My guilty pleasure as a child was to sit at the top of our drive and jot down car number plates in my notebook as they past. Back then the letters denoted the cars origin. Never got around to train spotting but did have an anorak!
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We used to do that as kids, probably get arrested now in the daft UK.
Trainspotting I did do, once cycled all the way to Tamworth, where 2 mainlines crossed one over the other and we had a whole designated field to squat in, but my real passion was, as we lived on the main A52, BRS numbers and I remember how disappointed we were when the Conservatives came back in and we heard it was coming to an end, nationalisation. Still saw the lorries for several years though.
I wonder if my old Ian Allan book is still buried around here somewhere. 
It’s really not like that here yet, thank goodness.
Surprising seeing as reg plates are blurred out so much these days.
For many years from 2003 I was a Mod on a lorry drivers’ forum and the subject came up about blurring numbers in the many pictures that were posted. A vote was taken and I voted not to blur on the basis that reg. nos. are already in the public domain, by force of law.
I notice now, 20 odd years later, that there is no blurring at all, but on reading through the rules, it is still against them not to do so. I know that the owners were firmly in the ‘blur’ camp but how daft is that? They hold a vote, do not accept the result and therefore make a rule about it, but then don’t enforce it. 
It amuses me because at the time I was very roundly criticised by them in the Mods’ Only forum as, unbeknownst to me, they had made it a collective responsability issue, as if we wre in the cabinet running the bloody country, and the language used was such that I resigned on the spot. But I was a very hard working Mod, spending at least 2 hours a day monitoring my various categories and they were loathe to lose me and took no further action. 3 months later they had a clearout of Mods who were not ‘pulling their weight’ and I wasn’t included. But they said ‘if Spardo has stopped throwing his toys out of the pram, he can stay’. My immediate response was ‘what part of I resign immediately don’t you understand?’
No more was said but my ‘priveleges’ came to an end. 
It was probably run by Rockers.
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Should have been a Mod on a Vespa
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I got 2 cardboard packages, dead on promised time in the boite today. When I had unpacked them both I carefully folded the 2 cardboard boxes flat and put them in the re-cycling bag to be emptied into the yellow bin tomorrow.
Normally they would be stacked with all the rest just in case I change my mind about the Seresto collar, the poo bags for the dogs and the paper inserts for the air fryer.
I feel as if I should get a star or something to pin to my shirt. 
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You should
Well done David!! Now you should start on the other ones! It is sensible to have a couple in reserve, maybe 1 small, 1 medium and possibly a large just in case, flattened and stored and get rid of the rest
I always used to get rid of the actual manufacturers boxes but over the last years I kept them for some reason, but quite pleased I did now as folks seem to prefer buying any ‘stuff’ on leboncoin with boxes, so it’s certainly helped with clearing ‘stuff’ 
If buying something with a guarantee… I keep the box with the receipt/guarantee slip inside… this has been useful when needing to return faulty goods…
but one does need to have an annual clearout/check-dates or the house would be overflowing 
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It was overflowing, but not now
Surely not. 
And don’t forget @JaneJones and @toryroo , the state of the place has depressed the value of it, and I might be using that to buy back Fran’s share before long. 
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it’s amazing how many gadgets and tools one simply “must have” over the years…
Not sure if it was BricoDepot or BricoMarche… but one of 'em refused to refund on a faulty handtool as we couldn’t produce the receipt. . the ink had faded and was illegible (fair enough)
and another time we had bought on-line and it needed to be returned “in original packaging”… aaaargh…
So… nowadays the box and the receipt stay together and are easily identifiable… and keeping the receipt in the dark (in the box)… means it can still be read !!
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B & Q used to have a sign up saying “We’ll always take it back” [with a receipt and in sallable condition, of course]
I bought a hardboard panel door [they’re flat with no mouldings] and a couple of trestles - lo! a good size desk. I didn’t remove the cling-wrap but cut a small slit to stash the receipt.
When it was time to move out, over 2 years later, I took the door back to B & Q, produced the receipt … "
“You bought this over 2 years ago!”
"Says there, “We’ll always take it back”
"Crikey! Still has the same product number!
Refund duly paid.
I did the same thing when I constructed a table for 16 in the g/f’s studio. Two hardboard panel doors one way, two 8’ x 4’ chipboard at 90 deg supported by DIY trestles.
The doors and the chipboards had to be hauled up the front of the building to the 3rd floor. I borrowed rope from an old tree-lopping colleague, instructed the guy on the ground how to tie a timber hitch and up they went.
After the party they went down the same way and all refuded by B & Q.
I reduced the size of the packaging of my collection of CD’s by removing the discs and the paper [track list etc] and putting the discs in plakky sleeves. The CD cases went to the tip. The reduction in volume to store was significant.
Controversially - I’ve heard the arguments - I now regard books as one of the classes of objects that contribute to this condition, ‘Thingism’ or ‘Stuffitis’.
Like everybody else, I’ve had metres of shelves of books. Books on fishing going back 65 years. Books on sailing taking a metre or more - pilotage books for coastlines I will never sail.
The Ashley Book of Knots is an Encyclopedia) of knots written and illustrated by the American sailor and artist Clifford W. Ashley. First published in 1944, it was the culmination of over 11 years of work. The book contains 3,857 numbered entries and approximately 7,000 illustrations.
There are some 4-5 knots and bends that one will find useful in ‘normal life’ . Even afloat, it is not necc’y to know 3,857. But sailors tend to give each other this book as a present, by default.
Ashley, like all the other salty tomes, went to the Bristol Oxfam bookshop. As did all the novels, travel narratives, my mum’s colection of weighty tomes on plants and gardening …
I now have 7 cartons of the final cull to palm onto friends who have a country house and need to fill the shelves of ‘The Library’. The last box, military history and battlefield guides, … any takers?