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Post by Big Blue on Jun 13, 2022 9:55:17 GMT
I must say I’m not a fan of the looks but as an ethos this is a great car.
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BMW i4
Jun 13, 2022 9:53:03 GMT
Post by Big Blue on Jun 13, 2022 9:53:03 GMT
Interesting review. With these kind of lead in times I’ll be ordering the next car next year, so if the new 5er is good looking enough I’ll be booking a build slot the day the Touring is announced!
My friend’s EV6 ordered at the start of the year is due in December and then not in the colour he wanted as that was another 8 months delivery.
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Post by Big Blue on Jun 13, 2022 8:13:23 GMT
Oh dear. Looks like we have only an intra-team battle to look forward to for the rest of the season, meaning Saturdays will be more exciting than Sundays. The Ferrari engine failures are not just failures; they’re failures the team can’t get their head around.
Max underlined his superior race pace over Perez yet again, showing that now the pressure’s off on winning a title he can just show his race craft. Like a younger Hamilton, great driver but difficult to warm to.
George Russell is taking the opportunity given to be in what was a pointy-end of the grid car and showing what a great driver he is. Whatever the foibles of the Merc he’s driving around them to a certain extent. Vettel, once again, showing that a proper racer can turn it on when his team mate is witless. Stroll is at home next weekend and anything less than Q3 and finishing above Seb will make arguing for any extended presence in F1 difficult to justify.
A dull race up front due to the Ferrari exits but quite of lot of action further down the field and glad the director showed a lot of that. Given my first paragraph above that looks likely to be a theme this season.
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Post by Big Blue on Jun 9, 2022 18:50:51 GMT
I think Racing has made the point most Grandees are up in arms about. Johnson wants to be PM just so he can say he’s been there, done that - much like his tenure as Mayor. The trouble is we are living in a stable society where you are not at risk of persecution by neighbours or organisations. Most of our population’s interactions with the law are traffic offences or burglary related so having a leader that just bluffs about is not as important as it may otherwise be.
There is also the wider society mentality to consider. We live in a world where an instagram picture taken in a chance moment is suddenly a complete description of the poster’s entire lifestyle. So the gypo out for one evening at the Ritz is suddenly a “face” when in reality they live in a flat that would make Del and Rodney’s gaff look like the penthouse at the Shard. Boris fits this instant, short term gratification model really well as they recognise him, know enough about him to be amused and their lives are not massively affected by his foibles and swinging with the wind policy model.
We all said about Trump that the US got the President they deserved. We in the UK are no different.
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Post by Big Blue on Jun 9, 2022 18:19:47 GMT
Narberth certainly used to have the only Crematorium in Pembrokeshire. Do the local tourist board big that up? 😬
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Post by Big Blue on Jun 8, 2022 11:02:19 GMT
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Post by Big Blue on Jun 7, 2022 11:46:10 GMT
Is that F1 car with the nose off showing how Michael Schumacher’s legs were broken and cost him a title?
Great opportunistic visit and photos to prove you weren’t out on the lash.
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Post by Big Blue on Jun 7, 2022 8:36:00 GMT
I’ve no idea why they had the VOC yesterday. The right time would have been after the two by elections coming up. Heavy defeats there would have seen him losing any confidence vote held subsequently. I think there was a plan by pro-Fat Blonde Egotistical Cunt supporters that entailed pushing letters to the 1922 before That eventuality then voting for him to stay despite posting a letter with Brady.
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Post by Big Blue on Jun 3, 2022 4:50:17 GMT
I live in London because I have a well paid job there. Otherwise I wouldn’t. And given free rein, I don’t think I’d pick the UK. That doesn’t especially mean I particularly have another country in mind which I would prefer. I’m just not that attached to the UK and as the years pass I get less so. +1, but I’m so indecisive and W2.1 so skeptical I’ll end up dying here.
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Post by Big Blue on Jun 2, 2022 16:03:52 GMT
Time was I had 9 points, 6 of them for speeding. That was before any speed awareness courses. The other 3 were for riding over a double white centre line. They’ve all long gone and I thank my stars the first ever ticket I received was for riding round a bollard on Victoria Street and got a fine-only ticket otherwise that double white line one would’ve been a ban.
My most recent 3 are for passing a red light in London traffic, that being a second offence TS20. Nearly run their course and are the only UK camera fines. Never been done by a speed camera in the UK.
Overseas I’ve averaged one per two years in the last decade but they’re just fines issued by cameras.
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Post by Big Blue on May 31, 2022 16:37:19 GMT
I agree that Monaco is not a circuit for racing but getting it right on Saturday means you need car control, a balanced car, a level headed driver and the kind of precision that too many on the grid don’t have. See how much Vettel was ahead of Stroll in the same piece of shit car on Saturday? Perfect demonstration as to why Monaco is an overall event not just Sunday.
I’ve had huge rows over the years with associates and other fans about Monaco but as my degree dissertation was “Design considerations for motor racing circuits” some 30 years ago I can tell you that back then it was about looking after the corporate sponsors and their guests, families, bits of skirt more than about the racing. The main consideration on track is making sure the people on track were not unnecessarily killed or injured. A couple of years post-Dissertation some race at Imola was held on the first of May…….
Monaco is what sets F1 apart from BTCC or Indy / CART. Without it the mystique of the ties to the past is lost and sponsors will spend elsewhere - which is a really important message for the smaller teams as some of their sponsors are only there for an annual jolly to the principality all expenses paid.
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Cardle
May 28, 2022 7:59:47 GMT
via mobile
Post by Big Blue on May 28, 2022 7:59:47 GMT
I took all 5. Over the course of the week I’ve been pretty shite.
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Post by Big Blue on May 26, 2022 21:48:36 GMT
Going to see Duran Duran at Hyde Park in July. Rio (album) was 40 a couple of days before my birthday.
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Post by Big Blue on May 26, 2022 21:03:35 GMT
Pretty sure most of my brushes over the years with the upper echelons of the CS have been reminiscent of my early years working in a professional partnership where a partner would come in, put a bag of coins on your desk and tell you where their car was parked so you could feed the meter. I did indeed vomit into a waste paper bin in the afternoon in said offices after a heavy lunch session at the Westminster Arms. I also woke up in the office on a Saturday morning, woke up in the pub before work, was sent out to buy champagne for the secretary’s lunch and drove out to the partner in the law firm opposite’s house in Chelsea in his chauffeur driven Bentley with his wife that fancied me.
Yep. It’s all a bit ‘80s.
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Post by Big Blue on May 25, 2022 23:20:27 GMT
Just finished Slow Horses on Apple+. Excellent, even though I had to update W2.1 every 15 minutes as to who was who, what the plots were and on one occasion explaining the difference between “5” and “6” being more than opposite sides of the Thames.
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Post by Big Blue on May 25, 2022 23:15:23 GMT
At this point I just want a competent and non-twattish PM. Is that such a tall order? Apparently it is. Go figure. There you are. A suitable replacement for the current one.
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Post by Big Blue on May 25, 2022 12:55:42 GMT
Mind out for lone gunmen in Annecy. Yeah, you’d need to tell them you’re crossing a border so they can charge you more for no reason as the vehicle is insured across Europe. Blarno: yes, there is equally handsome/ bland/ inoffensive estate version.
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Post by Big Blue on May 24, 2022 12:33:54 GMT
It is 6 years old and was conceived as a Passat competitor. For a French owner or fleet manager it would make sense. I like its normalcy in a world of fake vents, bulging design sections and SUVs.
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Post by Big Blue on May 23, 2022 19:09:14 GMT
Well, usual Ferrari season lies ahead. A car and driver that can win pole at will and then fails to deliver on Sunday. A second driver that really is just that so a single car / driver combination against Red Bull with a lead driver backed up by a driver with pace that stays on the black bit and a Mercedes team that will soon have two drivers arguing over who will take the win.
Superb drive by George and some really strong placings by Lando, Bottas and Hamilton showed why he and Mercedes have dominated for so long.
I see today that some of the teams (the bigger ones with more funds available in the wings) are complaining they won’t make some races if the budget cap remains as is. Alfa’s Szafnauer put them in their place by saying if they can adjust for increased travel and secondary costs at the expense of development so can everyone else, meaning the field will stay closer for longer as RBR, Mercedes and Ferrari won’t just spend their way into the distance.
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Post by Big Blue on May 23, 2022 17:49:38 GMT
I always look at these when I’m in France and they’re good family fodder cars.
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Post by Big Blue on May 22, 2022 8:51:09 GMT
The other issue is that there is a much lower take up of personal transport by the current generation. Ergo, we won’t need to power the same number of cars as we currently fuel in 30 years time.
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Post by Big Blue on May 21, 2022 13:46:25 GMT
I like to compare the uk leaving is a bit like Ferrari leaving F1 and joining formula E. Is Formula E not the future? Having heard the horrible sound that that Porsche made in the video John C shared: no!
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Post by Big Blue on May 20, 2022 22:05:24 GMT
If that headline said that SAS troops are training Russian troops it would be but it remains all against one.
And Germany unilaterally decided to cancel nuclear power which was a combination of pressures of waste and scale of accident despite its remoteness in the face of a particularly nervous electorate. If UK was in any way the owner of a political spine it would’ve behaved as all the other EU nations: in the collective good of all states whilst maintaining the national interest. If Germany burning coal was such an issue to the UK it could’ve raised it across the EU and bought pressure from the wider union to accelerate the cessation so that the kittens would all survive to breathe fresh air. But now, of course, the coal is being burned and it’s none of the UK’s business.
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Post by Big Blue on May 20, 2022 16:55:42 GMT
Using an example about sex education in schools is a pretty poor choice when trying to give an example of EU diktat. Poland is in the EU - their teaching of sex education in school is pretty traditional in Roman Catholic terms and bears no resemblance to that in, say, Germany or the UK (when it was a member state). The parties in each nation are in no doubt what the EU wants from them but one thing is sure in all of them: those that feel they can gain the most personally are certain to blame them for anything they can to remove the obstacle to their own self-aggrandisement.
You’ve also decided to ignore that I pointed out that this is not a European war when I had taken pains to point out why. When the Germans invade France or annex Austria I’ll take your definition on board.
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Post by Big Blue on May 20, 2022 15:28:00 GMT
"Politically the UK is fucked because 51% of the people that voted chose to be fucked": More than a little offensive actually as I for one and many others did not do so. When it comes to the eu, remember the latest French election and a 48% vote for the Pen, the various eastern eu nations getting told "You joined the eu so your policies are made by us" when there are certain elements of localised law and restrictions they want so, just how unified is the eu?
You have not mentioned the manner in which the prc is spreading influence by buying off politicians etc and moving into African, Pacific and indeed european nations. Wait 'til you see the bill they are going to present. I mentioned a long time ago the the continued expansion of the eu and nato would be used to start a european war but that was laughed at. Where are we now? Unready when we needed to act quickly and that failure to act is going to cost nations the world over into excessive expenditure. This total lack of understanding is why people voted Leave when they were lied to. All EU directives are voted on by the members and must be UNANIMOUSLY agreed. That means the UK voted for every single piece of EU legislation that ever got made in to Laws in the UK by the respective devolved parliaments. Nothing, and I mean nothing, has ever been imposed on the UK by the EU - quite the contrary as the UK had substantial rebates on funding that no other member received and was able to remain outside of Schengen for mobility purposes. Local rules and laws that did not contravene any agreed directive could be made by any country at any time and as seen by the COVID scenario in times of crisis individual nations were allowed to make rules as befit the well being of their own nations. Le Pen and her father are perennial losing racist whipps and she carries on a fine family tradition. So offensive or not, chose to be fucked is my opinion. PRC is indeed spreading its funding but is completely a different animal to Russia and whatever controls they feel they have in Africa will fall to nothing for the reasons given above about refusal to share (very prevalent in Africa - my mum's a white African). They think they are lording it over the tribal leaders that represent governments in Africa but they're not in the tribe and never will be. As to a European war: this is substantially different to previous European wars in that it's not a European war. Previously lots of nations wanted to remain neutral, had not formed themselves as nations due to the residual empires and monarchies and formed allies that sided populace and engineering nations against one another. This current scenario is a single nation of any consequence against all the others.
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Post by Big Blue on May 20, 2022 13:59:15 GMT
One commentator piece from the Telegraph To the experts, economists and other idiot savants who inexplicably failed to see this storm coming, thanks for nothing. All of their acronyms, PhDs, fancy modelling and algorithms have proved useless: Britain and the world are plunging into the most terrifying economic, political and cultural crisis of the past 40 years. A bunch of intelligent amateurs couldn’t have done much worse.......This bit in red is the biggest reliever of this entire (largely correct) analysis - especially the bit about our politicians no longer having interest in the history and lessons of economics. The writer is spouting about the state of the UK and as typifies a Telegraph reader ignores that there is in fact a rest of the world. We have an economic crisis because all of our industry hasn't got used to the fact that the market is not operating - our client base still has gigantic pipeline projects worth billions of [name a currency] that are marching on unabated despite the fact that things like steel, concrete and aluminium are just not available and what is available is several times more expensive than they budgeted for. As I said earlier, recession is when no one wants shit any more because they can't afford it. These huge projects have already started, already funded and like a super tanker cannot be stopped in an instant. Far bigger a problem than anything economic is the food scenario, which will lead to more famine and wars in sub-saharan Africa which will be inconsequential to a Europe that is feeding itself as much as it can. Politically the UK is fucked because 51% of the people that voted chose to be fucked: whilst there are always cross border issues in mainland Europe they are still stronger together than this bunch of windswept rocks in the North Atlantic will ever be. (ask the island of Ireland if together is better or not.....). The west is strong politically because Russia has made Europe and the former colonial Europeans (Americans) remember that it formed a single body to the extent previous doubters have asked to join in. There is a meme doing the rounds about a Russian wife asking her husband about the special operations in Ukraine. He tells her about the 2000 tanks, 24,000 soldiers, ships and aircraft Mother Russia has lost in the struggle of what is a proximity war between NATO and Russia. She asks how many NATO forces have been crushed by the glorious Russian forces. "Oh," he says. "NATO hasn't actually joined in yet." Culturally, the very west of Europe has continually fucked itself by forgetting its long-ingrained culture and letting things become lax to the point where things that are utterly counter to that culture now have the high ground. Not merely religion but the physiological norms of sexual birth - a girl was reportedly hounded out of 6th form by her follow pupils for questioning the place of transgenderism against the inescapable facts of biology. So whilst I agree the UK is fucked I subdue that thought by acknowledging that the entire western world finds itself in that position and therefore some weird kind of status-quo exists which is currently making the effects nowhere near as bad as they could be. India, Rest of Asia, the Arab world, Africa and South America would be in a great position for world dominance over Russia, Europe, North America and Australasia if it weren't for that fact that they are a huge collective of argumentative, self serving shitheads that would rather kill one another than join them to take a share of the rest. As before, we're all going to die. Live your life as you can and consider a move to Japan if you are able.......
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Post by Big Blue on May 19, 2022 15:25:48 GMT
Don’t doubt that I have myself considered this to be user error but I get the same online, the app and .co.uk in both cases.
I assume there is a cookie against my id that defaults to “shit” offering.
😆
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Post by Big Blue on May 19, 2022 14:39:41 GMT
Sixt are coming up cheapest for a hire in Bologna for once but wary. Here is the best illustration: SIXT are cheaper but.... There is no excess: you are liable to all damage hence a policy that covers the excess won't pay out as you didn't restrict THEIR exposure by taking out the cover. Also SIXT almost always limit their mileage (this is 1,000kms) which is OK if you potter about but we regularly scoot off to far off places plus our families are not living at the end of the runway in the first place. The equivalent from Europcar before my discount: Yes it costs more but: no limit on mileage; CDW at €1,200 included. If I add the excess to SIXT and my discount to Europcar it's about even, and then I get a two class upgrade, additional driver and airport lounge as well. All that said we are going to a wedding in July and the car we're hiring is from a Slovak company. They drive it to Vienna, we drop it there. It costs less than half the price of Europcar.
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Post by Big Blue on May 18, 2022 22:03:05 GMT
I was paid more than I am now in 1999.
I was overpaid back then because I was in the tech-bubble sector in the run up to Y2K but that’s not the point…….
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Post by Big Blue on May 18, 2022 18:01:32 GMT
What’s a payrise?
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