the only other thing i'd add is it might be worth taking the TnG off at a few places – say 3 lines across the loft. That way if you need to get under the floor for some reason in the future, you only have to take 1/4 of it up, not the whole bloody thing :D

bump in the night?

you might need to put some extra joists in – I did as my centers were too far apart – but was an easy job. used the tongue and groove loft flooring from B&Q, took about a day, did some lights first, so another 1/2 for that, and added a loft ladder and new hatch, nother half day for that. Very satisfying job

http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=North+Face+greenland+down&hl=en

i've got a sigma 18-200 OS on a 400d body. I think its great. A bit heavy, but works well in lots of light conditions. its not as good as other options if you have a long time to set up your shots, but as a travel lens I think its hard to beat. the middle shot is a little blurry, but its handheld @ 0.3 seconds

you should be able to get 4 bikes in the boot of a v70 without using a rack – I can get dh bikes 5 in my mondeo (all seats up) and I'd have thought the volvo is bigger.

volvo owners club is the place you want for questions

http://www.volvoforums.org.uk/

did it in my bathroom\kitchen without any experience, i'd say the bigger the tile the better, as there's less edges and corners to do. get a powered tile cutter, go from the middle out, and take your time. outside corners should be done with edging strip. Mine looks ok, not as neat as a pro, but tonnes cheaper

Flash – Member
I think you'll find air density is the issue. As it gets colder the air density increases, this means your car has got to push harder to get through it.

not so sure it'd make much of a difference. According to here

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/air-temperature-pressure-density-d_771.html

at 0C (30F) the density is 0.081 lb/ft^3

at 20C (70F) the density is 0.075 lb/ft^3

or 8% more from mid-summer to depths of winter

glenh – Member

sharkbait – Member

Surely the alternator is always producing power? It doesn't disconnect from the engine when it's not required (almost never) so it would make very little, if any, difference to the draw on the engine.
I could be wrong though.

It does disconnect on some cars (such as newer bmws) and just connects under braking.

in fact, the volvo 480 (1989 onwards) used to disconnect the rear heated screen when you floored the throttle so as to cut loads on the engine and move you faster. Great idea imo

buyagift.co.uk are normally pretty cheap, and if you go to hotukdeals there's normally a 20-30% off code available as well

the air density thing is nonsense. Whilst denser air means more air in the engine, and a touch more power at full throttle, it won't have an effect on fuel consumption except for the fact that compression losses may be higher (more air in there = more air to compress) on a non-throttled engine (ie a diesel). The fact there is more air in there won't make the engine use more fuel to 'use up' the air, in a diesel there's just more unused air left over.

99% of the change is going to be shorter journeys, longer warm-up time, and more fuel used due to the lower-non-warmed up temperatures. My (old) mondeo is an absolute dog after its been standing for a couple of weeks in this weather, takes 2 or 3 hits on the glow plugs to get it starting well

my suggestion

get a big, powerful vacuum cleaner (I have an industrial one anyway, so used that, but you can hire them if you don't have one. a dyson won't cut it) and gaffa tape the hose from it to the bag outlet on the sander. keep the vacuum on ~30 seconds before and after using the sander (and during, nach) and it cuts the amount of dust down hugely – I hardly had any kicking about with this and the windows open

went through 4 big vac bags, and nearly 20 sheets of corse sandpaper doing it though – my boards were slightly warped, so took ages to get them flat. Did the whole job over a weekend.

H

heated bathroom mirror so it doesnt steam up after a shower
heated outdoor tap for washing the bike
indoor bike workshop

incidentally, in response to some of the earlier posts, the speed of the card has no relevence to shutter lag, and very little to startup time – only comes into play when writing multiple shots to disk

pics here if anyone's feeling nosey.

i would have thought so. can get 2 easily in the back of a mondeo estate, which can also do 4 bikes + 4 people if you take the wheels off, or 5 + 5 if you take the pedals & loosen the stems :D

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=london&daddr=granada&hl=en&geocode=&mra=ls&sll=37.176487,-3.597929&sspn=0.072628,0.143166&g=granada&ie=UTF8&z=5

if you didn't buy them from itunes (specifically, they're not DRM'd), then winamp, with ml_ipod, will nicely take all of your tunes, transfer them into a named, standardized directory structure, in one go, for free. Its also vastly better (imo) than itunes at managing your music in the other way, too.

If they are DRM'd, then you might be able to get apple to do something (some DRM methods allow copying once or twice, to cover this exact scenario). I'm not sure of the specifics of the Apple solution though.

H

Swine flu jab – wife's 29 weeks pregnant. Would you?

I would. more pregnant the better. Not sure what the jab's got to do with it though.

it's nearly finished (I doubt it ever will be, fully), so figured I'd give it a pimp..

my ex-kitchen :D

currently trying to accumilate a full set of park cone spanners and waiting for halfrauds ratchet spanners to go down to half price

i've got a standard hoya skylight filter on my 10-20mm sigma on a canon body – seems to do what it says on the tin. Due to the length of the lens, you can take the piss with shutter speeds, so a polariser won't be the handicap it would otherwise be in lowish light situations.

occasionally the argument of 'its digital it won't make a difference' comes up. Well, it can. If there was no such thing as signal degredation on a digital link, sky wouldn't go funny when there's a storm, and there'd be no need for ECC in networking protocols. It doesn't make as much of a difference as on an analog cable, but it does make some. For my money, buy cheap but not the cheapest.

i've not seen the need for the 6 shots a second bodies – surely, unless you're really going for a sequence, you'd be better off just timing your shot rather than mashing the button and hoping?

its true that you can't put a really long or really wide lens on a compact (my dslr range currently runs from 10-400mm), however with the newer superzoom cameras you can come pretty damn close (they do approx 28-500 irrc), and have all the control you could need, in a much smaller, cheaper package – the results in good light will normally be just as good as well. Unless you want to invest in a bunch of lenses, I personally (as a dslr user) believe you're probably better off with an all-in-one.

locate and unplug the cold start sensor – should be something that detects temperature of the engine and adds the modern equivilent of choke to the mix. If this doesn't affect the starting, its probably buggered.

£40

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Cold-Start-Sensor—Fiat-Punto,-N.Panda,-Seicento-etc_W0QQitemZ290275471055QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxq20091012?IMSfp=TL091012158005r15175

eta : thread on how to test cold start sensor in a slightly more scientific manner http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:F67-oZlR04cJ:www.fiatforum.com/punto/126567-punto-cold-start-problem.html+fiat+punto+1.2+cold+start&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk

add some fabric conditioner to the water in the steamer. this makes it

a) smell nice
b) easier to strip the wallpaper

mossie net, led maglite & camelbak were the things my misses found most useful in kenya. failing that, offer to pay for a cool trip whilst she's there? (I'm thinking hot air ballooning, gorilla treking, diving if she's near the coast, etc)

an alternitive, one of these –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_FONE_F3

has near 11 days battery life – designed for life in developing countries

build a pump track

on a more serious note, have you thought about moving?

nochex used to be popular a few years ago – then paypal took over and no-one really uses nochex any more. I'd suggest going down to your local highstreet and getting someone there to do it

i once went in the 'jamaica inn' down that way. A fight had broken out in the time it took us to walk from the door to the bar (not a long walk). We came back to brighton

I've used them in the past, and they're very good normally. try pestering them via phone a bit more – maybe they're out at the moment?

its also strange that the lenders vary so wildly. I'm in a similar situation, although at over 4x initial multiplier, my mortgage was taking up far more of my income. Natwest, who I'm with, are more than happy to take the last valuation (pre-crash) which put me at 80% ltv (5 year fix @ 5.09) rather than send out someone to re-value the property now.

the bx 4tc is awesome

but the non-evo version (which was sold) looks like 220km/h (137mph) top speed – close but no cigar

I think the audi 200 quattro estate or the 307 (if quick enough) is the best bet. the civic aerodeck is far too new

the merc evolution was 4 door only

lad in the office just found this

http://hubpages.com/hub/Volkswagen_Golf_G60_Limited_Edition

g60 limited edition – very limited, but 5 door :)

stu – the granny cossie wasn't out in 1989 so doesn't cut it – sorry!

the jag estate is possible – was it a production car though?

granada cosworth was 1990, from what I can see?

309 is a 138 mph top speed. I can't find info on the amg's of the time

sierra xr8 does 144mph – we might have a winner :)

pre-1989 is because obviously these days, theres loads quicker (porsche cayenne, etc).

m5 touring is 92 onwards
sierra cossie is only 3 or 4 door

audi 200 might have it if they did an estate with the turbo engine before 1989 (not clear)

depends what the house is worth now – any ideas? looking at the standard life website they don't have many deals available – you might be able to move to natwest or someone if you have more than 10% of the value, otherwise you're a bit stuck

classic. the screen *is* a bit small for anything other than music, but it just about stretches to a couple of films for a flight/similar

there's frequently old-generation ipods here

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/specialdeals/ipod?mco=MTA4MTYxMjQ

which might be handy