Brushless motors still have brushes, you’ll see what I’m refering to in the photo half way down:

https://www.speakev.com/threads/r90-whining-noise-at-low-speed-supposedly-motor-brushes.161815/

Brushes need replacing. “brushless” is a misnomer in that there’s still a contact brush but without segments which eventually wears out. The battery cooling is a weak point and can be very expensive to fix. Motors do fail but rarely. And the usual electrics/electronics nightmare that every modern car is.

It’s an observation, Countzero. Make of it what you will.

My favourite transport is my feet followed by a bike, skis and arms to drag myself through water. I’ve given up going to gigs, the last one was as an artist and I think that was my last. I don’t drink or do drugs except minimalist use of Becotide. Not sure what that’s got to do with Al-Fayed though.

If I won the euro-lottery tomorrow it wouldn’t make me think “at last, what can I get away with now”.

You’re an exception on here, the standard STW go to in the case of unexpected income and what to do with it is “coke and hookers”.

Despite  the losses the Russian army still has 1.5 million men which is 500 000 more than at the start of the war.

https://www.dna.fr/defense-guerre-conflit/2024/09/21/en-russie-l-armee-grossit-les-anti-guerre-resistent.

They haven’t run out of men and have lost fewer than 10% even on the higher estimated losses. It’s not a lack of canon fodder that will stop them.

Yup, limited to 45kmh. They’re now up against the Citroën Ami and a start up I’ve forgotten the name of which are EVs rather than clattery diesels.

Edit, I’ve remembered: Microdrive. 9000e for the 160KM range battery version:

https://easymicrodrive.com/

The Mega won the Andros Trophé ice racing championship in 1994. They now make little utility vehicles you’ll see in many French towns and some other odd-ball stuff:

https://www.aixam-pro.com/fr/l-esprit-aixam/histoire/mega-by-aixam

British Autotest Champion, 38th on the 86 Welsh Rally in a Group N Samba (first in class) when Hannu in the Quattro beat Dai in the Metro and I don’t find EVs boring. Drive a few. They’re a bit like a steam train, bags of torque at low revs with traction control rather than needing sand on the rails for grip. The Zoe on Cross Climates at suitable pressures is a delight to drive.

I used Top Gear as English language teaching material when Clarkson was still a motoring journalist trying a bit too hard rather than the provocative reactionary **** he became. The Frontera review was a great listening exercise and “rickshaw technology” made most people smile. Then the Micky taking and attacks on minorities started to piss me off so I watched the motoring shows on French and German TV instead.

It’s not almost nothing on most EVs, Molgrips, the Zoe takes 45kW to about 75% then drops to 36kW and is still at 25kW at 95% and about 18kW at 98%. There are many journeys I do when going to the max rather than 80% avoids a charge at the end of the day which saves the time to hunt down an extra charger and the risk of another faff. The distance between the only reliable chargers (wink) in France sometimes means going to 98% or having to drive slower to get between them. Assuming you recharge at 15% 80- 15 is 65 and 98-15 is 83, roughly 30% more range.

One not working Tesla charger isn’t really a problem when there’s a row of 28 of them. I’m still on 100% reliablity from about 40 Tesla charges.

I’m still wearing the suit my soon to be ex-brother-in-law grew out off 40 years ago when I need to wear a suit. Starmer should have enough suits for a lifetime if he goes easier on the beer than my soon to be ex-brother-in-law. perhaps he can get new lenses for those oh so expensive frames if his correction changes.

£4000 and delivery in 2025, ouch. On the Warmoth site you can spec your own neck shape, radius, frets, pickup holes, body shape and anything else you fancy. That Jack White with a V-shaped neck and 12″ radius isn’t for me, that belongs on an 80s acoustic.

It’s not Exeter services it’s Exeter service centre which suggests it’s at a Tesla dealer (I’ve used the one at Solihull service centre which is in the Tesla dealer car park). There’s also one at Darts farm Exeter. You can use both. 61p and 65p at the moment as it’s the most expensive time of the day. Type the address into Google Maps to find them, the blue dot on the Tesla app isn’t as accurate as the Google one.

Being gay doesn’t make Survivor or the Big Breakfast any more classy. You’re stepping into the dangerous territory of positive discrimination. Dross is dross whoever makes it and whatever their chosen gender or sexual preferences. I read read your link and it reinforced my view that I’d be better of without all he has achieved.

You are in the “other EV” section, madhouse. Just search a charge point on the map page and away you go. Once registered you open the app and the first thing it proposes when you open it is find a charger, click that for the map and enter a destination (on the French language version anyhow)

It would be interesting to know who she asked, and to compare their record with his.

That’s a bit like James Cameron’s “let me see your biggest grossing films”. His biggest grossing film is still the most predictably shit and the others just shit. We’d all be better off without them or him.

the establishment and royal family  seem to like protecting dodgy evil people.

Marina Hyde in “that” newspaper is on form and on Starmer today. I won’t bother quoting the bits on Starmer because it would be repeating what STWers have already said above but I did like this about one of his benefactors:

As for the type of person we’re dealing with … listen, I don’t want to say Waheed Alli “divides opinion”, because you know what? This week I asked several people in the know about him to give their opinion and they all said the exactly same thing. Unfortunately, it’s a single word that we don’t use in the Guardian unless it’s in reported speech.

The most I paid for a Tesla charge was 50p, all the others were 83p or more. The Tesla app didn’t fleece me on exchange rates and commission, all the others did.

The Zoe heat pump consumes 1kW for 3kW of heating and frankly it’s not enough on cold days so a ski jacket is in order. Driving around locally in winter I average 12kWh/100km without the heater and 13 with, so about 8% less range with the heat pump which would be 24% less range with an electrical resistance.

Whether you pre heat the car with a resistance or use the resistance when driving it’s an appaling waste of energy compared with a heat pump. And you need A/C anyhow so why not make it reversible and use it as a heater in Winter. Not having a heat pump heating is just cost cutting which will cost you money over the life of the car and place an unnecessary load on the grid..

Johndoh: download the Tesla app, register and you’ll see the charge points you can use. Enter the detail of a bank card when you want to use one, Tesla only debit the leccy you use.

If Tesla charge points cover your needs forget the rest. If you have to use any other network arm yourself with patience and make sure you’ve got enough kms left to get to another charge point if /when it doesn’t work. Tesla = reasonably priced, reliable and enough of them to avoid queues except on holiday departure days.

Turns out the Shimano chains at that time were made of cheese, or near enough.

Probably a counterfeit chain, if you still have the chain check the vids that show how to tell the difference.

Meanwhile in France and Germany EV sales are falling as a proportion of total sales. France has reduced the subsidy while Germany has all but eliminated it. EV plants on part time working or closing (Audi Belgium). My personal theory is that many of the people who wanted an EV have now got them and they’re keeping them. The Tesla taxi drivers for example, they’re keeping them for huge mileages whereas they changed their ICEs every year or two (comment from taxi driver in MTB club).

Year 2000 bug.

What some people are calling gifts I call corruption.

Migration is driven by pull and push. In my case the push of a shitty UK teaching post and the pull of better pay and conditions, proper mountains, better climate, affordable housing, sporting fascilities, a love of the culture and language. Not every teacher left the UK in the 80s/90s though, they weren’t all in shitty jobs or as keen on French culture.

The current migrations are driven by extreme push combined with media driven pull. Most people don’t want to leave where they were born, have family and friends and enough to live on, they have to be pushed or pulled out. The pushes are numerous, recent French TV reports have questioned immigrants why they had taken huge risks and suffered multiple miseries to get to Europe. Some of the answeres were interesting:

A Senegal fisherman left because there were no fish left. He explained that the big Chinese boats were taking most of the fish and the traditional fishing methods weren’t providing enough to live on.

The Syrians had fled a war zone, we know who started that. There’s a film out about a village that makes accomodation available to refugees and gets Syrians rather than the expected Ukranians – very amusing in its treatment of prejudice.

Drought, the Sahel is suffering from gas central heating and ICE cars like the rest of the planet. Whilst eastern Europe floods the Sahel dries up and people fight over what’s left.

We have created the pushes but also added some pull:

Internet and the smart phone mainly. People around the world now know exactly what is happening everywhere else in the world. They can see it on their phones and communicate with people anywhere and everywhere. They have an objective and the tool to do it – navigate, communicate, pay, organise… the phone.

Then having created the pushes and pulls we get upset (not very in my case) when people get very determined to get to green grass – because it is, and they know it is. And trying to stop them is futile while we’re still pulling them and pushing them.

I’ve had a look at what the old hand-wireds go for on leboncoin. 1500-3500e depending on condition, yours looks like the lower end but might clean up. I’ve got a JCM 2000TSL which has the inferior printed circuits that happily haven’t gone porous (late serial number so hopefully they won’t). Even with the 25W power reduction button pressed it’s silly loud.

Doesn’t sound any more wild than any of the other theories, Sobriety. I’ll adopt it as most probable till I hear something more plausible.

Bed bugs are simply a symptôme of peoples increased propensity to do travel. They are thriving on our increased mobility and are not going away. If you use accomodation othet travellers use you will come accross them. We do a lot of walking holidays moving on every night to a new hotel/hostel/b+b. Sooner or later we get contaminated and then become transporters of the beasties till we get home and put eveything in the freezer.

Hotels regularly get infected, some are more determined to decontaminate than others. There has been an anti bed bug initiative that has been taken seriously in some hotels but some don’t give a damn and victim blame if you report bugs. So check on the Net before you book and routinely freeze when you get home.

Well did say you were curious and asked elaborate. :)

I haven’t shyed away from cavity wall insulation because those are insulating bricks with  no cavity with similar thermal resistance to a cavity wall with insulation in the cavity. But both are only a third of the thermal resistance needed if you want to cut off the gas. So I’ve added some insulation on the inside.

I think the picture tells most of the story. What’s missing is what covers it all up; usually plaster board or wood paneling. I’ve used a wooden frame fixed to the wall with all thread rods in chemical cement for walls that will be loaded, or screws and dowels for walls that aren’t going to be loaded. If you are worried about the dew point falling in the middle of the insulation thickness than add a vapour barrier membrane on the inside under the plasterboard.

If the existing wall suffers damp other than condensation other insulating materials which won’t rot are perhaps better – polyester wool for example, it’s much nicer and easier to work with too but less eco.

Wherever you choose to stay type the name of the hotel into Google with the words “punaise de lit” then “bed bugs”. Even if nothing comes up freeze your bags and contents for 80 hours when you get home.

https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Hotels+Bed+Bugs&find_loc=Paris

It’s not just Paris, I found a  bed bug in my baggage after a stay in Germany this year.

Your friend at work made me smile, bruneep.

I have no recommendations of posh hotels in Paris because I prefer the cheap cheerful spartan and clean Première Class type of establishment.

Gas central heating is the easiest one to cut. Insulate Britain aren’t wrong. Insulate your walls with 120mm of wood fiber and you’ll reduce the heat loss through them by 60%+ assuming you have an insulated cavity wall already.

most of the cheaper end is around +/- 3 mm over 10 m , which is ok for diy etc

Worse than that IME. I’ve got a wall/window opening done with a laser level that is 8mm out over 2.4m. Following that I’ve checked and corrected with a quality spirit level placed on a long straight rafter.

Im thinking about upgrading my amp and guitar. Only looking at Gibson LPs, as im playing an Epiphone LP just now

Keep the Epiphone. I’ve played a very good Epi Les Paul and a really annoying Gibson (about 2012) which went out of tune on every G-string bend. The Epi pickups were nicer to my ears too but if you don’t like them try some Gibson pickups in the Epi.

Amps, don’t know the Spark, I prefer the Fender Mustang range to the Katana. And I’d spend the money saved by keeping the Epiphone on a valve amp and pedals.

Middle, then when you get to the edges and cut the last tiles they will be the same width and it wil all be symetrical.

Basic Casio and give the rest to a homeless charity.

To be fair Musk has got so many kids he could give one away and probably not notice. Not sure Swift would want a second hand Musk though.

We bought a splitter between 3 friends, 5.5 tonnes IIRC. If it fails I cut in half with the chainsaw as Timber suggests. Some things I know are going to be problematic such as big knots I just chainsaw into little stove-size lumps. Still haven’t had to buy any wood in over 10 years and ignored a sign outside a neighbour’s house offering free wood to collect – too much wood in stock to be motivated enough to get the wheel barrow and chainsaw out.

Thread title needs amending with “royals content” or “vomit bucket advised”.

It should be easy, Kerley, HRMC deals with both tax and pensions so linking to the income tax declaration should be easy. I was amused to see that the government lost the case about paying the fuel handout to pensioners living abroad. Perhaps they should try limiting the handout to those declaring their tax in the UK (so resident more than half the year) by giving a tax credit to those pensioners on low incomes rather than call it the WFA.