brilliant episode, moffat at his best.

Sound of music (come on, fess up…half of you have seen it dozens of times too!)

Monty Python Meaning of Life….my fave python

Independence Day …. big silly sci fi but as a familly we love it and it has great one liners.

(Wall:E is quickly catching up and will be on most viewed top 3 in another few years).

finishline dry teflon post ride. Then a squirt of finishline green before I set off.
Never wd40 or the like.

Read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naphthol_Red

Basically its a big molecule with lots of double bonds. These are prone to reacting with oxygen with UV as the catalyst/source of energy. (Bit like how veg oil is less stable than beef dripping due to more double bonds….unsaturated).
If the double bonds go then so does the colour.

I always put copperslip on every nut and bolt on my car, including wheel nuts. Never have one come loose.

whats the total now?

63! Make it interesting. What do you win in the bet?

Nick, you sound like that rarest of breeds….a decent, sensibly priced mechanic who knows his cars. Finding someone like you is tricky.
The reason that folk get disgruntled with main dealers is that they know that a firmware update just involves plugging the car into germany via the internet. 200 euro for this is robbery. Its the same in all walks of life, if yo u charge a premium then the customer has heightened (unrealistic sometimes) expectations. Often car main dealers are happy to just experiment with replacing bits and doing expensive scans at the customers expense. Its easy to rack up. £500-1000 bill for not a huge amount of work.

Your private prices seem very sensible and I wish there were more trusted skilled mechanics out there, particularly with advanced diagnostic skills.

The “new” ipad…or ipad 3 is brilliant and only came out in march. Its a big step up from the previous two models, mainly in screen resolution. Buy one, you wont regret it.

Next model will probably have same screen resolutions, but a faster processor and more memory. I do not find mine slow, so have not hesitation in recomending.

George Michael is a car mechanic?

Having oil coated bolts inyer gob could have possibly caused something, but you would have tasted it if there was any going into your mouth. Never had problems with fork oil (or engine oil or mineral based fluids). DOT 4 however gives me a nasty headache on the couple of occaisions that I have had a smidge anywhere near my mouth.

There are no appreciable fumes from fork oil. Unless you ingested any its coincidence.

Nick, never had a bmw…maybe their firmware is more beta version than vw and volvo that I am very familiar with.
My Audi and volvo have never needed firmware updates, except in the first 12 months after launch.
There are some jobs that I would be reluctant to do. For cambelts on my A2 I use only Awsome GTI in manchester as they know the a2 inside out.

Your comments on the brakes is very timely as I did these last week, precicely because the old discs were pitted, despite only being 3 years old (the a2 doesnt really have enough weight to use the rear discs).

£100 per hour to do what I can get from a knowledgable forum is not good value to me. I appreciate that I am in knowledgable minority though!

Basically, I think you must have gotten confused what with Neil Armstrong dieing and stuff. Its cars, not friggin rocket science.

Nick_Christy: I have more faith in my own skills and diligence than I do in 75% of garages and mechanics.
I have known too many suggest to replace perfectly good bits just to boost trade, and have seen more crossthreaded and missing guards and fixings from cars that have been serviced than I care to mention.
Of course there are some decent garages (many!) and there are some idiot home mechanics. So lets agree that you work at a nice trustworthy BMW franchise that would never pull a fast one or overcharge, and me and quite a few others on here can weild a spanner ans VAGCOM interface without turning our cars into child killing deathtraps.

😉

Makes you ask…what have I done that people will remember me by?
As a Radio 4 listener, Neil’s passing has a particularly poignent significance.
Hope we can honour his generation by equal feets of exploration.

all slr’s are pretty good these days.
I prefer Nikon, but you will find equally ardent devotees of Sony, Canon, Olympus and Pentax.

Depending on how much lenses you want to get you might be better off with the big two (Nikon/Canon) but the other brands also have a fair selection of kit lenses too.

Find one that feel natural to you and whos menu system you like.

I bought Nikon because I much prefered the build and layout of the D80 to the Canon 450 (or whatever the equivalent was in 2007).

I now have lots of Nikon kit so am wedded to the system with no regrets!

grantway, its not a fudge. Basically its bloody hard to write an exam paper each year that is exactly as hard as the previous year. So the assumption is (and accross 1000’s pupils its a fair assumption) that the proportions of A,B,C etc remains fairly consistent. It drifts, but big swings from one year to the next are more likely due to an easier/harder paper than changes in education levels.

willjones, I live in leeds too and have an 800 with maps.
You are welcome to have a borrow on a you break it you bought it basis.
I am in South Leeds.

This is why I service all my own cars. Easy to do and much cheaper. Just like rusty lego with spanners.

Marin Palisades with grey frame and yellow luminous fork.
Still have a ’92 Orange Clockwork as my pub bike.

Would always buy cars that are 3-5 years old and with 50-100k on the clock.
Cars tend to start die at 10+ years due to corrosion of suspension and brake lines and calipers etc (ie lots of stuff thats exposed to the elements).
A young car with stellar mileage may have a random engine or turbo failure, but with lean burn engines I think you are more likely to have problems with a 5 year old car with 10k on the clock from a pensioner than a 5 year car with 80k on the clock thats had regular use.

Also don’t discount the idea of buying privately or from Ebay.
I personally always buy privately as I believe that you can judge a car by meeting the previous owner, its not foolproof but dodgy people have dodgy cars. Nice middle class professional families are often just looking to beat the trade in price when getting rid of a car.

Not a huge fan of auctions either as ones in Yorkshire are often poor value.

If buying from a dealer, find a few cars in different dealers that you would be happy with and let the dealers work their price down over a week or so until one of them comes up with a final price you are happy with. Also check things like tyres and disc brakes, if these are worn then you could easily be spending an extra £500 to £1000 to replace if doing at a garage.

Coda bike bits fitted to canondale bikes.
No brand suspension forks ( with xfusion and rst nearly as bad)
Hayes el camino brakes: noisy, rough and rusty bolts.

Sorry, but I have no interest in sharing with you my reasoning, but it might be a car washing thing 😉

What size car are you after? Do you do lots of miles?
Do you want it sporty? Would you prefer an older posher car or a newer more basic one?

Assume you have no interest in fixing cars yourself?

A silver one.

Another vote for Kumho. Great tyres and every bit as good as Continental or Michelin that I normally use. Quite, good grip in rain and about 2/3 the price of the big EU made brands.

Its not dark yet….crack on!

😉

hmmm.good recommendation. thanks

Show us a picture of your Dog or childrens bike, or even a dog riding a childrens bike.

Southerners/Northerners are soft nonces/uncultured thugs

(delete as applicable).

Why can’t everyone be like me and see the world from my perspective?
Debate!
(But really just capitulate and agree).

Railways should be nationalised and subsidised so they are cheaper than car travel.

Is it not the case that after papers are marked, the scoreing table is weighted to achieve the correct ratio of each grade. This is to adjust for the inevitable fact that some papers are easier/harder han others?

silent running as a kid stuck with me.

Why is it all kids cartoon and stuff that gets us and not proper people ones?

End of Iron Giant…….”Suuuuuupermaaaaaaaan!”

Ted Baker sale. twice a year for me.

did I miss much in the last hour?

Who let George sing that crap?

7% but we bought in the late 90’s and had a fair deposit.

I have some 2000 Olympic special edition ones on wifeys bike! Might sell them while the Olympics euphoria exists!