The new news 24 thread

[Christine]

That looks perfect for a flash flood , and all the cars and houses are washed away

[goosey]

Body repairs  started on my Jeep, a friend of my son is doing the work 

[Yoss]

Had a couple of days off work and come back to find they've painted the box on my delivery. 

Shiny shiny. 

Though I hadn't really noticed it looked particularly shabby before. If they've got some red paint going spare they really ought to paint some of the vans. 

[auntiemaryscanary]

16 hours ago, Yoss said:

If they've got some red paint going spare they really ought to paint some of the vans. 

My local delivery office has some right shonkers. I think the newest is a 14 plate Doblo. They all look thoroughly f**ked, bet they drive beautifully*.

[Yoss]

10 minutes ago, auntiemaryscanary said:

My local delivery office has some right shonkers. I think the newest is a 14 plate Doblo. They all look thoroughly f**ked, bet they drive beautifully*.

We have a couple of 08 Combos that had been scrapped once but were pressed back in to service during covid but seem to have stayed since for some reason. 

I've also noticed the Vauxhalls look shitter than anything else. We have some 13 reg Vivaros that are also utterly pogweaseled yet the 11 and 12 plate Pug Partners are still quite red. They're still fucked, but they are still shiny. Vauxhall must have used different paint. 

[reb]

14 minutes ago, Yoss said:

We have a couple of 08 Combos that had been scrapped once but were pressed back in to service during covid but seem to have stayed since for some reason. 

I've also noticed the Vauxhalls look shitter than anything else. We have some 13 reg Vivaros that are also utterly pogweaseled yet the 11 and 12 plate Pug Partners are still quite red. They're still fucked, but they are still shiny. Vauxhall must have used different paint. 

My dad once told me "never under any circumstances, no matter how cheap, buy a van from royal mail"

It sounds like that will be easy since they never seem to get rid of them.

The postie that delivers to me has been turning up in a brand new smoll van of some description, however it is white not red, so I assume it's a hire van.

[320touring]

Uluru looks a bit rough these days

Just a short hop from Edinburgh to Copenhagen 

 

Their metro is cosplaying as the DLR

 

 

Absolutely brilliant city based on 37 mins in the centre...

Some reminders of Glasgow though.. good graffiti efforts

[richardmorris]

18 hours ago, Yoss said:

Had a couple of days off work and come back to find they've painted the box on my delivery. 

Shiny shiny. 

Though I hadn't really noticed it looked particularly shabby before. If they've got some red paint going spare they really ought to paint some of the vans. 

I thought GR and VR were rare, but apparently not. I’ve photographed a couple recently in Surrey, but Edward are rarer according to the post box hunters.

[comfortablynumb]

Just need a knitted post box topper now @Yoss😁 

Edit - did they leave the keys in it, or are you nicking all the birthday cards?

[wuvvum]

Different set of mountains this morning. 

[richardmorris]

14 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Different set of mountains this morning. 

Mount windy?

[Yoss]

1 hour ago, comfortablynumb said:

Just need a knitted post box topper now @Yoss😁 

Edit - did they leave the keys in it, or are you nicking all the birthday cards?

'They' is me. I have to empty it. I left the key in for photographic interest. 

[comfortablynumb]

Shot me down there didn't you @Yoss🤣

[artdjones]

2 hours ago, richardmorris said:

I thought GR and VR were rare, but apparently not. I’ve photographed a couple recently in Surrey, but Edward are rarer according to the post box hunters.

There's still some VR , ER, and GR boxes around in Ireland painted green. They never got round to chiselling the royal cipher off, or couldn't be bothered.

That's in Charleville, in County Cork.

[reb]

I found the charger for my cordless hair clippers while I was looking for something else.

I have a haircut booked for Tuesday.

I might just cancel that and buzz the whole lot off to save £20

[lesapandre]

Local Still Life

Flash, bang, wallop...az they say ere in Londin. This new on local cycle path - by a T-junction where bad tempers usually rule at rush hour...stuff all over the city's roads.

Name that car.

[grogee]

22 hours ago, Yoss said:

Had a couple of days off work and come back to find they've painted the box on my delivery. 

Shiny shiny. 

Though I hadn't really noticed it looked particularly shabby before. If they've got some red paint going spare they really ought to paint some of the vans. 

Ours are fucked too. Utterly battered. 

I wonder what business model says they should continue limping on with absolute beaters? Shirley they're in and out of a workshop all the time. 

A smarter company would have worked out a deal with a manufacturer - bulk buy order, discount in return for doing some real world reliability trials. Hard life - cold starts, start-stop, low speed, lots of idling, driven by people who definitely haven't time for mechanical sympathy. 

I wonder if they're tapping up mfrs for a boat load of electric vans? 

[Stinkwheel]

21 minutes ago, lesapandre said:

Local Still Life

Flash, bang, wallop...az they say ere in Londin. This new on local cycle path - by a T-junction where bad tempers usually rule at rush hour...stuff all over the city's roads.

Name that car.

With the bit of stray body armour and the type/ colours of plastics I’d say it was possibly a motorbike 

[somewhatfoolish]

That's Uluru's  cousin Bing.

[reb]

Well there we go.

£19 saved.

Is it as good as the haircut I would have paid for?

Absolutely not. 

It was however essentially free since I bought the clippers for £15 about a decade ago.

[lesapandre]

15 minutes ago, Stinkwheel said:

With the bit of stray body armour and the type/ colours of plastics I’d say it was possibly a motorbike 

Oh I do hope not. I did not hear or witness anything but it might have been an RTA. 

Awful junction at rush hour - a continuous line of traffic going out of London - with a side turning  where the traffic also backs up - and lots of pressure to 'pull out'.

[lesapandre]

2 minutes ago, reb said:

Well there we go.

£19 saved.

Is it as good as the haircut I would have paid for?

Absolutely not. 

It was however essentially free since I bought the clippers for £15 about a decade ago.

Looks fine. I cut my own with cordless. 25 years of cutting has saved a fortune.

And no hanging about 'barbers shops' with all the performative crap involved.

[EyesWeldedShut]

5 minutes ago, somewhatfoolish said:

That's Uluru's  cousin Bing.

I honestly thought they'd got rid of all of those (or at least done a better job of landscaping them). We were totally banned as kids from going anywhere near the ones around Ayr with dire warnings of falling into crevasses and getting burned (slowly) alive.

2 minutes ago, lesapandre said:

Looks fine. I cut my own with cordless. 25 years of cutting has saved a fortune.

And no hanging about 'barbers shops' with all the performative crap involved.

My missus does mine using the dog clippers - they do seem to be turning more of the black into grey each time though. Only 24 years though so I'm still a novice  - no way I'd try a DIY job - look at Van Goch?

[reb]

3 minutes ago, lesapandre said:

Looks fine. I cut my own with cordless. 25 years of cutting has saved a fortune.

And no hanging about 'barbers shops' with all the performative crap involved.

These are cordless clippers that I bought when I was 19 and wanted far more... interesting... hair than any barber around here would do at the time.

Really I would prefer to have a longer traditional scissor cut, but my success in actually getting one is remarkably low. They usually end up giving me this exact haircut whether I want it or not.

[Yoss]

1 hour ago, grogee said:

Ours are fucked too. Utterly battered. 

I wonder what business model says they should continue limping on with absolute beaters? Shirley they're in and out of a workshop all the time. 

A smarter company would have worked out a deal with a manufacturer - bulk buy order, discount in return for doing some real world reliability trials. Hard life - cold starts, start-stop, low speed, lots of idling, driven by people who definitely haven't time for mechanical sympathy. 

I wonder if they're tapping up mfrs for a boat load of electric vans? 

This used to be our business model. When I started we only kept vans for three years until they were auctioned off which is why you used to see so many ex postie vans being used by other people. 

But not any more. Most of our fleet at our office are 11 and 12 reg Pugs that were acquired when went from mostly cycle duties to shared vans. I don't think the plan at the time was that they'd still be here 13 years later. 

We used to replace a few vans each year so they got replaced on a rolling basis. Now the whole lot need replacing in one go and we obviously don't have the money for that. They are taking sweating the assets to whole new levels. 

I too wondered if they were just hanging on until they went electric but I've been wondering that for the last five years. It would make more sense to go back to pushbikes. 

[richardmorris]

Good walk this morning ( awful traffic and driving in Guildford). I’m always wary of cross at your peril gates. But I recommend chilworth gunpowder works for those locally and the views from st Martha’s were good.

[stuboy]

Nothing exciting bought a tool box from the boot fair.... when to pub for a cherry Pepsi max, and couple of noise motors.... the aston sounded awesome..

Random audi passed by

[richardmorris]

Don’t think I’d space a plate to spell out BO on the Aston!

[320touring]

2 hours ago, somewhatfoolish said:

That's Uluru's  cousin Bing.

Did you mean to quote my photo?

 

Bing Crosby isn't in this wan

[mat777]

It's been a day of "saved by the scrapper!"....

My Discovery refused to start without a jump on Saturday, turning over just not quite quickly enough for the ECU to let it fire as the autumn weather got to the elderly battery. It was also running a bit low on fuel. 

At my workshop today, I knew I had a nearly new battery of the right size and terminal arrangement in the "strategic battery reserve", that I'd taken out of the P38 I'm breaking...

 

I then set about working out a way to relieve the car of the half a tank of diesel I knew it still contained when I'd picked It up to break. It doesn't have a tank drain and I definitely didn't want to fight the anti-siphon device. So I hooked up a duff but not dead battery and disconnected the line from fuel filter to HP pump..... Then worked out which relay controlled the LP pump and bridged the contacts. Left it to do its thing into multiple containers before transferring to thirsty shite recipients!