The new news 24 thread

[cort16]

erm..

http://blog.caranddriver.com/mgs-icon-concept-unveiled-in-china-beijing-auto-show/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+caranddriver%2Fblog+%28Car+and+Driver%29

 

Chinese-owned MG unveiled a concept SUV called the Icon at the Beijing show, but we’re thinking it would have been more accurately named Iconoclastâ€â€which means one who attacks cherished beliefs and institutions.

[SambaS]

Oh Christ

[tonedepear]

Has it got a Tranfromers hologram on the roof?

 

Edit: It also seems to have trafficators. Winnah.

 

Regardless, I reckon it looks fab.

[dollywobbler]

Isn't that the new Land Rover?

[tonedepear]

Isn't that the new Land Rover?

 

Nah, it's the next gen Juke.

[wuvvum]

I finally bit the bullet today and invested in a new sat nav, to replace the ancient Navman iCN 510 that I bought secondhand from Cash Converters five years ago. It still works, but it takes forever to pick up satellites and the maps are hopelessly out of date, plus it will only search on the first part of the post code. My phone has GPS capability and seems to pick up a signal more quickly than the Navman, but the main issue with relying on the phone is that it doesn't have maps installed - it downloads them from Google Maps as it goes - which means that in areas where there's a weak or nonexistent Vodafone signal it won't work. So I bought the cheapest sat nav in the Argos catalogue - a £49.99 Binatone job. It's basic but it does the job, and acquires a signal far more quickly than the old one. The only drawback I've found so far compared to the Navman is it won't display your speed on the map screen - you have to go to the GPS status screen, which shows speed to the nearest 0.1mph and altitude to the nearest yard. I also doubt it will last as long as the Navman (which is 7 years old now), but it should get me about for a while.

 

Also bought Need for Speed: The Run for the PS3, so will doubtless be playing that over the weekend, especially if the weather is as shit as they say it's going to be.

[Tayne]

This has never happened to me before while a car has been in my ownerships, I found it strangely exciting!:

 

 

 

Is that a Nissan Bluebird?

Or is there another car with two tripmeters?

[eddyramrod]

That batch of Vanguards I posted about? Being grumpy about having to advertise them? They sold today, first phone call, for the advertised price. The bloke is a collector with an estimated 1000-strong inventory, and likes police cars especially. Hmm, might be my twin brother! We're going to have to inspect each other's collections, especially as he says he might buy more.

[barefoot]

Broke Porsche last night.

 

It's got the sports seats with the ridiculously fat side bolsters.

To avoid wearing these out, I have spent the last 200,000 miles

sliding the seat backwards to get out & forwards to drive.

 

The lever snapped off in my hand leaving the seat so far back

I can't reach the pedals.

 

I shall be looking for a scrap seat from which to pilfer the lever this afternoon.

[dollywobbler]

Maverick misfire seems to have gone. Must be the new leads as I haven't got around to fitting the new coil. Oh well. Nice to have a spare!

[ashmicro]

PRAISE BE! My neighbour's wi-fi is back on so pictures work and pages load in seconds as opposed to minutes =DDD

 

 

You need to have a read at The Telephone Misuse Act.

 

Anyways, I was on a job today, and went a bit "Hirst" I shall explain.

 

I got a phone call last eventide from my buddy Devlin at the NI Civil Service IT Group.

Dev: "Andy mate, it's Dev. Sorry about the short notice, but we've a job for you in the morning. Interested?"

Me: "Aye, alright Dev mate, what's the crack?"

Dev: "It's the main stack @ xx. We're a bit flat out at the minute with a bad segment @ yy. No, fuck that I'll level with you - we haven't a cunting bastard arse bollocking FUCKING CLUE what's wrong" (I thought it was Watanabe I was talking to for a minute )

 

Anyway, sorted out that I'd arrive whenever suited me this morning (usual arrangement for short notice jobs. As it happened I needed to look after my little niece for an hour today), and I'd give it a blatter. I arrived at xx, signed in the contractors' book and got my pass. I was just shooting the breeze for a few seconds with the security staff* when some white-shirted twat comes along actually TAPPING his fucking watch. "What time do you call this? I'll be having words with your superior. You were late before, I remember" he said, big-timing it in front of the security team and the dozen or so others in the large main entrance lobby.

 

I said "Who the fuck do you think you are, short arse? Alex fucking Ferguson? I agreed to come here when it suited ME. Suddenly, I don't fancy it. YOU can explain to the Head Shed why your computer network is still fucked. I'm Oscar Sierra. See ya"

 

White Shirt just stood there and blinked at me, in silence, and all the while I'm thinking Norris Cole from Corrie and trying not to laugh as I had my War face on.

 

"Oh, he says eventually "you're not here about the lift, then?

 

"No, I am not", I said, playing to the assembled folks in the lobby, all of whom were watching, "but I reckon I could have a good go at a lift. I mean, how hard can it be?"

 

Everyone just laughed, White Shirt looked as if he wished the lift shaft would swallow him up, and then just walked off. Bit of a ramble, but my point is this: talk to people as you would wish to be spoken to. All White Shirt had to do was ask me was I there about the lift. Mind you, the Lift Tech, late or not, doesn't deserve to be spoken to like that either.

 

I got the job done (not the lift, sadly, although I wouldn't mind seeing how one works), happy Civil Service folks in multitude, nice cheque on the way. I really should have gone to find White Shirt and (a) apologised, and ( thanked him for reminding me PRECISELY why I left the Civil Service.

 

 

* Security bods. As a contractor, one learns that security are the ones to "keep in" with - they know EVERYTHING, and are almost always the most down to earth and sensible folks on any given site. Also, the main man on the job above was in the same regiment as me, albeit 14 years before me.

[cort16]

I totally agree with that. Speak to people as you wish to be spoken to and you'll be alright.

[eddyramrod]

...revenge on management type

 

Well done! And yes, absolutely right, treat people as you would wish to be treated. That never worked for me in England, but it seems to go down well enough with Cypriots. You and the lift man are specialists, called in to do something nobody else there can do. As far as I can see, that automatically accords you a level of respect. There's still an awful lot of squire-and-serf mentality in management; about 199% too much.

[TimothyClaypole]

Neighbours Wifi is free game if they are with BT if you are on the "Fon" thingie.

 

 

(They promise you Broadband but you get 512k and then they allow any passing faggot to tap in to an already shit connection).

[HMC]

Got bored of the MGB so have swapped it and a rotten Austin A35 for a Farmer's 1950s Morris Oxford

[dollywobbler]

Got bored of the MGB so have swapped it and a rotten Austin A35 for a Farmer's 1950s Morris Oxford

 

Blimey. An MO? Pics please!

[ashmicro]

Cheers lads. Eddy, while I take your point about specialists being accorded a degree of respect, some of the cunts I used to work with needed a reminder in how to treat human beings as such, never mind specialists. Actually, by and large, people in Northern Ireland are usually quite polite and friendly, and helpful too. A quick example is when me and my mate called into a petrol station one time to get smokes and the big fella in front of us in the queue went down on the deck with a very obvious heart attack. My mate Daz, also an ex soldier gave him CPR, I got aspirin off one of the shelves to give him to chew, a woman gave me her coat to put under his head and about 10 people called an ambulance. The man was OK. Here's the thing: a while later, the petrol station staff put up a poster, made by the man's kids, saying "Thank You to everybudy (sic) who helped my Daddy Colin Hempton"

 

Belfast Royal Victoria Hospital actually phoned the Carrickfergus Milestone (the petrol station) to tell them that Mr Hempton was OK, and to ask them to pass on the news to whoever asked, as they had been inundated with phone calls.

 

Now square that with the 40 years we were killing each other. Weird, eh?

[ashmicro]

Neighbours Wifi is free game if they are with BT if you are on the "Fon" thingie.

 

 

(They promise you Broadband but you get 512k and then they allow any passing faggot to tap in to an already shit connection).

 

So some twat uses your FON to download child pornography. Discuss.

[ashmicro]

What BT are doing could be classed as "abstraction of electricity" as if you connected to a open network that you didn't have authorisation to that's what the owner can go to Civil court with. Never mind if it is showing the same Public ip as you own the if someone is downloading illegal contain Its going to be our heads as BT will claim it wasn't them.

[cort16]

I was out for a night out in Glasgow a couple of years which is a city not un-customed to knocking the shite out each other when some tramp started knocking lumps out his girl friend on the street. Within a couple of seconds folk who you'd have written off neds had broken it up and helped the women to the side of the road and sat with her until the ambulance arrived. It doesn't mean one of them wouldn't stab another one later on. The world's an odd place!

[ashmicro]

Amen to that. Like the time the wee girl got knocked down, totally by accident at the set of traffic lights at the bottom (Republican) end of the Oldpark Road. We were manning a Vehicle Checkpoint (VCP) and being VERY alert. The child just walked into the road. Thankfully, the car didn't hit her that hard as the driver slewed and jammed on the brakes. It was a red mark 1 Fiesta. Net went apeshit, RUC arrived like the A Team, and we had Cosbies arriving in force as Bravo. The child had swallowed her tongue, and one of my UDR oppos fished it out and got her breathing. As the civilian ambulance took her away we got a round of applause from the populace. There were no Shamrock BRF (or Battlefield Recognition Flashes) in those days, and I remember one of our crew (who I didn't know personally) shouting to the assembled lot " WE'RE IRISH TOO"

 

Another round of applause, but as we all know, and sadly, that wasn't the end of it.

 

Nowt so queer as folk, as Pete M and other Yorkshiremen would say

 

only kidding Pete, I know you're from Manchester.

[TimothyClaypole]

You can PAYG with the BT stuff too, so I could buy an airtime credit and rock up outside anyone's house and download away.

 

And as a BT customer you can access them for free.

 

 

I'm just annoyed having to watch the smug students on tv in between watching the slideshows on YouTube, some idiot told me they were videos the other day, as if...

[Pete-M]

Well, it looks like my Czech Escort collecting trip will have to be postponed.

 

Just time wasters and messers with the 604, so that's that. I'll fly out to Czech next weekend, see how the car is doing, and fly back.

 

I am monumentally pissed off about this, I don't think I've priced the Pug unreasonably considering its rarity and the amount of work that has gone into it, it's just an unloved-by-the-masses car. 90 people watching it on eBay, 3100 hits, three phone calls and a few weird fuckers texting trying to swap shite for it.

 

There have been a few genuinely interested folks, but as they have until tomorrow to buy and they've not been in touch it looks like the old bus ain't going anywhere for a while. I'll have to find a nice V8 to chuck in it.

 

Fucking pissed off, I am.

[trigger]

That sucks Pete, The trouble is people haven't got the spare cash that they used too at the moment and there's even less people out there who want to spend the small about of savings they do have on a obscure 1980's french car which isn't a 2CV.

 

Make the best of a worse situation and bolt that V8 in, fit a tow bar and use that to drive over and collect the Escort in it!

[Pete-M]

That's tempting, Trig.

 

I'm just furious at the moment. When the 604 was being repaired the number of people who said "I'd love that, let me know when it's for sale", when I put it up for sale they all vanished to be replaced by knobheads. I'm losing a big chunk of money on it in order to try and get a quick sale, but it ain't happening.

 

Ah well, typical classic car folk.

[wuvvum]

Got a claim form through the post today in relation to the accident my mate had in the Saab over Easter. Two claim forms in fact - one direct from the insurance company and a badly photocopied one from what appears to be a claims management company, who also managed to spell my name wrong and seem to think that I was the driver at the time of the accident - so that one might be going straight in the bin.

 

Does anyone know if these are sent out as a matter of course following an accident (eg following a report from the police), or does this mean that the other party is trying to make a claim? There's no mention of a claim being brought on either covering letter (not that either letter is particularly informative) and last I heard the motorcyclist hadn't been heard from since the accident, but not having had a crash since 1998 I'm not really sure how these things work.

[Cavcraft]

Finally, finally got the second hand (good) door on the Corsa. Bit of fiddling about with awkward bits here and there (including the lock) then we offered everything up and all looked good.

Put it on and guess what? The sodding rubbing strip is different so removed both and now face an hour os so of fun using a heat gun to remove the double sided tape and putting the correct rubbing strip on.

Luckily I got a s/h Honda generator off my neighbour not so long back so we don't have to mess about with extension leads from the house.

[eddyramrod]

I'm losing a big chunk of money on it in order to try and get a quick sale, but it ain't happening.

 

Ah well, typical folk.

 

I'm suffering exactly the same woes Pete, so it's not just you! Had a bloke round today, he didn't volunteer to buy the Granada but seems convinced I'll sell it in seconds. It's been steadily reducing for 6 months already and I'm elbow-deep into on-paper losses with all three cars.

[Station]

Well, it looks like my Czech Escort collecting trip will have to be postponed.

 

Just time wasters and messers with the 604, so that's that. I'll fly out to Czech next weekend, see how the car is doing, and fly back.

 

I am monumentally pissed off about this, I don't think I've priced the Pug unreasonably considering its rarity and the amount of work that has gone into it, it's just an unloved-by-the-masses car. 90 people watching it on eBay, 3100 hits, three phone calls and a few weird fuckers texting trying to swap shite for it.

 

There have been a few genuinely interested folks, but as they have until tomorrow to buy and they've not been in touch it looks like the old bus ain't going anywhere for a while. I'll have to find a nice V8 to chuck in it.

 

Fucking pissed off, I am.

 

 

You should try it again, I hadn't noticed this before but people tend to spend at the end/start of the month when they've been paid. It's obvious but good timing.

[Cavcraft]

I know you didn't get it for that reason Pete and you should be applauded for saving something as cool as that, but sadly this is why I mostly buy cars with my head, not my heart.