If you want them to work efficiently and as per the manufacturer’s instructions, you know what you need to do. It’s not such a tricky job – half a day. Just do it!

French cars are a liability – a self-inflicted situation – sorry!

Eeejits like this should be rounded up, given a short course in survival skills, a basic survival kit, then packed off, blindfolded and dropped off in the remotest parts of the world. 😆

That’d learn them!

Some useful info on using cards abroad.

Perhaps some clever person should link this thread to mumsnet to get a female perspective.

It’s pointless trying to get accurate advice here.

What you do depends on many things, but all you are going to read here are somewhat useful/unuseful polarised opinions.

Follow your instinct.

A Nationwide current account – zero exchange fees for withdrawals and based at the interbank rate at the time of the transaction (EU only). This is the best tourist exchange rate possible, so just use a hole in the wall, or pay by debit card.

Nationwide credit cards also used to operate under the same rules.

Best check this is still the case.

I’d get a French account if i lived in France, but see an accountant because you could find yourself in a tricky predicament over tax.

What does irk me are groups of boarders who decide to have a sit down and spread out across the middle of the piste, usually in the most dangerous spot possible.

I ski and my enduring ski buddy boards. The only time he wishes he was on skis is when we hit long flattish sections, or button lifts/T-Bars come into view. He prefers gondalas and cablecars because chairs with a board are a pain in the butt. Conversely, skiers prefer chairs because you haven’t got to stop, take you skis off, shuffle up and down stairs in long queues etc etc.

Off and on piste, each have their own merits. Our groups tend to be a mix of skiers and boarders ranging from 3 to 12 people. We are all very wary of novice boarders who’s confidence exceeds their ability. It takes much longer to become competent on skis than it does on a board, so boarding can give a “rider” false sense of security and they reckon they are pretty cool, when they simply are not!

There are no real tensions between competent experienced skiers and boarders, but there’s always a tiny minority who like poking fun – boring! It’s a **** holiday guys, not a competition, relax!

And me and my mate have some serious up to date ski wear which your average fashion victim would/could not to afford. It probably goes unoticed to most which is cool. All I know is that I stay warm and dry regardless of the conditions and the gear will last for years.

It’s basic roadcraft to not ride too close to parked cars and to have your eyes open, so the cyclist has only got himself to blame, but it wasn’t even him who landed the brain injuring blow.

I’m not condoning idiots who open car doors without looking, but it is feasible the cyclist was not seen in the driver’s mirrors. People do make mistakes!

Therefore, using violence on the driver was bang out of order!

I hope they catch the culprit and throw the book at him! He’s potentially wrecked several lives and cost the public purse a fortune for his self-righteous vigilante style revenge attack. Worse still, he’s added fuel to the fire of the anti-bike lobby. This could lead to attacks and even death on innocent cyclists!

What a stupid fecker!!!

If you know him, shop him!

Yeah, more journalist hype. i’m sure!

Like they wildly claimed HIP inspectors could make £57,000. The reality was nearer £11,000 for a guy doing and average of three surveys a week. This estimate was based on talking to someone who has 20 years experiencs and many contacts in the estate agency business and who did this work as a supplement to other income. He was one of the fortunate ones! Prior to speaking to him, i had a strong hunch this was not a job in it’s own right.

I bet the guys trying to eek out a living as HIP inspectors were smarting when the coallition abolished HIPS. Good job, as these surveys were merely another detrimental layer of costly, worthless bureaucracy!

An umbrella is a useless item when walking on the hills. Great for the station and in the valleys though.

I would get a thin lightweight shell jacket, long enough to cover your jacket, but compact for stowing easily in your work bag/backpack. I’d go for Event or Goretex.

Berghaus, Sprayway, North Face, Mountain Equipment are all good brands.

I’d carry a quality compact single button opening umbrella for the station walk too.

How can you cut an ulcer off?

You can’t, the poster is a troll.

Just as nail scissors wouldn’t be long enoug to reach your tonsils and it would be nigh on imposible to accurately cut bits of them yourself, even if you did have surgeon’s instruments.

1970’s school days slang:
grolly, or flob,

rubber dunkey (condom)

Anyone remember any others?

I used to be at art college and we had a few of these models. One was quite hot, but the novelty is shortlived as you are only drawing from a distance.

Paypal are a nightmare to deal with!

I used to have a bank account linked to my paypal, so i could transfer funds out to it, but since ebay and paypal massively jacked their fees and I had a load of hassle with them (for no good reason), I cancelled this arrangement and stopped using ebay/paypal for all but ocassional small purchases.

Your’s is a case of fraud and so they should not be penalising you in any way! For what they now charge, they damned well ought to have a call centre with a regional number, so issues like this can be swiftly addressed. Their complicated system of stock Q and A’s is a totally lame cop out. Trading standards need to give them a kick!

They don’t deserve your business, so take it elsewhere.

Good luck!

Have a look at google! The answer is yes.

This thread has to be a troll right?

This thread is just humbug, sheer and utter bunkum!

I would say this thrice, but my view isn’t worth thruppence!

This is the mirth of anti-social scallywags!

Should you not have a balanced water pressure???

Yes, you should! The hot water should be fed exclusively via and Essex or Surrey Flange off the Hot water cylinder. The Cold should be fed in the same diameter tubing from the cold water storage tank.

I forgot what a litigious health and safety obsessed country we have become and how un-public sprited some people are!

Don’t lift a finger and leave it for the school to find piles of money for a proper business to carry out this work!

Of course, schools are loaded and it doesn’t matter if a few kids’ education suffers as a result of the dent in the budget!

I believe that the multitronic you had is a CVT which will feel like crap compared to a manual, if you are not in tune with how it behaves

Yep, it was a CVT. Like the old DAF Variomatic, except uses a chain instead of a belt and of course, the Multitronic is a sophisticated computer managed affair. It came with flappy paddles and a “S” mode. The electronics overides the manual controls, so they seemed pretty pointless. I tried this for a bit, but just stuck the shifter in “D” and carried on pressing the gas pedal – boring! The only time an auto gets my vote is when I have to sit in Central London jams, or similar trafiic on the motorway.

The CVT made the drive feel very detached and wallowy. Acceleration was unimpressive, despite the official figures, but the engine would seem to lock at 1600rpm whatever the speed of the car when wanting to make progress, then drop back to around 1100rpm. The CR certainly was quieter, so much so that you could barely hear it in the cabin, especially with the radio on low. I prefer to get a bit more aural feedback. Multitronic in this car was a big fail! S-Line sports with an auto?? Why??

I’ve had a regular auto that’s been way better than this. It was in a 1997 Vectra 1.8 petrol – that was sweet. Other auto’s have been absolute dogs.

I think they will just be glad of the tangible support. You sound like you have got a good ideawhat you are doing.

You might want to try to test that the drains are clear and running freely. You could perhaps get a rodding kit for the school for use in an emergency, but the main thing is keeping gutters and gulleys clear. You can get mesh for guttering which keeps balls and leaves out completely.

I helped a mate replace a run of drainage pipework at the local church a few years ago. Roots has penetrated a joint and had totally blocked the pipe, so we hired a digger and I had a free digger experience day- great fun.

Getting involved is good. I like the feeling i’m giving something back to the community. That’s why I help out at the local school, my cricket club and the church (not that i’m in any way religious).

I’m sorry mate! Reminds me of the shock I experienced each time I lost friends; 3 people on bikes in the 70’s, a mate in a car crash not long after and then my sis getting bucked off her horse 4 years ago. It just blows you away. It’s like a numb horrible emptiness – 😐

Chin up mate, I know it doesn’t seem like it, but it will get easier.

Condolences to his family, especially his mum. Can you imagine what it’s like loosing your own child? 🙁

I guess it’s the fear of what does happen that has put me off getting a bike since I passed my DAS three years ago.

I’ve had a 1.9TDI 130 for 9.5 years. It’s a “Pumpe Duse” not a Common Rail. Can’t say I have noticed the PD is noisy because it just isn’t! I haven’t had any issues since I bought this car new, other than worn out disc brakes and perished CV gaiters, but any car would have needed this work at 9 years of age. One other problem was caused by a badly fitted windscreen which has required the vehicle to go in for a dry out.

All’s well with that now and i did get a loan car. They gave me an S Line 2.0l 170 hp A4 multitronic on loan last week, but i think prefer my ageing 1.9 A6. Mine feels quicker and can do 20% more to the gallon (55-70mpg). Can’t see the point in a 170hp engine in an A4, but with an auto, the A4 felt like a tank.

Servicing my Audi has not been expensive as it runs on a variable servicing plan. Audi are also doing fixed price servicing
When you consider the 20 month avarage interval for servicing, this brand is certainly not expensive to maintain!

A 1.9tdi is not flash and I chose Audi because it was a practical, good value, quality built, no frills family vehicle.

As for Clarkson’s comments, well he’s more of a cock than anyone! He’s like a 12 year old school boy! All that supercar bolx chat about 0-60 in 4 seconds and nonsense 160mph top speeds is true “cockspeak”! Imagine spending well over a hundred grand on a 5.0l car and then finding an airfield to wear out it’s expensive tyres. Intelligent behaviour (NOT!)

In my view, anyone who drives a gas guzzler is a cock, regardless of the vehicle brand or it’s age.

Hmmm, sounds like it could well be the thermostatic valve cartridge in the shower valve, but may also be a sticky/defective flow switch in the pump. Limescale can cause havoc with pumps, especially when they haven’t been used in a while.

On my Stuart Turner, there is a reed switch on each of the outlets. How it works is there’s a captive float inside the outlet pipe which contains a small magnet. When the shower valve is opened, water flow moves the float away from the reed switch and absence of the magnetiic field causes the it to make a circuit and this triggers the electronics to start the pump. There are two of these flow swithces, one on the hot and one on the cold. Flow detected on either should kick the pump into action.

Check out which pump you have and get the manual off the net. I’ll guess it’s a Stuart Turner, or a Salamander, but get the details off the pump. This manual may give some pointers on the symptoms you are experiencing. It could be an easy fix, but i’m not too hopeful of that. You have nothing to loose but a bit of time researching the problem.

If you aren’t experienced in plumbing, I’d be a bit wary of dismantling the valve. You would need to isolate the supply pipes to the valve assembly before you remove it. If anything breaks it will be time consuming and potentially devastating (water can do a frightening amount of damage).

My advice, if reading up on the pump yields nothing, is to let a professional tackle it.

It’s at times like this that I wish I had a place in the Canary islands and had enough time and money to go and enjoy it!

The early design Landrover is a great utility vehicle and is superb offroad. However, in comparison to any modern car, they are extremely dated and downright dangerous. Have a crash in one of those and you’ll be more likely to die as the chassis won’t absorb impact. They don’t handle and are about as aerodynamic as a shed. I’d still have one if I had land though.

We came across this traditional hotel in summer 09 and it had just been refurbished. Tucked away in a beautiful setting overlooking Eltemere lake, with a great bar/restarant and very good decor. They were doing a double room with B&B for £50 a night.
Eltermere Inn

From reading the comments here, it’s evident that employees are expected to put in extra hours for no pay. We are on the subject of work ethic here, but as some point out, should you have more of a work ethic the better you get paid, or is it just that being paid well means that giving up extra time is not such a sacrifice? Some people find a culture where they are expected to sacrifice a lunchbreak, or if a situation develops, to work the extra time to complete the matter in hand. Should they work to rule if the employer will pay them O/T?

Many years ago I was working in central London and was so busy I sometimes didn’t get to eat until 3pm. I never had a lunch hour and my pager used to go off, requiring an immediate response, while i was eating my sandwich. The timing was uncanny! I got so pissed off with it that I put in an hour’s overtime for each day, not expecting to get paid, but just to make a point. It was met with derision and no I wasn’t well paid in that job. Does objecting to never getting the lunchbreak detailed in my contract mean I had a bad work ethic? Or were the company taking the pesh?

Yeah, it’s all swings and roundabouts, but how many managers appreciate a dedicated team? How long will they remember all the good things you did? My experience is that you are only as good as your last **** up.

The key to a happy work place aside from a viable business is good man management. If you were working out in the field, the chances of things playing out fairly were remote at best. It only took one bad apple to wreck the morale of the team seeing as we were salaried, but contracted to respond to calls that went outside the bounds of a normal working day, it quickly became strained if people didn’t pull their weight.

I think i’ve had one or two good man managers in all my career, the rest of the time was a bit of a nightmare. The problem is that senior management teams don’t really aim to pick the best man managers, they pick people like themselves. Fairness has nothing to do with it, it seems to be all about competition, stick wealding and hitting targets – sod the morale of the team!

If you are the sort of person that rails against a bullying style of management and who has a sense of fair play, this scenario is a recipe for conflict.

Amazing results! Well done to all.

Makes me want to get a DSLR as I haven’t done any proper photography for years.

Who the **** is “scrouge”?

Seriously! I couln’t believe it myself until in engaged in an exercise for a CV writer. They wanted to know what i’d done so I buried them in information. 😈 I’ve only been employed by 8 proper companies in 25 years.

You can pretty much guarantee that people who pay £16 for empty packaging are going use this to put their stolen goods in to sell on, thus appearing as legitimate sellers.

Or perhaps insurance fraudsters.

You could try your laptop out in Dixons, or John Lewis to see if it works.

Enjoy working where you do Spongebob?

I’ve worked in some 250 different locations, perhaps more.

You do get to see what people are like.

If your Macbook is A2DP enabled and Apple haven’t locked this to an Apple proprietary A2DP receiver, yes.

My Nokia has A2DP and works a treat once paired with an active bluetooth speaker system.

Thanks Tony, do you do quotes in the SE?

Just saw the news with IDS and William Hague. The article gave the impression that long term unemployed people all live in run down sink estates and are all lazy and work shy. By long term, they mean more than 1 year.

I dunno if the BBC are engineering the news clips, or whether it’s the Conservatives. It’s blatant stereotyping/generalisation and manipulation of public attitudes.

This is out of order and this looses them my vote!

My advice to IDS and the baseball cap wearing numpty: Shut up and focus on a proper programme to get people back to work!

These two politicians have no real experience of the realities normal people face. It would be funny if they weren’t serious!

We’re all in this together – MY ARSE!

Compaq Presario with free case £369.99?