Category: damage control
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One From My Childhood

Few people these days ride Stegosauruses. When I was young I frequently got to slide down the back of the Stegosaurus in Calgary zoo – an area of Western Canada famed for prehistoric wildlife. I never had the nerve to try to climb the Brontosaurus and the Tyrannosaurus Rex was kept behind a fence. However,…
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While They Welcome Constructive Criticism…

Please do not shoot the committee. No matter what the organisers of anything do, there will be critics. Even if an event goes perfectly – with no hitches at all – someone will complain that it could have been bigger, better, cheaper, or raspberry-flavoured. If the weather, traffic, or crowds present a problem, the critics…
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Priorities

Many thanks to the modeller who prepared this little moral vignette for the competition table. It serves as a timely reminder to us all that in the midst of turmoil, we should look to the important things first. Like the business of getting our models to the show. I packed mine in individual boxes with…
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Tunnel Of Love

And who could resist… I know I wasn’t supposed to lean over the table to take the picture – for a very good reason. All the models under me were in danger. This was the case on my own table out in the main hall – the inability of the public to look at anything…
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Been There?

Done that? Going to do it again? I’ll bet I am. I will take a model to an exhibition and it will break en-route. Or I will bring it home and the same will occur. Or it will just collapse on the show table from a combination of stress and snarkiness. No exhibitor should neglect…
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Dealing With Famous People

Sometimes we go through life without ever meeting anyone famous. Of course we may have waved to Fat Cat or HM the Queen when they swept by in a public procession, but that only counts if they waved back or threw a rock at us. But we can meet many famous people in our scale…
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The AGM

I missed one AGM this year while recovering from surgery. Feeling much better, I got complacent, and decided that I could go to a different one with impunity. As it was to be held in a pub, what could possibly go wrong…? Well, the start time was an hour before the bar opened and the…
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Wee, The People

If you wait long enough… The PDMC car layout is often recognisable at model exhibitions – it has model cars in it. It also has litle people, which count for a great deal of the pulling power it has with crowds. You cannot stand around all day and drink coffee and not pay the price.…
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We All Have Days Like That

The trick is to not let others see you when you are in that state. Avoid the family. Do not go to the pub or club. call in sick to work. Do not slouch past the Police station. Retire to your shed, hobby room, or tree house. Pull out a new kit from the 56,000+…
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Down At the Docks

A lesson in maintenance. I look at the top of my model of the Spitfire – the one I made last year. See how it has become slightly duller? Is that progressive camouflage? No, it is dust, cat hair, lint, ashes, and fingerprints. And that in one year… The paper model of the German harbour…
