Thousands gather to hear Armchair Enthusiast preacher

We all know where we have gone wrong.

Be it you spend your spare time spotting, driving, firing, lurking or gawping at Steam Engines - the chances are you are doing it all completely wrong. You know this not by the rule book at which you keep by your side, but by that internet group when you return home.

Or so we thought.

It seems that the Armchair Enthusiast may be dying out? Are Class A Idiots no longer broadcasting their views at the highest level (internet code) anymore? Or are we just not signed up to National Preservation Forum anymore?

There is a growing modern crisis in our generation that the great love of someone you never met telling you that what you are doing is wrong on the Railway is as much a part of our hobby as not showing any emotion or comment on any content posted on The Railway Photography Group. The self satisfaction of these 'experts' having a profile picture of a Jack Russell rather than them at the regulator of an A3 heading out of the Cross would be enough to power Tower Hamlets for 18 years.

So it does worry us when these people seem to have been blocked or removed from the most favourite of our internet groups. The big question of course is where they all go when they have been banned and blocked? 

Is there a Guantanamo Armchair Bay where Armchair enthusiasts insist the prison officers waterboard them properly, or the chains were not like this in their day, and are most certainly the wrong colour. It does sound a glorious place, and will be in Apple Green. 

Ain't no April Fool

There is of course the regular purge on the 'Know it all' enthusiast. Here are men and women who wake up bright and early on April Fools Day with fingers at the sweaty ready. It is a gift of a day that they wait all year for and they couldn't be more delighted as they move past their piles of Railway World magazines and flick off the moths from the Working Timetables of the Stourbridge Shuttle for the past 19 years and head towards their 'desks' in their 'offices'.  

They are ready and waiting to reply to each and every April Fool story with 'This is an April Fools', or the old classic 'This is obviously an April Fool'. 

The great sway of pride that comes with the delivery of such Oscar Wildean whit tingles across their 56k modems with a warm glow that propels them to Liking the next Mail Online story mentioning 'Train stations'. Nothing powers up these enthusiasts more than a big red 'thumbs down' on their comment posted in sincere anger under every article of their local newspapers website. 

So yes, we proclaimed the glory of a good banning and blocking. But bear in mind that the armchair enthusiast is a breed that may just die off with every blocking. Why not adopt one?

We know we are now going to try harder to accept them and give them a place to proclaim their preaching to the world. They have a lot to say. And you will piss yourself laughing at each word.