Now, two things struck me about this edifice. The first thing was that it included a circular track upon which a model Flying Scotsman train would appear at hourly intervals to mark the passage of time. All well and good. But curiously, not only was the track circular, but the model locomotives and carriages that used it were themselves curiously (but clearly necessarily) banana-shaped. I've never seen this in any full-sized item of rolling stock, and I was consequently surprised that such a deviation from reality was considered acceptable in the model. I wondered to myself whether the model was OO-gauge, because I think I'd quite like to own a banana-shaped locomotive, even if it could only go round corners of a tightly-prescribed radius. Impractical even on the smallest layout, but unarguably entertaining. I also wondered whether these remarkable machines were available in right-handed variants too.
The second thing that struck me was that this clock-making company was making (or, at least, expects to make) enough profit from these devices to justify putting a full-page advertisement in a high-circulation newspaper. Now, assuming the cost to manufacture one of these clocks is in the region of 20–30 pounds, that still requires quite a lot of people willing to shell out for one before the cost of a full-page spread (a few grand, I suspect) justifies itself. So who are these train-, clock- and kitsch-loving individuals, and how many of them are out there running loose?? I think we should be told.