Saturday Variety

 Busy Bees!

For the record, fbb was speaking today at his Church mens' breakfast (full English plus toast and beverages!!) or will be speaking if you read this blog early, UK time. The old man was a late stand-in to replace a cancellation. The boss of the breakfast club does not publish titles for the attached talks. If he did, fbb was thinking of "The Bible's Buzzin' With Bs"!

Above is one of the headings, to introduce a section of some of the "revelations" your blogger has been "God given" over the years; ideas which have helped him understand and respect the whole of the Bible.

The original Blonde Bombshell was, of course, film actress Jean Harlow ...

.. who has litle to offer in Biblical study or understanding.

But in looking at the reliability and usefulness of a good up-to-date Bible "version",  fbb was reminded of this:-

It was given to fbb's great grandmother as thanks for the use of her room for a Women's Christian Meeting.

There must be something in the genes (not Miss Harlow's Jeans!) as, nearly 140 years later, the fbbs are still using their home for Christian meetings.

Cambridge To Aberdeen By Stagecoach?

Or, it's rubbish on the internet!

Back at the beginning of May (2025) a new bus service commenced between Edinburgh Airport and St Andrews. It was numbered 787 and ran every hour.

And it still does.

Some on-line hack has only just noticed!

You are two and a half months late with your up-to-date news item,  pal!

That's bad enough, but the article tells is that the operator is Stagecoach East.

About Stagecoach East

We're Stagecoach East and we provide local bus services in Bedford, Cambridge, Huntingdon and Peterborough.

You probably know us as the local bus company but, fun fact, we're one of the largest bus operators in the UK. Since 1980, we're run express and local bus services across the country and we continue to play an important role in helping people access work, education, health, shopping and leisure.

But not, fbb suspects, as far as St Andrews.

The Hack in question actually meant Stagecoach East Scotland. That's an easy mistake to make, especially if you don't quite know where St Andrews is!

Eine Neue Spielzeugeisenbahn

Above is a Siemens Vectron class 193 of DB, Deutsche Bahn. It is one of DBs top notch freight locos powered by overhead electricity.

Does it have a driver?

Maybe not in the future.

This is what the article says.

So a very large Spielzeugeisenbahn! (Toy train!)

Presumably somebody will have to do a good chunk of clever computer stuff to make its driverless journey safe; A big freight train could do a lot of damage if it goes ape.

The article suggests that the loco is for "testing purposes". Lets hope they get the tests right. If they don't ...

Scantily Clad?

It it does go ape, there could be a lot more of these.

Or, it's rubbish on the internet!

Collections of videos showing trains mowing down other motor vehicles are two-a-penny on YouTube. The odd thing is that the "teaser" heading pictures all show at least one young lady in revealing and/or tempting scanty attire.

Here's another one.

So we assume that the lady in the pelmet has just leapt from the car. Or maybe she was just passing?

It is odd that such "beauties" are always around in time to experience the forthcoming altercation.

But it is on-line so it must be right!

In case you are concerned that fbb is some sort of "dirty old man", please note that he has no interest in scantily clad young ladies other than observing their ludicrous presence as harbingers of railway accidents.

Monetary Modelling Madness

Another misleading piece of publicity ...

...which suggests new coaches are available from Accurascale.

Not quite right. The vehicles concerned are a second manufacturing run of British Rail Mark 2b and Mark 2c OO scale passenger carriages.

They are the ones with the Mark 2 bodyshell but witho

without aircon, hence, opening top bits in the windows.

But, YIKES, a coach will cost £80. OUCHest!

But for a small amount more, you could move up to O gauge, neary four times bigger in volume than OO. 

Here is a special offer from Rails ...

... just £20 more than their diminutive newly produced "brothers". And, yes, fbb knows that the special offer is for selelcted Mark 1 vehicles; but who cares at that price?

 Next Variety blog : Sunday 20 July