Beans………….on…………..toast.

Skoda Octavia Est, possibly the Scout if you can find one, but stick winter/all season tyres on it, job done. But it seems the OP wants a SUV for some reason, and people who ” want a SUV” will often find a cheap one, run it for 6 months, it breaks down, costs a fortune to repair, regret the purchase for the next few years until they can flog it.

Get a Disco 4, it will break down in 6 weeks, bleed you dry within a year. It just speeds up the whole process.

As above, it’s is in no way breathable, but I bought it as a light weight summer waterproof, just incase jacket. I wouldn’t use it for prolonged exercise.

TRAIN IT! The city centre, M621,M62 all sh1t at the mo, and probably never going to get better. Parking will cost more than the train, and as said above, somewhere on here, pop round the corner to Bundobust for a long lunch.

The Tory’s are doing nothing more than playing populist politics with the Environment . They saw how ULEZ played out with the Uxbridge by-election, and realised they have their new Brexit;  divisive, populist, party politics. That’s all this is, ( and they don’t give a flying @@£$ about the environment ) and please don’t forget that. The world is literally burning, and flooding it’s way to oblivion and only the most narrow minded individuals refuse to see that, but luckily for the Tory’s, that’s their target audience.

Truss and her mate Kwazi still owe me £5k from my pension and I’m sure billions to others in this country. Why is she not in jail? Okay, an over simplification , but if some other person/body did the same to the UK’s economy there would be calls for some kind of justice.

Bikes on the roof, massive impact on mpg, it’s just science, sorry. But you have to weigh that against the price of a decent rear carrier, and I would only consider a tow bar mounted one, and they aren’t cheap. Do the maths.

All that said, I did used to carry a couple of bikes on the roof in the past, but they were the type where you took the front wheel off and locked the forks in. The advantage being I could spin the bars round and lower the seats and reduce drag as much as possible,(I could actually get in a few low clearance car parks).

Octopus billing problem: has anyone one else experienced this.

We were swapped from Bulb to Octopus in April this year and all was well I thought. In June I noticed I wasn’t getting billed for electricity used, gas and export were fine. The app showed they were getting all the data, but no bills. It took a number of unanswered emails and finally a phone call to sort this, and now my August bill, and Octopus aren’t billing me again for electricity! Has this happened to anybody else?

” A third world country ” possibly too strong a phrase, but you would have to be quite the optimist not to see the pretty poor state we are now in. Unfortunately for Labour, this can’t be sorted in one term, and will probably let ” that lot” back in, and so the decline will continue.

No, they’re nearly the size of a Transporter.

The regular Transporter forums hate them, but they just hate change it seems. They’re can’t be too many on the road yet for a dedicated forum to spring up but to give my two penarth, they are somewhere between a Sharan and a Transporter based Carravelle, but priced as you know, at the top end. A mate of mine in the Alps runs two hybrid versions as part of his Ski transfer business. He has the top of the range specs and they are a very nice place to be, but they cost over 60k, so they should be. The one downside so far, the sliding windows leak. I laughed when I first saw him in it, when he came over to see us, and noted how the window design is the same as my Transporter, and they leak. Guess what, they leak. But, nice vehicle, I’d have one in a heart beat, but it’s not commercial based so no Vat back for me.

We went to Devon this year on holiday and I’ve never seen so much dog cr@p. I know it wasn’t any of you, but it was somebodies dog, Appledore in particular was dreadful.

Watch out for car parks run by ParkingEye. We parked in the one at Croyde Bay and got a £60 fine, our offence, *8 minutes over the time. 8 minutes spent looking for a space, trying unsuccessfully to use the app, scrabbling around for coins and discovering the machine didn’t like all of our coins!

Heated Gilet from Amazon. Works well, and it’s nearly 3 years old and it hasn’t gone up in flames yet. Just make sure you get the correct usb power bank to supply it.

Sunday drivers, on motorways in particular. Litterbugs.

Would it be easier, and cause less arguments, to create a list of Brexit downsides?

The OP was a simple question ( maybe a deliberate act of poke the bear ) but a black and white, pro’s and con’s list of Brexit benefits.

I’ll start with the current thing I’m dealing with, Erasmus or lack of it! My daughter goes to France in a month to study, and my word, we are jumping through some hoops, and shelling out lots of euro’s to get her there.

Oh dear, I can’t see a huge list of benefits just a lot of handbags at dawn. Maybe we should bring this thread to a close and start again.

The Toyota Corolla Est Phev sounds perfect for your needs, but boy are they dull. Anything with the 1.4 or 1.5TSI VAG engine will see 50+mpg on a long run, and the Golf Est in particular, is a very nice car indeed. Also the smaller output BMW petrol engines are very good on a long run.

Just popped back to see if any “benefits” have been added to the growing list……..nope. I’ll pop in again tomorrow .

The original Alone is a great bit of Tv, these numpties and C4 have completely ruined the show.

S/H Sony 6000 series camera. They are all decent, but the 6000 is probably in your price bracket.

Pros: Hmmmmmmmmmmm

Cons: I now know that the majority of my close family are racists.

One question: WHY?

WE LIVE IN THE UK! YOU ARE NOT TRAVELLING THROUGH THE SERENGETI!

Stop watching YouTube idiots and get to GoOutdoors and by a cheap tent that you will use twice, and throw it in the back of the garage for the rest of it’s life.

A pair of Edifer BT speakers will p!$$ on a little speaker and proper stereo as well. Kids these days need to understand stereo separation!

As someone with over 250m of privet hedges, minimum height 2.5m, I’d get a man in. I have someone come round at the end of the season to do mine, but look after them myself through the summer ( growing season) and usually start in June. It’s basically like painting the Forth Rd bridge and frankly it will be the death of me! I’ve a cordless extending Bosch thing that’s actually quite good, but not as balanced as my old petrol thing.

I repeat, get a man in.

I think most of your questions have been answered here, but if it was me, ( and not knowing the amount ) I’d be spreading it around. A bit in the pension, a bit off the mortgage , ISA’s and and cash you can get hold of should you need it. I don’t know if you have kids, but starting a pension now for them with say 10k in, would benefit them greatly in the future.

The climate crisis is the new populist tact! Woke and small boats obviously not enough. The sad thing is, it will probably work as Starmer has alluded too.

Whenever the election comes, I feel the Labour landslide is not a given. I wouldn’t underestimate the power of populist politics in what is, unfortunately , a somewhat divided nation where the economic woes, more and more will be feeling, will be pinned on “small boats”etc.

The Tories will fight dirty, because, well, it worked before.

Etias? anyone? A travel visa to enter Europe from 2024? Maybe I’d forgotten about this or it’s only just surfaced, but another Brexit bonus. 7 euro’s each as well. Maybe I could ask the Brexit voting members of our family to pay for these.

I had a 59 plate Vito from new. I had it for about four years, drove nicely but rusted here there and everywhere. Lots of issues with it, too many to list. I’ve had a two Transporters since, and touch wood, no major issues. I can’t speak for the later Vito’s apart from a mate who ran a few in France and they still had problems with rust. They are better value for money certainly, and has a family vehicle you can’t beat that type of van.

She’s just a “name” to stick on the front, as mentioned above, a quick search deeper into it will reveal the real money and direction behind it. Still, good luck with using the world’s worst PM to front it!

I’d love to hear her thoughts on the economist Kate Raworth, and the principles of Doughnut economics. I fear old Liz would struggle with the basics though.

As a slight aside, I was caught by a speed camera recently at 1am, and the letter popped through the post the same afternoon. Lovely.

You can have my VW Transporter Kombi, 71 plate, perfect for your requirements. To you, a snip at 60K.

Problem solved, hopefully. USB-c type 4 to HDMI cable. So USB-C out of Mac to HDMI on monitor, Apple really need to admit to this and change their literature, of course they won’t.

Constant switching to black screen, noise and hash and screen break up and general flickering, and occasionally it goes to a grey screen of digital noise. Currently using HDMI to HDMI , but hoping to switch to Thunderbolt/USC-C type 4 adaptor when it arrives.

Did anyone actually buy a Mac mini M2? I’ve just got the basic version and …….well, no one mentioned the flashing, cliching, black screen you constantly get! Has anyone sorted this yet? The interweb is full of ideas but nothing has worked yet. I’m awaiting a thunderbolt 4 to HDMI convertor that will hopefully sort the problem, but Apple seem very quiet on this issue, which is apparently very common and has been going on since the advent of the M1 chip.

@Tom-B, no it’s not funny at all is it. Choosing not to discuss it is also not funny, in fact ignoring the subject is almost complicit. Shame on those that do.

So, are we really not allowed to discuss whats going on in the Gaza strip on here? What have I missed here? Considering the mud slinging on many of the recent threads on here, I do find this current action somewhat disturbing.

I can’t believe this isn’t a more popular thread. Or, like pretty much every other story coming out of the government, is it yesterdays chip wrapper?

And we all wonder what Cumming’s has been up to the last few months.