What makes you grin? Antidote to grumpy thread

[messerschmitt owner]

 

Cummon cort, spill the beanz! Is is an xm estate running veg?

No one in their right mind would buy an Xm estate running veg!!!!!!

 

A couple of years back this place turned into an extension of the land crab owners club.

 

Watch out as XMs are taking over here too.

[dollywobbler]

Should really stop losing money on in-promptu purchases...

 

When you discover how to do that, please let me know!! I keep staring at the Merc and just thinking "what were you thinking you idiot?" Especially as I'm having a hell of a game getting bits for it. Proper FAIL motoring. Ridiculous thing is that I thought I was being really sensible buying it. Yup, really sensible buying a car with a known-but-not-identified fault, over a hundred miles away, sight unseen. Mind you, it was a fun day out collecting it...

[andrew e]

A potential shitter' stalk on the M25 this morning - 3 door ZX A-framing a Fiat Panda made me grin, alas Mrs E's efforts to "pap" it failed

[eddyramrod]

3 door ZX A-framing a Fiat Panda

 

That guy has to be one of us! Who's going to admit to it, come on?

[andrew e]

A white Volcane I think, fully body kitted - they were Spanish built no?

[John F]

Today's grin - Blake's 7. I've just re-discovered it on YouTube.

 

Here's Series 1 Episode 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMjYChwuqMI

 

[Negative Creep]

After about 6 years I've only just found out you can play Playstation 1 games on the PS3

[Cavcraft]

I like bx's but had to change the front subframe on my bros car in the late 80's. vowed never to own one.

 

Cummon cort, spill the beanz! Is is an xm estate running veg?

 

Oh, alright then I could never hold my water.

 

 

Lordy, I reckon that'll be really, really nice to drive. Top bombing, sir.

[Caffiend]

Today's grin - Blake's 7. I've just re-discovered it on YouTube.

 

Here's Series 1 Episode 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMjYChwuqMI

 

 

The dodginess of the sets was paralleled by the dodginess of the mullets ... The scripts stand the test of time though (and hello, double XX here, have to say this: it was so refreshing for 30 years ago to have women in 'action' shows that did a bit more than look pretty and scream).

 

I have all 4 series on box set (lucky* Amazon find )

[Richard]

I read somewhere that Blake's 7 is being remade.

[richardthestag]

http://youtu.be/Fncvjf9c62A

 

Phoenix Nights - seems topical at the moment

[John F]

I read somewhere that Blake's 7 is being remade.

 

I've just being reading about this... it's going to be a joint venture between FremantleMedia International, some septic cable channel called Syfy and some septic called Joe Pokaski (who apparently wrote scripts for CSI & Heroes).

 

So with all of this american involvement (Why??? The thing that made Blake's 7 great* was the fact that it was typically British, ffs!) it's destined to become the worst piece of shit in the history of EVAR.

 

I'm giving it 0 out of 10 now, without even bothering to see it.

[richardthestag]

clearing my docs folder and just re-found this gem! Partial credit to ashmicro who posted the same in this very thread just over a year ago

 

 

Unorthodox P6 road test

 

A test driver from the Rover Company Experimental Department had been driving around the English countryside all day in a Rover 2000 „mileage“ car. This is a test car on which the greatest possible amount of road mileage is put up on, in the shortest possible time. This kind of testing on public roads simulates normal use and occupies a considerable part of the Department´s time, being fundamental in the search for any weak points in the design. To add to the realism of the tests, the passenger compartment is loaded with sand bags to represent the weight of 3 passengers and the boot is weighted to simulate the luggage of 4 persons.

 

The driver´s stint that day had included further test work at the MIRA (Motor Institute Research Association) proving ground, and since this carried him well past his normal finishing time, he drove straight home in the test car which he was quite entitled to do.

 

However, it seems that even after a full day´s driving in the 2000, he had energy to spare, for after a meal he collected a friend and together they set off for a drive in the countryside, an event not quite so fully covered by his job description.

 

Later happenings make it difficult to assess the true object of this latter journey, maybe he saw his friend as a prospective buyer of one of his company´s cars, maybe they had some place to go.

 

In any case, 10.05 p.m. on a pleasant June evening saw them approaching a small town called Redditch, which lies a few miles to the west of Birmingham, on a well surfaced though relatively narrow road. The driver knew the road intimately and one feels some surprise at the fact that he seems to have forgotten about a narrow „humpbacked“ bridge, more resembling a ski jump, staddling a local canal immediately ahead.

 

Later our test driver estimated his speed at this point as approximately 50 mph (80 km/h) but since we have never offered vertical take-off equipment as an option on this model, it is thought that he erred on the side of modesty and that the true figure was more nearly twice his estimate.

 

It may be of course that, despite his undoubted experience as a test driver, he was deceived by the excellence of the 2000´s ride and thus made this error of judgement.

 

Be that as it may, when the car ascended the approach to the bridge, it just went on ascending and it did not touch the ground again for 164 ft. (49,9 meters).

 

Not surprisingly, some loss of directional stability was experience in the course of this manoeuver, a condition not much improved by the pronounced nose down attitude developed during flight.

 

The landing must have been somewhat tricky, in that it left a couple of tyre scrub marks on the road way equivalent to the track width of the vehicle and also a light, though sharply defined groove, indicating that one tyre had flattened sufficiently to allow the wheeltrim to contact the road as well.

 

A few feet further along, problems of control were heightened by the fact that the lefthand front wheel dropped into a short deep gully at the margin of the road. It is difficult to assess the degree to which our test driver was dictating the course of events at this juncture but the tyre skid marks clearly indicated that the car executed a somewhat lurid swerve across to the opposite side of the road and back again the course of covering the next 323 ft (98,45 meters), at the end of which it struck and partially disintegrated an unusually high standing kerbstone at the corner of an entry to a garage. This particular corner was also obstructed by a concrete post marking a public bus stop, and an intending lady passenger waiting beside it.

 

 

 

Fortunately both were avoided, though the narrowness of the margin may be judged by the fact that the lady, obviously recognising several features of the approaching vehicle that distinguished it from her bus, took refuge in the ditch behind her, the evidence which she subsequently gave in court could well have been coloured by the fact that although quite unharmed, two weeks were to elapse before she could utter a word.

 

Some 100 ft. (30,48 meters) further on, our 2000, still intact and containing two increasingly apprehensive occupants and still possessed of considerable momentum, encountered a wooden post. This time however there was no margin at all and the post hit by the left rear side of the car was ripped clean out of the ground and flung 60 ft. into an adjoining field.

 

Bouncing back into the roadway, the car travelled a further 70 ft. (21,3 meters) before it came upon another and more substantial object – a tree. Again the impact was taken on the left side, this time just in front of the rear wheel, indenting the structure deeply and ripping off both doors. This was the first time the vehicle had shed any of its component parts. It also turned end over end, detaching the complete left front suspension unit in the process.

 

Shortly afterwards it came to rest on its roof in the middle of the road, having travelling the hard way a distance of 748 ft. (228 meters) from the point of take-off at the bridge.

 

The test driver and his erstwhile friend stayed at their respective post to the end, however they managed to stagger forth shaken but intact.

 

They found that they had fortuitously chosen for their landing point the piece of roadway immediately in front of the Redditch Police Station. So the least possible time was wasted in recording the official details of this unscheduled if somewhat spectacular test.

 

The test driver is still a valued employee of the Rover Car Company, he has however been transferred from Experimental Testing to Inspection.

 

Road & Track (1966)

[eddyramrod]

Unorthodox P6 road test

 

Blake's 7? Brought my sister and her husband together, almost 30 years ago. Sibling relations being what they are, not sure if that should be Grin or Grump, but I'll be generous and call it a Grin. As far as I know, they're still together, so whoever's involved, that's got to be Grin.

[philibusmo]

1984

 

Thatcher was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

The Austin Montego was launched by British Leyland.

The first Apple Macintosh reaches the market.

The Winter Olympics were held in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

The Fiat Uno is launched and wins European Car of the Year, beating the Peugeot 205 and Volkswagen golf into 2nd and 3rd spots respectively.

Tommy Cooper died on stage from a heart attack.

Famine in Ethiopia kills over 1,000,000 people and Band Aid release the track 'Do They Know It's Christmas' to raise money to combat the famine.

The GCSE replaced the O-Level.

John Delorean is acquitted of all cases of possessing and distributing cocaine.

Ronald Regan wins the United States presidential election.

 

In other smaller news, Exeter Bus Station won the prestigious 'Best Kept Bus and Coach Station' award and still proudly displays it to this day:

And how it looks today:

Mmmm, miserable.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I just saw an old man get out of his Ford Fusion and punch one of the headlights a bunch of times before getting back in and driving off.

[SambaS]

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

In what must be my most surprising news of the decade, I am actually very pleased with insurance!

 

I have a policy with Peter James which is limited to 3000 miles or unlimited if you happen to own another car. I rang them to say I 've gotten rid of the RAG ROWER and I'm down to one car, and, to my surprise, they agreed to keep my mileage unlimited until the end of the policy (01.06)!!!

 

However, having done some searches prior to making that call and found very little in the way of classic policies that don't require ownership of a second car, I got a rather decent price on moneysupermarket from Ady Flummoxed. 5000 miles, no requirement to have access to another car, £176 or so. So I rang them and, after fine-tuning a couple of bits with them, they offered 6000 miles for £154. 11.05 was the latest they could start the policy, but I bit their hand off because it's a rather unbelievable price (I had paid a couple of quid more than that for the 3k PJ policy).

 

Interestingly enough, the Flummoxed policy is underwritten by Allianz, whose website refuses to provide me with a quote obviously due to the age of the car.

[vulgalour]

Moar insurance happeh. Hastings Direct offered me a policy on the Princess for £780, commuting and 10k miles per annum. More shopping around is required, obviously, but that's much cheaper than the average quote of £1600 for a more limited policy from other insurers so it's probably what I'll go for next month when my current policy on the BX expires.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Before you get rid of the BX, do make sure that it makes sense to do so from a financial/insurance point of view.

 

Regardless of accidents and so on, I bet you can get a classic policy for well under £300 as long as you have access to another car and, as both of yours are over 20, doing the same twice could well result in a total premium that's a lot lower than £780!

[vulgalour]

I can get cheaper, that's just an initial search online. The decision to sell the BX is less about finances, it's more about health... I'm not going to go into the details, but it does make sense. I should be able to get a decent policy for what I want for about £200 eventually, just got to shop around a bit first.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Fair do!

[cort16]

That Espace ebay advert in the ebay thread keeps making me chuckle. It's the funniest thing I've read on here since mr b0ll0x thought Volksangl was a girl.

[vulgalour]

^I had forgotten about that, grin reactivated.

[eddyramrod]

Bourne Supremacy... world's shitest car chase! Maruti vs Hyundai

[TimothyClaypole]

Peter Kaye voice - "Cheesecake !! Dirty B*****ds! ".

 

[cort16]

Once of my mates didn't believe cheese cake had cheese in it. He thought it was called cheese cake because it was shaped like a cheese (round). He was 35 at the time.

[philibusmo]

Windows 8.

 

Saying you like Windows 8 is probably currently more controversial than saying you liked Thatcher, but I have now been using it for the last month after upgrading my Windows 7 laptop and I think its superb.

The advanced features of a computer for fully browsing the internet, and using larger programs and games with the best features of a smartphone or tablet for when you want to do something simple such as check and send emails and make updates to your calender. Admittedly it did need a couple of modifications. Changing from IE to Firefox and adding a shutdown shortcut to both the desktop and the start screen namely, but otherwise it is great, quick to start up, shut down and quicker to accomplish pretty much any task.

 

I like it so much that I have also changed by popular fruit based phone for a Nokia Lumia with Windows Phone which is equally good at being a smart phone OS.

 

To the people who despise Windows 8 with a vengeance, I can only assume that you are so so stuck in your ways that any change is unacceptable and any sort of learning curve for the new software is unacceptable to you, despite once learned it is much quicker. It's either that or you are buying the cheapest and shitest computers that Argos are pushing saying was '£599,999, now just £299' where you end up with a computer only marginally more powerful than a ZX Spectrum which would run like a heap of bollocks on any operating system since Windows 3.1.

 

In summary, take no notice of the Luddites who hate it. Windows 8 is excellent.

[fotorabia]

Im feeling better...tho a bit like Christchurch..stable then aftershocks..have put on weight...will be having a digital slideshow aboard MS Stubnitz..the cultureship moored down at Canary Dwarf [25th-28th April]..

https://www.facebook.com/msstubnitz?fref=ts

Ill be a backdrop of sorts accompanying my all time ska heroes The Beat...ill be aboard most of the the wee arts festie...alternative shiters welcome to attend...im being taught photo laminating..and am compiling a creative arts funding idea for a future travelling photo show..now off to the recycling centre to volunteer..

[ruffgeezer]

..now off to the recycling centre to volunteer..

 

By volunteer, do you mean fish for cool tat? I know I would...