I've owned cars with ESP, ASR, TC etc.

The ESP was quite effective in damp conditions, but if I wanted to really press on it could be quite intrusive.

With very little grip available then the systems are better switched off when setting off.

As Samuri says, when driving well on the road there are very few occasions that it is actually useful.

My current car has no TC/ESP or the like and I don't miss it.

ps. Learn to ride a motorbike properly and your driving will improve a lot.

i swapped the knives over to get the selection i wanted and then to top it off i swapped price tags before going to the counter)

There's objecting to Christmas consumerism and then there's theft….

NOT Norton

If nobody used deodorant or perfume then it wouldn't matter.

Presumably people in the olden days didn't use such things (and they didn't have many baths) and didn't notice the smell as it was fairly constant?

But none of this is forced on you by other people, or the media. You have your own brain, people are clearly choosing to do this.

Exactly, and my wife and I don't buy loads for each other, but there is a sort of obligation (not one I have) to match what people buy for you -it's a Xmas arms race.

We've campaigned for 10quid family presents, but siblings and parents are reluctant!

Scroogenomics

I can get much better value and enjoyment when I buy my own second-hand stuff and fix it 😉

Perfume. What is it for

Making a lot of dosh for people who can flog scented alcohol wrapped in expensive packaging by way of flash advertising.

Some thoughts of Christmas:

*Christianity hijacked the mid-winter festival
-which presumably came about as a way of making people feel better and as a way of praising the gods in a hope of getting the sunlight and good weather back.
It is good to see friends and family who don't live near-by & having a week off at the same time as them.

*Having Xmas rammed down your throat by the media/shops for 3 months is ridiculous. I went to a certain large, mock-Roman shopping centre the other day and it was awful. Literally 1000s of people buying tat. I took refuge in Waterstones.

*Christmas cards -what is that all about in 2009?

*Giving gifts is fine, feeling obliged to spend lots of cash and time in thinking of un-needed/un-wanted gifts is not. As someone with a reasonable job and fairly modest lifestyle, I've got most of the things I need and want, as do most of my friends and family. Anything I would like is far beyond a Christmas present (ie. a house in a nice area with a big garage!).

Let's reduce the gift budget or give money to charity rather than struggle to think of presents for people, ban any mention of Christmas until the 10th of December and admit that it has little to do with Christianity.

Most TV is guff. We generally listen to the radio during the evening and the wife is thankfully not into soaps or 'reality' TV.

BBC2, BBC4 and Channel 4 throw up a few good programmes.

TV On Demand and iPlayer are a wonderful thing though.
In the past week, worth watching have been:

"The Thick Of it"
"James May's Toy Stories"
"Top Gear" -edited down to 25 minutes with iplayer
"Gavin & Stacey" -past its best though.
"QI"
"Have I got News For You?"

Surprisingly, the average UK person watches ~4hrs/day! How?!

Warton, you are right about Jon Richardson, what the **** is he doing on 6music with his sycophant moron mate, who roars with fake laughter at everything Richardson says…

We've seen him live at Edinburgh.

The wife thought he was hilarious, I just thought that he was a neurotic, mildly amusing and fairly feeble excuse for a bloke.

The grenade(with a hammer) is for splitting logs into random bits.

The maul pic is a good one. They're not quite as dramatic in the flesh! It's basically a wedge on a handle and you can use a hammer on the back of a maul to drive it through.

An axe will split logs, but is a tree-felling tool that can cut across the grain if necessary, although a bow saw is probably easier for that.

A small hatchet is handy for tidying things up and making kindling. Wacking the back with another bit of wood will split quite big pieces though.

Sharpening an axe is one of those activities that is an antidote to a world of male face cream, male manicures and man-bags.

Of course, nonchalantly embedding the sharp axe in the chopping block when you've finished is another 😉

Wood Grenade (and a sledge hammer):

Moderate sized axe for versatility :

(or a splitting maul for splitting only):

Small hatchet for chopping up small bits in the living room ;):

So your gist is "Southern softies can't handle snow"?

Yep 8)

Most of the people driving cars do it as a means of getting from A to B. They find it a bit of a chore and give it no thought whatsoever.

Despite everybody being an above-average driver, too many people drive "on the brakes", too close to the car in front and are far too harsh with the brakes/throttle and steering. Modern cars are very stable in good condition even when driven badly.

Reduced the grip available and there is chaos.

….having gone through an 'exuberant' driving phase, the quick car phase, the motorbike phase and the learn how to do it properly phase, I am positioned firmly on my very high horse 😉

ut then again the mythical north is all empty roads which explains the difference.

Rochdale yesterday:

Euthanasia is the only answer

The 'no expense spared' bollox on some ex-rozzer indie ads makes me laugh

Do you know anything about the service schedule of Police cars, Hora?

In fact, do you know about anything?

This was the exit from the Trafford Centre yesterday.

In a world of mens face creams, man bags, testosterone draining dull MPV's and self satisfying smug STW road safety morons it's great to hear that!!!

Oh yeah!

It should be a crime for a heterosexual man NOT to attempt a handbrake turn when it snows.

I believe that emergency Espresso machines are being laid on by the Red Cross.

It's being paid for by donations from the people of Helmand who have heard of their plight.

Basingstoke this morning:

According to the image painted by Radio 4 this morning.

It was like a WAR ZONE, apparently.

I believe that Stalingrad was only a skirmish in comparison.

In the same way that UK councils don't buy many snow ploughs and snow blowers because it's not worth it, I don't buy snow tyres for my car.

Is this a case of:

" Is it because I am the only Christian in the village?"

Since Mrs Jones worked only 12 hours a week and had no formal contract, her job with the North Somerset Tuition Service in Nailsea, near Bristol, ended with immediate effect.

I hadn't realised that she was a private tutor employed on a casual basis. It's not quite the same as a classroom teaching position in a state school.

Personally, I'd just say "thanks, but I'm not a believer" and leave it at that. If she persisted I may have complained.

Members of my family are involved in the church/clergy. They know that I have no religious faith and don't try to convert me.

I always liked Saabs. The older 900s, the 99, the old 2 strokes….

-right up until I drove one. It was a 9000 Carlsson and I discovered that the handling was very poor. I then drove a 9-5 HOT Aero and discovered that it was a barge that spun its front wheels ridiculously and under-steered badly.

The 9-3 is a saloon or a very ugly estate.

It is a shame when companies fold, but I was never going to buy a Saab, so it's no great loss.

Rear wheel Drive + Snow:

a Year is a unit of time

'Light' is the speed of light, the dimensions of which are distance /time

light year = (speed of light)x (year)

speed x time =(distance/time) x time =
= distance

A light year is a unit of length.

Better to be frugal than to be racking up debts and to be free and single rather than having the hassle and expense of running a lady (who he's probably not going to settle down with) at 23.

He'll learn about the shirt and personal cleanliness though.

He should be driving a fast car or motorbike and be going on great holidays.

ok, so how many days of winter weather (not just snow) do most of us get? We're discussing it on here because it is so rare.

Don't forget a candle. If you get stuck overnight by 5cm of snow on the motorway a candle will provide light and a bit of warmth.

the rifle will be used to bring down some local game/obese scally and the blubber from said game will be used to make a lamp, ignited by sparking from the car battery.

plus:

Distress flares
.303 Lee Enfield
.38 Smith & Wesson
Avalanche beacon
Snow shoes
Ice axe

& a car coat

If the news this morning was to be believed, this was the M25 earlier.

Note the excellent ground clearance and narrow tyres for cutting through the crust.

comprare with:

ps. A 2CV Sahara would probably be the ideal car for the snow.

Interestingly, in the NE USA, on the first day of snow there are crashes everywhere. The snow remains for months.

You'd think that people would learn from the previous years' experiences…

It's pretty simple – keep thing smooth and plan what you are going to do well in advance. That's pretty all there is to it.

Correct

-and pay attention to feedback from the wheel and the car's response.

NB. Do not suddenly let off the gas if the car begins to slide.

Of course, the above should be true for all driving, but most people seem incapable of looking beyond the end of the bonnet, use the accelerator and brake as On/Off switches and insist on stopping about 1cm from the car in front.

My uncle had a Jag XJ12 like this.

My Dad used to keep an eye on his businesses when he went on holiday, which also required 'looking after' the Jag and, for some reason, seemed to involve maxing it out down the local dual carriageway :-). Allegedly.

Who really cares which song is at the top of "The Hit Parade"? ie. which song has taken in most money this week

what is this? 1958? the chart has always been a marketing exercise!

Is it really going to get-one-over on the very wealthy Simon Cowell? -who probably makes more dosh from the vacuous, manufactured drama of his flashy Karaoke contest on TV than producing cheesy cover versions.

Although I happen to think that X-Factor is total sh*te, apparently around 20 million people watched it last week.

20 million being approximately 1/3 of the UK population…. Maybe a substantial proportion of public opinion is with Mr Cowell?

on a one to one basis. He remains to this day the only Marine i have ever envied.

It wasn't that chap who was on in the 80s who died young was it?

We sometimes go right through the dogging hotspot of Bolton.

The Rivington-Anglezarke-Belmont Triangle?

It wasn't necessarily a criticism of Hoy, just Richard Moore's book and it's peculiar style.

The problem with a very professional approach as opposed to a destructive, cavalier approach is that there is little in the way of flair or tension to produce amusing anecdotes. Think Tiger Woods (golfing rather than his newly-discovered lady hobby) as opposed to James Hunt.

I started reading Heroes, Villains and Velodromes: Chris Hoy and Britain's Track Cycling Revolution by Richard Moore (Author) , but found the style of writing odd, repetitive and, if I'm honest, the subject matter in the chapters I read was made to seem a bit dull (&I do like Hoy).

I may skip to a later section and give that a whirl, but I wouldn't rush out to buy it or any other cycling biography.

On a similar note, but a different sport, Jackie Stewart's Autobiography is surprisingly good.