This morning I received an old reference / history book dating from 1963 about heavy German bombers during World War 1. As a specific reference book it is ideal although the aircraft it shows are not amongst the models I have in my stash and I have no plans to buy any as they are expensive and generally hard to find. I also have more than enough! Imagine a four engined bomber bigger than a Boeing B 29 built during WW1 just over a decade after the Wright brothers first flight! The last ones they built never saw action but were used as commercial passenger and freight aircraft between Germany and the Ukraine. In many ways the post WW1 history is more interesting than the war and sadly just as bloody. With two major wars, civil war, the Holdomor, the Russian soviets, Chernobyl and the current war against Russia, Ukraine has seen more than its share of sorrows and with various Western governments looking for a way out of their economic and social difficulties they are turning up the heat in Ukraine now. What a bloody awful mess...That's before we look at the middle east and the South China sea / Korea.

Anyhow, the book made me evaluate what WW1 aircraft I have in my stash...

I may have a fascination with Gothas as there are four of them plus various books and aftermarket parts plus the large 1/32 scale AEG G IV I have stashed elsewhere. Poland used some of these bombers in their war against Russia following WW1 whilst the German army remained armed and on stand by as requested by the Allies to stop the Bolshevik Russians invading. I've heard nature abhors a vacuum but politics does as well and when empires break up someone usually wants to fill the gaps and take over.

There is also various Allied and German1/72 and 1/48 scale biplanes and three Pfalz and Fokker eindeckers. I am tempted to make a start on the Gotha G II / III as a practice mule preparatory to building the others. It's a kit that had already been started but happily not a lot done and not much damage to those started parts either. So it was very cheap when I bought it because of this and I had in mind building that and learning from any errors I make building it. The weather remains very uninviting apart from short local walks and these will keep me busy. I hope we have a better late summer with some sunshine because this year it really is a washout. Hey ho, it is what it is and model on. 

We had Sunak and Starmer here in Grimsby yesterday in a televised head to head with 'chosen' audience members who asked questions. I would like to say I watched but I chose to watch old episodes of MASH as being more relevant, informative and honest compared to those two useless chancers. The general consensus locally was that it was a waste of time and ordinary people did not get a look in. A video showed someone shouting at Sunak about people being jailed for free speech. When someone is jailed for two years for putting up stickers saying 'White lives matter too' yet a scumbag attacks Jewish shopkeepers and customers with a large knife and receives a suspended sentence speaks volumes. Sadly, people will choose sides and it will get messy and frightening as consensus disappears and people withdraw into their respective silos. We are seeing it happen in the EU as well as over here and in the USA. On that note I will stop there and focus on pleasant things instead.

TTFN.