Is your girlfriend a nun? Mine would think I, was going off her if I bought her the burka in the picture at the top of the thread…

The Note is the same car as the Renault Modus.

If you want to save money doing 8k a year, move to a cheaper petrol car. You generally need to be doing serious miles to make back the diesel purchase premium and there’s a lot of complicated bits to go wrong. Your biggest cost at the moment will be depreciation.

Or just run one car. If you literally just run one car for trips to the tip, biking and putting the dog in… Will be costing you north of a grand a year just in standing costs.

I bought a multi pack of Microsoft mice a while back. Shoot me your address over and I’ll lob one in the post.

I’d expect a good battery to read at more like 12.85 volts that shortly after a run. As you have a new battery, I’d start by looking at the alternator.

Pick your own title, reference at least 6 sources, section on data search?

Sounds like first year research methods to me…

Google Scholar is the best way to find papers in my book. You tell it what uni you’re at, even when you’re at home, and it automatically logs you into the right service to get the paper you need, and it occasionally turns up a paper that’s available as a PDF somewhere but not via the uni’s subscriptions service.

Anyway. You get some lecturers who will tell you to never use Google Scholar and never use Wikipedia. But Google Scholar is the best way to get your hands on paper, and Wikipedia is useful for a top line idea of a subject (obviously, you would never actually use Wikipedia as a source). It’s far easier just use Google Scholar and then say “Yes, I logged onto JSTOR and then into Athens and then I searched Elsevier and then I finally slew the evil wizard of Oxford Journals, and finally I had the paper I needed”.

Anyway. Here’s something else your tutor won’t like, but will save you a lifetime of pain. Download Zotero, it does you referencing for you. Bangs out perfect references in whatever format your Uni specify in seconds.

There seems to be a real thing in academia for complicated and unfriendly software. The lecturer spent years banging his head against EndNotes and JSTOR and he wants you to do the same is my theory.

It’s backwards as many others have said. I would just summarise everything pre degree with x O levels, y a levels.

You’ve been in the same job for twenty years and you need more info than you have at present.

How do old Ford Festa’s compare? I know the bodywork sometimes goes around the wheel arches

Change sometimes to always, and you’re about there. Wheelarches and filler caps. The 1.25 engines are meant to be decent.

General ideas for decent cheap motors:

Late MK3 Golfs and early MK4 Golfs can be had for about a grand. They’re decent cars and are easy to work on – lots of room, 10000 mile service intervals, very little rust. The later MK3s seem to rust far far less than the earlier ones – I’ve read that they’re galvanised as per the MK4. I’ve had > 45mpg out of a 1.6 Golf on a run, and they’re not horribly slow.

Polos are overpriced. Nothing wrong with them, but they’re very dear. Fabias are Polos in drag, and they’re now under a grand. Pretty much the same comments as the Golf – same engines, similar mechanicals, smaller body.

ZXs and 306s both run and run. Both are the same car in different suits, as is the later Xsara. The electrics are rubbish – about 7 fuses in the whole car vs 20 or so different circuits on a VW, but the diesel engines are very solid. Galvanised shells, so no rust.

106 diesels are OK too. Slow, but galvanised, fairly simple and OK to drive.

Disagree hugely re the Ka. They’re very very good fun for what they are, but the maintenance required is terrible.

Every 6000 miles they need an oil and filters service. They have tappets to adjust – can’t remember the interval but it’s every 6 or 12k. Changing a headlamp bulb is a half hour job if you’ve done it a couple of times before. The sills rust for fun…

I’ve got Chesterfield between me and the peak district, but we’re at a decent height. It’s 25mph max ok the roads at the minute. Wouldn’t bother to be honest.

Desi Downtown and Chennai both do decent currys. Desi are pretty tolerant of beer users.

Petit Paris has a ten or fifteen quid pretheatre menu, think Bistrot Pierre does too. Both do spot on food. French Living is decent too.

The mot station I use give you the brake tester print out. It measures for binding and miss matched breaking force across the axle.

A badly binding calliper or mismatch is a fail.

The old superb was a lwb Passat, which is an A4 based car. Longitudinal engine, a million suspension joints.

Edit – by A4, I mean the Audi, not the MK4 Golf.

You need to get the data into excel. So MS Query like the chap above said.

I don’t think there’s any way to chart data directly from a data connection – the data well come into a work sheet and then you can chart it.

How do you possibly rehabilitate such prolific offenders into society?

Bin them.

No, really. It’s nearly impossible to get people to stop using whatever drug it is they need to fund. They’ll only stop when they OD.

Sell it as it stands.

I’m still mid fettling a MK2 Golf GTI. It started out as being not too tatty – tiny patches of of surface rust, no shell issues, just ready for a respray.

Swapped one of the doors for a better one, found some welding that needed doing on the inner wings. Baring that, most of the car literally needed a flat down and prime before paint.

I’d not be surprised if just in the spraying kit, paint and prep materials if it stood me at a grand, and I did everything myself bar the welding, which was done by a mate.

Lots of the interior is still out of the car, and there’s right old list of niggly jobs, which always seem to occur if you take a car to bits and put it back together. Just paying someone the going rate to sort out the niggles would be a very, very dear job.

Money wise, the best thing you can do is sell it now. If it’s not been baremetalled all over, DIY the interior back in, simply because that proves to a buyer that it’s all there.

Wash, take a few photos, and put it on Ebay with a detailed description. 99p, no reserve. Always gets me more than I’d even think of for an asking price!

Simple physics gents. The rate of heat loss is proportional to the temperature difference. You lose more heat by keeping the heating on overnight when it’s coldest.

To be honest, on the Nottingham episode of Coppers, there were two incidents that looked pretty out of order from the sofa.

The bloke who was shoving the alcy up the street up by Marks and Sparks and whoever it was threw the woman from the alcy family to the floor. I reckon they should have nicked the alcy before it got to pushing and shoving him.

The woman who was chucked on the floor didn’t appear to be doing anything. She might have been, but she didn’t look like it on telly.

If it’s an Audi, then I expect the arch on the other side of the car still looks perfect, and that panel has had some work done on it in the past.

Spot blast it, both sides. Just get a cheap blast gun from lidl, aldi or Ebay. Feather in the good paint with sandpaper if you need to paint beyond the arch lip. Rattle can etch primer. I’d probably give it a skim of filler or stopper in any pits, rub it down and then prime it with normal primer. White rattle can, then polish up after it’s had a bit of time to harden. You can get away with a lot on a white car.

Inside the arch, you can just etch, topcoat and stone chip.

That looks like it will be pretty lacey once the rust is gone. Having done up some old machines in my time, the best way is to use a spot sand blast gun if there’s any pitting at all. Follow that up with etch primer.

Deox is ok, but it never really gets into pitted areas properly. If you get rid of all the rust and recoat it, it’ll be halted until the paint’s broken.

What is it by the way? Ford or something Japanese?

The NHS is very cheap for the service we get.

I can’t see why anyone wants private health insurance as the norm – you only need to look at car insurance to see how effective insurance is when you’re forced to buy it…

My gaffer recently had her car done, same day, pick up and drop off at work, came to 130 quid. At that money I’d bet it’s only an oil and filler change &, mot, not a full service as per the schedule.

There are no hard and fast rules on what cars will be dear to insure.

Insurers will go on what the risk is based on how many claims people with similar demographics to you do in that model of car. Golf SE drivers may make a load more claims than Golf CL drivers, and so the policies will be different prices. The insurers may have zero data for 17 year olds in Kia estates and therefore give out massive quotes.

In other words, they’re placing bets on whether you will crash or not, and as to how bad it will be when you do. But nobody is giving out the form book or publishing odds. The only way to sound things out is to get a lot of quotes for a lot of cars.

I think I have a seal kit for those bombers.

Old bombers squelch. That’s what they do.

Get quotes for every car you can think of. Insurance groups are irrelevant as they reflect the costs of repairing your motor. The major worry for the insurer of a new driver is you driving into a new BMW or causing a major personal injury claim.

Oddly enough, it’s the cars that are vaguely cool or are likely to have been paid for by mummy and Daddy that are pricey to insure.

I’d just get quotes for everything you can afford to put fuel in. I found a 1.8 Mondeo cheaper to insure than the 1.3 Ka I mangled in my yoof…

The olympics don’t necessarily generate tourism. People assume everything will be booked up, busy, and twice the usual price. So they stay at home.

Tourism in Greece actually dropped during their olympics, even in the islands that were completely unaffected.

Tony Soprano had it right. “Don’t sh#t where you eat”.

I’d run a mile if I were you. I’ve seen people sacked when work relationships have gone wrong, and this one sounds primed to go belly up.

The catch is that the terms and conditions are pretty strict and complex, so on average the firm make a profit. And if the retailer goes bust, so does your cashback. If you’re confident that you will remember every caveat, they’re ok.

Personally, I know I’ll forget and just negotiate with cancellations.

Typed on a Galaxy S2 that came with a 10 quid bill credit, on panther 36 for 26 quid a month. Courtesy of Orange’s retention department.

VC / private equity would be my guess. Here’s our business plan, give us a couple of mill …

That scrote has shot himself in the foot in spectacular fashion. Half the county will recognise him and call the police every time he drops a fag end.

Personally, I think it’s bloody odd for a variety of reasons.

1) Agents in the Western world typically take a cut from the person they’re acting for. How on earth can the landlord be confident that the agent is acting in his best interest if they’re also taking a cut from the third party?

If you were selling a property, would you be happy with your estate agent taking money from buyers? How could you be confident that he’s working on your behalf?

2) It didn’t seem to be necessary a few years ago the last time I rented through an agent.

3) Last time I did sums for chargeable time, it was around 4 times hourly rate (different field of work, granted). A well paid admin in Notts will be on £8 an hour, or £32 chargeable. Take out £50 for Experian or Equifax’s fees, and you’ve still got nearly 5 hours of labour.

It doesn’t take anyone with a brain more than a couple of hours to ring Experian, run a mail merge to the referees and then look at the results.

4) It’s not as if agents by and large give much of a toss if the tenant is likely to pay or bother actually checking inventories.

I would find it almost understandable if they said “The Equifax fee is £50, and we need to check you before you sign the contract, because we’d be £50 out of pocket if you turn out to be canoeman.”. It’s not even that, it’s just a big FO profit.

PeterPoddy is really your man. I seem to remember some of the fancier Marzocchi damping was unreliable (TST or similar) on certain years.

Looking at the 2006 AM2, it seems like a fairly basic Marzocchi fork – SSV with ETA and adjustable travel. It’s not got the fancy HSCV innards or anything. It should last forever given an oil change now and then.

That said, I’d probably just go for a second hand set of Rockshox. As I understand it, Motion Control is a fair bit superior to your basic Marzocchi Bomber SSV / orifice damping. You won’t have to spend much more, and you’ll have a far more up to date fork. You might not even bother going for another upgrade.

The other option would be one of the Marzocchi forks with the HSCV kit, which are still fairly sought after.

Add a column of line numbers to both tables, in your second table use a vlookup against region and row number, then filler out all the #N/As.

Tell the buyer to swivel.

Personally, I always try and hold the farts in for the first few dates…

We haven’t got enough council houses for the people who really need them.

Council rents are low, the properties are usually good – generally well built, well insulated, double glazed and well maintained.

In an ideal situation, we’d have plenty of council houses and the quality of them would force private landlords to raise their game.

The way things are at the moment, I can’t see any quick solution to the problem without prodding the people who are able to get by without subsidised housing to go on and do it.

Long term, you’d aim to build more council houses and build more housing stock in general. But that will pull down house prices, increase mortgage holders LTVs and make the government about as popular as Gary Glitter in a Jungle Gym.

A buyer for tesco told us that they make 500% on their non grocery stuff. The half price sale doesn’t look so good now does it?

I very much doubt that. They might make 500% on some lines, but by and large they’ll be doing between 10-70% depending on what it is. Branded FMCG clobber, shower gel, razors etc. will be making very little for them in terms of margin but running at huge volumes.

Exceptional things like own label mobile phone chargers, cables for plugging your ipod into the car etc. will be costing them < £1 to get but sell at a fiver, but they’re not moving many of them…

Mike Sinyard seems to be encouraging the stocking of Spesh stock over his competitor’s, because they only sell through IBDs. The problem there is that there is often a price difference between IBDs on their kit anyway, and IBDs do sell online.

Amazon are not the first to do this – I’ve had Shop Savvy on my phone for over two years and it does more or less the same job. Give it a coupe off years and buying any medium to big ticket item without doing a price comparison will seem bizarre.

The key is to add enough value that bricks and mortar retail is worthwhile.

I still don’t see how the consumer suffers in all that, though…

The consumer suffers because there is a far smaller incentive for retailers to compete on price, so the consumer pays more for the same item.

I suspect it must go on to some extent in the UK cycle business as Wiggle, CRC and Merlin are all pretty close to one another on price.

On the other hand, a firm like Rose can undercut them massively, most likely because the major UK online firms are are all benchmarking against each other, and not against Rose who probably have diddly% of UK market share.