TR – this is the first new car I’ve ever bought but the plan is to keep it for as long as it lives so depreciation won’t be an issue for us. It’s mrs unknown’s car most of the time (I drive a 205 for my communte) but in a few years she’ll get another new car and I’ll inherit this one.

I think we paid £15.5k for the top of the line diesel 4×4 (we didn’t get any extras) – £2k less than an entry level Qashqai. The only criticism I’d have is that it’s a bit noisy on the motorway, but saying that I’ve done a couple of 300+ mile drives and it wasn’t bad at all. I’ve done some (very light) offroading, farm tracks, fields etc, and it’s been absolutely fine. Real world MPG for us is about 47mpg – not amazing but considering the main driver not bad either!

Had a Duster for 1 year and 13500 miles, top of the range (!) diesel 4×4. It’s not exciting but has been a fantastic utilitarian car with zero issues or niggles. The boot is pretty huge with the seats down, I moved house just using the duster and it even took the three seater sofa.

Yeah, and people would never lie once caught to try and get out of it would they?

I don’t think the 2 views I expressed are mutually exclusive are they?

What about this angle then? If a Peruvian prison is “worse” than a UK prison, isn’t the fact that foreign nationals won’t have to serve their sentence in them less of a deterrent?

I’m more interested in the merits of transferring prisoners between justice systems than I am about how well our prisons do or don’t rehabilitate. Strikes me as odd that people can be treated differently in the eyes of the law – a Peruvian girl and a Scottish girl can commit the same crime in the same place at the same time but end up in very different prisons half a world apart.

She committed the crime there, why shouldn’t she face the consequences of the Peruvian justice system? It doesn’t sit right with me that the some of the tax we all pay could be spent to make a criminal’s life more pleasant. And it’s hugely expensive to keep a prisoner behind bars, from a practical point of view, if someone else is paying for that already, why would we want to take over?

Thanks. Seems a bit shabby that we have to pay and I’d be inclined to leave her where she is but I guess it evens itself out a bit if there are prisoners going both ways.

This thread makes the internet cry.

If there’s one thing worse than a coffee bore it’s…. well… er… give me a minute… there must be something…

That’s some top quality mountain posing from the guy in the down jacket.

Considering the Daddy had a rusting 1.8 automatic Sierra stolen about three years ago, I’m not sure I’d be inclined to agree with the above.

When my (at the time) 18 year old Pajero got stolen it was used as a backup getaway car by burglers – they use it to drive to the house and if they manage to get car keys from inside just leave it there. The police at the time said it’s pretty common and the theives actually target old bangers as they’re less likely to have alarms and easier to break into/hotwire.

Moving an upright piano with 2 people is easy enough if you know what you’re doing and if all the doors/halls/corners have plenty of clearance. More than 4 or 5 steps in one go and you’ll need at least a third man. They can be awkward buggers, odd centre of gravity, so if they start to tilt you’re in trouble. There’s no telling which are the heavy ones until you pick them up, even some of the smallest ones have cast iron frames which weigh a ton. They’ll also need tuned after they’ve been in situ for a few weeks. Source: I moved pianos for a part-time job when I was a student.

but if you are hit with a large bill to keep you on the road it can be a killer if you can not afford the hit.

That’s the point of bangernomics though – the maximum a bill can be is a few hundred for the next banger because you don’t fix anything. If something’s too complicated for me to fix myself (which is almost everything) I just leave it by the side of the side of the road (metaphorically, most of the time) and get another one. If you keep sending it to the garage to be fixed that’s not bangernomics, that’s just running an old car.

I’ve been on both sides of the industry, and spent many years hiring engineers. Guess what? There are an awful lot of crappy engineers out there too. And some good ones too. That’s pretty much the same as any other profession. No one is forced to use agencies (I don’t in my current role), the fact that they exist suggests they provide a service that people want.

I might also have more sympathy for your point of view if you could express it coherently.

Some of us are still running 120mm travel upside down forks on our trail bikes from the last time they were the next big thing, c.2002! Must admit that one above is likely to be a shade lighter than my shivers though.

Be under no illusions, it’s a sales job. If that’s for you then it’s great, you’re largely master of your own destiny and if you’re good then the rewards are excellent. On the flip side there’s nowhere to hide if you underperform and not much of a career path to anything bigger/better. I enjoyed it for a good few years before I got bored as it’s not much of an intellectual challenge. I’m now in-house in resourcing/hr and a bit poorer but much happier.

i want to make sure if i sold it in 10 years time i can get back what i paid for it.

Not much guarantee of that any more I’m afraid. On the other hand, depending on where you are in the country property is as cheap as it’s been for years. Buy somewhere because you want to live there, if you make (or don’t lose) any money it’s a bonus.

As of 20 March 2013 according to the AA

The car will fail if a speedometer is not fitted, is incomplete, inoperative, has a dial glass broken/missing or cannot be illuminated.

Pfft, 1990 Peugeot 205, bought for £280 12 months ago, zero maintenance and still going strong.

Not OU but I’m doing a distance learning masters at the moment and it’s almost all online. Only a couple of months in and it’s hard work but I’m enjoying it. Things have moved on a lot since I was at uni and it’s now really easy to get most of the books and all of the journal articles I need online – no more sifting through piles of photocopies of photocopies only to eventually find the one you need is missing! Forums instead of tutorials mean I’m actually interacting more with other students than I did at “real” uni.

The time committment is quite significant – I’m spending a couple of hours each weeknight and in the runup to deadlines time at weekends as well. Glad I’m doing it but wish I’d started when I was younger and had a bit more time.

My mother likes to make a show of not being able to understand anyone who speaks with even a hint of a regional UK accent, and makes embarrassing fuss on the odd occaison she’s forced to converse with someone who speaks English as a second language. The reality is she can understand perfectly well if she wants to, and I can imagine if I were faced with that it would make me pretty irate.

I’m not saying the op is like this, but there are plenty of people who go out of their way not to understand anyone “foreign”.

There’s a plant I know of, it grows naturally all over the world, much like the potato, but unlike the potato for some reason it is illegal to own it or sell it. Get some that & put that in your pipe & smoke it. It changes music in awesome ways too.

Particularly poor advice for someone who suffers from depression.

The trams debacle was fairly sizable contributor to my decision to leave Edinburgh after 12 years. Years of Leith Walk disruption for zero benefit, city centre dying on it’s arse, traffic now worse not better, lothian buses lumped in with trams to absorb the huge losses they’ll make every year, and the small fact that a council can burn a billion pounds of people’s money on something that nobody wants.

People should go to jail over this.

It’s not anonymous, no. I’ve got a 2 goals for studying – I want the qualification as it’s a necessary step into chartership and to take my career in a more interesting direction, so that’s one. I also enjoy learning, and I want to do as well as I can this time rather than finish and wonder if I could have done better. I’m aiming for a minimum of a Merit, so only 2 marks off that, Distinction would be the ultimate goal.

That’s one thing they said they won’t do. Different story for the dissertation next year, when I get a supervisor, but for standard module assignments they won’t look at drafts.

I guess it’s a new level of study, after a big gap, and I think I know where I went wrong, so not so bad over all.

Went down for a 2 day induction right at the start, then it’s all been online lectures and reading since. There’s also a forum but that’s almost all discussion with the other students on the course, so very little interaction with teaching staff. They did make a big deal about how it’s not spoon-fed to you any more, you have to go away and find your own readings, research etc. Next assignment is due in 2 weeks, hopefully I’ll be do better then!

Er.. I’m really not saying that at all, gary. I accept the mark is fair, I’m just a bit disappointed in myself (more mature now, working harder but didn’t get the mark I was hoping for). I was a bit worried about writing something in an academic style again, possibly focussed too much on that and took my eye off the ball with regard to actual content.

Thanks again for the kind words, and apologies to those who’ve had bad memories stirred up. I’m determined not to let this beat us (as much as the future is out of our hands).
I’m quite good at being rational about things but I know mrs unknown is blaming herself (of course it’s not her fault), second-guessing her age (it really isn’t anything to worry about) etc. I hate seeing her suffer and it’s quite a balancing act trying to stay rational but without seeming robotic and uncaring.

I’ve also had struggles with depression for many years and I feel that I’m now self aware enough to know that, and how, this is going to affect that aspect of my life. I’m trying to remain positive and on the bright side it will mean getting out on the bike as much as possible to try and head that off at the pass.

Thanks again STW, for all bickering that sometimes goes on, for being a place where I can stay this stuff (sort-of) out loud.

I’m sorry to drag up this thread again but I do feel I need to let some stuff out today.

Yesterday evening we found out it’s happened again, at 5 weeks this time. I’m feeling all the same helplessness and pain as the last time and I can’t bear to see mrs unknown so upset. It seems like there’s enough of a difference between this time and last to suggest there isn’t an underlying cause – just more bad luck.

After last time we were trying not to get too excited but you can’t help yourself and I’d been hoping to revist this thread with good news once we’d had a scan. The contrast between that hope and excitement and the despair we feel just now is horrific. Mrs unknown said last night that she doesn’t know if she can go through this again and hearing that broke my heart.

I know the answer is let it pass, pick ourselves up, stay hopeful and try again, but I haven’t spoken to anyone yet and this morning I just needed to vent.

My 24 year old 205 has a better ride than most of my mates modern cars. Grew up in a French car family, my old man had variously a Renault 4, Citroen Visa, GS, BXs, CX, a Clio, I had another Clio, a 306 and my Mrs drives a dacia (French via Romania and India). My brother had a xantia that pissed oil after he beached it on a bollard in morzine, but it still got us back to Brussels without any drama. The only lemon in that lot was a BX, a 4×4 version that was not very reliable. Every other one of them was great. By contrast, the least reliable car I ever had was a supposedly bombproof Mitsubishi shogun. The Mrs’ rover 25 was also a pile of turd from day one but that goes without saying.

The worst overtake I ever saw was also on the A9. Going North, heavy Friday night traffic in both directions, good visibility. On a long, straight, single carrigeway section a massive motorhome (yank, winnebago type thing) just pulled into the middle of the road, straddled the white line and kept going. It only happend at about 35-40mph but ended with everyone bar the motorhome headed for the verges. I’ve never figured out what the hell the driver was thinking.

If i , as a complete beginner, had a very limited budget (say £50-70) is there anything worth considering for a first telescope or forget it?

Gayer than Top Gun.

I must admit my spelling mistake above was quite amusing, my point stands though.

wl – do you have a source for that, genuine question? I’ve worked in HR and recruitment for blue chips and I’m currently studying for a Masters in Occupational Psychology and I’ve never heard of a selection process designed to favour a type of schooling. Selection is very much based on competencies and, where necessary, technical knowledge and those don’t favour state or privately educated candidates. Sometimes certain universities can be impressive (still wouldn’t be a deal-breaker), but I don’t know anyone who even looks at what school people went to.

I went to a private school and if I have kids and can afford it I’d like them to go to one too. I enjoyed the experience and got some opportunities that I probably wouldn’t have had at state school. Weather I took full advantage of those opportunities is another matter. My parents gave me the choice and I chose private, mostly so I could play rugby instead of football.

That kind of fits with what I thought – I’ll try and work out who the landowner is and seek their permission. Although I suspect it’s the council and getting an answer out of them may not be easy.

Could be a number of things. 1st interview is sometimes technical, 2nd is sometimes person fit. Sometimes it’s for a senior manager to rubber stamp the hire, sometimes it’s to try and separate 2 or more close candidates. The best option is definitely to ask them what format it will take – if they’re any use at all they’ll be used to the question and happy to answer.

The public sector.

I have a 302 and I like it fine as it is. I’m not one to tinker with fork settings so you may be lukcy like me and like it straight out of the box.

Any Given Sunday. Al Pacino. Inches.
That is all.