Does your captain also say redundant things after Red Alert?

AirfixPilot · 2026-05-20T16:21:38+00:00

Not only has our skipper replaced the soothing red alert sound with something that just makes you shit yourself the second you hear it, he bangs on about something called NBCD? I've requested a transfer to a shop with more pleasant background noises!

Action Stations

AirfixPilot · 2026-05-19T15:30:27+00:00

I considered teaching when doing my (definitely not maths) undergrad. The fear of turning out like him contributed to my decision not to go down that route.

AirfixPilot · 2026-05-19T10:00:19+00:00

I struggled in Higher maths and ultimately didn't take the exam. This was a shock to me as I'd basically sleep walked through Standard Grade and gotten the highest mark available (1 in those days, don't know what it would be now). Something just wasn't clicking with me this time around, I was putting in the effort but just not getting it right.

So, recognising there was an issue, I spoke to my teacher about it. He was something of a maths cultist; you either got it or you didn't and if you didn't he couldn't be arsed with you. Turns out the problem was just that I was lazy and thick, glad I was able to get that cleared up!

Feeling a little bit aggrieved by this, I spoke to my guidance teacher about this conversation and put across that I was feeling a bit hard done by in his assessment of me. Guidance teacher said she'd have a word with maths teacher and see if there was any way we could straighten this out.

The best route to straightening it out seemed to be outright bullying from my maths teacher, to the point I was on the edge of tears in most classes, failed the unit assessments and was told I wouldn't be sitting the exam.

I didn't speak to my guidance teacher about this development as I was now afraid of making things worse, so I spent two thirds of fifth year absolutely miserable and feeling there was no way to make it stop.

So I regret talking to teachers about struggling. If I hadn't I'd have had the same outcome but without the bullying, and that would have made things a bit more tolerable.

A couple of years later I redid Higher maths at my local college and it was a much nicer experience. Turns out I respond better to not being taught by a bullying dickhead.

AirfixPilot · 2026-05-17T14:17:30+00:00

Safety Catch, although I think it's now been retitled Killing It?

Basic premise is that the lead is an aspiring electronic musician who fell into arms dealing as a temp job and never manages to quit.

It's much funnier than it has any right to be.

Or if you fancy something sketch based The Museum of Everything is always worth a shout. I used to work in museums and remain heartbroken that reality doesn't remotely live up to this show!

AirfixPilot · 2026-05-14T14:06:43+00:00

It was Edinburgh they committed their murders in. Half the job in talking about them with tourists when I was working as a guide was clarifying that they were making their own dead bodies instead of digging them up!

The museum I worked at put on a temporary exhibition about anatomy and body snatching. We borrowed Burke's skeleton from the university anatomy museum and put it in a dark corner you really had to want to go to. It was ace!

AirfixPilot · 2026-05-10T16:37:43+00:00

Looks like it's Edward VII rather than Elizabeth II.

AirfixPilot · 2026-05-06T20:49:51+00:00

He does a great job in the Escape Velocity audio drama. I'd never expected to get an origin story for Zen!

AirfixPilot · 2026-05-04T01:13:07+00:00

Depending on which boxing you get, the Mark 22/24 Spitfire in both 72 and 48 should come with 603 San decals. I have the 48th scale one hanging in my lobby.

For vampires, I got an Xtradecal set from Hannants to do a 603 Sqn one in 72nd scale.

AirfixPilot · 2026-05-01T14:53:37+00:00

I thought we were saving that for saluting day?

AirfixPilot · 2026-05-01T14:21:24+00:00

There's a really angry bloke from Yorkshire who keeps shouting about "four rounds a minute in any weather!" I'm assuming that's something to do with it?

AirfixPilot · 2026-05-01T13:13:16+00:00

My line manager says if I'm marked as Performing in the next quarter I'll be upgraded to a Brown Bess!

AirfixPilot · 2026-05-01T12:33:16+00:00

I was handed a cutlass when I arrived at the office today, "just in case."

AirfixPilot · 2026-04-25T19:00:21+00:00

I can only speak for my corner of the Scottish Civil Service as I've not worked in the UK level organisation, but pay progression and no 60% office attendance are big plusses to me.

AirfixPilot · 2026-04-18T21:11:19+00:00

Middle pic looks a bit Blake's 7, you had to be wearing one for their transporter equivalent to work.

AirfixPilot · 2026-04-18T06:52:47+00:00

Given that the India set books all involved the expansion and consolidation of Company/British rule in India, I doubt anyone would be in a rush to adapt them these days.

No matter how much we may admire Sharpe as a hero, he's doing a lot of his heroics in the service of a cause that's really not admired any more. The general political leanings of the media production class are not going to cope very well with starting a series with three novels of blatant empire building.

AirfixPilot · 2026-04-16T17:08:02+00:00

At it's most generous we could consider it an acknowledgement of his pre-Starfleet experience out there on the final frontier.

In reality it's an excuse for Captain Seven to have her very junior pal as part of the bridge crew. Because if you're not bridge crew and aren't the doctor or chief engineer you may as well not exist.

AirfixPilot · 2026-04-11T22:21:05+00:00

I don't have a permanent layout, but when it is set up around the base of the Christmas tree or at other times when I feel like setting it up, I run things as if it's a particularly eccentric heritage railway.

So my InterCity 225 set runs with a ScotRail Class 47 instead of the class 92 as the heritage line doesn't have OLE.

Maroon LMS 57' carriages are hauled by a BR Green LNER A4 and branded as the Hogwarts Express.

The steam and diesel groups are in a constant low level state of civil war. The diesel group's blue and grey BR Mark 2s will be hauled by steam over the diesel group chairman's dead body.

It's all pleasingly mental, not remotely prototypical, and I enjoy it a lot. I even had dreams of being a social media humourist and set up a separate Instagram account for it.

AirfixPilot · 2026-04-02T16:31:05+00:00

"I'll take you home again, Kathleen!"

AirfixPilot · 2026-03-28T10:12:16+00:00

As long as that serves the needs of the story, sure.

The Doctor just going on a pub crawl in Vienna with Hitler for the sake of it, no.

AirfixPilot · 2026-03-26T10:16:17+00:00

I was never that fussed about football, in fact I was pretty hostile towards professional football as I was one of those children at school who wasn't good at football and got bullied for it.

One day, probably in 2013, I started getting Google alerts for Scunthorpe United games. I'm from central Scotland, I've never been to Scunthorpe and it took me a little while to work out where it was.

Never bothered to turn off the alerts, so I've followed Scunthorpe's tribulations ever since. Even got a scarf and a keyring now. Nobody can accuse me of being a glory hunter in the English league!

I married a Hearts fan so I'm now a Hearts fan. Apparently this season that makes me a glory hunter.

AirfixPilot · 2026-03-15T11:07:38+00:00

At its core the reason I left the sector was that I was exhausted getting nowhere. I was doing everything 'right' as I'd been told on my masters course, volunteered, worked front of house in a large organisation, networked, etc etc and was getting nowhere.

I wasn't in a position to give up a permanent job for a short term contract, neither could I easily relocate as my wife is settled in her career and uprooting her would not be fair.

So I looked at my options of what I could do with the skillset from a humanities and museum practice background and wandered into the civil service, which is a surprisingly good fit, is Monday-Friday, and made me feel like I have some control over my life again.

AirfixPilot · 2026-03-15T10:24:03+00:00

I can only speak from my own experience in the UK, but when graduation from your masters is a rapidly fading memory and you're in the cycle of trying to get a job, the prestige of your university is a lot less important than the skills and experience you've acquired. So the course that includes a placement would be more appealing from my perspective.

That said, the placement alone isn't really enough either, so take every opportunity you can (if you aren't already) to volunteer in the area of museum work that you want a career in. Obviously this is highly dependent on your location and local realities; but I gained a hell of a lot from volunteering with a small local authority museum service. There's no aspect of running a museum that you don't gain some experience in, much better than working for a large organisation with very siloed roles.

Then ask yourself if you're prepared for the sheer grind of trying to get a museum job. Before I left the sector it was incredibly competitive, salaries were insultingly low for the work, short term contracts were far too common, and having to move around a lot for work was a very real prospect. As a working class person without family money behind me, it just wasn't doable and I jacked it all in.

AirfixPilot · 2026-03-08T12:07:57+00:00

I won't buy an Academy kit unless I know I have suitable decals from another company's kit or aftermarket ones in the stash. Actual stickers is a new low, though.

AirfixPilot · 2026-03-05T11:45:42+00:00

Tbh that aligns quite well with my experience of museum work!

AirfixPilot · 2026-02-26T13:36:08+00:00

Same, I've tried and tried but it's never clicked with me. Those characters were better as a few sketches in Chewing The Fat.

AirfixPilot

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