CAPRICORN GONE

De-cluttering is hard. Especially if you're a bit of a hoarder like me. It doesn't come naturally.

Chucking videos is a case in point. I love video. I collect 1980's big boxes and clamshells and have loads.

But we also have stacks of the normal-sized later video tapes, which we don't want anymore and I don't collect. Throwing them out seems wrong though.

But that's what I've had to do. We couldn't even give them away. Video has been killed good and proper. Even charity shops won't accept them.

We had a stack of about forty VHS was available free of charge to any good local home that wanted them, via Freecycle online. Twenty were kindly picked up yesterday by a lady who still watches VHS. 

One video was put aside for someone who just wanted Capricorn One last week. It's still on our outside porch step in a bag!

For the rest I had considered specialist recycling but it seems so complex and I was appalled when I saw the image on this site with piles of tinned film stock for destruction. God knows what treasures and gems people throw out! https://www.tiptopmedia.co.uk/recycling/

I even checked Cashconverters and Musicmagpie but Video isn't listed as something they buy anymore so no joy there.

The bin seemed the only option. In a bid to reduce what I had to chuck I have recycled all the paper covers [sleeves] and kept the plastic cases as hard packaging for when I sell action figures. That just left the tapes themselves.

So into the wheelie bin they went. I hate the idea that this once beautiful and ubiquitous technology going to landfill but they had to.

Only Capricorn One remains. Waiting for a final launch. My favourite film of the whole pile. It's still on our doorstep, where next door's cat has left half a shrew. Not a bad trade really!

AOSHIMA ZERO-X IN DIECAST COLLECTOR MAGAZINE

Hi Woodsy

The latest issue of Diecast Collector, the November 2020 issue, has a four-page article in it on the Aoshima version of the Zero-X from Thunderbirds Are Go. By Mike Pigott, who has done a number of Gerry Anderson articles over the years. I thought it might be of interest to readers.

Paul Adams

New Zealand

BILL EV'S MINI-DISKS

In the days before Computers ruled all in broadcasting, Mini-Disks were one cost effective solution to replace NAB Standard Jingle Cartridges. When I built the original studios for the Bridgend Local Radio trials I installed Mini-Disks as replacements for the Cartridges which we all found very easy to operate and were reliable.

Needless to say when Celtica Radio's studios were first set up we used Mini-Disks as Computerisation was still in its infancy at that point. And I was not convinced that it was reliable enough.

Within three years though, by 2003, the Mini-Disks were virtually obsolete. But we decided to keep a couple of these great instruments operational in each studio installation, as even now they are still useful.

This full size Rack Mount Mini-Disks is only rarely used, but it is occasionally needed.

This much smaller Mini-Disk has a removable 4Gigabyte disc as it's recording media and can support a high quality digital recording of many many hours.

On this link https://www.celticaradio.com/archive.html you will find a number of outside broadcast recordings, interviews and concerts all either recorded with this 'NET' Mini-Disk, or an earlier version owned by Ed Risby who is Celtica Radios Company Secretary.

The quality of these recording instruments is absolutely stunning. And of course without them, Celtica Radio itself would never have been able to exist in the first place.

Keeping them serviced and in use, together with CDs, Turntables and Reel To Reel Tape Recorders, means that if our Playout system stopped working we could still sustain the service the old fashioned way!

Bill Everatt

ROB'S KINTSUGI

Woodsy

Here is another small project I'm working on. I found various pieces of an old Tootsietoy Car behind the radiator of our very old house when I was doing some cleaning last year. It was in such crummy shape, I was going to chuck it, but for some reason I didn't.

Then I read about the Japanese Art of repairing broken things, Kintsugi. Traditionally, it applies to pottery, but philosophically, it could apply to anything which cannot be brought back to perfection, but which is still a beloved object. The purpose of Kintsugi is not to restore the object to its original, pristine state, but to repair it showing the cracks and seams and all, to show it's "life journey" as it were.

So I'm going to take the existing pieces and try to patch them together as best I can, and see what I come up with. I might try to polish up the surface, but then again, maybe not. I'll send along the results. And maybe somebody can identify the car model? I'm thinking somewhere in the 1930s, but I don't know my classic cars.

Rob C

USA

TO THE BATCAVE!

I love the Batmobile going in and out of the Batcave.

I would have given an entire bag of gobstoppers for a go!

There's the original 1966 Batmobile leaving the cave.

and perhaps my fave bat-ride on film, the 1989 batmobile zooming through Tim Burton's gothic forest as it wends its way to the Wayne cave.

Have you a favourite Batmobile scene from the last 60 years?

MINI WIND UP SPARKING MOON PROBE

You don't often see the Mini Wind Up Sparking Moon Probe, part of the Mini Wind Up range. This was on an online sale so I kept the pics.

Its an unusual looking space toy with its long sweeping blister dome like a steam-iron snout.

It includes this small silver thingy, which I'll have to read up on.

Colour variations include an orange version.

if I was to get one it would be the blue version.

Do you like them?

BIG DRIPS

Well, Moonbase has become a leaky ship this week.

The washing machine packed up. We have a burst pipe below the bath and a dripping radiator, leading to a dodgy boiler.

Super Mario is coming round tomorrow to assess the leaks and tell is what the damage is!

In a further twist, I only this week found out that in the Southern hemisphere water flows down the plug-hole in the opposite way to us here in the North. How weird is that!

I hope Super Mario knows which way it flows on a Moonbase.

Do you?

HALF PAST DAN

Have I a space watch?

The definitive one!

Terranova47

USA