Markeh

Price difference on parts between countries is insane sometimes. When I replaced the front camera on my Qashqai, it was going to be about £500 from my local Nissan dealer. £300 all in inc import charges from a Nissan dealer in Texas, confirmed the correct part from the VIN.

I had a brilliant one like this about 12 years ago - East Midlands to Dalaman in Turkey. On the way out, it had a stop in Bodrum. Alright, makes sense. On the way back... stops in Edinburgh first then East Midlands... and because it's the first place you get to in the UK, we had to go all the way through the airport, back through security and back on the plane. Did mean you had to leave your duty free on the plane because you wouldn't have necessarily got it back through security! Thankfully the rather dismal airline responsible, Onur Air, no longer exist.

Yeah mine was set to go up £250 until I rang Admiral and complained, got it back down to almost what I paid last year. Comparison sites weren't offering me anything decent either. If that's how bad things are this year without me claiming I'm glad I fixed my little accident myself!

Had the exact same head unit in my Megane II. Was honestly brilliant. Even kept it for 3 years after selling the car in case I bought something that took a single DIN unit again.

I'll have you know it's called Fort Latitude

My work situation is somewhat problematic at the moment (getting tons of shit flung our way and being expected to deal with it with a smile). While I greatly appreciate being invited out this evening with a number of friends, one of whom is a manager (not mine) who is happy to have honest and helpful conversations about how to progress despite all this crap, where I'm going wrong and where I'm doing things right, I'd rather have those discussions in work or just after work - not at a time when I'm trying to bloody forget work and then proceed to keep thinking about it all bloody night - if that didn't completely kill the mood and make me want to go home, stumbling over a kerb and twisting my ankle certainly did!

I was passed by PET 17E earlier on a newer Range Rover Sport. Not sure if named for irony or a massive Jackie Wilson fan.

Had this happen in the shop the other day. Old chap in front of me at the till, kept asking for various things, checking of lottery tickets, getting some scratchcards, that kind of thing. Cashier is doing all this perfectly fine and asking to clarify a couple of bits or telling him that this one wasn't a winner, he's won x amount here, etc. Every time she spoke to him he asked her to repeat it, then when she was turned away looked at me (the only other white person in the shop) and made a comment like 'ridiculous, isn't it?' or 'speak english!' thinking I'd approve. There was a knowing look between myself and the cashier along the lines of "what an utter dickhead". The chap was quite slow sorting his stuff out when leaving so we ended u pleaving at the same time. As we get outside he starts going on about everything being ridiculous, coming over here, all that crap, clearly thinking I'm approving of what he said. Disappointed I could only manage a 'Not really... if you don't like it use another shop' and muttering under my breath as I walked away, rather than telling him precisely what I thought.

Not enough, judging by this thread! In my nearly 10 years on the road I've only managed 8 and technically only 4 of those were bought as daily drivers: 1999 Vauxhall Corsa Envoy 1.0 12v - for a year 2004 Renault Megane 1.6 VVT Dynamique - for 3 and a half years 2004 Peugeot 206 SW 1.4 S (bought to flip) - for about a month, maybe 6 weeks 2018 Nissan Qashqai 1.6 DIG-T Tekna - for 3 and a half years 2007 Fiat Sedici 1.6 Dynamic (bought to flip - should've kept!) - for about 6 weeks 2010 Vauxhall Meriva 1.6 Twinport Club (bought to flip - should've kept!) - for about 3 months 2012 Skoda Octavia Scout 2.0 CR 140 4x4 ex-paramedic/blood bikes (bought to flip) - 48 whole hours! 2021 Nissan Qashqai 1.3 DIG-T MH Tekna - a year and a bit so far, on the hook for it for another 2 and a half unless I chop it in early.

As apparently driven by Michael Schumacher back in the day. I tried unsuccessfully to win one of these near me on an Ebay auction.

Let's throw another Nissan in the mix - I think most people would walk straight past the generation of Pathfinder (mid-00s to early 10s) we got in the UK and just assume it was one of the few Navaras that hasn't split in half already with a Truckman top.

My gran loved hers - she had a 1.8 SE in this grey, 05 plate. Replaced by a trio of Notes. My entry for this would be the Fiat Idea, I only remembered this was a thing because of the recent Furious Driving video!

For once, I've had a free uninterrupted day to get stuck into a load of computers lying around that kept getting in the way and cluttering up the house. It's felt strangely good for the soul to be able to chuck some music on (today's particular choice is live concerts that are on YouTube - Pete Tong and the Heritage Orchestra doing Ibiza classics, and the Avicii tribute concert from a few years ago), forget about the day job and other shite going on and just crack on pissing about with computers and getting the to-do list that bit shorter.

Nope, I feel it too. Keep having to try even harder to get the same amount of joy from a lot of things - which is not good for my free time/mental health/wallet/waistline (delete as appropriate).

0800 00 1066...

Ooh I don't know about that, there were a couple of interesting motors in mine, admittedly about 12 years ago. One of the TAs had a K-reg Rover 416, a science teacher had a modified late 90s Civic, and one of the SLT used to have a C-reg Renault 4.

Very limited amounts of interesting in my current works car park - it's usually exec team and visitors only. All modern SUVs apart from the CEO with a Tesla Model S and one of the directors with a BMW M4. Respect to the C-level exec still rocking a 60 plate Freelander though. At my previous job, we had 3/4 of the building and a consultancy firm had the other 1/4 - one of them had a 70s Beetle of some description. Most of us didn't have anything interesting - someone had an Audi S5 with the V8, we had one guy with a Harley that you could hear half a mile down the road, and someone had an E36 coupe for a bit. Most of the devs were keeping up the shiter end of the car park - For the first 4 months of the job I still had my Megane, we had one alternating between a Zafira B and a Ph1 Mk2 Clio, one had a Smart Roadster before I started but just kept buying random crap to get to work in (I remember a Corsa C, a 206 and a 106 - now has a new Fiesta ST). My mate had an early Mk3 2.5 V6 Mondeo Ghia X in what I think was Juice Green looking back - was a magificient beast but eventually he chopped that in for a Freelander and then as working from home kicked in, a 207. I later saw the Mondeo outside a garage near me - it had been bought from a trade auction and was being used for a banger rally and had been impressively graffiti'd all over - Carbaba indicates it's not been scrapped but it hasn't been MOT'd since after he traded it in. Interestingly the CEO that left shortly before we were made redundant drove round in an immaculate 57 plate Citroen C3 - believe it was his mothers that he inherited - Given the MOT history indicates it had a grand total of 8000 miles in 2017 and was still only on 33k when it failed its last one in December, I'm inclined to believe it (and don't blame him for getting use out of it!). Don't think it's still his given his career change, he's a current Tory MP.

Cruise, DAB, CarPlay/Android Auto and basically all of the heated things, whether it be seat, wheel or screen. Hill hold's not bad either.

I'm using it for gaming as well so gone Logitech G535 to replace my existing HyperX Cloud II. Sadly my company's budget will stretch to the cheapest nastiest USB headset.

Currys. I'm after a new headset - the wire on this one keeps getting caught on things in the mess that is my office and if my headset comes ever so slightly unplugged my mic cuts out - and it is pissing me off in calls at work - I finally snapped today after nearly tripping over the wire and went to buy a wireless one. Same price as Amazon but it said click and collect today from a nearby store. Fine, no problem, I needed to head out anyway. Only the email with the receipt on it said 'Estimated delivery - Monday' and lo and behold I've not had the 'it's ready for collection' email. Everything up until me purchasing it said collection today. I could've had the damn thing off Prime by tomorrow for no extra money without leaving the house. Utter bollocks.

As a fat fucker, I quite like cars with folding mirrors as it makes my life much easier in car parks. The Nissan can be set to fold and unfold on lock/unlock, so I use it as a nice visual indicator of whether I remembered to lock it or not. The electric tailgate however can FRO. If one more person pulls the bloody thing manually I might scream. I've had all sorts of things fly out of the boot when opened, which if it had been manual, I could've opened it slowly or been able to catch them. I hated the hands free bit at first because I could never get it to work but I have now worked out roughly where I need to wave my foot. The most irritating bit on the Nissan is the fact it emits 3 loud beeps when you open and close the boot. I'm sure my neighbours love me when I'm getting something out of the car late at night.

The O2's £29 for their event parking, but it covers you from 1am on the day of the event til 1am the next morning - so if you're travelling down, there's nothing to stop you making a day of it, then going to your event then back to your car. I've also never queued to leave for more than 5 minutes. Last thing I saw at Wembley (Ed Sheeran, probably one of the ones attracting those high parking rates)I paid £30 to park on someone's drive, time before that I got into one of the multi storeys for £20 - admittedly I don't think anyone's charging £100 parking on the day of a Manic Street Preachers gig. Didn't really encounter any issues leaving. London Stadium was by far the worst. Did two gigs there in 3 days (Hella Mega Tour then Red Hot Chili Peppers). First one, found a driveway to park on for £6 four stops up the Central line. That would've been great but it took us that long to get from the stadium to the tube station due to crowd management, then when we got there only a third of the tube trains were going that way (I think at that time of night most of the trains were going halfway up the Hainault loop) and what was there was rammed. Ended up getting on whatever we could, travelling two stops up then getting an Uber to the car. Second time, sacked that idea off, parked at Westfield. Think it was sub-£20, but a mammoth wait to get out of the car park. My usual trick for central London is to ditch the car at Stanmore, fairly cheap car park next to the station, particularly on weekends, and not far from the M1. High price of parking has given me some man maths excuses to see more gigs though - so when my cousin used to get the £5 gig tickets through her work, sure, it was £5, but add £30 to park and at least the same again in petrol. If I wait for them to come to Nottingham, it's £5 max on the bus there and back and maybe a £40 ticket for instance.

Nah NHS tax class still needs to be (or at least CAN be) applied for I believe - My old blood bikes Octavia was NHS tax class and showed as taxed online.

Work's been shit for the past few months, one factor of which has been disagreements/lack of support from our manager. He got sacked today. Short term grump while we scramble to cover what he was doing, but long term grin I think.

Must be a thing for ThinkPads, my parcel that went walkabout was a T460!