Depends how handy you are with a spanner. I bought my towbar off PF Jones for £100 and fitted it myself in a couple of hours, but of course this is entirely dependent on vehicle; mine did not require the bumper to be removed or even jacking the car up but I ‘ve done one in the past that needed the exhaust dropped and I’m sure there are models which are even more of a pain.

The wiring again on mine was simple, I spliced straight into the loom at the rear light cluster and was done in 20 minutes. Again, your mileage may vary considerably. If your car has multiplex/CANbus wiring then you’ll also need a bypass relay and it’s a bit more complex. Otherwise you can use a plug and play loom like bruneep suggested if there’s one available.

I think some people have reported that TFR can attack your window seals/rubbers with strong concentrations/ repeated use.

I use the Autobrite snow foam lance on a Nilfisk pressure washer and Autobrite magifoam.

The idea is the same as cleaning a bowl with dried porridge/weetabix on it – do you put it in the sink and immediately start scrubbing? No, you immerse it in some water for a while and then come back later and just wipe the softened food straight off.

The problem with a car is that you can’t immerse it and plain water just runs straight off the vertical surfaces. So… foam.

You still have to rinse the snow foam off (carrying with it the worst of the stuck on crap) and wash as normal.

I’ve got this one, the Rolls Royce of toastie makers

…and have the opposite problem. I’ve yet to find a shop bought loaf with slices big enough to fill the recess.

I do love me a cheese and ham toastie though. Classic/standard Saturday lunch for me.

Pro tip: If you want to read FT articles, you can just google the headline, then click through to the article from there.

Has to be

+1 the bends!

It’s quite Kafka-esque.

People commute from many miles around into London to get to their jobs. They commute past the unemployed who live there, who are kept there by having their extortionate housing costs (which the workers couldn’t afford), paid/subsidised by those same workers’ taxes.

Who pays 2k a month? Well, most would if it wasn’t their money.

If you’re a landlord in that market, why would you charge anything less?

Hang on, this is STW; you should be getting right behind this poor woman – a victim of the evil ‘bedroom tax’.

I live in Bristol and work at the local Uni’s purpose built composite materials development centre and can confirm that there’s plenty of effort and money being spent by both industry and the UK government on the development of new materials and their manufacturing technologies ;)

Another +1 for Helly Hansen. I have a couple of long sleeve LIFA warm tops that I have worn in rotation for a few years of winter commuting, plus my winter night rides. Spot on and going strong.

Plus, they seem to regularly get price dropped on Amazon to about £8 each. Bargain.

Xbox controller for fps?

Like riding a technical trail while wearing boxing gloves and scuba flippers.

I really didn’t like farcry 3, everyone loses their shit over it but to me it was just piles of meh.

Fallout 3 is excellent, but I think if I had to choose between that and Fallout New Vegas, I think I’d go for New Vegas.

Call of Pripyat is the best of the three for my money, with Clear Sky being a slight misstep.

The stalker series was what made me actually go to Chernobyl and Pripyat for a 2 day tour 8)

STALKER series!

Assume you’ve played the Bioshock games?

OP, I have the same dream all the time!

I wake up panicking because I haven’t done any work and I’m going to fail for sure.

Takes an uncomfortable few seconds for me to realise that I finished uni over 10 years ago and there’s nothing to worry about.

Played through doom 3 and the resurrection of evil expansion recently on up to date hardware, using sikkmod etc. Good to look at and fun up to a point, but ultimately still as hollow as it always was.

Oh, and system shock 2 is legendary. Very dated now though.

Dead space and its sequel are ace. 3rd one is poop though.

Not bad numbers for a product that lacks basic functionality.

I have a cheap android personal phone and a work iphone 5s. I’m not a ‘phone person’ and have no particular allegiance or anything like that.

The other day I took a photo on the iPhone and tried to send it to a mate by Bluetooth. Apparently it’s not possible on an iPhone. Bizarre.

The screen is nice though and it scrolls really smoothly. Dunno if the iPhone 6 scrolls even more smoothly?

Contrary to normal expectations, you might be surprised at how reasonably priced the genuine coolant from your car manufacturer’s dealer is.

EE is what I’m on right now, got a free limited edition SIM around Christmas with 100gb per month of free 4G data for 2 months. We only have 1.2meg ADSL here so the 20meg 4G connection afforded by tethering to the phone is awesome…

…when it works. Probably 80% of the time it’s fine but sometimes it just doesn’t want to know and I go back to the ADSL.

I’ve moved recently so I’ve been trying a number of different networks to see whose coverage is best in the places I go to.

I’ve found with O2 the data connectivity is poor, even if showing H+ the connection often just doesn’t do anything.

EE 4G is temperamental

Vodafone was pretty reliable even when only showing 3G

Pagid is Mercedes OE iirc

Can park on my driveway if you want, I’m away at the moment. It would be a 10-15 minute cycle to the ferry carrying your luggage. House is at Witts Hill.

I’m always a sitzpinkler when I’m drunk, safest way and saves me a clean up job in the morning ;)

Also, on the marble thing – maybe I’m naive or uninformed or whatever, but I would have thought that marble is about the most durable thing you could make a bathroom floor out of to resist piss damage, other than stainless steel sheet?

Brother in law’s dopey labrador is called ‘Derp’

Fun fact, those insults were all written by the guy who wrote Enders Game.

MoseyMTB – Member
Salt and pepper hair?????

Numpty description for Philip Schofield/George Clooney/Just For Men ‘before’ type hair.

You’re just meant to see the circle appear and disappear as it moves in and out of the blind spot on your retina.

Hah, Yeah I know of it, I’ve been there. His name is Chet, he’s one of my mates. We set up http://www.retro-renault.com together about 10 years ago.

He has a green convertible and a red 3 door hatchback that started out as a base model but was converted with 16V parts.

Yes it is. I’d be interested in some details about the one you know of ;)

Well, as I said higher up, I’ve strayed many times but my first and true love is the Bourbon. :D

thetallman, I worked in a cinema as a student and we used to have boxes and boxes of those for giving out with hot drinks. I loved them and ate my fill so many times that I don’t love them any more, in fact don’t really enjoy them at all :(

I’ve used Ortlieb and Vaude and tbh there’s really not much to choose between them.

I happen to consider myself something of a biscuit connoisseur and have to say, for the last 30 years or so I always end up coming back to the humble Bourbon.

tron – Member
What is that? Looks late 80s with the swage line. E30?

Yeah, late 80s design and nah, way cooler than that :)

This has been through multiple MOTs without a word from testers. The rear suspension beam attaches just inboard of the replaced section (where the axle stand is) so by the rules as stated, it should be seam welded all the way, rather than me puddle welding in the same places the original spot welds were.

However, any sensible person can see that it’s 100% sound. (Or can’t even tell it’s been welded once the side skirts are on ;)
)