Of Anne's lingerie, trains, OTT outfits, castles, a drag queen and a screen goddess

Princess Anne visited a knicker factory in Caerphilly in South Wales last week - and gave them some advice on underwired bras!

It's another snippets post today, dear reader:

• "Toot, toot, said Thomas" news: It's the 200th anniversary of the world's first railway - the Stockton & Darlington line - this weekend, and the year of celebrations reaches its zenith with the anniversary journey of a working replica of George Stephenson's original Locomotion 1 engine!

[click any pic to embiggen]

• My era gets its own showcase news: A major new exhibition titled Blitz: the Club That Shaped the 80s has finally opened at the Design Museum (last Saturday). The legendary London club that spawned a whole style movement in the early 1980s - one that I wholeheartedly adored, named by the press "The New Romantics" - run with an iron fist (in a velvet glove) by Steve Strange and Rusty Egan, it launched the careers of acts such as Spandau Ballet, Sade and Boy George, milliner Stephen Jones [who taught Philip Treacy all he knows] and myriad other designers, couturiers and creatives. The club was only around for a brief time, but what an impact it had - I can't wait to see this!
• We can but dream news: You too could be king of your own 855-year-old Norman castle - and accompanying mansion - with 23 bedrooms, 19 bathrooms, gym, sauna, games room and Great Hall, and 25 acres of parkland, in Westmorland, Cumbria for the bargain price of £5.5million! I'll have the crown set with diamonds and sapphires, please.

• Confessions of a drag bitch news: "I learned early to mask, to put my guard up. Drag became my canvas. I worked in nightclubs, and suddenly I was getting attention from adoring crowds, but only by disguising myself. I was caught somewhere between a fierce desire to be seen and the reluctance to be truly known." Legendary London "scene queen" Jodie Harsh has published her autobiography - buy it here.
• And, finally: RIP, the ultra-glamorous Claudia Cardinale, star of (amongst others) Visconti’s The Leopard, Fellini's 8½ and Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West. She's probably less well-known for this:

Fab safety gays!

And the weather? Sunny, but the wind's a bit chilly.