Model railway update - January 2013

Although I haven't made any progress on the model railway lay-out as such, I did have a fairly good 2012 in terms of acquiring rolling stock, so I thought I'd share some pictures on here for the friends who like to see pictures of model trains.

First off, some new wagons. L-R, A Dapol gunpowder van, a Bachmann shock absorbing van, a Hornby 20 ton tanker wagon in War Department livery and a Bachmann BR Standard brake van. I bought the SAV, tanker and brake van on a trip to Swansea with my buddy Matt, who also took me round the Gower looking for a model shop that we then had to return to because it was closed for lunch initially. True friendship!

I do like my tanker wagons. I bought this Bachmann set of three 12-tonners in various Shell liveries at a trains fair in Cardiff, where I also bought the GPV in the first picture. The set was priced at £15, but the guy sold them to me for a tenner. Bargeinion!

Every good train needs a brake van and last year I acquired two. The one on the left is the standard 20 ton BR brake van bought on the Gower. The one on the right is a Bachmann SR 'Pillbox' type brake van, which was only released last year and was a Christmas present from my good friend Connor.

You can see the difference between the two brake vans in this picture.

Lastly, but not least, another Christmas present, courtesy of my parents. I've wanted an 'Austerity' 0-6-0 for ages, and I love the black BR livery of the J94 class. I found this one on sale in a model shop in Hereford a few months before Christmas.

I haven't decided on a name for the J94 yet, but continuing on the dog theme I was wondering about Gromit. Any other ideas? Let me know in the comments.

The big 2012 Christmas Card Audit

This is something I've been meaning to do for a few years, but have finally got round to it. Last night Cathy and I went through our Christmas cards and worked out some fun categories. This may give us an insight into Christmas, the kind of people who send us cards, or it could just be diverting nonsense. You decide.

Total number of Christmas cards: 104
Hand-made / home-produced cards: 6
Cards with magnets on: 1

Cards sold in aid of charity: 42
Of which...
Traidcraft cards: 6
Oxfam cards: 2
Cancer charities: 14 (including some cards with multiple charities supported, including cancer charities)
Total number of charities represented: 40
Interesting note: all the Traidcraft / Oxfam cards had a religious theme

Themes
Religious-themed cards: 37
Cards featuring characters from the Christmas story: 32
Of which...
Three kings: 9
The Shepherds: 2
The Star of Bethlehem: 1
The Holy Family or Baby Jesus: 20
Other themes
'Peace': 4
Santa: 6
Penguins: 5
Various cartoon bears: 10, plus 2 polar bears
Dogs in Santa Hats: 2

Messages
Cards that mention 'Christmas' on the front: 45
Interestingly, a lot of the religious-themed cards don't mention Christmas on the front. Just a picture of the Kings or the Stable. Not sure what that's about.

Movies of 2012

Instead of doing my round up of films I watched and saying which one was best, I've decided to try and present a few 'awards' in different categories. So, here goes...

Most surprising movie
Disney/Pixar's Brave was a big surprise. I'd been very disappointed by Cars 2 and didn't think the trailers were anything special. I thought it looked like a Scottish-set version of Mulan or something, but the story veered off in an unexpected direction. The animation was top-notch, it had some very funny scenes, and generally I thought it was excellent.

Most underwhelming movie
Prometheus promised much and delivered very little. It somehow managed to combine pretentious ambitions with weak characterisation and a plot that seemed to be mainly made up of holes. Very, very disappointing.

Movie that made me think a bit harder than I expected
I really liked Looper, although I'm pretty sure the central plot device of time travel unravelled right at the end. But it was very well acted - Joseph Gordan-Levitt was excellent, as was Bruce Willis - and the story kept me guessing right to the end. All-in-all, a sci-fi move that was well worth watching.

Enjoyable action movie of the year
I really liked Avengers Assemble. It may not be as cool as the recent Batman films, but it was fast-paced, the actors took the job seriously, but most of all it was the culmination of a series of films that all fed into a much larger picture. As such, it was a believable 'cross-over' film. The characters had back-stories, but this was a move forward for all of them. It maybe was a bit long, but that's about the only criticism I can make.

Movie that made me feel a bit 'meh' afterwards
Two movies vie for this award - The Dark Knight Rises and Skyfall. I don't think either enriched my life. The Batman film had an interesting political edge to it - that without the ruling 1%, all you get is anarchy and terror, while the James Bond film was nihilistic in the extreme (as I said when I reviewed it before). Nihilism can work in a movie (for example, I thought Dredd was very well done), but Skyfall was unremitting for a movie ostensibly about a 'hero'.

Comedy of the year
I didn't see that many comedies this year. Ted was funny, but a bit rude, so I'm going to give this one to Ice Age 4: Continental Drift, mainly because it made a joke about a previous installment in the series involving dinosaurs and said that it "didn't make a lot of sense." That amused me.

Film of the year
And so to the big one - my personal favourite film of 2012 and it has to go to... (drumroll) The Muppets. As I said when I reviewed it back in February, I liked the way the film treated the original Muppet ethos with respect. Disney did a very good job at capturing what made the Muppets work a few decades ago, and it was just a great family movie, with several jokes that made me laugh out loud. On another note, the recent acquisition of the Star Wars empire by Disney hasn't really worried me - given how Disney treated the Muppets, I have high hopes they will capture the spirit of Star Wars in the right way. (And as Cathy has pointed out, they really can't mess it up as badly as George Lucas did with the prequels.)

I'm already looking forward to some of the films due out in 2013, but that was 2012.