Yesterday I saw a man with wings. Now that might inspire all sorts of derisive comments but this wasn't an angel sighting (my mother will so disappointed), but a gentleman heading toward the local model store with the wings from a radio control P51 Mustang. A big one too. Six feet across although if any criticism were deserved, U.S. P51's in D-Day colours were never painted an overall sky blue. I also suspect, due to the lack of all the other bits like engine, fuselage, cockpit, etc, that we're either looking at pilot error or a luftwaffe kill.

Big model aeroplanes are always impressive nonetheless. I recall walking back from the Downs beside Wroughton Airfield with a very sizeable scale model of a C130 Hercules being put through its paces. That was impressive.

Not to be outdone, there was the time I built a big one. I take you back to the days when I worked in returns department for a high street retailer. The premises were an old CD factory and it was a shabby, unloved building, leaking water when it rained and leaking goods when we had temps in.

It was so grotty that I had to do something to raise my colleagues spirits. Besides, I was bored. So out waste cardboard I constructed a crude model of a Sopwith Camel. The completed aeroplane was huing from one of the chains dangling from the roof.

It got a some muted applause but it wasn't enough. Set up there, lonely, flying in static isolation, I decided it needed a buddy, a rival, someone to contest the skies over the shop floor. So I set about the task of creating a Red Baron triplane. That was fine, except I got ambitious. The wingspan was something approaching four feet. Such was the complexity of getting limp carboard to support its own weight and not droop like a soggy box, it took two weeks to build it.

Needless to say, I had to hide from the management. To this day I have no idea whether they knew what I was up to, but I think you can see how lax their management was. So eventually the big day arrived and I hung the mighty Fokker from another chain. Even if I say so myself, it was a triumph.

Shortly after I was away for a week on holiday, and when I came back, the triplane had gone. I like to think it magically broke its moorings and flew away to an airfield far, far, away, but you just know that wandering managers pack some mighty flak guns.

Big Moves On The Dance Floor

Yahoo have posted an article telling us that researchers have discovered that women are attracted by lots of big movement. So hit the dance floor chaps. It's just a matter of making the right moves.

What it doesn't say is thase same women are too busy shrieking with laughter to find the object of their attention in any way sexually desirable. Not that I have experience of dancing in a big and silly way you understand.

I notice the article doesn't list them. I can't help wondering if the researchers weren't a little distracted during their research. One succesful experiment and to heck with publishing a scientific paper on it?