Ah, Rosie, you tickled a few synapses there! Trespass indeed! True though; if you did it now, there'd be a couple of policemen crawling down an embankment to ask you funny questions. Even after I came to Australia I still kept an interest in steam engines (although my older brother was a real afficianado; he had records - that's 12" LPs - of various engines, trains, locations which were marvellous.) In those days (and we did) we used to travel on the local electric trains out to Penrith where some of the engines were turned around on a turntable to enable the return journey back through the mountains. Marvellous stuff. The 'lads' there even welcomed us and showed us around, let us watch the operations and explained any questions we may have had. To those of you younger than I, please accept my apologies for a bit of reminiscing.

[ZK] Rubbish. According to that site I'm only 17.45454543% disadvantaged. That is demonstrably incorrect, otherwise I wouldn't be here and, certainly, would not take such a revealing quiz. Ptooe. ... ;-)

I am insaner than thou! ;)

[Duj] I'm significantly younger than ye :), but I fully understand the fascination with the old engines. (Remind me to send you the pic of my great-grandfather and his engine.) You can often find videotapes and DVDs here of rail journeys. Next time I head up to Horseshoe Curve or other such rail history in Western PA I'll see if I can find any.

has anyone been to sheringham? funky steam trains there, although a bit limited. was a big fan of Thomas the Tank Engine when younger but by the time I came along, they didn't make 'em like that any more! Nevertheless, I will always hold an affinity for Ringo Starr and his funnelled companions.

[Dujon] A good point, and that's probably at least a little of it (particularly if I have a low opinion of the intelligence of the person I'm talking to). But I tend to be shy around people I don't know, and the pressure to maintain a conversation in that situation makes me default to easier words simply because it's hard enough to string a sentence together as it is. In a more relaxed situation with friends, the more complicated words come more easily, and if someone doesn't know a word, I shrug and define it for them. Another aspect of it, probably, is that with people I don't know, the topic of conversation is rarely complicated enough to require any specialized vocabulary.

[re: junk] My excuse for accumulating huge piles of junk is that I might want to glue some of it together into sculpture. Of course, this rarely happens, but the fact that it does happen once in a while makes it that much harder to throw any of it away. From where I'm sitting, I can count nine empty cigarette boxes (one of them an interesting little slide-drawer thing), an attractive Harrods cookie tin, and a large lump of rusty metal that I haven't any idea what it is.

Mwhahahahahahhaha!