major_clanger | I know when I'm outclassed!

On the way to meet a friend at the Princess Louise yesterday evening I walked past ModelZone (the huge model shop on High Holborn opposite My Old Dutch) and glanced in the window.

OMG! Airfix (who have apparently been reincarnated yet again) have re-issued their rare TSR-2 kit - and not in the original 1/72 scale, but a whopping 1/48!

Had the place been open, I would have struggled hard not to buy one on the spot. (Even at the price of firmly outing myself as a hopeless geek to my beautiful and intelligent dining companion for the evening. Mind you, she's probably worked this out by now.)

Alas, I now find myself cooling on the prospect. Why? Because I am not worthy of this model. At 1/48 scale, it's nearly two feet long. That's the sort of size where it demands a level of attention and detail far beyond what I'm capable of. It's not a question of getting the paint job and decals right; at 1/48, you're adding detail like panel fasteners, maintenance warnings and the scuff marks from the groundcrews' boots.

And I wouldn't want to build the base model of the one I've seen sitting in Duxford. With my alt-history interest, I'd want to do a TSR-2 in Desert Storm (or rather Op GRANBY) camo. Or Boscombe Down 'Raspberry Ripple', like on the cover of this book. Or USAF colours, in a really bizarre parallel world where they cancelled the F-111 and bought TSR-2 instead. And I'm clearly not alone in this - you can even get third-party decal kits!

Alas, A Man's Gotta Know His Limitations. I should probably stick to this sort of thing instead.