Sorry, George - I misunderstood, and then started a classic forum debate where everyone is arguing about something slightly different!

I'm afraid that I didn't look at the milling machine at Bristol, and I don't remember even seeing it. My reaction to the pictures above is that it looks like a nice little machine, and does not have one of my pet hates, a round column with loss of registration as soon as you raise/lower the head. I lived with a machine like that for years; its replacement has a proper knee on dovetail slides. For a bench-top machine, dovetail slides on the column are fine.

I guess that this is going up against the Sieg and similar machines and I can't really make any intelligent comments without a good look in the flesh. Looks like something that I might consider if I were in the market for this size machine.