I know two things about caravans.

1) I know someone who spent £20k on one. That’s a lot of decent holidays!

2) I once saw a Discovery 3 at the side of the road on its roof. Given it was on a fairly straight bit of road, the only conclusion to be drawn was that the caravan it was towing had got a weave on until it flipped and took the Disco with it.

A Discovery 3 + luggage and passengers is the thick end of 3 tonnes. Stuff towing a caravan!

It really does follow the house programme format doesn’t it?

Step 1 – someone appears and says “I have an implausible amount of money to drop on a car / house”
Step 2 – has a nose around a load of expensive cars / houses
Step 3 – doesn’t buy a car or house, because they never had the cash…

I think if you’re happy to go home and say “stuff ’em”, teaching can be a relatively easy job, with fairly short hours and decent holidays, pay and pensions.

I think if you think of the kids as people, many of whom are living in crappy situations and could in theory make a major difference to their chances in life by getting a few A-Cs, then it becomes something of a 24 hour a day job. At which point you’d be better applying that level of effort to commerce, because you’d be paid a hell of a lot more.

It’ll be fine, just stick a sump guard on and get on with it… Take spare tyres.

Plus its your insurer that liases with the 3rd party usually. So why did you cut out your insurer?

Unless you’re TPFT. Or don’t fancy paying out your insurance excess for a while. Or really don’t feel like spending your lunch breaks arguing with the third party insurers whilst you’re trying to get on with life and get over your injuries.

The long and short of it is that insurers try and avoid paying proper market value for write offs. I know this as a fact, having worked in the industry.

Do you actually know anything Hora, apart from what you’ve read on PH / Honest John / righteous insurance payers monthly?

I’ve got a 9-3. The diesels have a few issues – I think the same engine was used in various GM and FIAT vehicles (ie, the Vectra and the Alfa 147). If you really must have a diesel, get a 320d, but you’ll pay a premium for one. I’ve not driven any diesel that comes close.

The 9-3 is a nice car for motorway work. The 6 speed box isn’t the nicest changing thing in the world, but it works. On B-roads it grips well, but it won’t make you grin by stepping the back end out.

The one to go for is the 2.0 Aero, 200 and a bit brake, easily chipped to 250-260, cruises happily at ban speeds, comfy and quiet. They’re also dirt cheap compared with a 3 series. You will do somewhere around 30mpg. It’s a small price to pay not to drive a diesel. And yep, the stereo is awful if you don’t find one that had the best system fitted out of the factory. And then it’s OK.

Hora, I rang Europa and said “I’m not interested in a hire car, just getting the right value for the car”. And they were perfectly happy with that and sorted the claim out for me. If the insurance companies weren’t trying to pay out 70-75% of book value on every claim, then there would be no need for the accident management firms…

Z1 Compact. At the minute I think only O2 have it direct.

We used Europa Consultants a while ago for a no fault claim. They sent out an assessor and did a proper valuation on the car. The standard insurance company route is to offer 70% of Glass’s or CAP book value.

You can do a the arguing yourself, and I would if I ever had a write off that was my fault on comprehensive cover, but when you can get an accident management for nothing, I don’t see why you wouldn’t. It’s enough aggro being driven into, let alone arguing with the third party insurer to get the right price for your car.

I did a stint at an insurance assessors years ago, and the accident management cars got more comprehensive repairs authorised.

They’re all repros. When you think that you can buy a cheap quartz watch for a few quid, it’s not astonishing that they can stick one to the front of a magazine.

Some of them are amusingly close to multi £K watches – looking at the website, there’s a Panerai, a Rolex Submariner, an Omega Seamaster 300, a Blancpain Fifty Fathoms and a B uhr.

OK, so these mugs keep things hot, but do they make the coffee taste strange, and do they drip coffee down your shirt?

I’ve got a ceramic travel mug with a silicone lid at the minute. No taste, but it does like to drip coffee all over the place…

I’d go for the standard one. When you look at it from the point of view of double the price to for a light up screen , suddenly the paperwhite looks very expensive.

I was in the same situation as you by the way, and I actually asked which would be preferred. A kindle and a bottle of perfume beats a kindle with a light…

I know a girl who’s a nurse. It’s pretty well paid if you’re in the north, but I wouldn’t put up with the hours and lack of notice of shifts for any money. I guess the notice will depend on how organised your team is.

Re: returning to study, I did a master’s a couple of years after graduation. I was happy enough writing essays and could get decent marks (I’d been writing reports etc. as part of my day job), but I’d lost the ability to do exams without serious prep time.

If they’re anything like the Mk6, then they’re absolutely gutless with uncomfortable seats and slightly bizarre footwell lighting.

If I were after a new economical car, I’d go for the Alfa Giulietta.

One of the major reasons kettles are terrible is licensing. A lot of “branded” small domestic appliances are effectively Own Brand as far as the retailer is concerned. They purchase kettles direct out of China, have them branded up and packaging according to the brand guidelines, pay the license fee, and hey presto, you’ve suddenly got a kettle you can sell for £20-£30 instead of a tenner.

Croatia is ace. If you go to Pula / Porec, you can get a day trip to Venice.

Chris – It’s a Ford Ka.

It’d take a while to run it into the ground – I’ve been doing 300 miles + a week in it, and I’ve fettled pretty much everything on it to make sure it’ll get me to work reliably.

All the girls / younger women at work seem to wear the Michael Kors rolex knock offs. I know of one lady who wears a Chanel J12. It seems to that 99% of women aren’t really bothered about watches, so if If she isn’t into watches, I wouldn’t bother spending a bomb. Get something that looks nice and spend £1k on a trip.

I had a good nosey at a few replicas (ie, blatant knock offs) in one of the big malls in China a while ago. The watches wouldn’t fool anyone who owns the real thing or knows much at all about watches. The quality on the stuff I saw varied from very poor to passable, but nothing was really at the level of quality you would expect from something like a Seiko 5. Even if the quality were right, details like the size and proportions of the case mean you won’t fool anyone.

To be honest if you want something that looks special for not a lot of cash, the only worthwhile ways to go about it are to get a custom seiko or a second hand vintage watch.

I 100% agree with bikemike. I’ve had a lot of leggy petrol cars, and every time the engine has carried on whilst the interior and bodywork starts to get ratty. Diesels are great first owner / company cars, but mean bills are just a matter of time once you’re past 100k.

I’ve been and had a nosy at an one of the 130 Ibiza TDIs with the PD engine today. They go well enough but the power delivery isn’t very pleasant. I think BMW have it well sorted in the 3 series engines that pump out 150+ brake but they do blow up turbos…

S80? :lol:

I could go for a big V8 Jag or Merc on LPG, but not an S80…

I’ve been there done that with a big comfy diesel car, and the comfy didn’t outweigh the “WHY ON EARTH DO I OWN THIS?” feeling every time I hit an A or B road.

Cheers to everyone who’s pointed me towards specific models, rather than “get the cheapest running costs possible” which obviously isn’t what I’m going for. If I wanted to do that, I’d buy a Bluemotion Golf and a pair of elasticated M&S slacks.

On a £10k car, your biggest running cost will be depreciation – that would be my prime consideration over MPG.

16000 miles isn’t really in the territory where the price premium and potential problems of a diesel are worthwhile.

If I had 10k to spend, I’d go looking for a Giulietta 1.4 Multiair. It’s a turbo petrol, 170 brake, and 50+ mpg. My girlfriend currently runs an Alfa 147, and whilst they’re not as cheap to service as her old Mk3 Golf, they’re not the reliability nightmare people would have you believe.

I’m not sure I’d bother looking at 1 series etc. BMWs seem to often be very poorly kitted out, and I keep seeing rusty old E46s, which makes me question whether they have it together on the newer cars.

That said, I’d personally spend less on something I liked, and have the rest in the bank. A MK5 Golf GTI would be on my shopping list – GTIs barely depreciate, which makes them very cheap to run.

There are two angles.

The first is cost cutting. Pack sizes are routinely manipulated to hit certain price points, particularly for “single pricepoint retailers” – ie, pound shops.

The second is avoiding regulatory risk. The confectionery manufacturers have realised that the worst case scenario is that they could be the new tobacco industry. As a result, they’re gradually manipulating pack sizes down to avoid being made to put health warnings or GDAs on the pack. Which is why you can’t buy a “king size” of anything these days, but you can buy a two pack – you claim it’s a sharing pack, and instead of being 30% of a day’s calories, it’s 15% per portion…

Wear a suit. Make sure it fits you. The biggest mistake people make is wearing a suit and shirt that is too big, and you end up looking a mess, or like you’ve borrowed your big brother’s clothes.

The theory goes that dark colours go down better, so go for charcoal or navy. Get a white, blue or pink shirt, and wear a tie that looks good with your outfit.

And wear decent shoes, and make sure they’re polished.

Just get the variator done on the 147! I’m guessing that’s the big bill?

For that sort of money, I’d be seeing if I could pick up a Brera, 1 series coupe or Golf GTI.

Give diesels a swerve if you know nothing about cars. Too many big bills vs too little saved on fuel.

I suspect it will be a tough living. All of the major courier companies are competing extremely hard and struggling to make any money.

Buy an old one from eBay or a car boot. The kind with an oval plate covered in lots of small slots / holes, attached to the handle by two thick wires / rods. Unfortunately these are now mainly on eBay with the words “vintage”, “kitchenalia” and “I saw you coming”.

I don’t think I’ve seen any “modern” potato masher that actually works… Lots of nice looking ones, but very little functionality.

Second what the other guys have said. If you’ve got a working boiler, you will be waiting a very long time to get any payback from a new boiler install.

Three main things to remember:

You are buying a commodity. The jewellery industry has set up all the grading systems so that people can buy diamonds by the bucketful without having to inspect each one. Most jewellers will be buying in ready made settings and putting the stones in. This means that most of the time (ie, you’re not spending tens / hundreds of £k) there’s no reason why a Tiffany diamond is any better than one from the local jewellers, if all other they’re of the same sort of quality. It also means that it’s very easy for you to get an idea of what the raw materials should be costing, and what the markup is. A lot of high street rings are £300 in materials and labour, + £695 in sales, marketing and margin.

The second is that nothing in life is free. Jewellers know they can’t differentiate much on quality, so they’re left with a few levers to pull – design, marketing and in store experience. Design is pretty moot once you find someone who’ll put a stone in whatever setting you like. Marketing and in store experience both cost £££. Typically a retailer will need to take £20+ to cover £1 in extra costs, so if you walk into a 3000 square foot shop with 5 staff in the centre of town, you’re going to be paying through the nose.

The third is not to get too hung up on specific materials. This was really brought home to us by a jeweller going through a mixed box of platinum and palladium rings. The cost of a palladium setting is about a third of a platinum one. The jeweller went through the box, picking up each ring and checking the label so that he could tell which was which.

With the benefit of hindsight, your best bet would have been to go down the accident management route as it sounds like it’s a no fault claim on your part. You’d have probably got a better valuation, or could have arranged to be paid out and keep the car if it’s still roadworthy.

You’ll get your excess back once they establish liability and claim it back from the third party. Normal process and you’ve not really got a leg to stand on arguing the point.

If you really want to kick up a stink, go and get the Glass’s value (use the trade in calculator on Vauxhall’s website) and CAP value (they give these out free on their website for the public) for your car. You are almost certainly getting less than this value. Ring up the insurer, or write to them, moan a lot and threaten involving the ombudsman – you’ve not really much of a point as you’ve already agreed to the pay out, but every ombudsman referral costs the insurer £500, so they may roll over and increase your payout.

I would guess it’s statutory redundancy, which mean’s a week’s pay per year of service, so I suppose that will mean 2 days pay…

If you other half wants to get sniffy about “cheap watches” she’ll need to find a lot more than £200! To be honest, watches are mainly about marketing and there’s not a lot separating a lot of expensive watches from cheap ones.

At £200, you’ve got a few options.

Mechanical watches:
Seiko or Orient automatic – you’ll get one for £200 quite happily, and have a reliable automatic movement that’s been made in house by the watch manufacturer. Y’know, like what Rolex boast about all the time…

Quartz watches:
Casio, Citizen and Seiko (Pulsar and Lorus are Seiko owned) make the whole lot in house. Casio did some gorgeous watches in their Oceanus range a while ago, they now seem to be focusing more on the sport market with their Edifice range. Citizen and Seiko both make a big range of nice quartz watches to suit a wide range of tastes.

Everyone else will be buying in quartz movements and putting them into their watches. If you want some element of status, I’d suggest going for the bottom end of a a relatively expensive watch firm’s range (ie, Tissot etc.) rather than the top end of a cheaper range like Rotary…

Most of the “designer” brands are made by Fossil or the Herald group, so you’re buying a product which has licensed the designers name.

Ultimately though, have a think and buy a watch that you like. Hugo Boss are doing a bit of a knock off of the IWC Portugese that looks great…

Go for something fairly plain – a lot of the more ornate cheap watches are heavily “inspired” by stuff in the ££££ bracket…

Seiko and Orient make the best cheap mechanicals watches. They also make the entire watch, which pretty unusual – most Swiss makers will buy in the mechanical movement. I can vouch that the movement used in Seiko 5 is incredibly reliable and is capable of being very accurate – I think I’ve had my 5 for at least 5 years, worn it whilst working on cars, dropped it etc. and it’s still ticking along nicely. That said, out of the box, there aren’t many Seiko 5s which are knock out good looking.

The nicest looking cheap watches I’ve seen in a while are the Accurist vintage range and the Daniel Wellington range:

I have to say that the DW range looks great, with very thin cases akin to a vintage dress watch, but they have zero water resistance, so they’ll need treating like a vintage dress watch…

If you fancy a vintage dress watch, the Poljot / Sekonda De Luxe is nice and can be picked up for under £100 on ebay. Lots of these were sold in the UK as Sekondas, so repairs etc. shouldn’t be a major issue.

That said, I own several nice mechanical watches, including a Poljot like the above, but the watch I most regularly wear is one of these:

I love the juxtaposition of a bog basic Casio with a gold tone finish… It’s a kosher Casio (people do make fakes!), and was £16 from Singapore via Ebay. The time keeping is stupidly good, and the day and date is always right, which is ultimately the reason it gets a lot of wear.

Not everything’s going digital. Sell millions a year of something and the packaging will either litho or gravure…

I know stuff all about selling, but I do have a lot of reps from printers after me.

From any printer, I want a quiet life and a good price. If you can’t achieve a Delta-E of 2.5 or less on everything that leaves your premises (or can’t convince me that you can!), it’s not happening.

Beyond that, it’s all about how you can add value. This can mean having a basic design studio to update and modify artwork when needed. If you’re flexo, that means a good pre-press setup with CTP and proofing abilities that will save me giving a pre-press house £££. Litho, it means someone who can provide good technical advice – often this will be as simple as sense checking a design to make sure a printer in China with an ancient press has any shot at achieving it. If you have your own plant in other countries, then even better.

If you’ve not got any of the value added abilities, then it’s going to be a much harder sell.

As a technical bloke, the key thing is making sure you have the people skills to make it fly – presumably your boss thinks you have the skills if he’s keen for you to do it.

Loads of aggro if you’re unlucky. One party can just stop paying the mortgage. Or they can chase for their half of the house. Google Kernott vs Jones. Legal fees will very quickly make who is in the right a bit academic.

Best thing to do is get on reasonable terms ASAP and get a settlement agreement drafted and signed.

To answer the OP’s question. Yes.

Banks started lending more and more money against the assets they had.
Other bankers were basically running the financial equivalent of the horsemeat scandal (Credit Default Swaps).

End result is that if a few people start defaulting on mortgages, banks are going to go bust. Banks are pretty important to the economy, and so the government had to prop them up. At some point the management of the banks will have realised that they had a free insurance policy in place…

You can argue that there’s a place for regulation – see the split of Lloyds TSB, the BoE insisting that banks hold more capital to avoid the risk of banks going to the wall in future etc. Ultimately, the management of the banks went down a risky path, and the bet didn’t come off for them.

A mate insisted on watching the Brand interview whilst he was round at my house the other day.

Brand’s very good at talking around a point and not taking a position. It’s pretty obvious that he’s got nothing to back that up. The entire interview consisted of this:
Brand: “x, y and z are terrible”
Paxman: “and what do you think we should do about it?”
Brand: “it’s not my place to say what the solution is, the thing is that x, y and z are terrible”.

You’ll see the same style of argument used by idiots everywhere. ie: the EU, immigration, supermarkets vs local shops, the financial system etc…