Historically Scotland has been wierd… But a lot of that is also tied up in religion though, isn't it? Catholic Scotts, Protestant English, at least that was the story way back when with Queen Mary and others. Later on it was reversed a bit with King James II of England.
There was always lots of awful, serious, and also petty nationalisim in the territories of the UK with the Welsh, Scottish, English, and Irish. With just as much if not more between the peoples of those teritories themselves. The Scotts loved to kill each other, as did the Irish and English. I don't know about the Welsh.

————

Speaking of Irish - It's a universal truth that there will be many “traditional and authentic” Irish pubs in whichever country you visit.
The touristy beach town of kusadasi in Turkey has some of the silliest:
One street devoted entirely to “traditional and authentic” Irish pubs, wall to wall on both sides of the road. They're bad nightclubs with loud shitty music, coloured lights, no tables and a few idiots dancing in them. They sell coloured cocktails and have harps on their signs.

I really couldn't work out why they bothered with the “irish” thing, unless they're being clever and meta (NOT something nightclub owners are known for), and instead of the twee shit we're all used to they're actually being modern belfast clubs or something.

ozoneocean wrote:

Speaking of Irish - It's a universal truth that there will be many “traditional and authentic” Irish pubs in whichever country you visit.

And London boasts an authentic Boston “Cheers” bar. But a much better beer selection than any American bar ever. They had Samuel Smith's Oatmeal stout on tap!

London also has some of the worst “authentic American Steakhouse” steaks ever.

I think there was a cheers bar in the same town actually! I didn't go in though…
Well I know there was a cheers bar somewhere. It all blends into the same town after a while.
I remember when my mum was in Boston a couple of years ago, I begged her to visit one of the two Cheers bars (that I know off), and she never did! Gah! But then she's like me in that we are really shit at visiting tourist landmarks.

——

More holiday impressions:
Turkey is generally a pretty cool, liberal country, but the current President is trying to fuck that up. So many people hate that fucker and his headscarf covered wife with her creepy fake pious smile, but he's shipping in people from Syria, Iraq and elsewhere.

Amusingly most of the Arab speaking people have to communicate in English with the Turks because no one can understand their accent when they try and speak Turkish!

Turkish TV is better than a lot of Euro TV in that they don't dub as much and will actually use subtitle instead (Germany is THE worst for dubbing), but because of the current political regime they censor stuff like crazy!
Anytime someone calls someone an idiot or something it's blanked out. Not even just swearing, I'm talking simple “you dunderhead!” level stuff. Also blood:
All blood is blurred out completely.
I saw a movie where a guy got hit in the head by a shovel. His face started to blur as was the end of the shovel. He put his hands to his bleeding head and both of them started to blur too! Blood got on his jacket which cause it to blur! He put his hands on a wall, leaving blur marks!
Heaven help them during a slasher movie.

A fair amount of catholic/protestant tension within Scotland itself as far as I'm aware ozone. I know some football matches north of the border are more about religious conflict than sporting prowess.
As for Irish bars, I'm amused to hear they exist right across Europe in bizarre forms. Not surprising though - playing on those notions of Irish congeniality, even when it's just tagged on as an afterthought. The American Steakhouses must be going for a similar approach:

bravo1102 wrote:
London also has some of the worst “authentic American Steakhouse” steaks ever.

I've always wondered what those weird places are about. They must attract tourists to survive- I don't know anyone who's ever eaten in one and I've only heard bad reports about their product. It's odd because the UK is actually undergoing something of a food renaissance and if you buy steak from a butcher, you can literally find out what farm it came from and probably even what the unfortunate cow was called.
We even have our first female butcher :

Very grim image!
I was first introduced to (but never went in) to the concept of the Aussie themed “outback steakhouse” in the US. Apparently they're everywhere there. Last year I was appaled to find them here in Australia as well!
Why in the world do we need Australian themed “outback steakhouses” IN Australia?? WHY? I can't understand it.

More “traditional” food in Australia used to be pepper steaks (not big huge thick things though), fish and chips, roast lamb, roast beef, meat pies (filled with minced beef), pasties (mainly vegitarian), tea and scones.
So basically stuff of British origin.

I do think there's a place for that simple, old style fare. It's great to have much more cosmopolitan, more international influenced foods (which we do now)with lots of variety, tastes and flavours, but it it's not so great to completely cut ties with older traditions.
That is always bought home to me when I travel overseas. I don't want to eat fancy themed or internationally influenced stuff in foriegn coutries, rather I want to try what is normal ordinary traditional style food for the inhabitants so I can see how truly different it is, not some modern mockup. And it can be very hard to find sometimes, even for locals.

That was one of the great things about traveling with Bianka, being a native German from Colonge and also having lived in Turkey she knew what to look for. Tantz Ariene was great in Greece too!
- Though the “spinach pie” I'm used to from the Greek restraunts in Australia) and the stuff my mum makes) is much nicer to me than the stuff you get comonly from delis and cafes in Athens: the real Greek ones are made with much thicker, harder pastry that's folded all the way through them. They're very leathery and dry. The Aussie ones are made with very thin, crispy, papery filo pastry so the filling of cheese and spinach is the stranger taste and texture than the pastry.

I just went to an Outback Steakhouse (stateside, of course) one month ago. I ordered their Toowoomba Pasta. Toowoomba is a city in Queensland, I guess. Some of the menu items were questionable as to whether they had a legitimate Australian origin. The French onion soup was probably not fully authentic.

The one food item that can be found across the board in the EU is the classic doner kebab/shawarma/gyro. They all claim to have different origins, hence the different names, but they are the cheapest, fastest sources of protein that can be found in a pinch and can satisfy meat cravings because they are always really delicious.

I love it when a country and its nationals have a British connection. For instance, Gibraltar is this TINY country at the southern most point of Spain and without a doubt, the local inhabitants are very British. I wandered into a quaint gastropub that served up all sorts of traditional foods like meat pies and Yorkshire pudding. The food was GREAT, but the only drawback was that it was right across the street from a cemetery. The only food I ever bought in London's Heathrow airport was a rocket (arugula) sandwich that cost me way too many euros than I care to remember.

Hahaha, Tawoomba pasta… yeah. As Australian as any dish you could lay claim to in a country these days :D
Traditional Aussie food is rather more British, yes. Though the average Aussie will swear black and blue that it's clearly not… But no, not till as late as the 1980s did more international things start to influence our national quisine in a serious way, and even then it was a case of “cultural cringe” more often than not (We're embarrassed about ourselves so we try and cover it up by appropriation).
But part of that was also finally accepting the food choices of our more diverse immigrant population (rather than just the majority from the UK), as part of our national idendity to an extent, (which means the generations of Greeks and Itallians). Also in the ‘80s we had a massive influx of people from Vietnaam and South East Asia so we finally had a lot of good variety in our restraunt choices!

Generaly we’re too young a country to lay claim to much “tradional” foods, but somewhere with the name “outback steakhouse” or “outback jacks” should really serve the types of food they eat in the outback: Pepper steak, ordinary steak (neither case are they those massive things people in the US eat), fatty lamb chops, and great big hamburgers consisting of a big greesy beef patty, iceburg lettuce, tommato, tommo sauce, onion, a fried egg, and plenty of beetroot.

And surprise, surpirse the Olive Garden is not genuine Italian cousine either. Olive Garden and Outback Steakhouse are branches of the same theme resturant company.

The original menu at the Outback Steakhouse was much more “authentic Aussie” than it is now. In the last 5 years the food has gone generic American Bistro. There used to be big greasy burgers and thin cut steaks (comparatively speaking) and that Blooming Onion. They got rid of my favorite dish which was the Drover's Platter of ribs and BBQ chicken. Long gone. It's noted in many food forums that the place has taken a nose dive the past 5 years or so.

The swelling inside my nose, against my left sinus is SO fricken painful! It makes my left eye sting as well.
I'm taking antibiotics and painkillers for it regularly. UGH!
It even caused swelling on the outside on the skin over the nose cartilage, not just the inside, which is why it hurts so much: because that flesh is so thin there over the bone and cartlige, no room to expand. Any fluid in that thin tissue is overkill…

Time for more painkillers now. fuck.

First day back at work tomorrow. I was supposed to go back on Friday but I didn't feel like it, plus my nose thing started then in earnest.

It feels like my nose has been badly sunburnt and then whacked with a brick.

Sinusitis is a pain. I remember having to go through with it once before in my life and the remedy was this nasal spray can of saline solution that would flush out all the mucus and dirt from the nasal cavity…and this was the grossest part: all of that gunk would be ejected through the mouth. Feel better, Oz! Maybe wear those surgical masks so no one bothers you at work.

—

Here is a funny little train of thought:
So after all the talk about Outback Steakhouse (and the Drover's platter of ribs), I googled “Drover”. A drover is an Australian term for a cattle rancher, much like cowboys in the States. It turns out, Hugh Jackman played an Australian Drover in the 2008 film “Australia”. After watching the trailer for Australia, I watched some clips of Les Misérables where Hugh Jackman played Jean Valjean. This sent me on a Youtube watching spree of the saddest parts of Les Misérables for the next hour. I probably watched Eponine's death scene with the song “A Little Fall of Rain” about seven times. Then I got sad and went to the DrunkDuck forums to get my mind off of it, but then I remembered it all began with Outback Steakhouse.

Unfortunately, unlike sinusistus, this is an abcess type infection; inside the skin/muscle rather than the nasel cavity. The swelling presses on the nerves around the sinus and the eye, but insn't inside there.

The benifit of that is I don't get the spread out pain of sinusitus, which can go into the upper and lower jaw, the ear, the side of the jaw, the cheek and all around the orbit of the eye because of those annoying channels
The disadvantage is that without a premade cavity there's no room for the infection and inflamation to spread so it hurts a lot more in its specific locality, like a clown balloon where you've twisted one end off and now you're squeezing it to bursting.

———

Enough about semi-medical ick.
Speaking of Huge Jackman, I saw him in that latest X-men movie the other day. It really was as good as Banes said it was, much better than the other X-men films!
I loved the style, the humour, the actors (for the most part), the setting and the characters.
I did have a coulple of small issues with it though:
1. The setting at the start with them running from the ultrons was way too thin. Not enough setup there. All scenes with them in that world seemed like an afterthought, or even part of a stage play, not a movie and not reality.
2. Similarly with the X-men school setting, it was so thin. They didn't bother to explain why things as they were or what the place was supposed to be, it just was, and it was abandoned and messed up for whatever poorly hinted at inference.

Those ware the most major complaints I had and they're really pretty minor because I liked the film so much and they're not pivotal to the story working, they'd only add colour and make things go a little smoother, be more polished. But it works ok without them.

And two even more minor niggles while I'm at it:
1. They used the wrong actor for “Beast”. He as tall but too skinny, his features were too tiny and under developed; small nose and mouth, with a very narrow body frame etc. Good for a pretty boy bad not good for a man who has to play a muscley monster wearing a lot of make up.
When in beast mode his face makeup overwhelmed his actual features, almost turning his head into a hairy blue arse with his little face trapped in the bumcrack in the centre. The muscle padding on his narrow shoulders and thighs just pushed everything closer together and made him look like a skinny guy trying to wear Grid Iron padding.
2. The guy who played the hippie Dr Xavier could not have been more unlike Patrick Stewart if they tried. The only thing he had in common what they he's from the UK… somewhere. You could have used a Chinese actor or a woman from the West Indies and it'd have been as convincing.
That isn't hyperbole; I really beleive that.

But those are both my own personal problems with aspects of the style and don't hurt the film at all. It was good, funky and fun. The ‘70s setting was cool, I LOVED the speedy guy (I forget the character’s name), the use of the drawf actor from Game Of Thrones… good movie overall!

X-Men: Days of Future Past was the one movie I looked forward to seeing months before its release and I could happily end 2014 without seeing another movie because this movie was “it” for me.

The Negatives
-Save for Patrick Stewart, Ian Mckellen, and Hugh Jackman, I really did not care much for the early 2000s cast. Apparently the director did not either because Storm was shot down pretty quickly considering that she was Storm.
-The Vietnamese military officer being seduced by Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique. It was Mickey Rooney cheesy.

The Positives
-James McAvoy. He is the “hippie” Professor Xavier. He is a Scottish actor from Glasgow and that is the origin of his accent. I will admit it, McAvoy is number one on my list of male actors.
-Michael Fassbender. I do not even need to elaborate for this one.
-Peter Dinklage. Only because he and James McAvoy were both in the great film Penelope many years before either hit big time fame.
-The 70s. It was such a cool period to film.
-Agreed. The Quicksilver dude was probably the coolest character to introduce. The kitchen scene where the song “Time in a Bottle” plays in the background was so awesome, I think I was at the edge of my seat for it. But the actor plays a teenager, like a hyperactive kid on sugar. I had to make sure the actor was born in the 80s before I made any comments about his looks.
-Did I mention James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender?
-A small, yet quick reference to four mutants who were in the last film but died. I have a feeling that Emma Frost, Banshee, Angel, and Azazel will ALL RETURN in the next film Apocalypse as the Four Horsemen (you know, for continuity sake).


Pretty much, Days of Future Past was a loving apology letter for X3 where they blew up Professor Xavier and killed off most of the original cast because Phoenix was PMSing. I really like the direction the reboot has been heading, but I think X-Men: First Class is still my favorite. This movie comes in second.

That's a more knowlegable review :)
From what I've seen of the other X-men films they sort of belnd a bit into one for me… I'll have to watch them again sometimes, except that terrible one with Sabretooth and the origin stuff with Wolverine. That was interminable!
(I have no idea who Michael Fassbender is)
The other superhero films I saw were Gaudians of the Galaxy and Captain America: Wintersoldier.


Gaurdians was an amazing film. It made me feel like a little kid again. I've never read the comics and know NOTHING about them at all, so I have no bias there, it was just a really fun, cool, fantastic movie.
A negative:
It sagged a bit in the middle. It slowed down and lost its perfect rythmn in the section where they were handing over the majic doodad to the collector guy. That bit is in need of re-editing to fix it. That's not a minor complaint either; that section really didn't work well with the pacing and feel of the rest of the movie… like an out of place drum solo in an otherwise great song.
BUT, it got back on track again after that part was over. Lots of good performances there. The lead actor guy from Parks and Rec stole the show, he was brilliant.
Captain America 2 wasn't nearly as good a film as Gaurdians and not even as good as the first Captain America fim.
I've never read the comics for that either but I do have a bias in that I don't much like stories about insitutions being betrayed and inflitrated from within: It's very much over done and done and done and done, so if YOU do it you have to do something interesting with it, and these guys didn't. We have a lot of the same old tropes.

My other problem with that betrayal theme is that Captain America as a concept works REALLY well when he exists in a world of black and white, like the traditional idea of WW2: baddies on one side, goodies on the other, with Cap representing the White Knight of the good old USA, with its full backing and support, against the dastardly Hydra themed evil Nazis.
When you grey that up, Cap loses all of his power and shine: Instead of a meta-human avatar of a nation and goodness, he turns into just a big guy who punches things.
The three hovercarriers didn't have the wow factor of the single carrier in the first film, none of it did, but it felt like that was what they were deliberitely trying for. The political theme about stability at the cost of freedom sort of ok, it's very current, especially the idea of targeting US Citisens and armed drones, but the way they handled it was increadibly simplistic. Should not have bothered.
All in all Captain America 2 had a mid to bad story, with anoying and uneven pacing throughout. The acting was ok though mostly, but no real standout performances from anyone. Robert Redford was actually pretty bad.

My schonz is healing fine. YAY!!!

ozoneocean wrote:
Captain America 2 wasn't nearly as good a film as Gaurdians and not even as good as the first Captain America fim.
I've never read the comics for that either but I do have a bias in that I don't much like stories about insitutions being betrayed and inflitrated from within: It's very much over done and done and done and done, so if YOU do it you have to do something interesting with it, and these guys didn't. We have a lot of the same old tropes.

I thought it was one of the weaker marvel movie plots, but who ever stunt doubles and coreographs the fights for cap is one of the best i've ever seen in films, period. Slow down some of the fights in that movie, especally on the boat. The shield switching between the arms..we've come a long way since the ugly cgi sky dancers twirling in avengers.
———

I don't wanna go to work and yet i have absolutely nothing to do here at home. So if I go to work i'll be bored, but if i stay home i'll be bored.
….maybe i'll look for another job today.

No time for boredom Skull' - only 90 shopping days until xmas.

@Skull- the action was too fast for me, it all sort of blurred into one thing mostly. But yeah, good stunts. The flying guy was good too.
For some reason I don't much like Scarlet Johansen though… I really wish they'd choose another actor for her role. It's probably just that she's in too many things, but I also think she's a bit blank and wooden, like Keanu Reeves or Ryan Gosling or Vin Deisel etc. Why does Hollywood LOVE actors with one expression and tone of voice?
Even Schwarzenegger acts better than that bunch. I'm not joking.

I saw rewatched Ghostworld a few weeks ago, with a younger Scarlet Joh. Her acting skills have barely matured… I think she can do a slightly sexier voice now to go with all the makeup she wears these days.

Don't watch Scarlet Johanson is comic book sci-fi thingees. No one expects you to act in them. Look at Keanu Reeves. Put him in Matrix and he's fantastic. Anything else and he's a hunk of wood. Show some emotion already! Move an eyebrow at least, show us you're alive Keanu!

See Scarlet in The Prestige or The Other Boleyn Girl where she could actually act as opposed to just appear in a tight outfit, jump around and heave her bosum. It's like comparing Halle Berry's performance in Monster's Ball and Catwoman. Look at Hayley Atwell in Captain America the First Avenger. Just stand there and be British. Then look at her in Pillars of the Earth.She's amazing. But historical mini-series don't pay the bill and comic books do so she's making a career out of playing Peggy Carter.

I can't blame an actor for just showing up and standing there in some CGI extrvaganza. How do you act versus tons of CGI? Even Morton Downey Jr was lost in the Iron Man movies compared to Chaplin. And Gwyneth Paltow was in those movies? huh? I re-weatchedShakespeare in Love and was reminded why she was such a good actress as opposed to piece of window dressing. Stand there and look gorgeous and nag Stark okay?

Want to be underwhelmed by an otherwise good actor's performance? Watch them in comic book movie. Unless they're a villain and then they have every excuse to chew scenary and have a grand old time like Jack Nicholson in Batman and Gene Hackman in Superman.

Scarlett Johansson was great in Lost in Translation where it required a quiet character that was pretty monotone and subtle. Adding that to all other types roles and it just becomes overrated and flat. I think Woody Allen's Match Point was where I stopped watching movies starring her.

==

These questions are for bravo1102:

When building models for the RAF Avro Lancaster, which size is the most realistic to the actual plane detail model. Additionally, which one is not too bulky to the point that it is too large to conveniently move around- 1:144, 1:72, 1:48

Do you have experience with model kits from Revell, Airfix, or Hasegawa, and if so, which brand is the best for the price?

In b4 Bravo- Personally I would say 1:72 is a good size for detail VS moving the model around if you're talking about big bombers.

Best Lancaster kit for the money the new Airfix in 1/72 scale, next comes the new Revell AG in 1/72. Don't go for the old tools they're from the 1960's and a bit rough and undetailed. (I know because that's what I have in collection plus the very simplified Matchbox kit. Everyone's doing new tools and I bought my kits 10 years ago. :-(

A 1/144th scale Lancaster has about a 6 inch wing-span. A 1/72 has about 14" wingspan and the 1/48 wingspan is about a yard. There is only one 1/48 or 1/144 kit but three 1/72 currently in release. Hasegawa is beautiful and extremely over-priced for what you actually get. The new Airfix and Revell kits replace venerable molds nearly as old as I am. These new kits have full interiors and nice external details. The Airfix is a bit newer with better detailing and the Lanc B. I/III should be out this year. The Lanc B.II and Dambuster were released about two years ago.

I have an old dambuster model from years ago still in its box unopened.

I just watched The Disney Atlantis film made back in 2001. It had lots of huge logical errors all over the place, asside from the obvious underwater fantasy stuff, but all in all it was an interesting animated movie.
Most of it was 2d cell animation with some objects and vehicles in 3D the way they do a lot of anime now. There were lots of people killed in the story, which they didn't explicetly show, but hey did show their submarines and vehicles being destroyed, the number of living people decreseing and then people mourning for the dead. It also had an old man waving his dick and balls in the face of the young hero- his genitals were from the viewer's viewing angle but it was clearly shown what was happening, with sound FX and the guy's horrified reaction as the naken man's rob fell open and he started waving his crotch around in front of the guy's face and he did gymnastic exersises.

I don't think they go in for that sort of thing in the 3D Disney films these days… There's probably similar stuff in the pre 2001 movies, I just never notied it I suppose.

I don't recall Bambi having anything like that in it - those arty commies clearly getting their revenge after Uncle Walt was long gone.

Never realised I had tinnitus until I noticed the high pitched whistling that never goes away. How long have I had that I wonder? I suspect all the pop up ads about tinnitus cures had something to do with it.

Thank you so much for that! I will put the Airfix 1/72 scale at the top of my list. Yep, I am thinking about buying a kit for my birthday this year. Mainly because a model plane is one of the best decorative art pieces for a minimal setting. It gives off that industrial charm and can be painted in colors that do not throw off the room's color scheme. I have not attempted to assemble a model kit since a 1/100 Gundam in 1998. I am definitely a level 0-1, but instructions should be straight forward.

==

So the latest news this week is a bit morbid. My grandparents just informed me that they have purchased a twelve person grave plot for the family. Well, there is nothing better to feed this existential, quarter-life crisis of mine than by knowing there is a physical plot of dirt allocated for my body sometime in the future. Honestly, I never thought of Southern California as my final resting place. I am much more partial to the midwest.

I have actually put some thought into the whole funeral process before. I even gave an honest thought about getting certified for the funeral planning business because in these tough economic times, death will continue being a constant, making it a recession proof business. Similar to planning a wedding, funeral planning consists of a music playlist, flowers, color scheme. I firmly believe that if people spent the time to plan their own funeral in advance before death, it would make the experience a lot more enjoyable and less somber. I am planning to have a video to say my real last final words, write handwritten letters to all my surviving family members, and even set aside money to cater or treat everyone to a fancy restaurant. I think it would be really awesome to be able to design a custom grave marker. Funeral homes usually have packaged deals with add-on options like a white dove release, bagpipes, or a harp.

The Egyptians had the right idea–use this life to prepare for the afterlife.

I don't have much to say, but I thought I would say something to feel involved:

Something

On death-
KOTA from Mailbox rocketship and Errant Aprentace, well his dad has just died. It was very sad…seriously. A real downer.
But, he metioned on Facebook the idea of funky funeral aragnements for himself when HE goes.

What I suggested was playing “Closer” by NIN, and having a bunch of strippers as pall bearers. Wearing high heels, fish net stockings, lingerie…
Why not?

I take a more philosphical approach to the subject. I'll be dead, so it really doesn't matter what happens during the funeral (not like I'm going to be there). As long as my body is treated with respect and not placed in a refrigerator box, I'm fine. But I'm immature enought to still believe myself immortal, might have something more thought out when I hit my third decade.

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:
I have not attempted to assemble a model kit since a 1/100 Gundam in 1998. I am definitely a level 0-1, but instructions should be straight forward.

Oh they totally will be, and don't shy away from japanese kits if one catches your eye, they are very detailed and label everything in english. (like ‘part l2 from sprue B’)You should totally build eggplanes.


—————
I brought my moms computer back from a black screen of death. Made me feel like I was a totally cool. I don't get why people struggle with computers. What other thing comes with the tools to fix it installed on it??

That's a very cute super deformed Valk.
After you MAKE the model, painting and decorating it is the REALLLLY fun part. Very intimidating though.

——-

UGH! You have to be SO careful what sorts of vids you watch now on stupid crappy Google Youtube. I used to get really interesting, fun, cool stuff in my “recomendations” list, but one of the sword guys I follow started posting stuff about his guns- I watched them because I follow the guy and he was sort of interesting.
Without knowing it, soon more and more gun stuff showed up in my reccomendation list… I started following a gun only guy, “Forgotton Weapons”, because he's really factual, knowlegable, and scientific, but without any political crap. He discusses the mechanics and history of the rare weapons he showcases in a really interesting way.

Then my reccomendation list became 100% gun based. All these damn hill-billy, redneck morons talking about “preppin'”, and “Obama takin' our gins away frim us!”!
Damn you Google!

That list used to point me to cool stuff… Now I'm havong to binge watch comdey vids and whatever else I can find so it goes back to being useful again.

——

-When using friend's comps I like to watch all the sorts of vids they hate so their the first page they see on Youtube is filled with crap. I never thought I would do that to myself :(

The kit is out.
http://www.airfix.com/aircraft/1-72-scale-military-aircraft/avro-lancaster-bi-f-e-biii-1-72.html

A very comprehensive review on Britmodeller.
http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234957540-avro-lancaster-bife-biii-172-airfix/
As for Japanese kits? The English mistranslations are always humorous and I've built plenty of kits without any latin script anywhere on the directions. I even know the Japanese for various colors. Instructions are mostly pictorial and you only need words for painting ( since I paint everything) Eggplanes are awesome and I've seen some regular kits converted into egg planes. With a little imagination caricatures are fun to do. And some kits are only caricatures of the real thing without being “egg” anything. (except egg on the face of the kit manufactuer) Authentic scale kit? Well not exactly that's too long, this is too short and those complex shapes are all off. It's a caricature of the real thing.