[Bob Williams]

Steve that’s similar to something I mentioned earlier: BMW buyers with not enough money to go for top spec, buying a low spec model and removing badges. If it’s a Beamer it must be fast, right? Wish I had a tenner, for every BMW (and others) that I pass or leave behind, uphill on the Wolds around here. Both the C-Max and now the Tucson diesels just keep pulling and pulling, whilst the pretenders cough and slow down. They invariably take it as an insult and try to catch me on the straight after the roundabout. I keep them behind until the last bend, where the camera lurks, then slow down and give them the satisfaction of passing, followed by the sight of their brake lights as I emerge from the bend at 50 in a 60 limit.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Thanks guys!

Nolan, ES is OK but taking Steve’s advice, SWMBO does not use internet on her phone, just calls and photos. I have backed up all her stuff to her laptop Google account and have Factory Reset the Spark, sending it off RMA Monday in its original box.

Ryan, thanks for that link, have actually downloaded to my phone and backed my stuff up with it to Google.

Hoping I can get either a repaired Spark or a new phone and restore marital harmony, until something else breaks. Been trying to start moving the TV down the wall and put up a new shelf for the soundbar, Sky cables, connections and new power strips. What sounds like an easy job is not: rerouting loads of stuff, got the plan but cannot get around to it for other tasks suddenly demanded. I am getting ready for when I chuck Sky and have a mix of NowTV and a Humax box. I need at least a day but family needs me NOW!

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

keith with the teef wrote:

Why is there no gaming forum?

Forums — Website Feedback. Get a message to Lee and request a Gaming Forum. Pretty please!???

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Thanks Nolan, that is a possibility: the Spark was very late in getting the upgrade from CM to Nougat, which Wileyfox rolled out to each model automatically from the top models down, after April this year. Got mine in May, SWMBO’s Spark is the lowest powered WF phone and only updated a couple of weeks ago. Looking back, it was a couple of days after the (1.4GB) upgrade that I found the phone very short of drive space, so decided to fit an SD card. WF say the Spark can take a 32 GB card, so I fitted one, in fact 3, one after another, all of which were corrupted in the phone after I set them to Internal storage. In order, they were: 1: ‘Integral’ basic card, 2: Samsung ‘Evo’, 3: Sandisk SDHC. I bought 2 of the Sandisk and fitted the other in my own WF Swift, it works perfectly as Internal storage and I learned how to transfer certain Apps, photos and data. I am going to start a separate Topic concerning Android backups.

Still learning!

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Bit pushed atm Tadka, so haven’t watched it all. You would not have the full BBMF complement today (if they were in the programme) due to all Merlin engine powered a/c being grounded. The noisy Griffon-engined Spitfires are still flying, but not the Merlins in Spit’s, Seafires, Firefly’s, Hurricanes and Lancaster.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Thanks Dwynne, as my dad once said, lower your physical expectations as you get older, but exercise the mental ones. He did not explain the process, though.

Further to Wileyfox CS: the Spark has now corrupted 3x 32GB SD cards. I have proved that it is the cards, by eliminating USB ports and buying a brand new card reader and card. The previous 3 cards would not work or even be recognised in my PC after being in the phone, although they appeared in Devices. The new card was not installed in the phone, but recognised by the PC USB ports immediately, and again in the old card reader. Which meant that the phone ‘Storage & USB’ hardware in ‘Settings’ was corrupting the cards. They have sent me an RMA form, which is pretty good as it is 1 month out of warranty. I have told them that I will not pay for any repair, so send back the phone and I will buy new. I have a Currys/Carphone Warehouse £50 voucher and can use that, but would prefer a repaired phone that can use an SD card for Internal storage.

As it is SWMBO’s phone, there is a degree of domestic frost in Williams Towers atm. ???

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

The Duke wrote:

So for as long as ive been driving, young and inexperienced drivers get stung hard, but from my experiance location plays a big role in prices too. Also being married and having kids brings premium ls down to.

First time I really noticed that outside of myself, was when my son had his first. Before (shotgun) marriage and first ankle-biter, he was foot-to-the-floor everywhere and tailgating, I was continually nagging his driving. After collecting his daughter from hospital,* he was driving very carefully, very suddenly.

*she lasted another 4 years until he manged to elbow the b**ch and keep the kids.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

You’re welcome, Nolan.

Yep – it’s a big expense for even experienced, long-term drivers with a good long NCB. For young people under 25, it’s crippling. Living in East Lincolnshire, with villages and workplaces miles apart, means that many young people leave as soon as they can. Not because they want to, but because they cannot afford the cost of commuting, fuel and insurance. My 20-yo gdaughter drives a 55 Kia Picanto and was lucky to find a chef job at a restaurant only 3 miles from her village. That lowers the cost of fuel to the point where she can afford the huge monthly Insurance payments. She will not go on dad’s policy, says it’s not fair on him. Now she has a regular, steady BF, who lives and works in Grantham, she may leave to be near him, as also her workplace is up for sale. Her 18 yo brother will start his last year of electrical engineering and IT, at Grimsby College in September. He has a special College bus to get to work, which picks him up at 7:15 am and gets him back at around 6:30. He is picked up first and dropped off last. It’s around 25 miles from his home. He wants to learn to drive, but no local School will pick him up from his village, so he is phoning around Grimsby Driving Schools for lessons when he has an afternoon end at college, on Thursdays and Fridays. I hate to think what he will have to pay for insurance if he passes his tests, but he says he is saving for a van, not a car, as he has a job lined for next year and wants a van for (a) work and (b) so he does not have to take more than his best mate with him in the van!

Is there any wonder why so many young kids ‘forget’ to renew insurance? I don’t condone that, but I can understand it. A majority, financially punished because of the minority. I am so grateful for Motability and ‘free’ insurance. Don’t think I would be driving now, if it was not for that.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Ed, one of my nephews (sadly deceased) a niece and two cousins shared the same (questionable) abilities. Might well be a Neanderthal trait, as the male relatives and myself share the ‘Hairy’ gene. Daren’t ask the niece about the hairy bit, she inherited many of her grandmother’s characteristics. ?? (my mother)

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

I can also tell North Ed, thought it was only me*! The other side of this, is that all Quartz watches, and some MP3 players, do not work for me. The watches all stop working within a day or two and the players have to be well away from my body, which is a nonsense. That is one reason why we bought a basic phone and used it for many years, before getting a smartphone. I was worried that the phone would follow the watch and the MP3 players, so would not lay out much for one. Fortunately I have no such effect upon my Wileyfox, even after uttering a few choice Anglo-Saxon phrases into its screen!

*Moss doesn’t grow on my North side though. ??

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

That struck my funny bone as well Lee. Interesting/funny is spot on, loved it.

One for Steve: scroll down to the next report. Go to Jamaica Street in your old hometown and have your photo taken, get your Liver wings!

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

????

Not me, no, but he is one of my heroes! A working class guy who knows more about Prehistory than any Oxford or Cambridge professor. He found most of it! ??

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Enjoy the Suzuki Nolan, hope it lasts a good few years.

Steve, why not red? My Forest – supporting family was not best pleased when I had a blue C-Max. All of them have red cars: two nieces have white motorhomes and had differently-coloured stripes resprayed red. Now my Tucson is red, not because of their disapproval, but because I like it, although  SWMBO does not, but she chose the Deep Impact blue for the C-Max.

The only green I like, is a light pastel green, such as the green on my favourite uncle’s old Standard 8 was. Car went before he did, by 2 years. I like the colour of JCD’s Octavia Combi, though. Ford once had a colour “Teal” that I ordered in 2007 for the first C-Max, because it was a gorgeous color IMO. They changed all the factory colours, dropped Teal, offered a nice Racing red and an upgrade to Titanium for the same deposit. TBH, I would have preferred the Teal. My neighbour across the way has a son with an old Emerald green Peugeot. I call it ‘Bilious green’. Another has a Carer with a brown metallic Focus, I call that ‘Dogturd Metallic’.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

You appear to have been very lucky, but this may be a result of US business dropping support for the Trumper. His missus is obviously trying to find some financing for the old man! Fill in the details and your account will be emptied, the money will help out the poor, financially embarrassed POTUS.

I may be wrong…. ??

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

That’s true Steve, but we would get very little sympathy from across the Atlantic. Over 80% of them could not pick out Britain (or anywhere else, including their own country) on a map:     https://tinyurl.com/2w5j

However, if the Telegraph report is correct, it won’t be long before UK kids reach that point. Not because British kids are failing to learn, but because they are not being properly taught:     https://tinyurl.com/6ktx368

The PC Brigade are imposing “Humanities” and “Citizenship” lessons upon the curriculum, instead of subjects that will help them learn about the planet they live on, and the other people who share it. I am not going to go into Oldphart Mode about my own Geography lessons, but geography for me is one of the important subjects that all schoolkids should learn something about.

My 3 senior grandbrats, when at school, were always asking me about History, for example. They were taught back to WW1 and that was it, without even the slightest knowledge about the causes of both World Wars. I took them back to prehistory and encouraged them to read books from local libraries. Fortunately my 12 yo gdaughter is at a Grammar School and is being taught world and British History as far back as the first plants and animals, as well as modern subjects. I like to take her along the beaches that are being treated and show her the worked flints thrown up by the dredging of the seabed. The look on her face when I show her a tool with an edge that is still sharp after thousands of years, is worth it. When I tell her that the last time a human hand held that flint may have been many thousands of years in the past, her face lights up.

Add this to British History: dinosaurs may have originated in the UK:   https://tinyurl.com/jvhbe9a

They are still here, in the House of Lords…

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Steve my ex-SIL (spits!) had a Hyundai coupe after leaving my daughter and doing her the only favour he ever did: agreed to a divorce. He married his secretary and turned her and others into a “model”, setting up a “modelling” showroom in Nottingham, before that business became his 5th to go TU. He had a personalised Reg. Plate – P1 ORN. Which describes the type of “modelling” undertaken at the premises. His 2nd wife then divorced him after checking into Rehab, finally realising what he had made her into. He found another woman, had my gson to stay and I discovered that he was smoking weed in front of him. I had a couple of family members visit him and “advise” that he left out inviting gson again.

As far as dealerships go, I had a great experience with Read Hyundai at Grimsby. One of my nephews has just bought a new Tucson from another Read dealer and is very happy with how they treated him. I love that story about your dad’s mate, it illustrates exactly what BMW are like. It’s also funny how some people who own Beamers, think that the roads belong to them. I generally find those are the drivers who own a bottom-spec, smaller-engine car with the model badges removed, trying to make us believe they have a 340i or similar. LMAO to see these dreamers.

That independent place where you wash your car, is exactly how I ran my old place: customer (or potential customer) is King. One new and fairly well-off customer once asked me if we used a carwash after a service. Yes, I said, you are talking to one of them. ?

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

This is what would worry me about this article*:

” Leonid Bershidsky is a Bloomberg View columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru. ”

*if I could bring myself to care about a situation which has developed from disbelief, through pantomime, to farce. All of which is calculated by all parties, involved, to muddy the political waters. The real victims of this sordid affair, are the American people, at least half of whom do not give a damn by now.

The other half make America grate. The once-most powerful country is a divided laughing stock. I feel sympathy for my friends in the USA.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

That was a horrible experience, WoF! In my days as workshop manager of a large independent garage, I learned that some (OK, most) main dealerships were the equivalent of BMC workers in the 70’s. Whatever they did, they were safe in the knowledge that they were covered by a Big Gang.

Vauxhalls in particular, were good and bad locally. The Mansfield VX dealership was a hive of incompetence, I knew the shop foreman there from childhood and would not have trusted him to oil the chain of a pushbike. The Nottingham company on the other hand, was a good place to take your motor or order parts from. Efficient and friendly: my big bro bought cars there and had a lot of good service over the years, from his first 1949 Wyvern, to his last, a Ventora, which he kept until his death in ’88. Beautiful motor, 3.3 liter engine and very comfortable.

The Mansfield dealership was where I took my second Motability car, a 1997 Astra 1.6 auto, which had everything electrical, fully loaded and was surprisingly offered at No Deposit, as a “Special Deal”. I discovered the reasons for the Special Deal later. It was a cancelled factory order for a number of Astras, for a company which went bankrupt. VX made a deal with Motability and I suffered 3 years with a car which had ‘everything electrical’ fail. Locking doors and electric windows, sunroof – all packed in at various times. Halfway through the lease, we moved here to Lincolnshire and the lease was transferred to a Louth VX dealership, who were much improved upon the Mansfield shower. Eventually, about 3 months before the 3 years were up, it broke down about 20 miles from home. The AA was then Motability recovery and I had spent an hour tracing the fault, with my limited tools, before he arrived. It’s the ECU, I told him, I am an ex-workshop foreman with 20+ years of experience. He could not have been more condescending if he tried! He spent over an hour fiddling with various diagnostic tools, before my missus lit him up and told him to take us to the dealership. On arrival, I told the foreman what I had diagnosed, he checked and confirmed that it was a dead parrot.

BMW dealers, at least the local Nottingham one, were ridiculously snooty. I had a customer who wanted to buy a new 325 saloon, a local estate agent who had sold up his chain and retired. He wanted us to maintain it, because he trusted us and we were local: had maintained all his family’s cars. They said no, so he walked, they kept phoning him and he said that no deal was possible until they let us maintain it. They gave in, on condition that we bought all parts from them. Problem solved, we had a lovely new Beamer to maintain. I quoted Seniority in order to work on it.?

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Oh good, something else to blame our tech & devices for. Steve, I think maybe the Greens and tree-huggers will be happier to read this.

I hope no one tells SWMBO about this, she already thinks I spend too much time on all devices.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

PlaneMan wrote:

My reply didn’t make the news, somehow. ‘What a bag of shite, where’s the space gone, it handles like a rollerskate on marbles and the engine is like that out of a lawnmower.’

I love that, it’s very similar what a mate of mine said to his son, who bought one of the first “Mini One’s”. Followed by “More B___y money than sense!”- His son always had to be first to buy he latest everything, then wreck it. A few years ago the lad was made redundant from his financial job, now works behind the till at a local bank and drives an old Corsa.

I will always remember the advent of the first (and real) Mini. I was 14 in 1959 and on a 2 week school trip to Innsbruck, Austria. On the Monday I managed to get hold of Sunday’s News of the World, then a popular broadsheet newspaper. There was a full page ad for the “Morris Mini-Minor” and “Austin Seven”: basically, the same car, with an exploded diagram to demonstrate the ‘new’ technology of transverse engine, FWD and rubber cone suspension. At 14, and attending a Technical school, all of us lads who crowded around that paper, were deeply impressed. Years later, in my early 30’s, I worked on the things and became unimpressed! Today I was at Saltfleet Gala with my son, gson and their Stationary engines. There were many Classic cars, tractors and bikes and as usual I disappeared into the ranks of these nostalgic lumps of old tech.

There were 2 “real” Mini’s: a 1979 1275 GT, and a beautiful light blue Mk.1 1964 Mini, badged as a Morris. The 1275 numbers were a bit sus to me, and a close look showed a lack of detail in the restoration. It also belonged to a loudmouth. The blue MK 1 was owned by a lady in her 60’s, who said that she had assisted her husband in the restoration, until he passed away. She then completed the restoration herself over another 5 years, having it professionally bare-metal resprayed in the original BMC colour. From her talk about the car, and the well-used toolbox she showed me in the boot, I am in no doubt that she knew what she was talking about and really had finished the restoration.

A capper to the day, was the sight of a 350 Matchless, the reg plate looked familiar so I noted it. Dug through some old family photos at home, and there was my big bro, sat astride that same bike. I had sat pillion on that bike from a kid. Nostalgia sometimes IS what it used to be!

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Author]

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