Jota….you just beat me to it :D….can’t believe it wasn’t mentioned until now.

Ohhh have to do more now that I have had time to think.

De La Soul – 3 Feet High and Rising
Fugazi – Repeater
Paul Simon – Graceland
The Avalanches – Since I left You
The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds
Portishead – Dummy

For me Grandaddy – The Sophtware Slump. Much more than a collection of songs.

El-bent if you think Hamas only ever fire missiles in retaliation you need to read more.

Anyone tried Uniqlo selvedge jeans? They are supposed to slightly stretch so might be ok fitting for slim jeans.

I have spent a fair bit of time in Israel as my wife is from there. As Lifer has already stated plenty of Israelis are dismayed by some of the actions that have been carried out in their name and of Netanyahu’s reckless disregard for Palestinian lives.

That said I also feel that the actions of others towards Israel is often glossed over. I was in Israel during the conflict in 2014. Staying in a city that was within range of Hamas rockets meant that when a siren went off I had to grab my 11 month year old daughter and run down the stairs whilst hearing the rockets being exploded over our heads. I’m not drawing any comparison between what I experienced and what was carried out in Gaza. But the fact that Israel has the capability to deal with most of these rockets does not detract from what they have been designed to do – kill as many Israelis as possible.

Currently listening to a couple of new albums that have already been mentioned, by Viet Cong and Sleater-Kinney.

Also a couple of old classics Mogwai – Young Team, Phosphorescent – Muchacho and this Justice mix that was rejected by Fabric (probably beacause it was too awesome):

Uniformity of awesomezness

Nice jeans….but for a site selling top end jeans it is a spectacularly bad website. Unlike the huit[/url] website itself which is much more fitting for the product.

The new Sleater-Kinnney album is really good as is last years Atlas by Real Estate.

TKMaxx depends upon the stock – sometimes they have some really good jeans such as Scotch & Soda.

Howies are well made and reasonably priced.

Nudie are amazing jeans but for that you pay a premium.

Life is beautiful

Good call….such an awesome film.

Although I love Spirited Away, if I were to pick an animated film that blew me away it would have to be Waltz with Bashir.

A couple of documentary films that would be on my list are Searching for Sugarman and King of Kong. Both stunned me to silence afterwards in awe but for very different reasons.

If it was a film that completely shook me then I would have to say Hotel Rwanda….i doubt I could watch it again as it left me feeling nothing but despair but it is an amazing film.

There is a big daddy lookalike in my gym who is usually walking about naked with flip flops when I enter the gym and is quite often still walking about naked with flip flops when I leave the gym. At no point do I ever see him enter said gym.

Also, unfortunately, I don’t think people drying themselves all over with a hairdryer is limited to South Korea. Towels aren’t obviously good enough for some people.

FabricLive 35 is a really good drum and bass mix from Marcus Intalex, quite old now, but my favorite mix of that genre and really worth a listen.

The last song on the mix is an amazing track.

There are some brilliant Solid Steel mixes which you might appreciate. Here’s an amazing video mix.

We are just back from a snowboarding holiday in Austria and found it very reasonable. Although this might just be specific to ski resorts/holidays we found it less expensive to the trips we usually do to France.

We were in a nice hotel in Zell Am See so not maybe very useful to you….just thought I would share.

At-At walker and a Spectrum 128k with such classics as Altered Beast, Daily Thompsons and Commando.

Restaurant red is a nice place for dinner. My missus wanted to try lobster….it only does steak and lobster mains but is very nice food in lovely surroundings.

My wife’s granny was in Auschwitz. She even remembered being spoken to by Mengele. Horrifically, she also remembered her own granny being sent to death when they arrived at the camp and her mother deciding to go with her to the gas chambers as she didn’t want to leave her on her own. This left my wife’s granny to fend for herself at the age of 16, in what must have been hell on earth.

She survived and met my wife’s grandfather when she returned to Hungary. He himself had lost his wife and child in a concentration camp but he managed to survive through years of slave labour.

To me it is unthinkable that these acts happened but very important that they are remembered.

Two. A while ago i was the only one with two…..now most us have two. Although am noticing the people edging away from the technical side of things seem happy with 1. Will do the survey in a bit for you.

2014 Skoda Octavia Estate 2.0TDI 150

About town in start/stop traffic about 45 mpg, this is probably not helped by my driving and unwillingness to put it in eco mode.

Long journeys around 55 – 60 mpg depending upon average speed and again my driving.

Would take off 5-10 mpg from each of those depending upon the number of bikes.

I would disagree with the view that people know enough about the holocaust.

World war 2 documentaries and books rarely go into a huge amount of detail as it is such a harrowing subject. Films like Shoah are hugely important as they manage to give first hand views that are rarely shared elsewhere.

I am currently struggling to watch it and may not make my way through both parts, but do feel that i have learnt a lot from it. I also found the Eichman film very interesting.

Was a harrowing watch, should be compulsory in schools. You can’t get your head around it.

In Israel I believe school trips to Auschwitz are pretty much compulsory.

I agree that schools in other countries should not shy away from the subject.

Is it just me that finds it a bit odd that you’d buy an estate then put your bike on the roof, beside the rood box?

I’ve always owned estates (mostly because I like them) and have never considered putting bikes in the boot. Bikes are always caked in mud and putting them inside would require me to move baby seat etc. Plus if am taking a couple of mates in my car then it would be a nightmare trying to cram all the bikes and gear inside the car. A good setup on the roof is completely hassle free….just throw them on and then remember not to drive under any low bridges.

Great so you hired a car and didn’t really drive it according to the weather conditions and have reached a previously well known conclusion that front wheel drive is better in the snow. Now we’ve got the usual RWD + snow = disaster out of the way perhaps we can move on and answer the OP’s question :p

I think it was more the weather conditions dictated how I drove in a car that handled badly in the snow.

Moving on… definitely a 3 series touring. As stated above the 1 series is incredibly ugly.

Isto, your understanding is incorrect as I assume you haven’t driven one. They are fine in the snow, just like any other rwd.

I have driven one in the snow – it was a hire car. It was pretty bad. Worse than any other fwd equivelent I have driven on the snow.

If you can’t understand the benefit of rwd then a BMW would be lost on you

I have no desire to own one, so this is not an issue.

My understanding is that they are in fact absolute pish in the snow. Are they not now bringing out front wheel drive cars for the first time as they have realised that their lower models are about as “ultimate driving machine” as a Toyota.

Just finished watching the first series of Transparent and thought it was brilliant. It and House of Cards wold be my favourites from this year.

There may be better deals about, but I’ve just clicked on the first personal car lease page that came up and chose a 2 litre Leon FR estate (the 150bhp one, not the whizzy 184bhp version) with 25k miles allowance, maintenance package & 3 month initial payment (whatever that means, but that was the min I could select) and it came to £440/month. With no options selected.

Not sure if they are still doing it but I got a new Octavia estate (black edition) with the same engine as the Leon FR on a 0% deal with 3 years free servicing for £300 per month with 12K mileage & £500 initial payment. PCP/Lease doesn’t really make sense if you are making a large initial payment so I would keep this to a minimum.

I didn’t like it at all for the first couple of listens (found it beyond bland) but a couple of the songs have grown on me and have made my tracksOf2014 playlist. By no means would it make my list of top albums.

Album of the year for me would be probable be Spoon – They Want My Soul. Closely followed by Ex Hex, Jungle and Todd Terje.

@wallop. So how is the glacier? Big queues? The runs a lot better than the local ones they have open? Cheers.

Hi wallop, good to hear there is a few runs open locally….will do the first day anyway then we will probably head for the glacier.

Hope the Kaprun glacier is good today – have had a look and nearly all the runs are open, so am sure it will be a good day. Let us know how you get on. Cheers.

Going to Austria in a couple of weeks….luckily we have a Kitzsteinhorn glacier nearby which is reporting good conditions despite the lack of low level snow.

Snow is also due for other local mountains on Christmas day so hoping that will help the nearby lower runs.

Listening to this, but have to turn the screen over so I don’t watch….or else I would get no work done.

It was either this or scary bloke with a beard. I chose this.

I get a few records each year at Christmas and the ones that I think sound good on a record player and get played the most are:

The Beatles – Revolver
Paul Simon – Graceland
The Soundtrack to Searching for Sugarman
Grizzly Bear – Shields

Ones on this years list are:

Darkside – Psychic
Real Estate – Atlas

Aside from the new ones I buy each year I have a collection of mainly instumental hip hop, funk and some dance. If you like Aphex Twin I would recommend Ambient Works on vinyl. Also as mentioned above I would suggest DJ Shadow – Endtroducing and also any of the Ninja Tune compilations.

I have had three Saabs and two Audi A4 estates. The Saabs are prone to niggling issues and can prove difficult to get fixed unless you know an specialist who is fairly easy to pay. I had a nightmare trying to get the air con fixed without going through SAAB.

The two A4 estates both had PD TDI engines. Both really reliable until quite high mileage. My opinion is that these engines are generally reliable but if something does go wrong then it can work out very expensive to fix.

If you were looking elsewhere I would consider the Exeo, Octavia and Mazda 6. At the same money all would result in a newer car than the Audi and a more reliable car than the Saab.