I’ll type up the note, saying it was actually Douglas Bader’s original apology, from a museum in London.

Malcolm, I was re-iterating that although a question can be asked, the seller can chose not to display the question, in response to Scotavia ( to whom I apologise for my smart *rse tone) not your post. It was not arguing against caveat emptor.

However.. real life market places have inspectors who will close you down if you set up a stall which only sold ‘relics’ with a made -up history. Why is eBay so different that it can protect and provide the ‘stall’ for that same type of con artist on line?

If one can spot a con artist at work then by definition you will not be conned by them. It does not logically follow, for me at least, that we shouldn’t point out to others that this is a dishonest trader, so they don’t get conned as well – just because YOU know better?

The thing about the scammer we are all talkng about here is that it may not be apparent that they have been lied to immediately. Or ever. Maybe it’s not so bad if the buyer believes they have the actual bit of metal from this or that aircraft when they haven’t? But still the principle offends.

Still, let’s not get caught up in the politics until we know a lot more than we do now. The fact is nutters do get attracted to causes they can then commit crimes in the name of. That may or may not gave happened here.

My thoughts are with the family of Jo Cox.

That was my point. Was anyone ‘bodging’? No.

Re Windscale – very senior management – and the ‘men from the ministry’ – were responsible for ordering the cutting of corners. It was not technical incompetence. The story from the ‘inside’ is that many people complained about the decisions, but they were ignored. Those same people were then blamed by the same incompetent ‘suits’ when the story got out.

It was one of the technical people who prevented an actual catastrophe, with a decision based on sheer technical competence.

Not rose-tinted, but I glow in the dark slightly – I spent a significant part of my childhood within sight of those towers.

The cancer ‘estimates’ are ultimately figures plucked out of the air. They are in the hundreds in the anti-nuclear camp, and zero in the pro. There was no actual statistical spike in figures, just the usual variations over time. You could point to a year with a higher than average figure and say ‘look, Sellafield’ – and some have.

OK, not making light of a ****-up that did contaminate the environment, and radioactive iodine is never going to be good for anyone – but it was a programme conducted on behalf of the state at great speed – the fact it worked at all demonstrates that those involved were not just bodgers. Any more than, say, NASA are after a rocket explodes, or airshow pilots are after Shoreham, or mining engineers were after Aberfan. I could go on..

My father was what was called a ‘Health Physicist’.. someone with a post-graduate level Applied Physics background rather than a medical one, who’s job was about safety, I was never exposed to radiation as far as I know, but I was exposed to the arguments more than most. As a technically-minded youth I tried to absorb as much about it as I could. So not really rose-tinted – and please bear in mind I am a Guardian-reading sandalista, I’d be the first to squawk about the evils of the nuclear industry.

I am struck by the parallels with what a casual observer might say about the end of the UK civil aircraft industry.. “Well, the Comet kept crashing, it was just an amateur bodge, wasn’t it? Not surprising only foreign companies do it now, we were rubbish at it’…
Really?

That would work. The disclaimer is useful, though, as the law as I understand it is the Author of a defamatory post is ‘primary publisher’ and liable to prosecution UNLESS they are unidentifiable in which case the owner of the site, as secondary publisher, falls liable. Not a perfectly logical law – it seems to suggest that person ‘a’ is guilty unless they remain anonymous in which case it’s person’b’.. but that seems to be the gist of it.

Hence the line about forum member details.. what it really means is ‘we will hand over all the details we have to cover ourselves’. Which makes sense.

Windscale – or Sellafield – was all about recycling, the by-products of the nuclear industry went there from all over the country and abroad, and there they were recycled into a strategically vital UK source of the plutonium needed for an independent nuclear deterrent, as well as fuel for Magnox reactors and more Uranium. It all made a lot of sense, and some of the best graduates in the country were headhunted up to the woebegone windswept West Coast of Cumbria (along with their young families – and me) to make it all work, and it did. The enormous scientific and engineering achievement this represented – remember, we had nothing to go on, it was all invented on the spot – has been completely obscured by accusations of ‘bodging’ and amateurism, all part of our national self-denigration, which has done us no favours at all, as has been noted.

Yes we collaborate on aircraft projects now, as do other countries. But we should be proud of what we still bring to the table, and happy that we are worth inviting.

Sadly been down that route too.

The most relevant part of their ‘Replicas, counterfeit items, and unauthorised copies policy’, when you drill down, is a brand-name protection policy.

The second link is more relevant – much more about authenticity – BUT what do you then do about it? The page tells you to go back to that list to tell eBay about it, and there is, as we established, no ‘NOT AUTHENTIC’ option on that page, so you can’t!!!

But I will try using the ‘Listing is fraudulent’ option, and reminding them of the policy as written on the website, if not as explained to me by an honest rep on the phone! Thanks Tony.