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Post by racingteatray on Sept 13, 2021 12:35:35 GMT
Should those who stand to inherit a home not wish to loose the asset they could offset the cost by caring for their parents as is a common practice across the rest of the world. Ah yes, an arrangement that works in households where either the wife or husband doesn't work and where at least one child lives near the parent. But nowadays, it's quite normal for both partners to work full-time and whilst lots of employers (mine included) have policies to help those with caring responsibilities, it would be difficult to balance that, particularly for those with demanding jobs and those with kids as well.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 13, 2021 12:29:52 GMT
My mother only has the screechingly inadequate state pension and so if she required care, once her savings are exhausted, either my sister or I would have to split the cost, or we would have to investigate some sort of equity release mortgage.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 13, 2021 12:23:32 GMT
I've never had a company car. None of the three law firms I've worked for has offered them.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 13, 2021 11:46:51 GMT
From the side and the rear it is a handsome car (although I think the rear side windows are too small) but it still has that awful grill although the all black finish hides it a bit. I am not going to get much opportunity to go driving today, other than one short trip I need to make and then back to the garage to pick up my car later. Did the front end styling grow on you at all in the five minutes you had it? A black new-shape M4 convertible passed me yesterday as I standing at the side of the road and despite it being in the best possible setting - sunny day in the high Alps, roof-down, powering uphill towards the Sustenpass, it was brutally hideous - worse than the standard 4. Looked like it had been modelled on Darth Vader's helmet.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 13, 2021 11:40:47 GMT
How many miles have you driven in your own cars overall since you first got a car and what does that work out at per year?
Prompted by the realisation this morning that, by my reckoning, I've just ticked over a total of 300,000 miles (give or take) at the wheel of my own cars since getting my first car in September 1996. So that's 300k over 25 years, so an average of 12k miles per year, which IIRC makes me Joe Average in the UK.
That excludes hire cars and other people's cars, including those of parents and partners.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 13, 2021 11:28:54 GMT
Not a lot but I agree on the multi-storey carparks - you'd think the one at Heathrow T5 would be ok as (a) it is modern and (b) lots of S-class type cars going in and out to do airport transfers. But no, the spirals are awful. Although not as bad as the ones in a multi-storey I parked at in the middle of Cambridge a couple of months ago.
I'm just back from a 3,700 mile trek down as far as Sorrento and back, so feeling fairly "back in the saddle" driving-wise. Drove from Lugano to London on my own yesterday.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 13, 2021 10:30:48 GMT
This was the range read-out yesterday after refilling near Basel after crossing Switzerland from Italy scrupulously observing the rather low speed limit.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 10, 2021 15:46:10 GMT
Good idea!
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Economy 4
Sept 10, 2021 15:45:27 GMT
via mobile
Post by racingteatray on Sept 10, 2021 15:45:27 GMT
Having just had a refill of the 440i which cost €90 for 56 litres of normal unleaded, and that’s not even on the motorway, I’m damn glad it’s economical!
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 8, 2021 22:02:38 GMT
One can always live somewhere else. Britain does seem to be at the forefront of this sort of greenwashing.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 8, 2021 21:58:06 GMT
Absolutely not, unless it has a regional weighting akin to means-testing. Our house is worth a small fortune but it is also very small - 1100ft2 - because we couldn’t afford anything bigger despite being on two very handsome salaries. I don’t see why I should be penalised taxwise for living in London. That would be deeply unfair.
Plus our house hasn’t gone up in value in the last 18m at all so bugger-all unearned value.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 8, 2021 17:01:50 GMT
In which case wouldn't an increase in income tax be fairer as it would be paid by those who are not currently paying NI, including pensioners who are still working? It doesn't stop the lower paid being liable too but it would in some way level it out. It would be fairer, and more honest and transparent, because let's face it fewer people understand what NI is compared to IT. But honest and transparent would have been even more risky politically as it would make the manifesto red line breach even more obvious. Having seen off Comrade Corbyn, it wouldn't then do to look like you'd done an about face and nicked his outfit. As regards this being a mere sticking plaster for wider problems - that certainly seems to be the view of the Institute for Fiscal Studies who have a piece in today's Times headed " Covid's the cover for this inevitable rise", suggesting Boris's manifesto was either a pack of porkies or a work of ignorant delusion. This line caught my eye and should cause pause for thought: " The £14 billion of tax rises, on top of the £25 billion or so announced in the March budget, will mean an increase in the UK's tax burden of about 1.5% of national income. It will hit its highest sustained level in peacetime. And it is likely to stay there." But it should be noted that the government's hands are probably tied - the article concludes by saying " The logical consequences of the irresistible demands for ever more spending on health and social care are finally with us: higher taxes and a bigger state". The difficulty Boris and the Tories have to manage is the self-evident hypocrisy of having won not just an election, but also a referendum, on the basis of scaremongering about precisely the risk of higher taxes and a bigger state under Corbyn and the EU. But it's eminently possible they'll get away with it.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 7, 2021 21:51:28 GMT
Hast thou flogged it?
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 7, 2021 10:10:52 GMT
Fridges on wheels but without the promise of anything tasty inside. It's coming your way one day soon(ish) Racing but it really isn't as bad as some people make it out to be. Calm down dear! I don't doubt some electric vehicles are and will be desirable and fun. The two that kicked off the thread are not, but then their petrol-powered equivalents aren't either. Most of my practical objections to having an electric car will evaporate once range and infrastructure (absolutely key that second part) are functioning properly. But most real world tests report an experience that is currently one I assuredly do not have the time and patience for - few chargers, queues, chargers that don't function, multifarious apps and charging attachments. I don't really do stops when driving long-distance - I just want to get there in as short a time as possible - the first time we did the trip to Italy together, my wife fondly imagined stops for sit-down meals. Over time she has come to appreciate my splash and dash approach. Plus I am not fond of range anxiety - I rarely allow the tank to go below a quarter full. So I'd have an electric Fiat 500e tomorrow if the wife would agree to the change, because that would make perfect sense in London and I'd never need to charge it anywhere other than home. Actually what I'd really like is a Honda E, but the range is just currently too crap - barely 100 miles in real world usage whereas a Fiat 500e is more like 150 miles.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 6, 2021 15:11:42 GMT
Fridges on wheels but without the promise of anything tasty inside.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 3, 2021 16:01:51 GMT
I treat the 440i to the occasional tank of super but it doesn’t require it as standard. The web says you should really use super to get the best out of the MPPSK I had fitted but I think I am insufficiently Queefy to be able to detect the difference.
The last car I owned where you could notice the difference was a Mk2 Golf GTI 16v - “valvers” definitely ran better on 98 octane.
And IIRC the Alfa wanted 98 octane too - but then in Russia it cost about 40p a litre so It have been rude not to.
Since then all my BMWs, including the Z1s and M5, have been ok with regular 95.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 3, 2021 12:22:09 GMT
One imagines that capability was among those on the spec sheet the FSB gave their bionics development team...
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 3, 2021 8:36:12 GMT
I don't think Trump unnerved them at all - they saw a kindred spirit as well as an easily flattered and manipulated narcissist. The North Koreans ran rings around him. And the Russians and Chinese, and de facto dictators all around the world, were able to point to all Trump's noise about stolen elections and the storming of the Capital and suchlike behaviour to argue to their citizens that the Western model of democracy was being finally unmasked as dangerous, flawed and doomed to failure.
I'm not sure Biden is any more or less than say Dubya at this point. His main plus is not being Trump. His main defect seems to be that he's quite happy to stick to a lot of Trumpian foreign policy of the "America First" variety. But since most other countries also pursue a strategy that puts their interests first, I'm not sure that collectively we can really object to "America First" that much without being deeply hypocritical. Brexit is, after all, nothing if not 100% "Britain First".
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 3, 2021 7:14:47 GMT
I am not sure when or where super suddenly became 12p a litre more expensive. It used to be 4-5p and I don't really get why the difference is now so great other than a form of price-gouging.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 2, 2021 21:16:02 GMT
I do think this is a non-issue for most of us with modern cars. Petrol has been E10 in much of continental Europe was years already and the same cars with the same engines run just fine on it over there - in fact cars in countries like Germany, France and Italy tend to do much higher mileages than they do in the UK.
My car’s done nearly 40k miles, and I’d think at least 25k of that was covers outside the UK and probably most of that using E10 petrol.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 2, 2021 21:11:09 GMT
Of course not everything Trump did was wrong or not useful. A broken clock is after all right twice a day. But I think the good was more by accident than design - he basically scared the rest of the world out of a complacent view that America would always be there to save the day.
Biden might not be especially impressive, nor Harris. But they are light years better than Trump and the people around him. People either forget that there was some seriously nasty shit there, or else perhaps that was in fact also their kind of shit. However it’s not mine and never will be.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 2, 2021 16:34:53 GMT
The world was a safer place with Trump in the White House. Biden poses a serious risk to world peace. Trump was orange and the media made fun of him and so he's stupid and anything he said was automatically wrong. Biden therefore is a brilliant and compassionate president, particularly with young woman and girls. I would guess that Trump never actually literally grabbed anyone by their pussy, but nevertheless I wouldn't pick behaviour towards women as a winning line of attack when seeking to contrast Trump with Biden.
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 2, 2021 16:30:12 GMT
As regards Afghanistan specifically, it was Trump's policy. Biden's error, depending on your point of view, was to continue the policy. Either way, this would not have gone better under Trump and to suggest otherwise would be unwise.
There was a good piece on this by Justin Webb in The Times recently for any of you with a subscription.
For what it's worth I don't remotely think the Biden administration is making life easier for the Xis and Putins of this world than Trump would have done.
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Post by racingteatray on Aug 31, 2021 21:36:47 GMT
They were available with electric seats. Probably a rare option on a 320d though.
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Post by racingteatray on Aug 31, 2021 21:34:09 GMT
I didn’t care much at all for the 330d I had, albeit of the previous generation. It was very good of course, but just not exciting.
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Post by racingteatray on Aug 27, 2021 15:20:41 GMT
Not convinced that the lack of fun factor in a 430d would be down to the transmission. I’d be more inclined to point the finger at the diesel engine and chassis control. I’ve never found myself wanting a manual change in my 440i - the only time I use the paddles is on twisters and they work well. The petrol engine is a pure delight in a way a diesel cannot be but while the handling is good, the chassis does run out of ideas especially on poorly surfaced roads and the car never feels that small.
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Post by racingteatray on Aug 17, 2021 14:15:07 GMT
Just read this morning’s Var Matin. Pretty bad overnight on the fire front. Keep safe Racing. Thanks. It was quite an uncomfortable and smoke-filled night but we are safe and it looks like it is under control, although a vast area got burned to a crisp. At one point I was worried we’d get stuck here as it looked like the roads out of this promontory would be blocked. But mercifully for us the wind switched just enough to direct the fire to the west of us but it came within about 10kms. It’s the closest our friends have had a fire come in the three decades they’ve had this villa.
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Post by racingteatray on Aug 16, 2021 19:54:23 GMT
We have been nowhere near the beach for that precise reason - surely one of the world’s most expensive ways to ensure you catch COVID would be to go to one of the beach clubs like 55! They are jam-packed. The joy of this villa is that it has a sizeable garden and huge infinity pool with a spectacular view, so we’ve just hung out here as a private house party with a group of friends, catching up, occasionally grabbing the binos to scope out some squillionaire’s particularly titanic mega-yacht, and then going down into town for strolls and pricey aperitifs!
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Post by racingteatray on Aug 16, 2021 19:29:32 GMT
Oh yes that is nice. Although it doesn’t have air suspension which I’m told is a must. The tarty white one has full PASM and air.
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Post by racingteatray on Aug 16, 2021 18:54:48 GMT
I’m unhappy about any fire I can actually see - just taken this from the end of the garden at the back of the house, looking inland:
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