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Post by Big Blue on Mar 26, 2024 9:31:34 GMT
Can I be a listener on the phone call where Racing says, in his extremely cultured tones, “my good friend “Blarno” has advised that you could assist me.”
😂
(apologies for such snobby humour but it made me laugh)
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Post by Big Blue on Mar 24, 2024 9:23:54 GMT
Says it all! I like these but not sure that’s a “highlight” but I suppose for an ‘84 131 it is.
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Post by Big Blue on Mar 22, 2024 11:36:10 GMT
I didn't know there were tolls in Czech. I didn't pay any when we were over at Christmas although we weren't on a motorway there. Don't recall having ever seen any sort of sensors though and our hosts have never said anything about tolls despite going to Prague each time we've been across. Here’s a clue 😉 Like SK there are different classes of “motorway”. Some are not toll roads so don’t need a stamp. If it hasn't got that white sign with the circle in it you don't need a stamp.
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Post by Big Blue on Mar 21, 2024 23:15:25 GMT
I use this one I think. Whichever one I use it’s the one Martin uses as he suggested it. Feel free to correct me, Martin. www.insurance4carhire.com/
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Post by Big Blue on Mar 21, 2024 21:22:31 GMT
Oh yeah: price.
Italy can be ferociously expensive. You pay nothing for hundreds of kms then sudden go through a toll and it’s €50+ The others are all around €10-15 for a ten day vignette.
Also are you collecting and dropping the car at the same location? If not there will be a charge.
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Post by Big Blue on Mar 21, 2024 21:14:10 GMT
Cross border: use Sixt or Europcar or Avis as they will have reliable support in each country. There will be a cross border charge to cover insurances and any support. Yes: Skoda. Even the Scala is big and comfy enough and the rental one I last had was a Monte Carlo spec and had everything FG. Passes: - Italy is pay as you go, like France. Select the correct lane as we once went in the cash only one and luckily had enough! - I think there is a mobile app for Slovenia vignette, if not here's the website: evinjeta.dars.si/en. I used it last summer. - There is a website and app for Austrian vignette but it's utter bollocks. Due to purchasing laws you have to have a cooling off period of 10 days so if you don't know the reg of your car 10 days before travel you can't use the ASFINAG app because you could buy a 10 day vignette then cancel it 9 days later. It's an utterly shit thing. That said any petrol station will sell you a vignette and the border lay-bys have self-service machines. I think AT is the last country to have stick on vignettes! The rest are all camera controlled based on license plate. - SK has electronic vignette. App is called eZnamka and it's brilliant, simple etc. - CZ one is here: edalnice.cz/en/index.html#/validation. They might have an app too - I'm always already in SK or AT so don't need the app. - If you venture into Hungary the app is called Mobilfizetés. Again, easy to use etc. apart from selecting the right class of car, which I always seem to have an issue with. Remember if you set your nav to avoid tolls and/or motorways and want to see some decent scenery you don't need any of these but your journey time will be about two-three times longer. Most vignette passes are minimum 10 days, to avoid passers through paying the minimum each direction of a 14 day break!; then one month; then a year. Nice journey. All those countries are fabulous.
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Post by Big Blue on Mar 21, 2024 10:31:40 GMT
Sell it to some dodgy looking bloke on the corner by the kebab shop.
Should be fine.
I was like John and just did as I was told.
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Post by Big Blue on Mar 20, 2024 12:01:33 GMT
Ferrari movie on Sky.
An opportunity to watch a car based film that W2.1 will also watch. It was great - not just cars and gear changing too much like it could have been. I suddenly remember the history of the '57 Mille Miglia when the race scenes started so the ending was less of a shock than it may have been.
Definitely a great watch, cars or not.
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Post by Big Blue on Mar 14, 2024 16:53:12 GMT
Eva was coated in something when I bought it. It’s amazing when you just wash it and dry it. I think it was about £500 but that was part of the BMW new car stuff. I had it on my S1000RR as well.
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Post by Big Blue on Mar 12, 2024 14:02:52 GMT
Well, he’s broken his insurance claim virginity Glad no one was hurt: we had all sorts of horrors as teens in terms of maiming and deaths in accidents. I also recall Marlene witnessing a young driver going into the trees on the Witley- Milford road years ago at the national limit as a minimum. Car was smacked to bits but the boy was unscathed. Agreed: Minis and 500s are default young peoples’ cars these days. That’s a nice looking one. Mine still aren’t interested in driving
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Random
Mar 11, 2024 21:13:23 GMT
via mobile
Post by Big Blue on Mar 11, 2024 21:13:23 GMT
Market’s fucked.
Was speaking to a prominent figure in the SMMT recently: the used market for electric cars is Dodo material. With this kind of deposit contribution so is the new market!
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Post by Big Blue on Mar 11, 2024 18:17:11 GMT
Volvo Amazon should be able to be delivered free from Scandinavia with Prime.........
I'll get me coat.
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Post by Big Blue on Mar 11, 2024 14:04:13 GMT
So what if Horner goes to Haas or Alpine? Or even Aston? Lays out a five year plan, calls Newey and starts the process over again when the new regs kick in?
Would be actually interesting as opposed to this red-top-headline shite.
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Post by Big Blue on Mar 8, 2024 22:34:42 GMT
Even better news: that miserable fucker Marko might get suspended by RBR.
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Cardle
Mar 6, 2024 14:42:39 GMT
Post by Big Blue on Mar 6, 2024 14:42:39 GMT
First Time playing for ages today. Just a game of guess the number
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Post by Big Blue on Mar 5, 2024 18:30:07 GMT
Red Bull’s motorsport funding has been phenomenal but the F1 team seemed to be more about being Red Bull owned than the fact it was a garagiste set up bought by Red Bull. Horner’s position is such that Red Bull Racing without him would be seen as a new project, much like when Ron Dennis started making road cars and Project 4 was just a thing that happened once upon a time. To juxtapose that, the most successful and coveted seats in Moto2 are in the Red Bull KTM team run by Ake Ajo. However make no mistake: if Red Bull go it’s still Team Ajo but I don’t see RBR like that.
There is the rub for not liking RBR. The set up makes it look like the sponsor, which is in fact an owner, pulls the strings of the racing team whereas other teams need to commercially sell their product (success) for sponsorship revenue. When Philip Morris were throwing the red and white money around you never got the impression that John Hogan or his successor could push Ron or Ross / Jean about or shout the odds like Red Bull seem to be able to. As for the Max / Jos bollocks: Frank Williams would be spinning in his grave to hear of a driver calling the shots and Ron always said the two things that cost him the most sleep in 1988 were Senna’s contract and his baby daughter in equal measure.
So Red Bull are unloved by me for their set up, in the same way the Bundesliga hate Red Bull Leipzig: it’s not the way to get to the top.
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Post by Big Blue on Mar 4, 2024 9:29:07 GMT
But isn't that always the way? The longer you are at the top the more people who want to knock you off your perch. Precisely what Ron Dennis said. I like Ed’s comment: he’s no Romeo is he? More likely to take the poison to avoid him than because she lost his affections!
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Post by Big Blue on Mar 3, 2024 20:34:15 GMT
I reckon it's been blown up so much because that first race was Mogadon on wheels. Nothing else for the media to put in the news about F1.
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Post by Big Blue on Mar 1, 2024 12:55:26 GMT
Yes I received the full deck of “evidence” this morning. Having met both my wives at work I’m in no position to comment on workplace affairs / romances but I could make a fair few comments about discretion. I’ve also met Horner’s first wife. She was very pleasant.
I suppose if an individual is driven in one aspect of life they are in others.
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Post by Big Blue on Feb 23, 2024 1:44:09 GMT
A few years ago we had Martin Whitmarsh as the motoring dinner guest. He was great: good speaker and lots of knowledge. At the time my friends and I discussed what it would be like to have had Ron Dennis instead. We all agreed it would be far less interesting and Ron would bore us. Tonight Sir Ron, as he is now, proved us utterly wrong. What a fantastic bloke and a brilliant sense of humour, fun and drive. I had a chat with him, told him he was far better than I imagined and thanked him as one Surrey boy to another. I don’t do selfies (I’m 55 for fuck’s sake!) so make do with this. I also had a chat with Hammond and told him Ron didn’t get a selfie and neither would he. But I snuck a shot in earlier. Ron was accompanied by Dave Richards and there was a decent bit of banter between them. And of course their cars came along. Ron even made it down to the bar. Overall it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening. I was lucky: the dinner was balloted with two tickets each. I got in and drinking with a member of the Motoring Committee I could see how lucky: he had had to bend a few ears to get a seat!
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Post by Big Blue on Feb 18, 2024 11:10:21 GMT
Is that Alicante or Murcia airport?
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Post by Big Blue on Feb 18, 2024 11:08:46 GMT
Renewal on the Mini. £90 increase from John Lewis which is 25% up. The Meerkats were queried, including the claim I had for a car park bump last spring.
The RAC were not the cheapest response but the one I’d actually want to be insured by. Same price as JLP’s last year.
Insurers are morons.
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Post by Big Blue on Feb 14, 2024 22:46:24 GMT
We’re watching a movie. They arrive in Bali. W2.1 looks at the scenery and says “I need to get back to browsing again: I’ve got 63 windows open on my phone of different holidays.”
Going to be a stressful couple of months as she makes up our mind….
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Post by Big Blue on Feb 13, 2024 22:53:10 GMT
Can’t recommend this enough. Very fluidly written and covering a series of events that are very clear in recent history and very close to home for someone with parents in the US and a wife growing up in Czechoslovakia at the time. You’ll suddenly remember events and how they were in the media at the time. Then there’s Able Archer 83 which is really only fully outlined in this book so I won’t spoil it. I’m pretty much only reading mid-late 20th Century history at present. I’m likening it to my late stepfather’s huge collection of early-mid 20th Century history books - we grew up with knowledge and experience of what was going on but it’s only later in life that we have the inclination and opportunity to read the details that have come to light. My real dad was a naval history reader with unfathomable knowledge of the Peninsula Wars.
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Post by Big Blue on Feb 12, 2024 22:48:46 GMT
No rear glass opening? That'll tick owners off - it's such a handy feature that one wonders why all estate cars don't have it. Yep. This is especially important on long trips. When we pack the car we use every square millimetre of the boot, from storing things under the floor with the cover to closing the boot and then OPENING THE REAR GLASS to fill it up. This also means we can have an overnight case and the case with technology items ready to take out on stop overs. You can’t fill it as much if you’re trying to balance stuff to allow the boot to close. Lots of Europeans use their Kombi cars for long European breaks (ours are 5/6 weeks) and it’s why Europe is the biggest market for them. When you’ve had a usp for generations how the f__k you can justify the latest generation not having it is beyond my wit. Not only that: in multi-storey car parks I’m forever panic stricken that the electric boot will just mash itself into the underside of the floor above whereas the opening rear glass cover means that will not happen. I don’t need to do any counting or thought: I use the opening rear glass more than the full boot opening.
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Post by Big Blue on Feb 12, 2024 19:52:37 GMT
Well I am now fully of the opinion that the G31 is peak 5er Touring. Here's why:
No massage seats available on G61 No rear glass opening on G61 G61 530e slower than G31 G61 Front end irredeemably horrible, even though G31 is not Claudia Schiffer Rear parcel shelf of G61 does not automatically move out of the way G61 is even bigger than the G31, which is pretty enormous anyway.
There are lots of other reasons but these ones have jumped out at me on looking through the configurators in three countries (BMW UK is exceptionally restrictive, with that "iconic" chav grille only available on the M Sport Pro-chav version when Europe allows it to be added as an individual option). The interior colour ways and material offerings aren't exactly a choice either.
Basically the new model is theft-spec by the manufacturer and the idea of "customer options" seems to have become "we can sell it used easier" options even more as each model moves on.
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Post by Big Blue on Feb 12, 2024 9:10:56 GMT
Well with their 15 minute city bollocks, some elements of society don’t want your journey to require private propelled movement of any kind. They don’t care about country life because to them it’s almost an alien landscape. They don’t want you to do a touring holiday with multiple stays because that’s a bit bourgeois. They don’t want you to move about freely without being tracked on public transport.
However what’s more telling is that in France you can now on-line build the new 5er Touring. The full electric ones.
Or the diesel ones……
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Post by Big Blue on Feb 9, 2024 12:40:36 GMT
It could do with spacers on the rear I read that initially as “it could do with spats on rear”, which would be an equally valid observation.
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Post by Big Blue on Feb 9, 2024 10:31:31 GMT
I’m in France for a brief maternal visit and Europcar offered me a Tesla as an upgrade. I wasn’t brave enough knowing what charging is like here in our town but probably should have. I got a Kuga hybrid which is showing around 55mpg. The cost of a new electric car runaround is pretty prohibitive for the job you want it to do.
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Post by Big Blue on Feb 7, 2024 14:28:18 GMT
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