There has been a flurry of letters recently in the illustrious “Model Railway Journal” which have left me bemused. My hobby activities are an escape from “real world” pressures, so mostly I take other people’s opinions as being just that: other people’s opinions, and life is easier if people remember to separate opinions from facts… …so I could carry on ignoring the letters, which is what I mostly do, but they were mentioned more than once over the recent weekend, whilst I was attending the superb Uckfield Model Railway Exhibition with East Lynn: and the comments were from well-regarded modellers who were similarly bemused.
It is not the comments themselves, so much as the tone, which is getting increasingly strident if not dictatorial at times. Don’t get me wrong, I really do enjoy getting insights into how other people organise themselves to be more productive (because I struggle with this, but am getting better), and I may well pick up and adopt some of the suggestions, but please, just because something works for you, it doesn’t mean it will work for everyone else (or even anyone else) so please refrain from telling us it if the only way to achieve “success”. Otherwise I might come round to your house and tell you to scrap everything, and start again – scratchbuilding in S scale, because I find it works for me…
The most bizarre letters were about exhibitions: why do we have them, why do some people build exhibition layouts, and how annoying it is to see mentions in magazines that this layout will be on show at the XYZ MRC exhibition next month. Obviously, if you don’t like them or understand why other people do, then you don’t have to go. And a short sentence highlighting that you can go and see a layout at a forthcoming event is just a courtesy to those who do like going to exhibitions, but harms no one who doesn’t.
I should add that I am not bemused at the attitudes presented in the letters – it would be a boring world if we all thought the same things, as I hope is obvious – but bemused at why they were even published, as it seems to me to be a sterile subject for debate at best, and a public display of pigheaded intolerance at worst.
Anyway, by pure chance, WordPress reminded me it was 8 years since I posted on the subject, so I am adding to/reposting a blog from 8 years go, on “Standards”, which seems germane.
Good afternoon Simon. Thank you for this and the thoughts arranged in it. I, once again, catch myself thinking this would be a good conversation as I think we share a similar fascination with the relationships we form with each other, across this hobby, as with our work.
What matters about paper magazines is part that they invite a contemplative relationship with their content. That’s different from forums, internet-based or on the show floor. The forum thrives, healthy or not, on exchanges between people face-to-face. The magazine is too distant. The forum is for now and the magazine is for longer (for life?).
Considering the magazine as a celebration of what we have achieved and a starting point for what we could be capable of, what could the value of posting only the negative be for posterity’s sake?
Chris
Interesting thoughts, Chris: especially as another Canadian that we both know well made a similar remark to me about “Why build an exhibition layout?” being a forum-type comment, and why publish it in a magazine?
Good to hear from you.
Why indeed. I think all three of us have built layouts for home and for the shows. My layouts “for show” revealed that by showing them to others I’m invited to view my work as others do. I couldn’t do that if I kept it all secret. In this modern time, I suppose it’s derivative of a similar question: why blog about it, film it, photograph it? (Not asking that sarcastically. Simply interested in the questions because they’re kind of all the same.)
Chris