 tbh I think Awesome Chips has a pallet of potatoes like that outside every day...
18: I'm curious what "the reply it deserved" was...
17. I had a surprise encounter with the Flying Scotsman at Woking a few years back. The people waiting for it with cameras at the ready were all expecting it to run through Platform 2, but it was routed through Platform 1 where I was waiting for my connection - and there was a train standing in Platform 2 hiding it from the view of all the people who had come to see it.

Impressive though No 4472/60103 is, I don't really understand why it has a public following so much greater than any other preserved steam locomotive.
18/27 People trying to enforce restrictions on photography where no such laws exist really bother me.
9 I concur it can be quite a shock.
10 - I once saw a man in a suit of armour buying lunch in a Tesco Express near Covent Garden. I assumed something was being filmed nearby, but never found out what.
9 - I turned up recently outside my first home, purchased in the late 80's, to find it in a similar condition. The old bathroom suite was sitting in the front garden. It wasn't the tasteful one that we had installed, the bath was a horrible plastic corner one with jacuzzi jets. I was a bit narked about that.

14 - I'm surprised about this one, in my mind's eye you are watching your surroundings keenly through every journey, looking for blog material.
14. On buses I'm looking out of the window.
On trains I'm reading my book.
24) The 324 serves many useful places, but it's the sort of route where nobody will ever need to go from one end to the other!
30. That's really quite clever (but if you'd mentioned it tomorrow I'd have been unsure about it).
28. To be fair, you're behind a 'continue this thread' link so I would expect that level of attention.
30: they could have used the proper typeface.
1-3: Not quite 'Christmas in June' but no doubt just as nice.

9: Looked on satellite view and saw that a later owner has ripped out the back garden we'd carefully landscaped 20+ years ago, including the 4 beautiful mature trees. Nothing left but dead grass. Heart-breaking.

16: Hope you are not impacted by it nonetheless.

22: There doesn't seem to be any predictability to the out of stock items - several similar own-brand pasta sauces are available, but not the one I want for 3 weeks! Likewise Ramen noodles - other flavours - but not the one my kids want!

29: The mental image of a small DG dragging on a sweet cigarette after a hard day in Top Infants made me chuckle!

31: Going to do that tonight - to squeeze as much out of the cheaper rate as possible
Wed 9. Amazed a few months ago when a friend texted to say our first house in Forest Gate was on Your Home Made Perfect, a TV renovation show. It was a small 2 up 2 down & little had changed (until the update) in the intervening 30 years. The architects who gave the two competing designs were very clever with their use of limited space
9) My dad tended the garden beautifully, with a bit of assistance in his final years. The people that bought it after he died ripped everything out, put pebbles and rocks down, got an old anchor and turned it into some hideous seascape. It's lucky dad was cremated because he'd still be spinning in his grave.

10) I saw a gorilla talking to the pope outside Emek Kebab in South Norwood many moons ago. Captain Sensible lived nearby and I've always assumed it was something to do with him.
4) thanks for that, might try them out
21: Bookmarked. Me and 11 others currently watching a service pull into Bridge of Orchy. Ridiculously scenic.
I’d assumed your 30th would be #Train24

dg writes: never assume.
20 Didn't realise they'd renamed the cemetery. I'd always known it as the New Battersea Cemetery (Wandsworth owned and originally for Battersea inhabitants). I visit the crematorium once a year and at the same time lay flowers on the graves of two people from Battersea who were buried there in the seventies.
27 "for copyright reasons" is as you know, total bollocks. If you're in a public place and you're not causing an obstruction you're free to take whatever pictures you like. If they're worried about copyright, they should hide their stuff away.
18 - Ugh, THE BANE OF MY LIIFE!

Although my favourite moment always remains when Victoria has posters on the floor in the shape of the Instagram logo, encouraging you to take a picture and tweet it and tag in Network Rail.

As I was taking a photo of the concourse, I was approached and asked “why was I taking a photo?” at which point I was able to point to the floor and say “because you are asking people to!” and this brought a swift end to that conversation. :)
9 About five years ago I went back to y childhood home in Twickenham, which in the 40's and 50's was a cheap terraced house. Twickenham now is super expensive and although the house looked much the same outside, the present owners who kindly let me in, had so altered the inside as to be unrecognisable to me. Rear extension, through lounge. It was still nice to see the place again.
6 I used to go to the old Bentalls Kingston department store. Miss it now since they made the original store smaller and build a Shopping Mall over most of the site, but at least Bentalls partly lives on unlike many other suburban department stores which have closed completely.
4 - A (that same?) pallet of potatoes is permanently outside that chip place in Wood Green (refer also: Google Street View...) Sorry to burst your bubble!
4 - Perhaps a deliberate display to show they use real spuds rather than those extruded gunge sticks described as 'fries'.

5 - A pretty good disguise as he wouldn't be expected to resort to such an appalling adornment.
17. Why does the Flying Scotsman get more public recognition than other steam locos? Possibly because it's such a memorable name.

I always wonder at people who buy expensive tickets to ride behind a steam engine, when they would get a much better view of it from a platform or lineside.
5. I also think I spotted Jude Law jogging past a West End theatre last week, but I probably imagined that.
17 - Malcolm - When Steam Dreams introduced their steam-hauled service from Waterloo to Windsor before the lockdown, I understand that ridership was much smaller than they’d hoped because Men Who Love Trains preferred to photograph it rather than ride on it. Thereby guaranteeing that it wouldn’t run in future…
Days which have not inspired comment:
8 12 13 26

(but the vast majority have, cheers!)

12/13. I thought Saturday 12th would be a good day to wash my car
4. There were two pallets of spuds outside Awesome Chips today (and a devoted crowd of under-25s). A small cone starts at £2.75 (sauce extra).

22. Still no cucumbers.
22: Importance of Being Earnest..
ALGERNON (picking up empty plate in horror). Good heavens! Lane! Why are there no cucumber sandwiches? I ordered them specially.

LANE (gravely). There were no cucumbers in the market this morning, sir. I went down twice.

ALGERNON. No cucumbers!

LANE. No, sir. Not even for ready money.

ALGERNON. That will do, Lane, thank you.

LANE. Thank you, sir (goes out).

ALGERNON. I am greatly distressed, Aunt Augusta, about there being no cucumbers, not even for ready money.
26) I fear the not enough trains thing will persist for some time due to a shortage of drivers and a large backlog in the driver training program caused by the pandemic.
22. Andy from Herts knows, I suspect, that the reason there are no cucumber sandwiches for Aunt Augusta is because Algie has just eaten them all. Lane is simply saving face and hoping for bonus!










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