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Prague.
Dec 24, 2023 10:28:51 GMT
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Post by Big Blue on Dec 24, 2023 10:28:51 GMT
We’ll be heading to Prague for a day trip early next week. Have you been to see the giant swivelling head yet, it’s behind a shopping centre in the middle? We were only there for a one day stop over. W2.1 had some specialist beauty treatment voucher to use and Prague had one of the clinics. We’re going to go for longer in the better weather in 2024.
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Post by Big Blue on Dec 24, 2023 10:26:00 GMT
... but did you get any snow? The week I spent in Berlin at the start of December really put me in the Christmas spirit, with snow and ice on the ground and the temperature varying between minus 4 and zero. Plenty of Christmas markets everywhere helped too. Yeah. We had snow.
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Post by Big Blue on Dec 23, 2023 14:45:48 GMT
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VW ID2
Dec 23, 2023 8:33:18 GMT
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Post by Big Blue on Dec 23, 2023 8:33:18 GMT
I quite liked that. Good city / second / commute car that looks like it has a car interior that doesn’t assume all drivers will be teenagers. The MINI is our second car and does about 200miles on a tank over the course of 6 weeks or so. We probably are / should be electric car customers for that one.
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Post by Big Blue on Dec 17, 2023 12:15:15 GMT
They are popular, desirable cars which have offered scrotes and scumbags huge returns as whole vehicles or in bits. It would be good to know what the police are doing about finding the gangs responsible and breaking up their distribution networks. This.
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Post by Big Blue on Dec 15, 2023 14:33:57 GMT
No. Car has heated seats, heated steering wheel, pre-climate. I get infuriated with W2.1 when after about 50metres of leaving the driveway she’s complaining about the heat in the car (although she’s that sort of age now…..) when she’s got three tops and a coat on.
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Post by Big Blue on Dec 15, 2023 14:24:48 GMT
Oof. Glad no serious injuries. Agreed that the buggeration is now the most annoying factor.
Ford driver crossed a dual carriageway without checking both lanes were clear. Clearly never ridden a bicycle or motorbike.
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Post by Big Blue on Dec 12, 2023 15:45:44 GMT
I had the AA one for the Gorilla. Never had to use it so no idea if it was anything more than peace of mind.
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Post by Big Blue on Dec 12, 2023 9:33:54 GMT
Beginning of March to end of October : every three weeks.
Winter: once, but then it’s not used much.
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Post by Big Blue on Dec 12, 2023 9:30:47 GMT
1. The BMW packaging strategy is often all wrong for paying customers and is based on what dealers see as the most shiftable AUCs i.e. the original purchaser doesn’t matter as much as the second buyer.
2. The iX2 is revolting and no amount of FG will make it any better looking.
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Post by Big Blue on Dec 8, 2023 15:06:14 GMT
The Autogefuehl one side by side with the Merc was interesting. The door bin quality issue stood out as a real differentiator - piss poor to save pennies in the touchy-feely areas.
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Post by Big Blue on Dec 1, 2023 19:31:24 GMT
Feels like you are starting the mental journey to justifying the purchase of one... Not quite but I like 5er estates so I have to consider it a high likelihood at some point. I’m still perfectly happy with Eva but mindful that it’s hassle free being not that old. I also don’t like the back end of this new 5er saloon at all so await spring 2024’s reveal with some trepidation. The two big exterior swings for buying the LCI G31 were the hockey stick front lights and the design treatment of the rear light over the launch G31. The G60 isn’t looking like the G61 will have the same effect.
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Post by Big Blue on Dec 1, 2023 12:36:23 GMT
Price is an interesting thing. Auto Express did the maths and inflation adjusted the base E34 520 was more expensive than a base i5. In other aspects price is also interesting. Inflation adjustment of my first house puts it at around 33% of the price paid for our current house at the date of purchase. Not sure the current one feels three times better or more special.
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Post by Big Blue on Dec 1, 2023 10:53:39 GMT
Complete opposite of Auto Express Test, who loved the interior, the quality of materials, the systems architecture. They admitted it’s more comfortable than sporty and size-wise why you’d ever have a 7er.
Looks are a subjective matter and two tests opposite one another probably indicate that personal opinion is generally a big deciding factor.
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Up!date
Nov 27, 2023 8:03:19 GMT
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bryan likes this
Post by Big Blue on Nov 27, 2023 8:03:19 GMT
Super car. These were on the short list when the Mini was being looked for.
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Post by Big Blue on Nov 21, 2023 11:08:27 GMT
The ergonomics of minor controls seems to have been thrown in the bin in favour of “all in one place”. Perhaps this is what the younger generations want, in which case I fear for their sex lives because the orifices available are hopefully never in the same place!
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Post by Big Blue on Nov 20, 2023 10:58:48 GMT
As I pointed out in another thread, the proliferation of flat screens in cars has led to a cheapening of the experience. There’s also the fact we’re all old.
Modern interiors are, one assumes, designed and developed by young designers with their finger up their arse on the pulse of society so as far as they are concerned everyone now and in the future wants everything they interface with to look and feel like an iPad / Chromebook / cheap-Chinese-shite. They also assume most customers will want to talk to their cars to make them do things, so saying “hey BMW, massage my lower back” as opposed to pressing the massage icon on the touchscreen, or (heaven forfend) pressing the seat massage function button is preferred.
Car architecture is like real architecture - we travel the world to see buildings built by skilled craftsmen using natural materials designed by artists with design features that make us want to visit them and photograph them. Then a new building is placed in a prominent position and it’s a bit of engineered steel clad in glass. To sit next to the other buildings in engineered steel covered in glass. Because the new client thinks that’s great. His accountant thinks he can afford it. His Architect thinks it looks fabulously modern and expresses the capabilities of the modern world. The services engineer thinks it’s really efficient and the planner says it’s fits in with the dullness of everything else.
We walk past the ground floors of such buildings without looking up on our way to visit a dilapidated stone ruin to take photographs to print and show on our walls.
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Post by Big Blue on Nov 16, 2023 20:45:51 GMT
We live in the London Borough of Sutton, on the border of the Royal London Borough of Kingston upon Thames and the Borough of Epsom & Ewell. Rows of 1920s an 1930s Wates built houses. Recently this image has appeared for the local survey. Now to get that view of what is Carshalton you need to be standing in the middle of the duck pond. You can’t see that building (All Saints church) if you drive past for two reasons: there’s a wall alongside the road and the road alongside the pond is so narrow that you and your passengers are bracing for what appears to be a head-on collision. The approach from the right of that stretch (just before the convent school, StPhilomena’s) is a stretch of grim housing with those rows of roads off to each side. That situation continues after you’ve gone through the right-left jink on the left. The area behind the photographer, beyond the road over the pond, is the Wrythe, a particularly unpicturesque part of Carshalton. However don’t let that put you off: Sutton can be beautiful as this picture shows. That they didn’t use a photograph of Sutton itself tells you all you need to know. ps. I like where I live for the green spaces, deciduous trees, easy access to just about any transport hub but sometimes I wish there were more views like this available.
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Post by Big Blue on Nov 15, 2023 9:50:47 GMT
Lovely thing. Is yours a living one or a garage queen? I bet it doesn't look silly with a tall person on it....... It’s a project. Alas time means it will be a project for sale. When it is running you’re right: I look like I’m on a mini-moto. I could get away with it when I was 75kg and bendy but I’m neither any longer. At least I can say I’ve had every iteration of NSR250. MC16, 18, 21 and 28 - all JDM-only bikes.
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Post by Big Blue on Nov 14, 2023 20:09:34 GMT
www.autotrader.co.uk/bike-details/202311133916948Won’t mean much to many of you but a 250 2-stroke with 76,000kms will have almost no original engine parts, including the con-rods and barrels! even if it is a Honda. I can see from the screen fittings that the screen is new and I’d assume the fairing uppers are also aftermarket - they break at the mirror point and OE ones make rocking horse shit look commonplace. Despite the obvious insanity of the high asking price I’m glad it’s so mad. I have one as well.
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Post by Big Blue on Nov 13, 2023 16:30:50 GMT
Really, it made me despair about SUV's generally, and wonder again why so many are sold! This is the issue for car lovers - cars aren’t really built for us they’re built for the market. The vast majority of customers couldn’t give a shit about handling, feel or even ride if the seats are comfy enough. Is it safe, does it send the right messages (wealth, status, environment) and is it comfortable are the questions. Modern car owners take it for granted they all start first time and stop and go as required. Consider it like me buying a TV compared to some others. I want it to be this big, this connectable, future proof for 5 years and cost whatever I set my TV budget at (about £500-600). A few of you in here would sooner poke needles in your eyes than have to look at a mildly warm Panasonic 4K 50” led.
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Post by Big Blue on Nov 7, 2023 14:35:59 GMT
. As an aside a Skoda Superb 280 Estate is most definitely all the car you would ever need. Yes. That’s where I ended up after watching the review.
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Post by Big Blue on Nov 7, 2023 10:44:29 GMT
Just watched the Autogefuhl review of next year’s Škoda Superb estate and aside from the fact it looks like what the next 5er should look like one thing made me look up. There is an addressable physical switch, among other analogue switches (including temperature). You can select 4 functions from the big screen and assign them to the rotary dial, so Volume, map zoom and stuff like that. It’s a bit like the assignable buttons on the current 5er, which will disappear from the next, and I’m guessing other cars offer this assignable feature. If not they should: it’s a simple solution to the problem of having to look or touch a screen to do stuff.
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Post by Big Blue on Nov 6, 2023 13:32:54 GMT
If you saw Alonso holding off Perez with judicious battery use for about 12 laps then re-pass him using DRS on the last lap in a car clearly inferior you can have no doubts about his being in the pantheon of true greats. He’s made some poor team-politics judgements over the years and was robbed of a Ferrari title by a flying Romain Grosjean at Spa but his driving skills and race craft are pretty well unmatched these days.
When Mansell was a whining Brummie he retained a huge fan base because he had car control skills and balls-out faith that exceeded most others. Alonso is an old has-been but still has a huge fan base because he is a driver the like of which well not see many of again.
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Post by Big Blue on Nov 4, 2023 20:15:47 GMT
Ye gads!
Is that a joke? Must be. That’s ludicrously bad.
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Post by Big Blue on Nov 2, 2023 23:12:52 GMT
You'd think. I'm in Chelsea & Fulham, which is pretty true blue, but apparently our MP (Greg Hands, Tory Chairman) is considered at risk this time around.
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Post by Big Blue on Nov 2, 2023 10:07:28 GMT
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Post by Big Blue on Nov 1, 2023 7:46:56 GMT
I am not a fan of this government, but I'm even less a fan of the Labour party. I am really scared for what they will do to people like us and the country in general. As retired people without a nice index linked government backed pension, we rely on our pension pot and our investments to live. Both of these will be prime targets for Labour once they do the few weeks in "there's-no-money-emergency-budget-rip-up-their-manifesto-commitments-on-tax-and-have-at-it" volte face. I expect to see NI expanded to include areas of income currently not covered - in the name of fairness of course. The left are just gagging to introduce some form of wealth tax or increase other taxes on people who have the temerity to own stuff or have money. I'm not a fan of Labour. I would not trust them as far as I could throw them. “No, you don’t need to worry about your pension, Mr. Bond: we expect you to die.” From the Covid enquiry.
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Post by Big Blue on Oct 28, 2023 17:56:36 GMT
You clearly need to understand that you’ve jumped to a conclusion based on some defensive mechanism. My actual words were ( go back and have a look) “The Conservatives forced the entire country to vote on a matter to resolve a decades-old internal party argument; they knee-jerk reacted to the far right because they feared a politician that had never won a parliamentary seat ever”
The reference to the referendum related wholly to a long known internal Conservative Party rift, predating almost all, if not all, of us on this forum. The second point related to the party’s shift to the right and the cause of it. There can be no argument that the party moved further right (towards nationalism) and the party itself acknowledged that this was required to avoid losing votes to whatever Farridge called his Nazi party wannabes that week. If you doubt my point about voting numbers in the Red wall seats, that can be looked up to see how many votes became blue because of the positioning, perceived or otherwise, of the parties on nationalism. So the needless jump is entirely yours, including in your latest post where you automatically align nationalism with racism. My wife is very white and the Slavic bloodlines are likely purer than any Western European ones. My mother has “mixed race” on her birth certificate and was born in Cape Town in 1940. The former has suffered overt nationalism from Soviet Russians, Magyar and Brits in her lifetime. The latter - being mixed race in 1940s and 50s South Africa - I’ll let you imagine.
Firstly, don’t take offence at posts that aren’t aimed at any individual: I didn’t suggest anyone here voted in any manner based on a shift towards nationalism by the ruling party. Secondly, certainly don’t try and take the high ground because you’re not racist and have a foreign wife. That’s just normal.
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Post by Big Blue on Oct 25, 2023 8:58:37 GMT
Yeah sure Labour could do a lot of daft stuff but, fuck me, they've been given some good examples by the useless cunts currently in charge. Before anyone jumps down my throat I have NEVER voted Labour and will probably not do so this time around. I'm not sure what the solution, politically, to all this is but the current system no longer appears to be working. This is where I am.
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