A book/movie by Irvine Welsh.
A slang term for a compulsive hobby of a peculiar nature.
It is a form of 'collecting' except where nothing is actually collected, just spotted from a distance and recorded.
From the archetypal geek/nerd activity in the UK.
Involves trying to see and record the registration code of every locomotive in Britain.
Most hobbies have a TrainSpotting variation:
- Birdwatchers/'twitchers' who seek to see and record rare birds.
- Trekkies going to every convention and recording the presence of bit-part actors in the various series.
- Musical trainspotters seek out every mix of every track in a particular genre. A typical activity is to go to a club, lean against a wall, listen but not drink or dance, and then, afterwards, go and ask the DJ exactly which mix of such-and-such a track he played at a particular time in the set ...
- Programming trainspotters, boy are there a lot of these :). Some seek to learn "Hello World" in every computer language known to man. (See also: HelloWorldInManyProgrammingLanguages)
- 'Radio Ham's' buy very sensitive radios and try to listen to (and/or talk to) as many faraway stations as they can.
- Camel Spotting Ah - of course you've got to make sure it's not a dromedary. 'Cos if it's a dromedary it goes in the dromedary book. Well how do you tell if it's a dromedary? Ah well, a dromedary has one hump and a camel has a refreshment car, buffet, and ticket collector. See http://www.graphicszone.net/monty_python/scripts/Series_1/44.htm
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- Contrary to popular belief those animals are camels regardless of the number of humps. Those with only one hump are dromedary, those with two are bactrians (or bactrian camels). But both are camels. Of course MontyPython couldn't care less about it. The CamelBook has a dromedary.
If the flawed concept of IntellectualProperty would really be true, they would actually collect something..
Train Spotting