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Post by Alex on Oct 11, 2021 12:34:54 GMT
I think the problem here is that a lot of the solutions are just too expensive for the individual. I dont doubt some of you could find the money to implement these things if you really really had to but the basic fact of it is that most people can't so it does require se proper joined up thinking from government. Using ground source heat pumps on a bigger scale to provide community hot water supplies would be a better solution than trying to persuade individual households to go it alone. Likewise with solar panels why not get whole streets done in one go by one contractor who can charge less per house than if they were all separate projects.
It could be done but there just doesn't seem to be the political willpower.
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Post by Alex on Oct 10, 2021 11:14:10 GMT
Given Hamiltons/Mercedes pace in qualy and Vestappens/Red Bull’s lack of pace in comparison, I can actually see Hamilton winning this. All depends on Bottas. If he actually pulls a digit out and beats Max away from the lights he'll win. There's just no way he's going to let Lewis through later on in the race even if Toto comes out to the pitwall and screams at him to. If he can't pull away he needs to at least hold Max up but we saw last time out just how much of a clumsy job he made of it.
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Post by Alex on Oct 10, 2021 11:00:41 GMT
There is some irony in this thread being on the same page as a thread where members of this forum have suggested we use water cannon, expanding foam or cable ties as we enact retribution against a protest group demanding the government provide UK homes with better insulation. I like to consider you lot as reasonably moderate in your views which would perhaps suggest that there are many other comments sections or private Facebook groups littered with people suggesting much more imaginative and painful ways of punishing those who blocked the M25.
But what this really points to is the simple fact that in this country we don't really know what we want. Well that's not true we do, we want to be able to be kept warm as cheaply as possible without any changes to how we've been doing that for the last 50 years. The problem is we can't have that. Gas isn't going to get cheaper and our housing stock is just too inefficient. Couple this to our electricity producing infrastructure being in desperate need of an overhaul and too reliant on foreign imports and we have a big problem on our hands.
The current government have been in power for 11 years and in that time they have cut incentives for homes to be more environmentally friendly. Grants for insulation have been stripped back, grants for solar panels taken away and the feed in tariff scrapped, grants for electric cars have been reduced. The same government also crows on about the UK being carbon net zero by 2050. But we could get there even sooner with more radical changes. My house was built 5 years ago and was fitted with solar panels. My leccy bill is £20/m because we take so little from the grid. If every new build since my home was built had also been fitted with solar we would be generating so much more electricity in this country that we'd be a lot less reliable on foreign imports. Installing panels adds about 5k to the cost of building a house but given that the average house price in the UK is rising by that much or more each month those buying the properties would barely notice so why not make it law? It won't solve all our problems but if your leccy bill is as low as mine you suddenly become a lot less concerned about how much gas is increasing in cost so it is a start at lease. But there is more that needs to be done. The principle of using storage heating is a sound one but we need it to be better at doing the job we need it to but it could be a good option. Use solar to power them during the day and release the heat slowly through the night. Not saying its the answer but it could be a consideration. Ultimately though we need to stop our homes leaking so much heat.
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Post by Alex on Oct 9, 2021 22:06:36 GMT
That must be more than half the grid who have taken an engine penalty which either means that the teams and F1 rule makers have grossly underestimated the ability of 3 engines to survive a sustained competitive campaign that lasts 20+ races or they did know but knew that nobbling the front runners in the later stages of the season would make for more entertainment.
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Post by Alex on Oct 9, 2021 22:01:58 GMT
It amazes me how some manufacturers get crucial safety kit such as reverse lights so wrong. The mk1 and 2 Focus were a good example with just one reverse light mounted on the bottom of the bumper where most pedestrians walking behind the car are likely to completely miss it, especially if they're coming from the direction opposite the light.
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Post by Alex on Oct 9, 2021 17:54:30 GMT
The BP on the A24 had all fuels except Ultimate diesel this morning and no queues so I filled up as I was back down to quarter tank but the pump I filled up at showed the previous customer had only put in 14 ltrs so unless it was a motorbike people are clearly still doing regular top ups which is not helping matters. The other BP at the top of our village hasn't had fuel since Wednesday bit they're far from being a priority filling station.
I read earlier that one factor in the shortages is the introduction of E10 which led to retailers and depots draining down their tanks of E5 towards the end of August and not having sufficiently replenished stocks with the new E10 fuel by the time panic set in. The E10 is also being bought at the higher wholesale price whereas if we were still using stocks of E5 it would have been bought at a slightly lower wholesale price.
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Post by Alex on Oct 9, 2021 17:43:53 GMT
I'm with Shell Energy but that was only because they were the cheapest when I switched in Feb. My tariff is fixed until end Feb 22 but I know I won't get anywhere near that sort of deal again. Hopefully the first few months of next month won't see our house having a teacher delivering her lessons from home needing heating all day! Fortunately our 5 year old house is so well insulated we've not yet even thought about turning the heating on. The digital thermostat in our bedroom still reads 22 degrees. I'm sat in a T Shirt as I write this.
I do think that this is the price our country has to pay for not being self sufficient. We could go down the fracking route but there's no political appetite for that especially as many of the areas we'd need to start doing it are bricks in the red wall. So that means we need to look at how we manage the storage of gas and stop relying on imports of LNG which are at the mercy of China paying the tankers extra to head to them instead. The long and short of it is that global gas prices are very unlikely to go down to where they were pre covid.
In an ideal world this should be what starts us thinking of greener ways to heat our homes. The reality is that most green solutions such as ground source heat pumps are expensive to install and run and solar for HW isn't going to do much during winter. Increased gas prices will see wood burners become ever more popular but they are polluting and there's evidence of some areas of London where they are particularly popular seeing a return of smog so I'm sure they will also be outlawed at some time.
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Post by Alex on Oct 7, 2021 21:49:27 GMT
A lot of councils are adding chargers on the street. My boss lives on a street in Horsham with on street parking only and several of his neighbours have cables draped across the pavement at night with a big rubber mat over them to stop pedestrians tripping up. He's just got a Kuga PHEV so will likely be joining them.
It will be interesting to see what causes people to move to electric, will it be EVs (particularly second hand ones) becoming more affordable or will it be petrol becoming less affordable? The government can't keep the cost of fuel artificially low by freezing fuel duty forever. As more people go electric the price of petrol will surely either go down due to lack of demand or rise due to a ramping down of production and increased taxation.
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Post by Alex on Oct 5, 2021 18:43:25 GMT
Do Alpina offer discounts in the UK? No chance. That’s one of the big issues. 50% more for an Alpina over a stock M Sport is acceptable(ish) but after discounting it’s more like double. You’ve really got to WANT a new Alpina. But then surely the point is that the people who buy them do want them hence they can charge extra. If they didn't their cars would just be a higher performance non M BMW but the company prides itself on its models being much more than that.
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Post by Alex on Oct 5, 2021 16:46:11 GMT
I suppose one point that they make is that the way they've been protesting has made us all talk about them. So in many ways its been quite a successful campaign. If they'd just waived a few placards outside downing Street it would have made the news but not produced a two page thread on a motoring forum, even if we are just slagging them off and thinking of fun and amusing ways of stringing them up. It's the same you could argue with extinction rebellion. You can argue with the way they've gone about things but they are getting their message out to a lot of people.
The fact is we do need to have a grown up discussion about climate change and I can understand their standpoint that the upcoming COP26 will probably just be a load of world leading coming in on private jets and delivering little in the way of substantial promises because any real changes will have to be paid for by the people they rely on to keep voting them into power. As much as we all say we want to do our bit, the overwhelming majority of people don't want to have to make any changes that will cost them money so all these world leaders will offer is token gestures that allow the can to be kicked down the road for the next leader to have to deal with.
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Post by Alex on Oct 4, 2021 18:54:05 GMT
It is the charging structure and charging time that is keeping our fleet from going electric. Simply put the downtime driving an EV is just too much compared to an ICE vehicle that can be refilled in less than 10mins (if you're not waiting half an hour in a queue for the petrol station!). If the Ioniq 5 is now getting 250kwh charging that makes a massive difference so long as there are chargers that can offer it.
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Post by Alex on Oct 4, 2021 18:41:49 GMT
Did Mr Harris get the winning bid in the end or was he just trying to bump the price up a bit?
Glad you beat your reserve, that's all that matters in the end and you've not had the hassle of running a private sale yourself or having WBAC not knowing what it is and low balling you.
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Post by Alex on Oct 4, 2021 18:11:59 GMT
There was another clip of them refusing to move for an ambulance trying to attend an emergency with motorist dragging the protesters off the road only for them to continually scramble back in front of the traffic and even ignoring the plees of paramedics asking to be let through. They seem to have been taking the attitude that their cause trumped the life that was potentially in urgent need of saving. Not a way to win friends.
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Post by Alex on Oct 4, 2021 12:53:49 GMT
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Post by Alex on Oct 4, 2021 11:06:18 GMT
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Post by Alex on Oct 4, 2021 10:25:01 GMT
The Police are almost having to babysit the situation to ensure the safety of all participants. Once they got the injunction from the government they were able to quite quickly move them off the M25 and associated roads but when they move on to different routes such as this mornings protests they have to again wait for permission which seems absurd.
I'm not overly sure what they hope to achieve. Most new homes built since 1990 have been pretty well insulated, especially if they've the identikit timber frame units most housebuilding have been building and older homes have been given grants to improve their insulation so these things are happening. If they're worried out pollution why is causing a traffic jam that increases pollution seen by this group as a good idea?
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Post by Alex on Oct 3, 2021 22:03:15 GMT
Horsham has been completely drained of fuel in all 5 garages in town. When I went to the gym this morning the local Tesco express had just had a delivery so I waited 20mins to fill up as I only had a third of a tank left. By the time I'd finished my workout the queue had gone but so had all the fuel. Seems that the SE and London are still badly hit.
I imaging most people have now filled up at some point since the panic began but a lot are now going back having used of a quarter of their tank.
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Couzens
Oct 3, 2021 10:44:01 GMT
via mobile
Post by Alex on Oct 3, 2021 10:44:01 GMT
Thanks for the insight Stu, I appreciate your candour.
I'm baffled by all the suggestions coming out for how you can avoid being in this situation as a female member of the public. For a start if she'd phoned 999 to check he was a genuine officer they would have confirmed as much so how would that have stopped it. Screaming and running away is surely resisting arrest which causes more trouble for both you and the arresting officer.
They suggest you flag down a bus. Have you ever tried flagging down a London bus that isn't at a bus stop designated for their specific service? And are they suggesting that bus drivers are now responsible for helping tackle rogue cops? From what I've seen of him Cousins was hardly a weak little man and I'm sure he'd have known how to deal with someone getting in his way. Equally he was also clearly very manipulative and followed Police procedures during his 'arrest' of Sarah Everard. Do you really think if she'd screamed they'd have helped her or believed the Policeman with his warrant card telling you she was just a troublemaker and asking you to move along?
I think we do need to accept that he was a bad apple and not blame the Met for his behaviour. There will be questions about how his other crimes leading up to the night of Sarah's murder but its hard to see how an accusation of flashing 72hrs earlier could have been investigated quickly enough to stop him doing what he did or be a prediction that he was about to escalate to committing such an extreme crime.
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Couzens
Oct 1, 2021 14:19:37 GMT
via mobile
Post by Alex on Oct 1, 2021 14:19:37 GMT
It is indeed utterly harrowing how premeditated the murder he perpetrated was. He hired a car in advance and scoured the streets for some hours seeking the perfect victim and knew exactly what he would say to get them to comply. This was no spur of the minute moment of madness, he had to have known what he wanted to do well in advance and probably thought he'd get away with it. He seemed almost to be shocked that he'd been caught. The way treated her body is also sickening and I really do hope he suffers for it in prison.
As to how he was able to remain in the force despite the red flags, that's a different matter that will rightly be investigated. Being nicknamed 'the rapist' must have been for a reason but whether those reasons were enough to justify disciplinary action is difficult to tell. We have very robust employment laws in this country so you can't just sack someone because they have a bit of a wondering eye. If he'd been making lewd comments to female colleagues and sharing violent porn with male colleagues as has been suggested that's another matter than I'm sure will need to be looked at.
As to the flashing incidents, again I don't know the procedure for if a serving officer has such allegations of wrongdoing against them. Maybe Stu may know more. Again though you can't just immediately sack an officer if they've been accused of a crime and even if he'd been suspected it's impossible to know if he'd have still committed the murder or not.
The consequences of his actions that night were horrific for Sarah Everards family but I also spare a thought for Cousins wife and kids. What must it be like knowing what the man you loved was capable of?
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Post by Alex on Sept 28, 2021 21:53:29 GMT
It was the opposite when the wife filled up at our local Tesco yesterday afternoon. They only had Momentum. She's never treated her Panda to that before. Its probably added at least 10 horses.
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Post by Alex on Sept 28, 2021 21:46:32 GMT
Labour just aren't a party I could vote for right now and a large part of that is Starmer. He may be a fellow gooner but that aside I find it hard to know what he stands for and all his party seem to be doing is arguing amongst themselves. The Tories have been tripping over themselves to give Labour ammunition to lob at them but all they seem to do is bicker within.
I dont see Starmer lasting until the next general election at this rate. But who's their alternative. One could see Saddiq Khan or Andy Burnam wanting a go at it but I couldn't vote for them either as they come across in theie roles as mayor as perpetual whingers. I'm sure Angela Rayner would also like to show that a council estate girl who was a single mum at 16 can make it to the top of politics, but admirable as that is, I can't see the country as a whole voting her in as PM.
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Post by Alex on Sept 28, 2021 21:33:57 GMT
I went to uni in the early naughties because it was just what you did, especially when you attended a selective grammar school. I studied biology at Royal Holloway so it wasn't just some micky mouse degree. I spent most of the first two years getting hammered or working in the local spoons during my free time so it's hardly surprising I only left with a Desmond.
At least my fees were only £1300/Yr when I went. I wouldn't have gone if they were as high as they are now. The job I have now did ask for a scientific degree so it did get me into my line of work but in recent years we've started taking on apprentice consultants who have just finished college and they have mostly done very well and been much more loyal to the business.
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Post by Alex on Sept 27, 2021 18:35:32 GMT
Channel 5 have an hour long special programme this evening "Panic at the pumps - live!". That's sure to calm people down. 🙄
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Post by Alex on Sept 27, 2021 11:34:01 GMT
Isn't there the more wider issue that if the driver shortage is Europe wide then some of the countries we're hoping to recruit from are not going to be best pleased with us luring their drivers to come over to Britain making things even worse for them in their own country?
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Post by Alex on Sept 27, 2021 8:30:02 GMT
^ Different day. Yesterday's (Saturday's) fans were deprived of seeing Max drive at the limit Not sure you can buy Saturday-only tickets any more. In any case its just the unpredictability of sport. If you've bought a ticket to the football but your teams star striker gets injured in the game before that's just tough. You still get to watch a game just without the player you hoped to see. Likewise in qualifying the fans still got to see the rest of the pack set their laps and duke it out for pole.
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Post by Alex on Sept 26, 2021 21:02:14 GMT
What a shit result all round. Turns out even gods a Hamilton fan. To be fair the racing gods also saw fit to help Max get to P2. He was 7th at best before the heavens opened. Utterly gutted for Lando. You could argue that a more experienced driver would have gone for inters at the same time Lewis did but that's an easy thing to say as an armchair fan and when you're inches away from your first F1 race its easy to not want to risk going in and your rival staying out and nicking the win if the weather stayed as it was.
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Post by Alex on Sept 26, 2021 11:52:40 GMT
Max not even showing up was a tactical move I did not think would happen but it save stress on the drivetrain I don't agree with this tactic. For one, it deprives the fans who paid good money to see the cars being driven as fast as they could be But then they get to watch him carve his way through the field and they also get to watch Lewis have to battle past a Ferrari with an engine upgrade and a McLaren which is in the best form of the last decade. That's surely more exciting than watching Max or Lewis take the lead off the start line and bugger off into the sunset.
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Post by Alex on Sept 26, 2021 10:28:49 GMT
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Post by Alex on Sept 26, 2021 10:27:34 GMT
Going to the gym and then on to the big Tesco this morning I've passed 5 filling stations and the good news is that the panic buying is over. None of the 5 had any queues whatsoever. The bad news is that this was because all 5 were dryer than a student bar at the end of pound-a-pint night!
I think most people will now all have a full tank and so won't need to go out and refuel for the next few days at least and supply will return to normal by the end of the week with most big stations, especially those on busy A roads and motorways, being refilled by Mobday morning. They will then still be busier than usual for a week or so but hopefully even those returning for more after their panic refill yesterday will only be topping up with a quarter of a tank at most so although there will be a queue they won't suck the place dry.
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Post by Alex on Sept 26, 2021 6:08:08 GMT
I absolutely do not think buying a Porsche is a bad decision for one to make. The experience Alpine have had is one that just highlights how difficult it is to give a Porsche buyer reason to question their decision. Porsche don't generally make any slip ups to help you along and whilst the Alpine is a great car in so many ways but it isn't better than a Cayman in any clear cut way save for perhaps being not so ubiquitous. But if you're sinking 70k of hard earned cash into a new sports car the decision for most people won't hinge on whether the car they're choosing is the obvious choice or not.
The Emira deserves to do well and I think that the draw of the Lotus name is one that will really help it. To me the Lotus name just feels a little more exotic than Porsche. It will make buyers feel like it's a step up in the same way that a buying a McLaren 570 feels more special than buying an Audi R8. You're stepping up into the big leagues in terms of brand.
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