I've finally got the Smugmug PMP site updated with all last years shots and into this year, they are all on sale as prints or downloads.

I've scanned several more cine films covering all manner of transport interest

The next archive feature will be under the new Ticketyboo Production label which will cover cine derived film that has been scanned for optimum quality of reproduction and brought to a widescreen format throughout. It will celebrate 50 years since the creation of London Country and of course never has an operator eventually had such a demise and scattered afterlife. Below are some screen shots plus a couple of RT shots in red that caught my eye. Plenty of vehicle loans and all eras of the company.

Not sure of the weather another difficult week for filming. Mandys car goes in tomorrow morning for supermarket car park scratch repair.

Why on earth does this blasted American outfit not protect innocent people, a gun toting mass of morons run by the biggest moron of all how can they be allowed to dominate the media like this. Then when you try to report the person who needless to say probably has a pseudonym the trail vanishes. What is the point of reporting it to the police it could be one of them. In this case they are possibly Irish and watch UK car programmes which in turn are probably suspect themselves.

Latest DVD releases on our shop, there is a part three for Newark on the shop the cover image has vanished but it is fully available.

I finally managed to film at Keighley, weather quite moderate and even today storm Dennis seems to be not particularly fierce as yet, one fence panel out which I've put back even though it is next doors fence. The chain saw has arrived so as soon as weather abates generally I'll get the felled section of tree back through the hedge and chop up. The concert last nigh, well more cabaret  was superb, tapas and music from the RNCM 'pop' students 2nd year turning their hand to an earlier era, Sinatra style. Great food and superb ( as say the girls) Gin fro Lancashire, This was a lorry I saw near the border on outskits of Colne on my way back from filming in Keighley yesterday. The IQ has been in the garage today, turns out the heat plate on the exhaust had come loose so Kwik Fit have sorted it, a new tyre needed following MOT report so they have ordered one to fit and we'll be able to pick up Sunday lunch time.  Fried Sue with us for the weekend.

I'm working my way through more old cine scanning with shots of Consett area buses and trains, trolleys at Bournemouth, Reading and Bradford. A generally all round transport survey , oh another nice section the end of the RTLs in London. So after the truck shot at Colne and slide show on Keighley. Fingers crossed we can get out for more bus filming. Now editing the Newark and Keighley material and covers for them plus Bus Spot Ultra Widnes/Runcorn to be done this weekend. We have booked more bus rallies, will be attending the POPS at Apedale this year.

We are updating the still photos on Smugmug, there are about 360,000 at present

We are still scanning old cine film in conjunction with the OTA

Today we filmed at Newark on Trent , there will be three DVDs , windy but sunny and not as cold as I expected.

Next possible bus film date this Friday but needs to be near home.

Some shots from Newark today

We have been blackmailed by a Scottish firm of solicitors working with a French company over a tiny thumbnail picture used on the web site a few weeks last year. They have got a firm of dubious Scottish solicitors involved and we have had to pay a large sum as we were so scared especially after the last encounter with law in Scotland. Their hatred for English people is widely known so we cannot even contact the police there. Sad but several projects have now had to be shelved and trips postponed. As you know it is a not for profit hobby and the anxiety and stress isn't worth it. I'm seriously thinking of pulling the plug on the whole thing, it is just a minefield. Little people can't fight solicitors, imagine us up against a company of 500 people based in Aberdeen, 64 of them solicitors. Sad but there it is. We had to stop comments on Youtube because of the death threats, crazy considering it is a hobby .

I did have a pleasant day until I got home, please please get rid of Scotland from our country - just let them go their own way and let decent folk live in peace.

It may come as a surprise to some that two transport buffs meeting don't just swap train numbers, we had another pleasant lunch at the nearby pub after we had unloaded quite a trunk load of material from digitised images on CD by the tons and spare cine reels, photographers log books and returned scanned films plus collecting more for scanning. The Online Transport Film archive now has over 2 million or maybe more still images as well as thousands of hours of film. Like minded transport historians are busy around the country helping to get it all digitised and logged. We have many things in common and are both confounded as to why any sane person would vote for the Tories.

Today Mandy went to Congleton to be examined for the wheelchair contribution which last time was £400 that has now fallen to £200 and a lot more red tape, obviously succeeding in deterring claims, the main point though is that the chair is £6000 so not much of a contribution to start with, those requiring powered chairs can quickly arrive at three times that amount and also costs of major adaptions to the carrying vehicle. The Tory tactics have succeeded this time it is just too much messing for such a tiny sum, well done another stab in the back for those with disabilities demonised by the ultra arch culprit  Camergoon traiter , it was he that led the financial crisis, his mates who had it off with our money, it was him that got us at each others throats over the EU and he that made Brexit possible. He  was in charge when a merciless attack on the poor , the underprivileged and those with disabilities and tried to grab money from them to stem the leak in the budget started by his chums. Now many of those very people who have suffered have been conned into voting not for more of the same but a merciless idiot who is another lurch to the right from Camergoon.

I'm keeping my eye on the weather to see what is in store tomorrow, it looks at first glimpse that it will be another bright sunny day which will suit truck film work, I saw a good spot on the road to  Whitchurch where the light looked good mid morning, I had a slow trip on purpose, so I could arrive on time and enjoy the scenery and weigh up film locations. Anyway by this time tomorrow I shall have done whatever. The film scanning continues and so tonight does our look at buses in Manchester yesterday so lets look at the morning work.

 After several weeks trying to get a suitable day to catch up with the Manchester bus scene today seemed to be a very suitable target and Mandy wanted to come so we could meet up at lunch time. I wanted to cover both north and south routes separately so I could get the new Stagecoach buses plus then concentrate on Go Ahead and Rotala / Diamond.We didn't get far, in the gloom and mist of early morning rush hour we were hurtling towards a famous pothole on Plumley Moor Road boxed in by traffic opposite and behind, bang down we went and the tyre burst. Phoning the RAC isn't the easiest of experience but I walked 2.5 miles home and got my IQ out and the tyre inflater not knowing at this stage that is was futile. By the time I got bak to Mandy the RAC had rang back and were due in about twenty minutes, Mandy decided that I should carry on in my car and she would ring later to update me.I got into Manchester in not bad time for the back end of the morning rush hour and parked in a new multi story near Piccadilly.

Basically other than the sun trying to break through everything went according to plan and the sun ebbed away in the afternoon at Shudehill. It wasn't a clear division but really the first hour did include all the 69 Stagecoach reg buses plus a few Diamonds and Go North West but for the best of the new operators certainly the second half had a lot going for it. Masses of photos as well as about 2.5 hours of film. I've downloaded the material ready to edit. Mandy got the new tyre via the RAC man and we've put a claim in for the cost of renewal. I'm still busy scanning the old cine films, I'm having my first attempt at 2 400' reels at the same time which if you have followed the story requires splitting them into two then rejoining, I try to use an existing joint so only take away a frame or two. All is going well just about although its a bit like a juggling act if the phone goes. I'm trying to get through the London reels so I can start on a London Country special. I've still got Bus Spot Ultra Widnes / Runcorn to do though. Tomorrow I'm down in Shrewsbury, the little IQ is jammed packed with items for the OTA. Anyway lets get to the meat, here is a start on the shots from Manchester today.

It was early afternoon when I finally finished the Bus Spot Ultra Oxford, the hard bit is usually pruning it down to just two hours from all the film I'd downloaded for it. Anyway thats another job done and amazingly the digital download is also online.

With my Sherlock Holmes hat on I finally tracked down what happened to my father Jim O'Grady who died last October. It now transpires that he was cremated at Andover on 6th December via an outfit called Pure Cremations who pick up the body and cremate wherever they can assuming no relations will be there. As virtually all the family were left in the dark it was hardly surprising if nobody was there. It has been an ugly affair and smacks of bad intent. We are now trying to find what happened to my stepmother who was reported ill when Jim died. At least the whole matter has brought the rest of the family closer together.

I've been in the loft today, thats where the afternoon vanished. I've got more stuff ready to go to the OTA archive at Shrewsbury. I've all the notebooks Terry Barker kept ref his cine film which we had to get a bank loan to pay for back in the day as the say now. Anyway they way a fair bit, there are also lots of good quality cine reels which had Terry's family material on, they didn't want it back so it frees up lots of now hard to source quality reels which always come in handy in any archive, I've kept a few back for PMP. Another box has my CDs with the images transferred from negs and another box the recent transfer of PMP collections and subsequent deposit of the cine reels. The other bag is the return of reels I've scanned for the OTA.

While I was in the attic I found quite a lot of slides, I was astonished that they have survived the heat, cold, damp and reroofing. There are shots on lots of our early trips such as Portugal, Netherlands, Sierra Leone etc, looking forward to time to scan them. Also put aside are a pile of photos to go in the South East sales stock of mainly Brighton and a few Maidstone. I also unearthed all my very early Eastbourne Corp photo albums the only ones which haven't yet been sent to a good home. I may well scan them for the Eastbourne dedicated website which has show up a few rarities and oddities. A few more things have gone into my memorabilia box and quite a lot into the bin. Horrifying that some things are collectors items but if of low value it really isn't worth advertising them such as timetables. Also unearthed some of my coin and bank note collection which has been untouched since the 1980's.

On that theme I wonder what the date will be to go back to £ s and d, and when do we stop the fuel coming in litres not to mention letting people use centipedes and millipedes to measure with, it means nothing to me at all so glad there is a good side to Brexit. I never got my head around any of this metric nonsense, its as bad as trying to find an address when all the streets are on blocks the same, no use without some nice bends, alleys and snooks!

Its Manchester bus film day tomorrow, hoping for two hours north and south routes with Stagecoach then First, Go Ahead and Rotala.

I'm quite on top of the current project which only has another four years of film sessions to complete the Oxford Bus Spot. Although grim weather forecasts abounded last night in the end places like Cheshire had light cloud and would have been fine for filming but with the backlog I decided not to chance it, perhaps I should have done after all. Ive also bashed on through the cine film editing particularly the George Roberts collection which has terrible joints in the film and is a monster to get through the machines, you certainly can't walk away and leave these but saving some of the better and easier material for later. I realise its the anniversary of London Country Bus services this year, among others celebrating will be Detling and no doubt Brooklands, I'm thinking of a special London Country edition to mark the occasion with oodles of new material never before shown. Before getting to that I must also complete the Widnes /Runcorn edition of Bus Spots to commemorate Halton nee Widnes Corporation.

At last my fathers death certificate arrived from the Kent registrar office in Tunbridge Wells, it was useful as it held the answer to many outstanding issues such as addresses, dates and whereabouts but still gives no clue to what happened to the remains. I've even left a message at the mortuary to see if he is still in a drawer there - perhaps he has been forgotten about, all very distressing for the entire family.It looks as if the weather really will be a bit wild tomorrow so with Thursday at OTA in Shrewsbury it will be down to Wednesday and Friday for any transport film work. The Oxford film will be ready tomorrow and I will get started with the Widnes epic! Slide show this evening recalls Halton