My wife forgot one of mine (and very nearly the next one too) some years ago. In the run up, I went back and forth from thinking she had found something really nice for me to wondering if she had, indeed, managed to forget it.

I did imagine beforehand that if she had forgotten it we’d end up having wild and kinky apology sex, but when it turned out she actually had it was all just a bit shit.

I ran exactly that – an e46 320 vert – for a summer, a couple of years ago.

I’d say the engine is very much a cruiser not a bruiser; I felt an auto box would have suited the car far better than the manual it had.

With the hood up, it’s pretty much rock solid and would be perfectly useable as your only car, year round. I didn’t have the hood up much tho…

I’m not at all sure it was in anyway cool, although I got a lot of flashes, toots and thumbs up, especially from lorry drivers for some reason, as I drove it roof down in all sorts of cold and damp conditions!

I was looking in the £1000 – £2000 range, but actually spent £2200 on it from a garage; it was in another league in terms of condition and build quality from anything else I looked at (inc MGF, MX5, Audi A4 and TT, Saab 9-3, Merc SLK and probably one or two more I’ve forgotten) and I sold it on privately for £1900 after 6 months. Nothing went wrong and it felt like nothing was about to.

It very much scratched the convertible itch for me for a while; the “going for a nice drive” lifestyle part was a bit squished by SWMBO declaring it was a bad hayfever year for her and not wanting the top down; she was also terrified the dog would jump out of the back and so he had to be crated in  there, which was tight; and the dog himself was absolutely terrified of the roof going up and down for some reason. If the lifestyle thing had come together rather than falling apart, I’d probably have kept it sorned/garaged over winter and still have it now.

Merlin, Tredz, Sigma, SJS for parts/accessories

Add Galibier, SportsPursuit and Start Fitness for clothes.

I’d vote for the Jazz too, but having said that, M-in-L who has complained endlessly about every single car she has ever owned until now has nothing bad to say about her Suzuki Ignis, so it must be an absolute super car!

It’s got that bit of height for view and ease of getting in/out, and quite a lot of room inside given its very small footprint. On all but the base models, the back seats move forward/backwards as well to give more legroom or boot space… not quite as clever as the Jazz, but useful.

HT Pa03 stupid name, but brilliant pedal.

I’m glad others have posted these as it saves me having to try and google the stupid name (again).

Grippy, big platform (important with my size 12s), slightly concave in a way that seems to land my feet in just the right place without thinking about it, and cheap :)

One of my favourite birthday presents ever was an hour’s (might have been 30 mins… it was a while ago) helicopter flying lesson :)

wont be doing air rifles then!

Shoulda come to the National Scouts Shooting Championship at Bisley this weekend instead :)

Car: Skoda Rapid Sport, 2016, 12k miles per year quoted but running a fair bit less these days. Garaged at home.

Me: 52yo, male, full NCD, no claims etc last 6 years or so, no points (plus wife, similar). Rural Carmarthenshire.

Recent insurance: £210 last year rising to £280 this year for no reason our end.

I know insurance is up across the board; I can’t quite decide whether to be annoyed I’ve had a 33% rise or glad that it’s still not a huge amount of money.

I’ve got a Jack Wolfskin Troposphere for my general everyday winter jacket, I think it’s a couple of years old, it’s all good except the popper at the bottom of the flap has gone.

I hunted through many jackets before settling on this – so many jackets have pockets in uncomfortable places, not deep enough to really get your hands in and with openings too small; poor hoods; no inside pockets (the JW fails a little by having the inside pocket right inside, rather than accessed from under the storm flap); horrible cuffs… and so on. It’s also a tiny bit short on me, but I’m 6’4″ and have a proportionately long back, so this might not be the case for you ;)

Price seems to have gone up a chunk since then, but still available at less silly money if you hunt around the net.

New Watch Day! :)

Long post but I can’t get the pics to work, so deleted for now :(

Long story short, a steel/blue Luminox Atacama for just £200 from TK Maxx, bargain :)

We’ve used a local shredding company a couple of times for expired company paperwork. Costs a few quid but soooo easy for you, and you (should) get a single piece of paper confirming destruction in return, which may be useful if you need to show the papers were shredded.

Even burning paper takes ages as it doesn’t burn well in clumps, you have to feed it in a few sheets at a time on anything short of a full bonfire. And it’s smokey and extra-stinky for some reason.

On the whole, I’d pinch up the spades, then try to make sure the wire was securely supported as close as possible to the connections.

Otherwise, for a proper job, strip back to bare wire , thread and twist through the holes on the spades and solder, then heatshrink each side – for mechanical protection as much as electrical (you did remember to slide the heatshrink on before you soldered, yes? ;) )  (Oh, and check you’ve got the wires the right way around and it all works before soldering, too!)

The last few months, I’ve just started going over my 1gb 3 contract. So I’ve swapped to a 3gb contract with Lebara, and saved over a fiver a month, too.

I picked up a HH Artic Ocean winter sailing parka

https://www.hellyhansen.com/news/the-arctic-ocean-parka-tested-developed-for-cold-weather-sailing/

for £128 from their outlet shop in McArthur  Glen (Bridgend) a few weeks ago and it’s a really well thought out bit of kit that feels 100% like it’s well worth the £500 it was originally. The guy behind the counter said they had plenty of stock coming in unsold from the high street shops, so got to be worth a try if you can get to one of the outlets. There were quite a few other choices on the racks, too.

Are you in a union? I’d say management’s response is utterly unacceptable to the point of bullying/constructive dismissal on the face of it; if you can make an approach with union backing and a clear suggestion that you’ll take things further if necessary changes their attitude somewhat.

I’m running a Secula and happy with it. Hard to beat at the price above :)

https://www.galibier.cc/product/zoncolan-foul-weather-cycling-gilet/

SWMBO insists on having stainless steel insides, otherwise condensation always gets under the enamelling and wrecks it.

As a noob, I’ve found Kyle & April to be very watchable and helpful

https://www.youtube.com/@KyleAprilRideMTB

Replaced my BB without curing my creak. Started going through everything… got to the rear thru-axle and thought “that could be a little bit tighter… and a little tighter again…” would have saved me the cost of a Hope BB!

Had a quick look through that GQ link a few posts back, and I really like the https://mrjoneswatches.com/collections/all-watches Mr Jones watches.

Don’t actually want to buy one, but I love the messing with the conventions that clocks/watches normally follow, while still packing it into the same form factor :)

I think it’s be best to chalk this one up to the joy of shedding (assuming you agree with the valuation!) – it was a cheap car you can shrug off and put behind you; plenty of people will lose more value in a car from accident repairs than you have for the whole thing. (I should point out I’m mainly on the shedding team, although I do have something nicer at the moment… I get to maintain/play with/repair my daughter’s bashed-up-but-nice-to-drive Corolla instead.) If you’ve got the space/time/tools, ask to retain the salvage (should be very very cheap) and either repair yourself if not too bad, or break for spares to make some dosh back.

Just have to hope karma comes knocking for the other guy… and splash out on a dashcam for the new shed.

Polishing. Don’t really mind what – shoes regularly to engine covers and, just yesterday, a manky silver pendent that my wife picked up cheap in an antique shop, as she knew it’d look nice once I’d finished with it (it did).

I do find doing a whole car by hand gets more like hard work though.

My only real regret is a music one: not going to see Queen at Knebworth as “I’m not keen on big concerts and I’ll wait until they do a tour of smaller venues.” D’oh!

There’s 2 things I sometimes wonder about… not regret at all, just wonder about:

1. Doing Law instead of Pharmacy at uni… but then I would have been at a different uni and never met my wife
2. A very pretty slim blond girl I meet at said uni and we just 100% clicked… so well that I decided I’d better mention my girlfriend (now wife) in the conversation and she then mentioned her boyfriend… but I’ve always felt we might both have broken up with them and started together, if I’d suggested it.

Oh, and one more thing: not winning the Euromillions yet!

I like my Ravemen CR1000, with the lens (has a proper cut-off) flipped so I can mount it under my Bolt.

I took some (slightly rubbish, but they’ll give you an idea) videos:

(and a selection of “be seen” lights: https://youtu.be/8RzHuazQtYI )

Thing with Arcteryx, you buy it once and it lasts forever. Their stuff also always seems to massively out-perform anything else for the same weight/thickness/whatever… but then it bloody well should, for the price!

I have a well over 20 year old Arcteryx jumper which still looks like it did the day I bought it despite being used very winter, and is still my warmest jumper too. I think I’ve nearly recovered from the cost of that now, so I may be able to buy something else from them soon ;)

My commuter has 2 panniers: a very cheap roll-top bag from Lidl/Aldi which contains tools, tube and waterproofs (as an aside: if you ride in your work clothes, you need decent waterproofs. I have a gore-tex jacket, trousers with full side zips so they can be put on in seconds, and motorbiking waterproof over boots (no cleat problems as I’m on flats)). This one is cable-tied onto the rack.

The other side is an  Ortlieb Office bag https://www.ortlieb.com/uk_en/office-bag+F70704 which looks smart, clips on and off in a moment and is showing no signs of use a year on. It will hold a laptop, my lunch, phone, book, glasses case, wallet, piles of polypockets and 3 large pencil case size packets of work equipment with room to spare.

I bought a cheap refurbed PC (£130, ebuyer) plus screen (£38 ebay, IIRC) and some tidy speakers for Planet Rock and it runs just fine; it has generally fired up, started zwift and found everything ready to go by the time I’ve got my shoes, gloves and HR monitor on (it might be waiting for my HR to wake up if I put it on last). I’ve started to find it’s nice to watch youtube videos if I’m doing a workout as the erg mode takes care of the power you need to apply, and the companion app tells you about it anyway.

And if you’re not used to static training: a fan. A big fan. Preferably controllable from the saddle in some way – mine’s plugged into a switched extension lead sat on the desk in front of me, and it’s a big floor fan I’ve hung on the wall instead as space is a bit tight around me.

And click into the Everest challenge from day 1!

I had trouble with some long MTB knee pads, but only after a full day of wearing them just in case the ladder went out from under me again, so my knees/shins weren’t in the best mood as they had already landed hard on the rungs without protection. The reaction blisters were nastier than the grazes/bruising on one leg.

Although it may have been a special case, I peeled all the silicone off them anyway and they still stay put fine. No trouble with any of my shorts’ grippers or anything else.

Another Brukit fan here, if you’re not cooking on it as such. But Pot Noodles are always a good standby ;)

Sue Perkins has already done the being shot thing.

Rab Kinetic

+1, although I have the Kinetic Alpine version as they way the hood sits on the plain one annoyed me after 3 seconds of wearing in the shop. Ridiculously lightweight, scrunchable, comfy and stretchy, even in the reinforced version I’ve got. Try both versions before you buy, but there’s little/nothing else I could find anything like them, especially at a similar price.

Never happens.

My wife has a sliding scale for what I predict:

“10 minute job” – minimum 1 hour in the garage

“About an hour” – back in for the next meal, probably

“All morning/afternoon” – /day

“Quite a big job” – he’s going to need my car to go a buy something extra later; might see him again late Sunday

She’s very accurate; so far we’ve been together about 30 years and I’m still optimistic about timing :)

Nobody cared when I had an import.

I ticked the “it’s an import” box, and had several conversations with insurance companies (which I made damn sure to keep a record of… yes, it’s registered as a 2 litre Subaru (as that’s the nearest thing on the DVLA’s list as far as I could tell), but it’s also got a bloomin’ great turbo on the side of it!

So my 260bhp Legacy was almost certainly charged as a 120-ish bog standard one. Cheap as chips.

It was never a problem, but always there at the back of my mind that they would suddenly start caring if I smashed it into someone/thing, and that was a small part in deciding to sell it on.

I’ve got some Montane ones that do double duty.

My top tip is look for ones that zip all the way down the sides: (a) they tend to be a much tighter cut as they don’t need to allow for pulling all the way on over boots, so far better for riding in and (b) they are MUCH quicker to take on and off.

(And (c) they can be a little less totally waterproof as there are zips down the side… make sure the flap is over the zip properly, especially at the knee when riding)

Fenwicks pro chain lube.

Need to leave overnight after applying, it’s one of those that goes on runny to get into everywhere, then the solvents evaporate out to leave it quite thick/firm/solid. (I keep the red bung in the top of the bottle to stop the same thing happening to the rest of it!) Lasts about 200 miles per application; if the chain is making pretty much any noise at all, it’s time for some more.

Doesn’t smell very nice though.

Another vote for the Saris H3.

They were also very good when mine had the squeeky belt/pulley problem after a few months – no fuss from customer services, new bits turned up in IIRC just 3 days from the USA. It’s 3 years old now (covid lockdown and my old trainer dying were just co-incidental… but it made getting a new one hard work at the time…) and no other trouble since.

It syncs up, in terms of the effort changing with the on-screen ups and down, noticeably better with Zwift via Bluetooth – ANT+ it was always a second or two behind – you were still pedalling uphill when your avatar had started going down again.

I did look for the same deal when you first mentioned it… and the place with that name and that watch that came up when I googled it only had it at the same full price as everywhere else… so I’m afraid I’d have to say check VERY carefully that you are dealing with the actual, genuine, company…

Moto G whichever fits your budget, they’re normally water/splash proof, at least mine is….

That’s pretty much the usual answer in this house: whichever Moto G is currently £150. It’ll be fine.

Having said that, almost 3 years ago (4 days short, according to my emails), my previous Moto G was dying of battery failure and also wouldn’t update to the version of Android that would allow me to marry it to my PC easily, which was something I wanted to do at that point (if i wasn’t worried about that, I’d’ve replaced the battery instead).

So I bought a Pixel 3a XL  for double the usual budget to ensure Android updates for a while. It has been fine as well, and although it’s starting to need the battery charged most days now (instead of twice a week), I am using it more; and I think a lot of it is down to the very poor signal in my new workplace causing it to pull power trying to connect… I may try a new battery in this one, but it’s not the simplest job (big danger of cracking the screen, apparently).

The toilets in Sketch are… interesting.

Pictured in this link: https://www.socialandcocktail.co.uk/bars/sketch/