https://www.lego.com/en-gb/product/dom-s-dodge-charger-42111

Have we had Dom’s Charger yet?

Brilliant wee cars. Pals of ours have had one for nearly ten years and it will not die. Gets thrashed up and down farm tracks all day long, and has seen their girls from birth. I don’t think that they’ve ever cleaned it properly. It’s a 54 plate and while a few years back a 16 year old FIAT wouldn’t actually exist as it’d been scrapped for terminal rot before it was 10, this thing doesn’t have any real bad bits. I think the front wings are starting to go, and the paint came off the back of the LHS sill in one big sheet, but that’s it. They thought recently that they were in for a big bill because the power steering stopped working, and were expecting a ridiculous price for a new pump. Turns out it’s electric and the constant thrashing up and down farm tracks had shaken the fuse loose. I helped them replace the centre prop bearing about four years ago as it was a sort of squishy bush thing, and the replacement was something daft like £12, and a couple of hours on a sunny afternoon with a couple of beers.
I don’t need one at all where we are, which is a shame. If we were in the Alps or back in Scotland it wouldn’t even be in question. Brilliant wee cars.

A Disco 4 is a lovely place to be, when it works. An L322 Rangie is even lovelier and probably similar money. Both suffer from being built down to a price, despite being hooring expensive new. We had an L322 and the components that failed were typically the ones specced by Solihull rather than those specced by Munich. Would we have another if we needed one? Yes. Would I have one for your criteria? No. With the best will in the world, you’re not going to drive it to Morocco anytime soon, and the rest of the time it’ll just be too much vehicle.
I think if I were in your shoes, I’d be trying to find a late noughties Mitsubishi Delica. Kinda funky 4×4 mini camper type thing, but without the weird proportions and stupid name of the Mazda Bongo.

I love an Espada. I think it was the last properly elegant GT car Lamborghini made. The Jarama that came afterwards looks like a Datsun Cherry in comparison. Don’t get me started on the Urus…
Like Pigface, I also don’t get the love for the E-type. It’s the non-enthusiast’s choice of most beautiful car ever – the Coldplay of vehicles.

It’s brilliant. I think I’m happier here than I’ve been anywhere else in my life. The lack of hills is something that I worried about before we came here – I spent three days in Brabant a few years ago and was looking forward to leaving halfway through the second purely because of the size of the skies and the lack of ability to tell which way was north, but not all of it is depressingly flat. We’re near Alkmaar, so we’ve got the dunes – much of which are forested and full of trails – really close by. Gelderland is also hillier than you’d expect, as is Utrecht. It’s not Scotland, sure, but if you’re craving it that badly it’s only an overnight ferry and an hour’s drive away.
I cycle everywhere here and it’s rare I use the car. My mental health is much better for it.

I’ve lived in the Netherlands for three and a half years now, and I can’t see me living in Scotland again.
I reckon Schoorl could be a contender – good mountain biking, loads of restaurants and pubs, close enough to Bergen and Alkmaar for a change of scene or the train to Amsterdam, but not on the train line so cheaper to buy a house there.
I think I could live in Sweden pretty happily as well, specifically that strip of coastline between Gothenburg and the Norwegian border. Again, good mountain biking, good pubs and restaurants, friendly folk, easy enough access to Gothenburg by train, Denmark and Norway close enough by road or boat. Love that part of the world.

Not a fan of IPAs at all, but if you are then Brew Dog do countless different beers that all taste of citra hop to varying degrees, plus they’re looking after their staff and making hand sanitizer for NHS Grampian.
Have you got the Untappd app? Good for checking in and rating beers, and it might suggest something you’d never even consider otherwise.

Been pretty productive here these past few weeks. Did the front brakes and outer CV boots on Missusalz’s TT and fixed the leaky Haldex, threw a fresh BB in the eldest’s mountain bike, rebuilt the ram in my Costco low entry trolley jack, and I’ve gotten stuck right back in to my 914. That just needs some fresh fuel lines and some dodgy wiring sorted and that’s ready to roll, too.

I’ve started with 1:24 model cars again. My 9 year old loved building a Z1 so we’ve bought a few more to build together. Our first couple turned out a bit crap but I used to be good so they should improve. I think starting with Heller and Revell kits probably didn’t help, because even now they’re still crap to build.

Got the last Brookmyre and his scifi one turning up this week, hopefully. Agreed about him running out of steam a bit after his first ten – Be My Enemy was probably the last ‘classic’ Brookmyre, and it was basically a rewrite of One Fine Day.
Recently read Early Riser by Jasper Fforde and it was easily his best yet – a properly realised sort of murder mystery in a version of earth where people hibernate over winter. Properly, properly good.

Reading this I’m getting angry on your behalf, especially given certain responses.

Just watched Go Karts on Netflix with my boys. Basically an Aussie clone of The Karate Kid, but about karting. No surprises anywhere but an enjoyable way to pass an hour and a half.

Agree with Parks and Recreation as well! The Good Place is done by the same folk and is also properly feelgood.

170€, off our current account. Going to leave it as mrsalz still wants to go back to Scotland to visit after all this so she’s clinging to the fact that we’ve still got a deposit on a potential sailing to get her through. I’m still unimpressed, mind…

Just got off live chat with them. They’ve cancelled the booking with no further cost but won’t refund my deposit, rather they’ll take it off the cost off the next sailing I do, as long as I book it before the end of the year and the sailing itself is before the end of June next year. Given I don’t have any other plans to go over again, I guess that’s the equivalent of a lost deposit…

Right? A lost deposit I could stomach, but cancelling the sailing and then asking for more money from us feels like exceptional pisstaking.

Can we add DFDS to this list? I was supposed to be sailing over to Newcastle for a week back in Scotland with the family, but their sailings are on hold until after we were supposed to go. Got an email saying that they were offering free cancellations or rescheduling, and given we have no idea when this’ll be over I opted to cancel. Turns out free cancellations actually means they’ll waive the normal cancellation fee, and that they’ll keep your deposit and still expect you to pay another 130€. Furious doesn’t even begin to cover it!

DJ Yoda’s How to Cut n’ Paste, the ’80s Edition. Still awesome and hilarious.

How much fight have you got in you? I got a new Mondraker frame out of Silverfish, then paid the difference to get a complete bike, but only after months of emails and embarrassing them here and on Facebook.

I don’t think that’s a fair comparison, really. What are those figures at actual midwinter? And Glasgow has more rain, maybe, but smir and haar? Hell no. Glasgow also has decent public transport. I mean, how much easier would it be to get from ABZ to town if the railway station was on the terminal side of the airport?

I moved up to Aberdeen for college in 2001, and naturally got sucked into the oil industry. Moved out to Torphins way a few years later, got married, had kids, and escaped to civilization three years ago. No exaggeration, it would take a six figure salary for a one day week to get me back there.
Aberdeen as a city was somewhere I could never warm to, no matter how hard I tried. It has all the ingredients of somewhere brilliant yet manages to fail hard. Because of the oil, there are folk from the whole world over living there, and yet there are no celebrations of culture. Like, at all.
Loads of green spaces and cool architecture, but none of it is maintained particularly well. They concreted over the rose hill a few years back…
Aberdeen has its own Highway Code, which is often in direct contradiction to the lane markings. It’s a horrible place to drive in.
It is DARK. Capitals entirely deliberate. If my wife hadn’t bought me a Philips goLite eight years ago I honestly would not be here today – I was at the stage of working out the best way to commit suicide to not leave too much of a mess behind. So light therapy works, but honestly do not dismiss the mental effects of getting up in the dark one morning in late September and knowing you’re not going to see daylight until Saturday at 10am. If you’re lucky. Exercise does help, but SAD is VERY real and finding the motivation can be incredibly tough.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some lovely parts of Aberdeenshire – and, as has been mentioned, some incredible mountain biking – but the dark and the damp far outweigh the pretty scenery you don’t get enough time in.

Wera or Teng are excellent, and I’ve found Kennedy ones to be really good for the price as well.

Keep them, and learn to shave with a straight razor!

It’s improving with every episode, and will be improved immeasurably when they get rid of Paddy.

Volvo used to do a narrow car seat that would work well here – can’t remember what it was called but it was (and maybe still is) popular with the aircooled 911 and young children crowd. Asking on the ddk forum will definitely get you your answer.

Decoupage. Or give them to your local unisex hairdresser’s, who inevitably only have three years’ worth of Heat.

Boost can absolutely GTF. Mainly because it’s making me pigeon toed when I walk.

I’ve got an old folding Hazet Assistent. Nowhere near as tidy as that, though!

Given they’re painted with the coating from Smarties, you won’t have that long to wait until they’re gone…

I’d need to see what – if any – signage was before that signage. Coming up to that junction from either direction I would expect something like a big painted arrow and ALL VEHS or something similar on the road itself, along with an arrow sign. The proximity of that signage, plus the height it is at, to the junction makes it all but invisible if you’re intending on turning left, if that makes sense?

The 1,8T is a cracking engine, but it’s also thirsty and soulless. It needs an oil change every year/15kkm at the very least. Do that, plus drop the sump every few years and clean out any sludge and it will last for half a million k without a complaint…

Not a small fortune because it was a bike to work bike, but a 2013 Zaskar 29er. Had had GTs forever at this point, and was still loving my 2003 self built Zaskar. And had loved every Zaskar I had ridden, tbh. And then, this, this city bike, that was just cumbersome. Wasn’t heavy, just dead.
I’m still not loving my warranty replacement Foxy 650b yet, either. Nowhere near as lively as the old 26″ wheeled one was. If I could find an uncracked frame I would have another in an instant.

I’d built mine up from bits I had in stock and felt kinda the same as you, until I swapped out the 720mm bars I had on it for some 780s. That, and swapping from 36T to 30T up front. It has transformed it. Although I think 32T might have been a better bet.

>20€ A snowboarding top from Decathlon. Long in both torso and sleeves, so it doesn’t ride up and make my lower back freeze. Also, THUMB HOLES!

>50€ A pair of centrelock discs for the first time ever. Much less faff.

~50€ A guided morning riding trails on my last day on Curaçao. Great trails, great scenery, nothing mad gnarly but just an amazing morning out. Got my arms torn to ribbons and realized 29ers could actually be fun to ride, which brings me to:

~200€ – the cost to change my dull 2013 Zaskar 29er to a lively Scandal, after I’d sold the remnants of it to a friend who actually liked the way it felt.

Regrets? Only that I haven’t gotten out as much as I would like.

The second series of Final Space has just dropped on Netflix. I’m only one episode in and it’s easily as good as the first. Hopefully it carries on in that vein.

For a more energy efficient home: what else can I wax?

Use proper car washing stuff rather than Fairy, but I agree.

Ex Tayportian here and it must have changed beyond all recognition if folk are describing it as nice. I grew up there and couldn’t wait to leave – I was an outsider because my folks weren’t born there! Great trails round and about but honestly the most parochial place I’ve experienced. Strathy K is a great suggestion, though. Made some great pals from there once I made it to secondary.

What Scotroutes said. They should be stored flat, not upright.

V8 Classic, obvs

A fellow Katzenjammer fan! Never thought I’d see the day! If you like them, Sol Heilo’s solo stuff is good. She’s brilliant live.

Been turned on to Allie X this week, after catching the tail end of her supporting Marina. Whose new album is also ace, in an upbeat ’90s sort of way.