I bought a car on finance in 2017 and wrote it off after 5 days.

The insurance pick up that it is financed and basically when you agree the payout they sort it with finance company after you ring to get a settlement figure and give permission for insurance to deal with them.

You get the difference back, or pay the difference to the finance company.

My advice: don’t write off a car after 5 days.

Want😍 just about £70k short😞

My car reg is MKII FAN, so I’m halfway there, really. Been lucky enough to co- drive a few rallies in them over the past few years.

Brewster’s Millions

I’m not an avid movie watcher so will have to look up most of those mentioned. I don’t watch horror though so can rule those out straight away.

Jaws, yeah, will never be able to swim in water where I can’t see the bottom.
A Beautiful Mind – I’d watched it a few times before I found out that what they were giving him in the hospital was insulin and, as a diabetic I found that appalling – knowing just how helpless that feels, so can’t watch it now.

When I managed to get up to the outer Hebrides last August, randomly stopped at a little honesty shop kiosk thing for artisan mustard. Bought some pepper tyre mustard which was *DELICIOUS*, but was a small pot and was £6 or so……. I’d buy again, to be fair. The other type wasn’t nearly as nice.

Can’t remember the name of the place but was on south end of Harris towards the ferry.

Alpine Renault A110.

I was lucky enough to co-drive in one in 2019 for an Italian guy, and he gave me a shot of driving it on one of the road sections…. wow 🤩

I would love to have the chance to go for a road trip in one.

In years to come, mains gas will use hydrogen so will be a renewable way of heating. I think current boilers have to allow for up to 20% hydrogen so will be starting off as a blend of natural gas & hydrogen, then increasing to fully hydrogen. Detailed plans have been made but I don’t know the technical details.

DRS

Ikea 3m worktop, with a 3 drawer drawer pack at each end. Perfect

I like the look of this, few videos on YouTube of them but they seem to put an extra leg in the middle. Is that really needed? Ideally want to be able to stretch legs out without hitting anything, and not sure if a leg in the way would constantly annoy me…..

Do yourself a favour and get them put on the back too. To not do so is dangerous.
It’s far easier to control understeer than oversteer, and why its recommended if you’re only changing a pair of tyres is to put them on the rear and swap the rears to the front.

I got a set of winter tyres for a FWD Panda a few years ago and couldn’t believe how good they were, I drove 3 miles into the middle of a forest to watch a rally and nobody else could make it in.

FYI there is massive R&D/plans to use hydrogen in the mains gas network in the fairly near future. At the moment has boilers have to deal with up to 30% hydrogen so it’ll start that way and eventually go 100% hydrogen. Which won’t just be handy for heating but also filling up hydrogen cars.

just leaving this here

Don’t think the driver did anything wrong at all, police totally out of order (as I’ve come to expect) and the amount of posts on here suggesting otherwise is ridiculous. It just shows how the police expect you to behave and if you don’t make their job really easy then they (unlawfully) take their anger out on somebody. I don’t think I’d have done anything different to the driver other than staying a bit calmer (which is difficult in the circumstances), and would be taking this as far as I could. Wrongful arrest for a start.

When I press the accelerator it makes a lovely noise 😁

I WFH at start of first lockdown when our office was closed. Due to my current living situation I hated it, and started going back in as soon as the office was reopened. It’s far far quieter (often only 2 people in whole building) but means I can get on with stuff without distraction.
If I had a spare room to use as an office then I would undoubtedly be doing that and really enjoying it. Just can’t do it at present unfortunately, though as the current situation will no doubt be normal for the foreseeable future, it may change when I can afford to move house.

Twingo RS – can fold up (or remove if needed) rear seats so easy to get a bike in the back.

Drove up the A9 yesterday evening, stopped in a lay-by on the A835 about 25 mins from Ullapool. Very quiet traffic wise and the odd car/motor home parked up in lay-bys but I had a huge parking area to myself, then early drive up to Ullapool this morning again the odd car/motorhome but still very quiet.

On the ferry to Stornoway just now and the boat is very quiet. Cracking weather though so hopefully this continues!!

What sort of accom are you staying in? We’ve been there a couple of times in the van. Campsites not that plentiful and looking at the list of what is open most of those we did stay at (when not wild camping) are closed. I suspect it might be tight even if tourist numbers pretty low. Horgabost being closed is going to really squeeze facilities on Harris as that soaked up the vast majority of campers there.

Well DPD kindly misplaced my new tent, they have told me they found it this afternoon and should be delivered tomorrow, I’m then straight to the garage for a pair of car tyres then overnighting in Fife at my parents before heading North and parking up for the night somewhere not too far from Ullapool (just depends how busy the lay-bys are I guess from reading above). Will be making a plan in the next day or two and am flexible about where to go, which will basically go by the availability of ferries heading South.

Thanks for all the info above, I’m hoping it won’t be too busy out there but will see how it goes…

I am heading to the outer Hebrides as thought it might be quieter…. Stornoway on Thursday and then back from Barra on the 16th. Fingers crossed it won’t be too busy, seems ok from a few photos I’ve seen over the past few days.

I hated working from home and could hardly get anything done, I got back into the office as soon as they let me and will continue to do so.

We’ve been told all along that if we have to quarantine for 14 says then you have to take it as holiday or unpaid. This is despite the fact that many of us have been working from home since the middle of March and could continue to do so quite easily (unless too ill etc). The reason being that some people work out on sites and don’t have the option to work from home – it wouldn’t be fair if some workers were to continue working from home while quarantining?!

So. I’m going camping in the highlands instead. In August. I must be mad!

I deal with gas but think it’s similar situation. Electric network will deal with everything up to the meter, supplier deals with the meter itself and then your electrician from the meter onwards.

There should be standard prices published on your electric network’s website which shouldn’t be hard to figure out. For your built-in meter box you may need to get a new one fitted in the new position first.

Main money saving will no doubt be on any excavation required. If you are getting an extension built it’s usually cheaper to get your builder to sort that.

Well when the food/water wars start I doubt there’ll be any country able to stop China.

We have already sold them a lot of our gas/electric/water networks, so all they need to do is turn the supplies off and we’ll surrender quite quickly I’d imagine.

Absolutely agree with Jaws, scarred for life. Can only swim when I can see the ground.

Can’t see the point of horror films, I avoid at pretty much all cost, and don’t think I’ve missed anything.

I am diabetic so on the high risk list.

This week my office started a rota of day working from home, day in office, repeat – the other half of the department doing the opposite.

I was off on Monday and assumed that as the rota was emailed out just before Boris yesterday, that it was out of date and everybody would be working from home from today onwards.

Our CEO emailed out at 2pm saying that everybody should follow the advice and work from home. Brilliant!

However, our head of department has now decided that we are going to continue with the rota system – I’ve not been given a reason why and when I said I was concerned the reply is “everyone is concerned right now”.

Plan is to give HR a call in the morning and get their view before thinking of what to do. Thoughts would be appreciated…

Literally just done this, turned off at J21 where traffic was just backing up to, went via Newhay, Denshaw and then thought better of following the traffic at 10-15mph to J22 and instead continued on, joining at J24 where it’s business as usual. HTH. Weather is fine now

I hate Christmas and feel I’m drifting away from my family. Both my grandparents have died and one of my brothers lives in Australia with his fiancé.

They’re massive cheapskates and the food in the house is terrible. I just don’t want to be here, but will just have to put up with it as due to an operation last week can’t go out for a walk at the moment. At least the meal will be decent tomorrow, that’s about the only good thing. Can’t wait to get away already. My parents and brother have hugely enjoyed sitting watching Home Alone, Gremlins and one of the original Star Wars, then served sandwiches for dinner as “got to leave room for meal at 3pm tomorrow”. Shoot me now……. ffs

A lot of you on your high horses here.

FB has made a hugely positive difference to my life over the past 5 years or so and I wouldn’t be without it. Brilliant for discussing and involvement in my main hobby and keeping in touch with friends abroad. It even resulted in my stolen car being found within 12 hours despite the police saying there was sweet FA chance they could do anything. They should’ve tried Facebook…

It also makes a big difference to people with disabilities or the elderly who can get involved with things and communicate with the outside world where they may be isolated otherwise.

I’m probably sticking my hand up for redundancy early next year. Been doing same job for 11 years and my heart’s just not in it any more. It’s fairly interesting and not too badly paid for what is a glorified admin job, but the long promised qualification has never arrived so I’ve not got a lot to show for it. Semi decent payout will clear my debts and give me a few months to chill out.

Really not much of a clue what I want to do. As an introvert I hate job interviews, but needs must I guess.

FYI – Rally GB is using Gwydir forest tomorrow (Thursday), would avoid then and for at least a few days afterwards.

What if the scoundrel is hell bent on smashing your back doors in ?

I’d recommend relaxing.

Spend more time with my brothers
Don’t get into debt
Don’t bother going to uni
When Anne-Marit says she loves you, don’t run away………..she was the one *sigh*
Think about the future more, less living for today’s highs
Keep fit & healthy
Start competing earlier, could have made a career of it………
Brake before that roundabout you dickhead
Pay more attention and work harder at uni (<19 it would have been don’t bother going to uni)
Start pension earlier

To be be fair, in a lot of ways I like me today and try to avoid regrets. Can’t change it, so got to keep looking optimistically into the future. Although if Anne-Merit is still out there……………….

I got my bike through Cyclescheme. Paid £70 to extend it for an extra 3 years which finished in April, I never heard a thing from them again after paying the £70 so I’d say you’d be fine.

Being a rally co-driver (or at least a wannabe) I need a thicker 2mm lead so it doesn’t snap when bouncing along in a car, and has to be mechanical rather than clutch as you don’t have two hands to adjust the length with.

At the moment I have a few Staedtler 925 (from Cult Pens) with 4B leads but would like to upgrade to something a bit more premium, but need to avoid the above links until pay day…….

We have the stupid reverse parking policy too.

The only time there has been an incident was when I reversed into a space……..to find that some other inconsiderate bar steward had already parked there.

I may or may not have been slightly distracted by a young blonde colleague in a short skirt who waved at me.

MPRN is for gas, MPAN is for electric.

If a MPRN isn’t listed on the national database, you need to speak to your gas transporter (not supplier) and they will arrange a live/dead check which, presumably will be live – then you speak to your chosen gas supplier that you’ll pay the bills to, and they will create a new MPRN for your address and it’ll all be sorted.

It’s not worth avoiding getting sorted as could give you much much more hassle in the future when it’s discovered. Or it could be disconnected, as obviously you could be using an illegal gas connection. Believe me, you don’t want that hassle…

Same as core, I use lots of OS maps for rallying. I subscribed to the OS app for a year and used it about 4-5 times.

Best I’ve found is Memory Map, get end of year sales and buy full GB 1:50k HD maps for £60, can be used on up to 5 devices so you can draw routes on laptop then transfer to phone. Think it’s wonderful!

Back about 25 years ago my grandma was visiting and the roof blew off a (pub’s) garage and deposited itself on her car.

Her insurance refused to pay out insisting it was not a road traffic accident…

Find it very strange to swipe.

Haven’t tried recently but had to put my pin in and swipe when my phone was charging, found it very odd indeed.

My dad bought a Laguna estate the week before going to Switzerland for a camping trip, upon arrival there was a massive storm and it was peppered by large hail, tent was destroyed. Insurance wrote it off as every panel needed replacing plus a new roof. He bought it back eventually and sorted it, and I wrote it off again a few months later when a cattle grid broke as I went over it at about 15mph. Sorry dad.