Spare a thought please for Rod Stewart who waited eight months for a train. Train delays are nothing new, but eight months??? You need to write to your MP, Rod.
Rod’s eight-month wait was actually for his colossal model railway city that he has been building since 1993 and which he had transported from the third floor of his home in Los Angeles to his more permanent mansion in England.
Sleb Safari has long said that should it be reincarnated it dearly wants to return as Rod’s train set, circa 1993. Rod has taken that thing around the world with him, put it up in the best hotels, shown it the deepest devotion and respect and when it was time to retire it to his Grade II listed home in the English countryside he didn’t just pack it up and pop it in the post he treated it to a cruise through the Panama Canal.
Rod’s pride and joy is called Grand Street and Three Rivers City and is based on an American city in the 1940s.
It’s got five foot high skyscrapers, rubbish strewn pavements, roads with rush-hour traffic, a power station, warehouses, a river and ships - along with trains. All it needs now is its own postcode.
Rod once spoke to Railway Modeller magazine about his life’s work and explained that he does not “like to see flat backdrops, they spoil the illusion, so I went for more buildings and streets than tracks”.
“It’s the landscape I like. Attention to detail, extreme detail, is paramount,” he added.
“There shouldn’t be any unsightly gaps, or pavements that are too clean.”
You’re right Rod, only a deviant likes a clean pavement.
Rod says he used to bring parts on tour with him and book an extra hotel room so that he could work on it. He’d request that the hotel take all the furniture out of the room ahead of time and bring fans in "to improve air circulation and ventilation". That’s electric fans, not Rodettes gently wafting curtains and making sure windows are on the latch.
The last time we checked in with Rod his people had packed up Grand Street and Three Rivers City in a number of shipping containers and he was waiting patiently in England with open arms
Well he waited, and waited and waited some more until finally, eight long, lonely months later, Grand Street and Three Rivers City arrived.
Rod told BBC radio show Loose Ends: “It all got flown over here. It’s taken eight months, two containers on a ship that went through the Panama Canal and now we’re rebuilding it here in Britain.
“It really is a masterpiece even though I say it myself.”
Thanks Rod, it’s great to finally find out what your favourite track is.
Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor reconcile
There were plenty of stories about celebrity relationships ending during the pandemic but none that involved a celebrity couple reconciling. Until now, and the news that Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor are back together.
Ben moved back in with his ex-wife and children so they could form a bubble and it worked a treat because the couple have reconciled. Sleb Safari is looking forward to watching that rom-com.
Interior Design Masters is back
Interior Design Masters, the TV show that makes you suspect you actually are an undiscovered genius who could re-do a house from top to bottom in two days, is back on the telly next month.
Sleb Safari fell in love with this programme last year and still believes that if it owned dungarees and a glue gun it could do amazing things.
The show challenges aspiring interior designers to redo restaurants, offices, holiday homes, hotel rooms and the like, sometimes working in teams and sometimes solo, in the hope of winning a contract with a hotel.
Alan Carr is the host and offers encouragement with a dash of cheekiness. It’s back on March 9 on BBC1. Glue guns at the ready.
