>saying one thing publicly whilst thinking something else differently

Politics, innit.
Much of the wikileaks stuff isn’t dissimilar, a bunch of diplomats etc say what they really thing about various politicians, head of state etc, that really shouldn’t be suprising to anyone (except that’s not the face they normally have to show of course).
And as for all the grumbling about the LDs saying one thing then falling into bed with the Tories – it’s just a matter of being pragmatic, at least it’s a functional government, and one that in a few areas may have been tamed a little compared to what some of the more rabid right of the Tory party might like to see. To expect anything different is a bit naive IMO.

The pity about Cable fluffing it is that there was a good chance of him giving Murdock a bit of a fight, even if whoever handles it is supposed to be impartial (if you believe there can be sure a thing in politics)

Here y’go (fingers crossed..) – starting to melt a little by this point but still pretty solid !

[/url]
156860_10150350008025007_542205006_15926120_3844667_n[/url] by henshaw11[/url], on Flickr

Friday night’s commute – about 17 miles to meet the OH and colleagues at a pub – produced a beard of icicles – or at least it felt like it..one lass took a pic, I’ll try to get the OH to get a copy mailed…

>Hardly a macho world anymore tho is it? Lorenzo, valle, stoner not really macho men, and why should they be?

Except they’d probably make you look like big flouncy girlie 😛

If you look back over the season – Stoner’s struggled with illness for a good proportion of it, yet still being competitive, and Rossi’s been racing relatively soon after busting his leg. And if you look back in previous seasons you’ll see guys racing with injuries that most people would be sitting on the sofa nursing with a cup of cocoa for a significant period…

Sorry, they’re generally a bunch of nutters….

Myself and some mates went to Morzine in 02 – all on hardtails(with….v-brakes, no less !) – but we wound up mostly doing all xc stuff, which they were fine for – ready didn’t need full-sus, particularly since we did a fair bit of riding up at times, as well as down…wouldn’t be that much fun on the dh runs tho’.

>Unless it involves splicing/scarfing timber

Been there, got t-shirt ! – rebuilt the 4 sashes in the bay of our old place – took a fair while tho’, I’m an engineer rather than a chippy…but at least it was nice n accurate 😉

Wound up having refurbasash (twickenham) reinstate the upper bay window and bathroom window, and refurbish two other sashes upstairs – and they *did* a good job of the lot.

But..the OH in her infinite wisdom (and playing the ‘I’ve got the money to pay for it so I will card) then got them to replace my carefully installed parting beeds on the ones I’d done somes year before the brush/rattle free jobbies, and add hardware to match the others. Admittedly it was probably painted in well, but I’m pretty sure a few careful taps with a hammer or using a stanley knife to break the paint would have done it, the bloody idiot managed to generate a whole lot of splintering along the side of the channel the bead sat in, in getting it out. I was not a happy bunny…

>Aren’t sash windows a bit draughty?
They can be installed with brushed sections to stop rattles/drafts – but – even before they were done – we didn’t really notice that much in the way of drafts anyway – certainly not when you’ve a curtain pulled over. And never suffered from condensation, for that matter

The heat-inefficient bit is really the glazing – wood’s a good insulator.

Other thing is – sashes *look* right – my pet hate is upvc, to have any strength it’s bulky, it’s supposed to be maintenance free but stil suffers from staining (or at least, the stuff on the back of our current place does, and it’s absolute rubbish re security. But it’s cheap so people fit it. In ourClose (built 1926) – some still have the original wood frames/steel frame/leaded light Crittals (as we do on he front of the house. Now those *are* cold ! – but most most people in the road have just ripped the whole lot out (including woodwork) for crappy upvc – whereas the old crittals are a lot more elegant. Crittall still exists, and you can buy replacements – double glazed units – to retrofit – but people seem to be too ignorant to see past the upvc crap.

By way of comparison, back in ’89 my rigid M600 Cannondale was about 600 quid..

Bear in mind the exchange rate’s not helped over the last few years – I bought a German recumbent (ok, frame’s probably made in Asia) about two years ago for about 2k, pretty much the same spec is now about 3k. A pity I didn’t buy it with a Rohloff…

Yes – sorry – I realise they didn’t used to. I’ve got a set from about 11 years ago that’s got a couple of Jaguars (complete with revving handcontrollers – that’d drive you round the bend !) – depsitethe magnet they’re not easy to keep on hte track ‘cos they’re quite long.

I (briefly) had a scalextric looky-likey when I was a kid – 4 lanes worth figure of 8. Used it the Christmas I had it, but ‘cos it needed lots of batteries my dad soon had the bright idea of screwing the whole lot down to a baseboard with a transformer (slicing the battery boxes in two to hang the lot together). Unfortunately whatever transformer he used lobbed out too much voltage – try to use it and the hand controllers started smoking. That was the last I ever got to use it 🙁

*they’ve* had a set, eh 😉

Dunno much about it, but the Carrera Go stuff might be worth looking at – at some point, if not now:
http://www.lddiscounts.co.uk/carrera-carrera-go-sets-c-91_95.html
– somewhere between micro and normal scalextric in scale (1/43), plus extra track looks readily available (tho’ not in the high st..)
http://www.lddiscounts.co.uk/carrera-carrera-go-track-c-91_100.html

(btw – I think they’ve had magnets on for quite a long time..)

Just checked – one set I picked up s/h (if they still do it) has a Porsche and an Audi TT – good little cars, stay on the track a bit better ‘cos they’re shorter – and close to indestructible ! Also picked up a pair of drift cars – the guide rotates through 360 degrees so they tend to spin and stay on the track rather than the guide popping out of the track and car flying off.

>Even after a few weeks it’s all either full speed – crash.

Not too sure what it is, but there’s an age at which kids don’t have the hand/eye co-ordination to control the things properly – they’ll try to use it like an on-off switch (cue cars flying everywhere). something to be said for buying the micro sets…

For general info just google slot car, there’s a lot of compatible makes – much of it really far too good to trust to kids 😉 – the Scalextric stuff’s generally a bit more robust and less realistic, depending on what it is (other brands SCX, Carrera, Nico, etc)

FWIW – the scalextric digital and sport (analogue) use the same track that’s easier to assemble than the old stuff – and you can get connectors to link it to the old style track of 10(?) yrs ago – but the controllers/cars are different so can run cars in the same slot (there’s overtake sections like railway points). You can retro fit the digital car controller into older cars tho’.
Dunno how well it runs, but one advantage with Micro scalextric is it takes less room – put out a decent amount of 1/32 stuff (ie ‘proper’ scalextric) and it takes a lot of room. Another lot worth looking at might be Tomy AFX (Argos *used* to sell sets) – smaller scale too (HO I think it’s called) – mebe google for spares availabiltiy

Ah, thought SCX and Scalextric had some sort of tie up..kinda:
http://www.scxworldwide.com/about_us.php?subPageId=2

A couple of years ago we did a street party and I sorted the Scalextric (bloomin’ kids, the adults never got a look in – someone should have packed em off to bed !) – found some good deals of little used track/sets on fleabay – now got a big pile of it in the spare bedroom 😉 One lot I bought from via ebay and separately are http://www.lddiscounts.co.uk/ – occasionally there’s good deals, esp of unboxed stuff.

I’d suggest you store any track somewhere that’s nice and dry – that’s possibly not the attic. I once left a set in the car boot overnight, just the condensation in the car brought out some rust spots ! The plating on the track’s very thin and you really don’t want to attack with anything much more abrasive than a duster…

Edit – I ought to add I’m not a slot-car anorak ! – I just do a fair bit of research before buying stuff 😉 And you realise when the kids aren’t around then drinking and driving is obligatory 🙂

>in the hands of the gods

or more accurately, ‘morons in cars’….?

Had one of the little beggars in the loft a few years back – a whole lot of noise above the bedroom, on Christmas eve for good measure !

Out predecessor’s builders had extended the bays at the back of the house so they met the eves – so the eves formed a nice (tree) rat-run from one side of the house (where the eves were open) into a space above a second bathroom on the other. I’d found evidence of a nest there before, but didn’t think too much of it.

All I needed to do was make sure there was bird food outside, then nip up the ladder and cover everything in with chicken wire while I thought it was out foraging.

We had a recurrence later ‘cos I’d tried to be tidy with the chickenwire – where it/another squirrel could reach an adjoining timber batten, it munched through to push the wire out of the way/squeeze through.

Just had to repeat the above and lob up *way* more chicken wire so there was nothing it could reach to chew.

I guess strictly speaking they haven’t made you ‘redundant’, they’ve simply terminated your contract before the 12 month qualifying period, which they may, as uplink’s written (discriminatory issues aside).

After the 12 month period they would have the option of making your position redundant (note that it’s the ‘job’, not you, that’s made redundant) – which wouldn’t be significantly better for you anyway since you’d get statutory redundancy plus notice, and is a bit more of a pain for them in the case where they want to get shot of you but recruit for the post.
The other alternative they would have had to get rid of you after the 12month point would be to terminate your contract regardless – ie unfairly – in which case they’d negotiate a settlement to not sue them for unfair dismissal (which is what it’d be).
Note that suing for unfair dismissal – other than discriminatory – will only get you an award to the period from being chcuked out of that job, to starting the next one.

They could also have taken out capability procedings against you to resolve performance issues, that’s a nuisance on both sides and sometimes just prolongs the inevitable (tho’ that’s also used by some employers to get rid of people they simply don’t like to avoid paying them off – typically overload them with work and see if they crumble/leave).

TBH – they may even think they’re doing you a favour by using the word ‘redundancy’ – what looks better on a cv – redundancy or a simply that your contract was terminated ?

Sorry to hear it, good luck on the job hunt.

>Have a look at the 2nd last paragraph in this highclimber

Interesting…not sure it materially changes the termination tho’, but it’s worth further enquiry.

One point about being signed off ill/for stress – if they terminated your contract as a result/while you were off ill they might be on sticky wicket, but presumably you’re back at work (as in signed off for a limited period) and that no longer applies.

It might be worth thinking about what’s your desired outcome – if it’s compensation then you may be flogging a dead horse wrt the effort involved, if it really is to retain your job then be prepared for a) a bit of a fight and b) keeping your nose squeaky clean if you somehow manage to win (fight?) them round.

C&G ?

eg:
http://www.bike-inn.co.uk/training_courses.asp
http://www.bike-inn.co.uk/training_dates.asp

>Concepts such as flight or gravity are oversimplified by analogy and metaphor to the extent that they are jsut wrong and most people continue with that misconception about the phenomenon without actually understanding anything about it.

Eh?
People may take flight for granted, but it’s easily demonstrable – that’s different to “oversimplified by analogy and metaphor”. What misconception? – it’s just bloody physics, regardless of your choice of diety(s).

>What else is this but a faith
Sorry, you’re showing your ignorance (that’s not a put down, that’s in ‘lack of knowledge’)

As for gravity, that’s taking a little longer to work out..

>All you know about gravity is the effect it has in your demonstrable environment, and you probably have some misconceptions bout this as well, yet you accept it as a construct,

Better trying to understand the world around you, rather than attempting blissful ignorance.

Hmm, swear filter doesn’t work (I’ve tried)…

what powerband as a c**k ring ?

The important bit (well, if you’re not a bird) is what the bird is and the relative effect on it’s population, rather than birds as a flat figure. Raptors are at the top of the food chain and relatively few in number, so turbine kills are probably disproportionatly high. I’d guess pheasants might be a lot of the uk road kill, at least part of the year, but since their numbers are higher to begin with the relative loss to their population is probably lower.

It depends on where the turbine’s sited of course – move ’em a handful of miles in one direction away from habitat/sources of food, and that might be enough for it not to be a problem.

>I quite often leave them dirty between rides so prefer ones without a chamois.

Niiice.. :p

Could have a look at:
Lusso coolmax – thick lycra, no pad (double seat thickness) – more autumn use.
Lusso thermo – roubaix, no pad (double seat thickness) but I’ve been wearing mine on and off for the last few weeks or so, ok down to about freezing but not too excessive for cooler autumn days (ymmv)
Both under/around 40 quid from Ribble..

In the past I’ve used wd40 to get grips both on and off, and not bothered with hairspray – pretty much stay where they’ve been put.

>And £850! That’s outrageous – I think mine was £150/200 with a ceramic crown, and that was only a couple of years back.

A handful of years back I think one of mine (root canal+crown was something like 150-300 – actually had a second with just a crown done at the same time. I’m sure it’ll have gone up a bit but 850 sounds a bit much.
(By comparison, around the same time I had mine done, a mates GF had a crown done for something like 450-600)

I’d get it done – but find a better deal !

>As in my link above, go by SYMPTOMS.
>If no symptoms, then don’t go looking for trouble.

Well, the symptoms can be a little subtle, depending on circumstance – I went through a patch of lots of night-time piddling (not in the bed, I hasten to add) – but not helped by often drinking tea before bed, which I’ve always done (tho’ I’ve tried to reduce that of late). Likewise I often take a while to get piddling – but I’ve always been like that. I wound up with a PSA test as a result of hassling my GP after having possible oesteopenia flagged up during a national health screening research project.

A PSA of 6.7 meant a visit from Mr Marigold – turns out it’s just a slightly enlarged prostate, but at least now I know. Second test was 3.7, yet to hear results of 3rd. So long at it’s not increasing significantly/longterm I won’t worry, but I’d certainly rather know than live in ignorance. Yeah, I realise most of us blokes will die with prostate cancer, rather than from it…

>It can be raised in cases of benign enlargement of the prostate, urine infections, after sex, and yes after a finger up the bum.

And cycling !

>I need to check them again as the ache is still there.

If it gets worse…BLOODY WELL GET YERSELF TO A&E !!

I used to to have the reverse problem – over-dangliness. Often used to wake with a bit of an ache, shuffle things around/turn over, sorted itself. Went on for years, to late 20’s, until…

…one day it didn’t..got worse and worse – by the time I got the doc around in the evening it was subsiding, but too late. All a bit puzzled in A&E (prumably ‘cos they thought I shouldn’t be still standing due to pain, or something like that, from a torsion). A record I guess, 4 or 5 pairs of hands on my nads in one evening, none of them my GF’s, and none of it much fun 😮
That was friday…by sunday one side was like a large avocado (size, not colour !). Ultrasound monday – almost didn’t happen cos some idiot fecked up, persistent GF sorted it, gawd knows what would happened otherwise.
Following day, removal of offending nad. Which, according to the consultant, was going off a bit by then (I paraphrase). Oh, and a totally pointless bit of sack shaving on my part – they actually go in at bikini line level, ‘cept the twunts didn’t tell me…still, at least it was so big that everything had got smoothed out by that point, and nothing got nicked…

I get chucked out two days later with no bloody warning, I *think* pulling stitches ‘cos I’m lugging a rucsac full of books that friends had kindly left, expecting me to be in rather longer – plus I left my big feckoff bunch of flowers my GF had brought 🙁 I spend the next several weeks sleeping on my back *very* carefully (inc one or two scares where I think I’ve twisted t’other side) – oh, and it’s taking about 15 or 20 minutes to even get out of the chair to the upstairs loo (hence the pulled stitches theory, half of that’s just trying to stand up)

Some months later I get the remaining nad stitched to the scrotum to stop it rotating, and I can sleep properly again.

Hopefully that’s the only thing I’ve got in common with Hitler !

>awesome – Iron Maiden were the first band I saw in Leeds with Paul Dianno singing.

I didn’t manage to see ’em on the beginning of the first album tour, but saw ’em when they brought it round again shortly after (and a few times after that).

Must admit I lost interest after about Powerslave, never been much of a fan of Dickenson, I’m afraid..

>There’s a fundamental mismatch between how houses are ‘designed’ and how they’re insulated

Eee, when I were a lad..folks had a Victorian, mostly unheated house (gas fires downstairs). Used to wake up in the winter to pools of ice at the bottom the the (sash) window frames.

Fast forward to my last place – Edwardian, same window construction (ie varying degree of draughts, central heating) – never *ever* had problems with ice/condesation on the windows.
Moved to a 20’s place a few years ago – the front’s got the old Crittalls (steel frame, small leaded panes) – loads of condensation despite the radiator underneath, and only in the unused front bedrooms, not in the (mainly unused) dining room below. As to what the difference is, I dunno 😮

^^^^^^ yup, that’s the dehumidifier I use in outbuildings at the bottom of the garden – seem t’other thread…

>Jond – is this the one you mean?

Oops, only just checked back – indeedy 🙂 – the Amber and Ruby are exactly the same apart from the case colour.

A bit difficult to compare with being in the house (esp with lots of washing), but I empty it every week or two, depending on the weather.
And yeah, I’ve had the odd minor mishap in extracting the water tray 😉

The dessicant unit are generally better re noise level.
Plus (tho’ it’s mebbe not so important in a house) they work fine down nr zero degrees, whereas refrigerant units are less efficient (tho’ cheaper to buy).

We’ve got a couple of Ruby Dry (AKA Amber Dry) units in outbuildings at the bottom of the garden where bikes/tools/plants are kept – don’t seem to notice much difference on the electricity bill (at least, with one – only just bought the second after having had the other one for 3 or 4 years). Humidity settings are 40/50/60%, 60% seems to stop things rusting, also keeps the place above freezing in winter.

There’s also an X-Dry, fewer humidity settings (tho’ also a laundry mode) – the Amber/Ruby seems to be recommended for house use ‘cos the fan options means it’s generally quieter. Other thing with the X-Dry is it’s got a timer on it, plus it autostarts if the power goes off. Smaller tank capacity than the Ruby/Amber. All of them you can fit an external drain pipe to.

All the above are about the 199 mark.
(Curiously Dry-It-Out – where I’ve bought the second from, since they were particularly good at swapping the first when it was DOA at delivery – also sell via ebay, but are more expensive online on their homepage.)

There are other dessicant units of course, but those are the only ones I’ve looked at since the original’s worked well.

And yes, keep doors/windows closed.

http://www.wahoofitness.com/Fisica/Wahoo-Fitness-Fisica-Fitness-Sensor-Key.asp

it’s an ANT+ dongle which allows you to use ANT+ equipment – ANT+ works in the same frequency band as bluetooth but uses a different protocol, for low power devices – eg speed, cadence, hrm, power sensors – supposed to be lower power than bluetooth.

http://www.thisisant.com/

Tho’ if the hrm is all you need, bluetooth might be one to go for, at the cost of replacing/rechaging batteries – I guess you could always try dropping a mail to some of the manufacturers to see what runtimes they expect (eg I got a ueful reply from Trek/Bontrager regarding their ANT+ computers..)

Mebbe put a layer of thick felt round the edges of the door with double-sided tape? I did that with our (slightly warped 20’s original) front door – made a big difference.

>Checking but according to developers there is no preservation order.

I think even if there’s no preservation order that may still come under something like ‘civil amenity’. There’s various trees near us that I’m sure haven’t got preservation orders on them but have a notice of work attached during crown lifting/pruning. Some tossy developers also felled a bunch bordering soome of the houses in our close before they were stopped – pretty sure they needed permission to remove them.

Same symptoms here, if anything too much curvature, tho’ that’s probably unrelated. Headache came on badly whilst on the roadbike about 9 years ago – muscles in spasm. Had a month of it before physio (possibly) helped. I get a repeat from time-to-time, usually no more than a day. Had a lengthy repeat (of about a month) last year – usual self-manipulation didn’t work, took a couple of months to work out what did.

Xrays/mri (the latter for an ulnar nerve problem) didn’t show up anything, other that some excess curvature – so no real idea of the cause. Too much headbanging as a teenager? Probably not..

I sold the road bike some years back, mtb’s on the limit of comfort, currently all my commuting (or riding, come to that) is on a recumbent. Tho’ I ought to get out on an upright, not doing so’s probably allowing the neck muscles to weaken a bit, and the recumbent doesn’t use the back muscles (or the legs) in the same way.
On the bright side – it’s a good reason for another bike…or few 😉

A few things that help me – hot flannel on back of the neck, hot bath, dropping the head down so the chin’s on the chest.

I’ve done Pilates for years, doesn’t help directly but helps posture a little, plus body awareness – as IainC suggested, Alexander Technique could well be useful to help identify bad habits.

I must admit I’d be inclined to splash out on some physio whilst you’re waiting for the nhs, it might give you some early relief – the two things that seemed to help me at the the was manipulation of the vertebrae right at the top of the neck under the skull, and some traction on the neck. Got a few useful exercises to do, too. Nowadays the problem site seems to have dropped lower down the neck.
YMMV, of course.

Good luck with getting it sorted, it’s a bloody nuisance at times 🙁

While what’s running over the cable is notionally digital, it’s effectively an analogue signal that’s being transmitted. That signal’s being sampled at the receiving end to work out whether a 1 or 0 was being sent, and the longer the cable or the poorer it’s design/construction, the more degradation of the signal, and the higher the probability of errors. As a generalisation, error correction works, but only to a degree (tho’ it’s not the only way to get around errors).
Think of how freeview reception quickly goes from ok to a little bit crappy to completely unviewable, whereas analogue reception was always vaguely viewable even with all manner of reflections/interference, on the whole.

As previously said – short cable, anything cheap and nasty ought to work. A long run – you may need to spend some (sensible) money but I wouldn’t have thought any more than a short way into double figures.

>I’d try plugging an analog audio lead to your amp from wherever you have an audio out (tv, sky plus box ) to try and work out where the delay is coming from (sky plus, tv, amp )

Yup, what Joe said.

>If I had spent a premium on a house to have off road parking I’d be p1ssed if someone blocked the space.

It’s not always quite as simple as that.
Where we are now, everyone has a drive (and they’re deep enough to put a car on.) But because of the width of the road (a close) there’s parking bays staggered, so if anyone – or a few houses – had several lots of workmen around then there’s a good chance someone’s gonna get their drive parked across – fortunately everyone seems to be fairly reasonable about it.

Where we used to live – Edwardian/Victorian semis, the front gardens almost all too short to get anything much bigger than a Smart car onto front first, but with just enough room for 1 1/2 cars along the curb. Sometime you park outside your own house, sometimes you don’t – no big deal.
Except – as described by an earlier poster – some decide to pave/tarmac the little frontage thay have. Which then buggers up anyone else parking around the overlap (not to mention that blowing away lots of front gardens looks shite) and you actually lose parking area.
As an aside, a fair proportion of those that have paved their frontage also try to park a car that’s *too* bloody large and actually obstructs the not exactly wide) pavement where the corner sticks out. Now, where’s my chainsaw…..

Arch Enemy, London Forum @27th
Annihilator’s on on the 20th (assuming there’s still tickets available).

@wwaswas
Kinda forgot Av7x were playing – by the time I remembered to check they’d sold out of decent seats/standing 🙁 They’ve currently got (Dream Theater’s recent ex-drummer) Mike Portnoy hammering 7 bells out of things by way of a stand-in…

(Admittedly not november, but Paul Gilbert’s playing here in London on friday, so it’s either a few hours of shred guitar or a beer festival..hmmm, tricky choice…)

My tinnitus *might* be due to a lot more gig going a handful of years ago, but I suspect it’s more to do with mp3 player use – despite being careful about the volume, and using some rubberplug-style earphones to give decent isolation – ie if you’re sitting next to me on the train you won’t hear a thing.

>I find the attenuation fine – mainly because they kill the top end, which always sounds to me like it’s screaming. As such, I enjoy the sound much more.

Reminds me of seeing Slayer at a festival last summer…I quite enjoyed it ‘cos I couldn’t hear the solos 😉

If you want to push the boat out, the custom fit jobbies are Elacin (same bunch as make the ER20s) – also on DaveGr’s link. You can get them for various degrees of attenuation – 9db (ER9), 15db, 25db – tho’ once you have one type you can swap in a different attenuating filter (tho’ those aren’t cheap at something like 70-80 quid, iirc).
Expensive tho’, £170-190 inc fitting, depending on where you go…tho’ I *think* there’s a cheaper route via signing up for the Boots Hearing service (no extra cost) – it appears to bring it down to the 140 quid mark.

A mate and his wife bought a set last year – they go to a lot of noisy gigs too – they had them in time for Download and were pleased with ’em.

I’ve got a pair of the ER20s, but they seemed to have a little too much attenuation – but p’raps I ought to persevere with them a bit more, I suspect one’s brain does a bit of gain correction once they’re in !
I’ve also tried the Alpine Musicsafe jobbies (phil’s link) – they come with a selection of filters – but they tend to cut more out at the top end (actually ,so do the ER20s:
http://www.hear-more.com/musician.htm

The Alpines have a smaller flange than the ER20’s so feel better if you’ve a small lug’ole – I bought the ER20s for my OH but she found them uncomfortable, but it’s probably possible to trim the flange (carefully !)

My OH tends to use some Max foam earplugs – I bought a big bag years ago when I was still riding a motorbike.

Lob a decent dehumidifier in there ? – that’s what I’ve done in one of the brick buildings at the bottom of the garden, seems to work ok so stuff doesn’t rust, raises the temperature a little, and surprisingly doesn’t seem to cost much to run.

BTW – if you need one that’ll run down to around 0 degrees C you need a dessicating unit (eg Ruby-Dry), rather than a refrigerant-based one.

>I was told, as mine has back seats and windows behind the driver, it’s car derived.

I’m not sure it’s quite that clear-cut tho’

You can also look up a reg on:
http://www.taxdisc.direct.gov.uk/EvlPortalApp/

As I understand it, car-derived should appear as M1 (camper conversions as M1 Special purpose), commercials (ie lower speed limit) as N1.

Tho’ curiously I’ve looked up a few vehicles and found no classification for them 😮

>Pretentious, parochial long-winded toss. But then, it is written by someone who calls themselves ‘Bike Snob’.

Perhaps you’re trying a little too hard to take it seriously… 😛

Alarm or locking ?

If the car alarm becomes unsync’d with the key fob, you need to do something like arm (or de-arm) the alarm via the fob whilst the key’s turned in the *ignition*. Or something like that…that *is* in TFM, tho’ – but mebbe not be the problem you’ve got..

It’s not just the degree culture – the whole recruitment environment seems to have changed in the last 10 years or so. 10 years ago I’d have stood a good chance getting into a lot of electronics jobs just by being a reasonably bright bunny to pick it up. Now I’d need to have all the correct tickboxes – people want to buy in experience as-is. In fact you’re possibly more likely to get a job as a recent graddy from having done the right course combination but little real experience, than as an experienced engineer with not *quite* the exact experience they’re after.

My OH’s found the same thing – she’s been in marketing – academic publeishing/education for 20+ years. But unless she’s got the right tickboxes on the CV, doesn’t even get past the selection process.

Probably not helped by the scattergun possibilities of email which means agencies search CVs for buzzwords…