Dabooka

Too late for me to request one?

Ha ha! Yes a world apart those two boozers! I went in once and found myself being accosted by Danny la Rue and friends Ah, you mean in relation to the beer barrel? The two differing holes found on a cask, the tut being the tap aperture (well the removable bung element) and the shive being the uppermost part which is vented (tapped) and often pegged with a spike (hence the Tap and Spile chain of boozers). It’s been a while so I may be rusty

The Dog and Parrot was renamed into one of Whitbread’s finest* chains, the Tut and Shive, until renaming back to the Dog in the mid noughties (when they sold all their pubs and focused on shite coffee). So for the locals it’s been the Dog, the Tut and now the Dog again.

That takes me back, my boozer (first as a customer then a barman) was further down the road; The Dog and Parrot although my time in the 90s it was the Tut n Shive. Had many a takeaway from Chilli, although when it was closed after a late night ‘Scotch John’s chippy for such delights as haggis and chips, sausage and chips, chips and chips… happy days

Back in my youth I used to all sorts of exciting things with these guys as part of a multi agency initiative with schools and so on, between the Rozzers, Captain Flack and us from the VAS taking on the role of the ambulance service. Think demos of patient extractions from car accidents with the roof being removed and other such nonsense. It was all jolly good japes. I recall being at a school in Blyth doing this and me and my chum were chatting to the police in their RS, who told us they’d got a Cavalier twin turbo (?) on trial. Apparently they put it up against the RS and his exact words were that ‘It came up on it like the Cozzie was going backwards’. Knowing little of performance cars aside from watching the stolen ones being blattered about the West End of Newcastle, I had no reason to disbelieve him. I do know that they had a mix of motors including some Lancers at some point. Apparently they also had an RS nicked from compound at North Shields before it got liveried up. 😆

Where’s that then? I mean roughly, not thinking of a raid!

I’ve just put an Exide AGM in my wife’s Pug and in my Saab 9-3. Subaru has a Bosch in it. I just get the best value branded batteries from Tayna, anything with a three year warranty is fine for me

Isn’t it where Wilko’s is now, runs between the two?

They’d be the wrong thing for the wrong car anyway. Or is that just me?

A bit of time spare today so I thought I’d check out the seals on the rear clusters. Once I’ve had a bit of water ingress into the boot and although there’s no evidence of a long term problem i want to know why. Firstly our drive is downward, meaning rain water pools on the ridge of the boot and then gets to surge backwards when driving on the level (or least that’s what I think is happening). To start off I removed the lights to clean out the gunk there. It isn’t too clear on the photograph but that’s all underneath the seal and mis-shapen it; Here’s a better picture of the deformed shape; Next I popped the plastic and rubber trim off, treating it a rub down of Autoglym’s rubber seal spray (or snake oil maybe but it seems to work). Popping it back was fiddly as it didn’t want to sit right. I think I’m going to leave it for a day or two and see if it returns to normal. I think it’ll need some kind of sealant applying under and around it? I assume I want any water to drain over the top of this? Repeated the same on the O/S light but that wasn’t mis-shapen. I know chasing leaks is an annoying task so I also placed some kitchen roll strategically in the wheel well to help identify where’s it getting in. Back to work tomorrow so nowt much will happen until the weekend anyway. Oh and I think I’ll replace the boot struts at some point as one is cracked at the top socket. Not leaking mind.

Makes more sense! Well a £400 garage bill today for a general fettle but that’s it, all sorted. Also turns out I had two fucked springs and a top mount! Oh well, the missus is pleased so I’m claiming a result

Well tonight after seeing off some friends we notice a nice red LED flashing on the top of the dash, alarm active I assume. Neither of us can recall seeing this previously, is this just us being not very attentive or has it recently been activated?

The worrying thing is I’d be really tempted on that as a runner.

Quite a reasonable day. Started by swapping over the ICM1 for a upgrade* to the ICM2, this one having the Aux in enabled. Swapping over was fairly straight forward with only the routing of the cable to the armrest cubby proving to be a bit fiddly. See below for green screen awesomeness, with the pretty pointless ICM1 beneath. I’m not sure of the difference to be honest other than the screen, they seem to have the same functionality. I’m sure there’s something otherwise why would Saab have bothered? The previous owner decided to hack the cable up and patch in a 3.5mm jackplug which he routed to the space beneath the ashtray and plugged in his whatever (phone I assume). The ‘patching’ was appalling so as I wanted to increase the length of the cable I sorted that out. I still only a jackplug in the cubby box as I don’t have the pieces needed, I’ll probably get a panel mount socket and put it in the correct location and I’ll figure out the power outlet in there too. Then I’ll concoct some kind of Bluetooth widget to stream some tunes. This is what awaited me under layers of insulation tape and heat shrink; Here it is all of it’s glory. Somewhat randomly I now have the heated seat option. Score! Oh wait, I still have no heating elements or buttons. Oh well… Also replaced one of the key fobs for a genuine* Saab item from China and fitted proper button cells from Panasonic. Pound shop specials just never seem to last. Blade is bit wrecked on both so might look at getting a few new ones cut for niceness. I’ve cleaned up all the gunk but the rubber finish has perished. Last job was replacing the car battery. I’m certain the other was on the way out as twice it’s gone flat after working on the car so for forty odd quid why risk it? (Also did the one on the Peugeot family bus but these Stop Start jobs are a lot more than forty odd quid…!) It’s into the garage on Tuesday to get the brakes a proper once over. I’m not happy at all and need some confidence in the car before I let the missus out in the wild, so for peace of mind we’ll let the professionals have a look.

Ah I see.