Now then. If you want more of this, let me know. I posted this because our host asked me to. The topic is a bit specialised so it may not appeal.
What's it got to do with economics or LVT? Bugger all really. But as an exercise in 'greenie-ism ' it might help to know that its key components are all recycled.
Over to you.
Oh, and best watched with the sound off...
The man at the garage had been saying for some time that the gear box in my MR2 (pre-facelift 5-speed) is 'very noisy', whatever that means. And it was definitely on its last legs, gear changes were crunchy and painful, so if possible I'd start in 2nd, get up to 40 mph and then shift straight to 5th (it is very short ratios!).
I finally got organised a month ago, went up to Carlisle to collect a new-ish box (the later facelift version 6-speed) from Dick Sloan (£650), the local garage faffed about for three-and-a-half weeks (£614 incl. new clutch, incl. VAT) and I picked it up again yesterday.
It's like having a new car! I've had clutches replaced before, but they were just incremental improvements - this is a world apart, and it was a great car before anyway. Combined with the new-ish 6-speed, it is quieter (he was right about the noise); gear changes are buttery smooth; the ratios are the same as the 5-speed with a longer 6th, so you can do 70 mph at 3,000 revs not 3,500 (so doubly quiet on the motorway and better fuel economy); it seems to accelerate better (although this is possibly illusory, bugger all happens in 6th of course); etc etc.
£1,300 all in (incl. petrol to Carlisle and back) seems a lot if you say it like that, but nowadays that's 20 visits to the petrol station, and it will extend the car's life by five or ten years. So worth every penny.
The Daily Mash ran another article about [people like] me:
A WOMAN carefully plans every car journey she makes around not having to do any right-hand turns. Emma Bradford also has a wide range of other non-negotiable driving policies including not going anywhere she might have to parallel park, avoiding the motorway and not driving in the dark.
Bradford’s husband Nathan said: “First it was not driving in heavy rain. Then it was avoiding any towns in rush hour. Now she won’t go anywhere if she can’t evaluate the size of the car park on Google Maps first. Basically, if she can only turn left the whole way, never have to reverse, not have to do a hill start and be guaranteed a space with no other vehicles parked within ten metres, she’s totally fine.”
That pretty much sums up my policies, apart from not using the motorway (they are easy and fun) or hill starts (no fun, but easy enough). Why is that deserving of satire?
I was advised to put only E5/super in the 1996 Honda Del Sol, which costs £1.60/litre as against about £1.45/l for the homeopathic E10 stuff.
No big deal really. I get at least 10% more miles per gallon out of the E5/super than I used to do out of the E5/normal (which is no longer available at local petrol stations), and an unknown amount more than if I used E10 (which I don't dare), so in terms of pence-per-mile, it comes out about the same.
I suspect that the whole thing is just greenwashing by the car manufacturers to trick us into buying new cars.
Bonus conspiracy theory - the fuel shortages/panic buying that we had at the end of September was triggered by the switch from E5 to E10.
The Mini was parked where the red Audi is, but the handbrake wasn't fully on and it rolled gently down the hill, coming to rest against the rear bumper of the black monstrosity (the driver of which is so stingy that instead of paying to park in a bay, they park it where is will cause maximum blockage of three surrounding driveways. So gets zero sympathy from me.):
If the Mini driver gets back first, it is their duty to cast a cursory glance at the back of the black monstrosity for obvious damage, convince themselves it looks OK and then drive off and hope that nothing comes of it.
But what if the black monstrosity driver gets back first? If they just drive off, they know that the Mini will roll off again and hit the car in the next parking bay down, which is another twenty yards down the road i.e. the Mini might have build up enough speed to do proper damage, or veer onto the pavement or into the middle of the road. Which means they have to wait until the driver of the Mini gets back, unless they manage to find something lying around to use as chocks.
Hmm. I know I'd at least look for a couple of bricks or something, but I'm not sure I'd find anything suitable. Does the Highway Code cover this type of situation?
Reports Sky News.
The whole thing is an absolutely fascinating example of irrational human behaviour. Being a natural born trouble maker with a bit of spare time, I queued twice over the weekend to unnecessarily fill up two of my cars - I would have done the third one but I noticed the MOT had expired (it's gone in today). It made me all nostalgic for the 1970s or East Germany.
There is a whole branch of applied maths for Queueing Theory, and no doubt they'll be analysing the heck of out this for years to come.
I always assumed that it would sort itself out within a week or so. On average (say), motorists fill up every two weeks, a petrol station can handle three times its normal volume and everybody bunches and fills their cars over a five day period (14 ÷ 3, rounded). Then theoretically for the next nine days (14 - 5), very few people need to or will bother filling up at all.
Except heavy users, they have no choice. And people who are would rather fill up again even if the tank is three-quarters full, which are unknown unknowns. The effect will be minor - while people just topping up spend much the same amount of time in the queue, at the pump, faffing about in their cars before driving off (what the heck are they doing?) and manoeuvring their way back into the traffic they are only buying smaller amounts of fuel per visit, so total fuel sold per petrol station per day is the same (more customers x smaller volumes).
Maybe we will reach a steady state where everybody tops up a quarter tank every three or four days, which is the same amount of fuel purchased, just more time in longer queues? Which will dwindle to every week, and hence to every fortnight again.
I don't know how this will pan out, but it is very interesting.
Excellent bit of footage from @cyclinglawLDN.
UPDATE the person filming this appears to have been standing opposite the Holland & Barrett on Chase Side, see Google Maps. The zoom in as the Tesla moves past is skilfully done - the BP petrol station is about 100 yards down the road.
The thing about ICE - petrol or diesel - is that they are an extremely ingenious way of of converting high energy density fuel into a rotary motion. They are also very cheap to make and there is a whole infrastructure to support them. They are also very light and nowadays relatively fuel efficient and clean burning. Small turbo petrol engines are astonishing. There are 1.2L capacity engines now used where in earlier times you's expect to see at least 2.0L .
If you want low fuel use efficient vehicles among your greatest enemies is weight. The more weight you add the more weight you need to add. Thusly by adding a one tonne battery pack to a vehicle you need to proportionally increase the strength of the structure, bigger brakes, heavier duty suspension and so on. So all things being equal the lighter you make a vehicle the better. This applies to all classes of vehicle and road vehicles.
So adding batteries to cars is a bit of blind alley because they are very heavy, have low energy density, very expensive (and as they use lots of rare minerals I very much doubt that they going to get cheaper), they take ages to re-charge (for which there is no infrastructure) and they have a limited life (a recent study said about 5 to 8 years / 80,000 kilometers - at which point the vehicle is effectively scrap value).
An alternative to batteries is hydrogen fuel cells. But these are also expensive to make and rather delicate.
Luckily along comes that Damn'd market thing. Given that we are being told (albeit erroneously) that CO2 is evil people have got beavering away - some of them in sheds (a very good thing - lots of good stuff comes out of sheds). And there are emerging some very likely superior to batteries ideas.
Exhibit 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19Q7nAYjAJY; (I have also heard that Jag is working on the same thing).
An ICE powered by hydrogen. Seems like a plan. The emissions, the by-product of combustion is water. As to infrastructure. You can imaging one of those roll on roll off container lorries delivering a contained of hydrogen very easily to an existing forecourt.
Exhibit 2. https://www.connaughtmotorcompany.uk/ This outfit has a low revving (i.e. slow speed diesel) on the stocks which is clean.
Exhibit 3. https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.fia-deliver-first-barrels-of-sustainable-fuel-to-f1-power-unit-manufacturers.7G1Jgfox1YTVzjhhzZxNSt.html - racing improving the breed.
Exhibit 4a. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/carbon-engineering-liquid-fuel-carbon-capture-neutral-science
Exhibit 4b. https://sustainingourworld.com/2019/09/19/3-ways-to-make-liquid-fuel-from-carbon-dioxide/
Exhibit 5. I was speaking with someone who's son works in F1 as a power train engineer. One of the F1 teams is developing a two stroke petrol engine that revs to 24,000 (!) and is clean.
It's going to be easy to switch a petrol tank to an hydrogen tank (many people have already converted V8 Range Rovers to LPG) and crucially we can make LIGHT CARS (heavy cars being a particular hobby horse of mine). As long as the ecomentalist watermelons and the bonkers government can be nailed down the ICE is clearly not dead.
Thoughts?
There are ANPR cameras on some roads that are connected to an LED screen which flashes up the number of the last vehicle that went past, like at the entrance to supermarket car parks. (I have no idea why, is it just supposed to act as a reminder that Big Brother Is Watching Us? But that's not the point of the story.)
I was stuck in some slow moving traffic recently, and I idly watched the numbers of the cars ahead flash up on the screen, until the screen flashed up the word "MORRISONS".
That's not a registration plate, is it, I thought? Then I noticed a large van, a car or two ahead of me, emblazoned with the company name/logo "MORRISONS" (a local business, not the supermarket, again, that's not the point of the story), so I assume that the camera just reads the first thing it recognises as text, flashes it up and then waits for the next vehicle.
So I suppose what you could do is write something in large capital letters (I assume they are not programmed to recognise lower case) across the front of your boot ("FUCK ANPR" springs to mind) and then enjoy watching that message flash up on all these screens as you drive past.
The garage ironed out the little niggles - which they should have fixed when they had it in last week, but hey - and it now drives cheerful and chirpy again, just like an MX-5 should :-)
I also managed to get rid some of the rattling noises by going through the glove boxes and door pockets and removing all the biros and pencils the previous owner had left in it.
Before:
After:
Some arsehole who was probably on his mobile decided to smash into my MX5 recently, and drove off without stopping. The damage was far worse than it looks in the 'before' picture.
Repair process as follows:
1. I bought all the replacement parts online for £1,500.
2. Luckily they were already assembled and attached to a very good condition* MX5 with the 1.8 engine and only half the mileage of my old one.
3. The local garage shifted across some good bits from the old one to the new one, did a bit of welding, new MOT etc; Suffolk Mazda came to collect the old one, paid me a very fair £350, bringing the net cost of the exercise down to £450, and that was the end of that.
* There are various niggles still to be sorted out. When I drove round for half an hour just now to keep the battery charged, the bloody handbrake light stayed on. I don't think the handbrake was actually on, because it drove OK and the brake disks weren't overly hot when I got back home, but it still doesn't 'feel' right somehow. It's not as lively as the old one with the 1.6 engine, which had 109 bhp ex-factory twenty years ago and was probably down to about 90 bhp when I bought it. Ah well, back to the menders it is, then.
From the BBC:
Ban on new petrol and diesel cars in UK from 2030 under PM's green plan
New cars and vans powered wholly by petrol and diesel will not be sold in the UK from 2030, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said. But some hybrids would still be allowed, he confirmed.
It is part of what Mr Johnson calls a "green industrial revolution" to tackle climate change and create jobs in industries such as nuclear energy. Critics say the £4bn allocated to implement the 10-point plan is far too small for the scale of the challenge.
We'll end up like Cuba, where everybody's driving round in lovingly maintained classics.
Both via @AmbushPredator.
From The Daily Mail:
A growing wellness trend out of the Netherlands has people cuddling cows for comfort.
Called 'koe knuffelen' in Dutch — which translates to 'hugging cow' — the practice typically involves visiting a farm and spending several hours in the company of cows. According to proponents of the trend, cow cuddling can be quite soothing thanks to the animal's warm temperature and size, and the oxytocin boost it leads to can even reduce stress.
Presumably you have to sign a lenghty disclaimer saying that the farm owner assumes no responsibility or liability if customers get kicked or trampled to death.
Also from The Daily Mail:
A teenager from Northern Ireland has died after the car he was driving collided with a cow. Josh Fletcher died in the early hours of Sunday morning after his car left the road when he collided with the animal...
Police have not confirmed the fate of the cow that was hit but is thought to have been killed as well.
Just scaled down a bit.
The rear 'windows' on the MX5 ND (which aren't actually windows at all, they are purely decorative black panels) are the same shape as those on the 240Z.
The ND's front grille is also surprisingly large - the same as 240Z's front grille (noticeable if you remove the front bumper).
A coincidence? I think not.
The big difference is that the 240Z had a huge boot, the ND boot is a bit of a joke.
From the BBC:
A car smashed through the front of a pub hours before it was due to open for the first time in nearly four months.
The owners of the Swan Inn near Ashford in Kent were woken by a "terrible bang" at about 02:00 BST as a Land Rover crashed into the grade-II building. Landlord Ray Perkins said he was "distraught," adding: "We just don't know why we had such bad luck".
A 17-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of drink-driving and taking a vehicle without consent.
Going by Google Maps, the pub is on the outside of a fairly sharp bend in Swan Lane. So presumably the idiot was driving driving north-east and either missed the bend completely, or maybe he wanted to turn left/north into 'The Street' and fluffed it.
Makes me glad I live in the middle of a long, straight road, I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.
Hat tip - Brian, follower of Deornoth, who spotted this at Twisted Sifter.
Thank you to everyone who took part in the Fun Online Poll, good turnout.
Which of the following apply to you (multiple answers allowed)?
Total - 86 voters
I have no garage - 40 votes
I use my garage to store junk - 28 votes
I use my garage as a workshop - 15 votes
I keep my everyday car in my garage - 8 votes
I keep my second car in my garage - 7 votes
I use my garage for some other purpose (please specify)* - 7 votes
My garage has been converted to living space - 2 votes
With only 8 out of 46 people using their garage to keep their everyday car in, my suspicions that most people have repurposed their garage is confirmed. I'm also glad to see that my usage is the most popular one.
Only one person actually specified: Frank said "I store my bicycles in my garage and I have a set of rollers to ride my bike when I can't go out. I also use it to store my garden power tools: lawnmower, strimmer etc."
Suggested by Bayard.
Vote below; or here; or use the widget in the sidebar.
From the BBC:
A couple who were self-isolating have had to leave their home after a car crashed into it.
Robin Deane, 74, said he and his wife Carol, 66, were in the upstairs bedroom when the crash happened on Wednesday night, in a street in the Cashes Green area of Stroud.
He said it sounded "like a bomb had gone off" downstairs...
The lock down rules have the aim of reducing person-to-person contact as far as possible.
Misguided or not, that's a clear enough basic principle.
So no more going on holiday by 'plane or train (fair enough); work from home if possible (fair enough); try and cut down on your shopping trips (one big shop a week instead of popping out for what you need - fair enough); no driving to beauty spots for a walk or picnic (too many other people there - fair enough). They classify this as "non-essential travel".
There is no earthly logic that says simply driving round in a circle for the joy of it goes against the basic principle (especially on empty roads with petrol at 102.9/litre). You get out of the house - with significant benefits for your mental health (doesn't mental health count as 'health reasons'? The alternative is hitting the booze much earlier in the day) - and you come into contact with precisely nobody.
In terms of person-to-person contact, driving is better and safer than going cycling or walking (which people still do in groups). Driving to your holiday home does not increase the number of person-to-person contacts so does not go against the basic principle either. But if you are employed by killjoys and banstubators, you have to toe the line I suppose.
A copper at a roadblock in the middle of Epping Forest yesterday informed me in no uncertain terms that joy riding is "non-essential" and therefore basically against the law - which they just made up on the spot. The logic is arse-backwards. Even more galling was the fact that said copper was standing well within two metres of me; and the road block was near a car park full of people going for walks or cycling.
There aren't expletives enough in all the world's dictionaries to describe the mentality of whoever decided that joy riding goes against the basic principle (which it clearly doesn't). According to The Telegraph, Mr Loophole even says that you might be void your insurance by doing so.
