JimH

Stracathro Services needs to be donated to the National Trust for preservation. It would be the most awful shame if someone were to buy the site and redevelop it as a service station which wasn't utterly disgusting and I believe the country would be poorer for its loss. Sure there are other "bad" service stations but that is" bad" measured against a standard that says we get huffy because we have found one without a full range of edemame bean salads. From the moment you catch sight of the dirty, faded flags drooping over Stracathro nothing rises above "disgusting". The smell that hits you when you open the door takes you back to the darkest days of school cuisine where the most appealling aspect is the pervading stench of bleach. Where they are using it is a mystery because no surface appears to have been cleaned since the Relief of Mafeking. We are fortunate to live in an age where even cheap food is decent. For all people sneer at low cost chain eateries there is a tendency to forget that it was once possible to go into any service station and be served an expensive, poorly presented meal made with utterly dreary ingredients. Stracathro is one of the very few places where it is possible to buy beans sitting under a skin of sickly tomato sauce that tastes "that way", sausages that don't appear to contain anything and tea that tastes of that bloody bleach. It is places like Stracathro that keep us grounded. They give us an idea of how far we have come and how bad things used to be. They are our rock, our anchor. The days of Stracathro are numbered. One day McBastards Sausage Style Food Tubes Ltd's factory will be found and closed down by environmental health officers from Forfar. That old diesel tank they filled with beans in 1984 will run dry and one day, maybe, they might clean the toilets. Any of these would change the place a little but once they all happen that will be it. You'll have just another mediocre chain service station where perfectly OK food can be bought for only a bit too much. This is for good or (mostly) ill part of our heritage and people need to be reminded that as a nation we have gone through some pretty bleak periods in our history. Children need to be reminded of how we once stared down the barrel of the gun after Dunkirk, they need to be reminded of poor governance leading to the lights not coming on when we flicked the switch and we need to be reminded that once upon a time going for some scran and a slash wasn't the safe, wholesome activity that it has become. As an aside I see the place has 18 "excellent" reviews on Tripadvisor. I cannot image what state these individual's lives must be in to consider this place to be "awesome" or "excellent". I suspect the person who wrote a five star review commenting... May have had their tongue wedged in their cheek.

It's pretty obviously a joke thing on a lorry chassis but there was an interesting post on IMCDb The number doesn't tie up with any that were round at the time but assuming the 7 is correct that means it was a Super that was making the noise. If you aren't sure what one sounds like try to imagine the huffing and puffing that might be made when people saw the "oh well, it was a different time back then" Peter and Bernard in costume...

Thanks for thinking of us but it isn't suitable for some reasons that are too boring to mention but it also doesn't read high enough for a working pressure of 255psi. It would be a bit like the radiation levels at Chernobyl only being 300 flibbertygibbets after they launched the top of the reactor skywards because that was how high the instruments would read. Nice gauge, though.

I didn't know that. I'll have to go and look it up.

Oh Pater, that ghastly bursar has gone and bought a Vauxhall. You can’t seriously expect me to attend a school where the staff go round looking like they are in sales. Parkins minor’s father moved him as soon as he found out.

Currently has 18 bids and £750 on it. There are some sick people in the world.

I have no real problem with the Maestro. As usual there was a lot of big talk they couldn't back up but it did a job. I'm just not sure what would need to happen for Jamie Oliver to record a cooking programme where he goes round France in a re-engined '83 HLE.

I'm sure I'm not alone in regretting not buying up any VW Type 2 regardless of condition or age and stacking them five high in a barn or filling a field with rotten two door Escorts. However, I'm really, really struggling to imagine what sort of horror would have to consume western Europe which would lead to the Maestro becoming desireable.

It always makes me smile to see a house in Edinburgh worth significantly more than mine with what is clearly a million mile W124 estate parked outside. There was a house on Cluny Drive that always had a very, very well worn Bristol 408 parked outside. As has already been pointed out old money has too many roofs, death duties and historic debts run up by ill-behaved yet highly theatrical family members to pay for to let them fritter money away on modern tat.

Good enough point to have a bit of one of my favourite things - terrifying films made by or for the CoI. Farm safety was always one where they felt that they really could scare the tits off you. Take as an example this part of a 50s farm safety film "Game of Chance" (should start at 7.14) Young whippersnappers or townies may not have seen the film "Apaches". It is probably the most shit your pants terrifying farm safety film and close to one of the most terrifying films you'll see. It's on Youtube but you can go looking for it because I'm not being responsible for you not sleeping tonight. The BFI have a few collections of these films should you want to watch them in glorious Technicolour. It's "nice" to see that while things aren't as well funded these days they are still doing not a bad job of trying to shake people up a bit.

This is something that bothers me. Are there any factory or dealer fitted options on the car? Really? I haven't a bloody clue. It was ordered fifteen years ago by someone else so I have no idea if they ticked the "badge delete" box. This could be yet one more reason to track down the most poverty spec version of a car.

I am assuming it is not entirely different to when your P38 spits the dummy and starts flashing up that "EAS Fault Max Speed 25mph" warning. I had to drive all the way back from Glasgow with it trying to punch my spine through the top of my head.

It amuses me that people now "react" to posts rather than like them. It conjures up images of unsuccessful attempts to touch up the paintwork on an elderly Rover.

If you don't know it take a gander at this website here: https://www.measuringworth.com Rather than looking at a straight inflation rate growth take a look at the value relative to average earnings. Your £850 car in 1964 relative to earnings is over £42,000. Cars are very cheap now.

What pisses me off most about them is the name suggests something that the Starship Enterprise was fitted with and they work using some sort of magic space crystals that were found on Planet Moon. The reality is some pitiful collection of an old wiper motor, a spring drive, some cables and a few plastic cogs deemed too useless for 944 sunroofs all held together inside a plasic box which is now probably filled with rusty water which just yanks on the same cable that the handbrake lever did. A truly disgusting bit of design.