The Bluestocking: the one where AI finally learns what a blackbird is (we hope)

[Magpiecomplex]

Welcome all, New Year (nearly), new thread!

I wonder if some of you would like to live in a house with an occasional view of special trains waiting to get back into the National Rail Museum after they have been on expotitions.

I'll be there tomorrow morning, AsWithGlad , sometime between 6am and 9.30am, with all my worldly possessions, including my Observer's Book of Locomotives, ready to move in, is that OK?

Bagsy the attic bedroom!

The last train I actively went to see was some brick one somewhere.

<goes off to Google brick train>

Ah yes now I remember, brick train in Darlington and we also went to see the Angel of the North in Gateshead (it's bloody massive). On the same trip we then went up to admire the view from the top of Durham cathedral (well I did, my travelling companion having walked up all the stairs to get to the top never actually saw the view as they were too busy lying down having just admitted as we reached the top that they had a fear of heights!!)

mens sana in corpore sano - or as the incomparable Victoria Wood used to say
'mens sana in thingummy doo-dah'

Don't forget the funicular railway up Peak Woo.

Puffling, kudos. I can never do a smokey eye.

Gosh Boily, what an amazing thing - a brick loco! and it looks like an actual Gresley A4, it's got the 4-6-2 config and all that. Incredible. Thank you for posting the photo, I'm really taken with it!

I wonder who had the idea, and how did s/he convince anyone that it was a good idea!

Speaking of trains and Darlington - this year is the 200th anniversary of the first [public passenger]* railway in the world, the Stockton to Darlington.

*there'd be hell to pay in Pedantry Corner if I just called it 'the first railway in the world'🙄

...I mean, even the steam is made out of bricks,, how incredible is that?!

I'll be honest I only wanted to see the train because it was made of bricks, and not for the train aspect of the whole thing! Just had a google:

The sculpture was created by David Mach in 1997 to celebrate the town's railway heritage, and is modelled on the steam locomotive Mallard, which set a UK rail speed record of 126 miles per hour (203 km/h) in 1938. The locomotive is depicted as if just having exited a tunnel, with the billowing smoke typical of such an exit.

It was absolutely stunning! Having seen the date it was built I will have gone to see it when it was still fairly newly built.

You may wish to click on the attached link re the Stockton to Darlington 200 years thingy

https://sdr200.co.uk/

Ah so it is the Mallard. Thanks for the info Boily.
So David Mach was his name? What a pity the Mallard didn't reach Mach 1 instead of 126 mph, that would've been neat!

'with the billowing smoke typical of such an exit.' - typical, but with the teeny tiny difference of being made of brick rather than water vapour!

I had a look at the SDR200 programme, thanks Boily, and as I read it, I had a mischievous thought 'at least no-one could shoehorn something LGBTQ++ into celebrating the world's first railway!'

I spoke too soon -
The first ever WOW Festival in the north-east of England will be packed with unmissable talks and performances, celebrating achievements and stories from women, girls, and non-binary people from the region and beyond.

Nothing is safe😡

I like having a mountain lion as a chum. Luckily I am much bigger than her, so I don't think she would try to attack me. Mind you I'd make a very good dinner wouldn't I?
I have heard that moose can be quite dangerous as well, although I'm pretty sure that is only the male moose.
Anyway, we are friends. We hang out in pedantry corner and sharpen our wits with wordplay.

Pedantry Corner venting. An occasional series about general annoyances in life.

Clique is pronounced CLEEK, not CLICK.
It's "If you think that, then you have another THINK coming", not THING.
It's bored BY or bored WITH not bored OF.

That is all for the present.

I like having a Moose as a pal, too. I wouldn't attack Moose. She is inkymoose so I wouldn't want to risk finding out if her defences would include covering my fur with indelible ink.

And I like the wordplay and the accuracy.

@Magpiecomplex Bagsy the attic bedroom!

There will be a slight delay while the attic is converted to a sleeping area.

No, there is not a model train layout already there. At least, I don’t think so.

If there is a model train layout already there.. soz Mags, bad luck...

Sometimes I think the below stairs gerbil Bluestocking pub is more fun than our human one!

I love the story of the naming of the last steam loco ever built by British Rail (Standard Class 9F, built at Swindon, and earmarked for preservation from the start).

There was a competition to name it run in 1959-60 by the BR Western Region Staff Magazine. There were three winners, Driver T.M. Phillips (Aberystwyth), Boilermaker J.S. Sathi (Old Oak Common) and F.L. Pugh (Paddington), who had all suggested Evening Star.

moose can be quite dangerous as well, although I'm pretty sure that is only the male moose

There are several video clips online of bears running in terror from female moose whose offspring they got too close to. Be careful with googling though, because there are also clips of moose being chased (and eaten) by bears.

Unlike coots, moose are good parents.

My current annoyance is " I'm excited for that". Excited "by" or " about" surely?

I didn't realise coots are bad parents. Moorhens otoh seem to be attentive ones.
Disappointing about coots, I think my views have been favourably coloured all my life by the plot of Coot Club arising from the plight of a mother coot frantic at being cut off from her nest by the Hullabaloos. (I was also extraordinarily excited to finally see a Great Northern Diver a couple of years ago on Skye. Love those books.)

"Moorhen" used to puzzle me as I'd never seen one up on't moors. But the birds have it right - 'moor' originally meant marsh not upland. Probably related to mere.

Apparently coots practice 'egg dumping', a female coot will lay in another female's nest, leaving the egg to be incubated and raised by the other hen. Coots feed their babies when they are small. If they have too many to cope with they will kill the smallest to make mealtimes more manageable. That one is most likely to be the chick of an egg dumper. Other than that they're excellent parents 🙁

I'd love to think that coots are really wonderful parents and that the negative information has all been made up by Big Motorboat, but fear this is not the case.

I have my suspicions about moorhens too.