Chesterfield

A percentage based system already does that. Besides which, what exactly has a house price today got to do with how "able" people are to pay. That two bed semi could be a working couple in two higher earnings brackets, the four bed detached could be a house thats been owned by Ethel and Stan since 1935 and has now risen in value so that its in council tax Band G.

I think the cap was around 5% or something, so that sounds very much like a re-banding. I also completely disagree with the way this tax is calculated too (surprise). A house can have 19 bedrooms, 16 bathrooms, 6 conservatories, 3 swimming pools and an orangery. Its only got one bin, just the same as everyone else. Heres a question... Why should a two bed semi with two adults and three, pay less than half the council tax of a four bed detached with two adults living in it? Who is using more of the councils services?

Is anyone else now googling where their local track is and considering buying a race car? I certainly know I am.

LRFAN, Its a Ferrari 250GTB. Im growing ever fonder of these by the day however. Somewhat more affordable than the £12m+ 250GTB's too

Changing way too early to get the best noise out of that

Thats if you want those bits though. Plus the additional cost of the 06 car in the first place. The 06MY is a step up in terms of some items, and yes, its cheaper to just buy the 06 car than it is to upgrade an 03 to an 06, but its not a cheap upgrade. However, depending on mileage, then the £200 extra on the road tax will be peanuts compared to the fuel cost of either model anyway. At 8000 miles a year, you are looking at over 1200 litres of fuel, or about £1700. So the £200 extra to tax the car isnt really too much to worry about.

Thats what we wanted to set up, but unfortunately its a drawback of the software that forces all the posts to require approval. Its just as much of a pain for us as it is the users, but its better than having to police the board for people posting adverts that are against the rules and without the correct content etc.

Or buy a GT4 that has the 06 revup engine without the 06 tax

Given that their pre-tax profit from what I can see is over 30% of their turnover, then I actually do think it is excessive. Thats one massive margin they have in their insurance products. As I said many months ago, they can spin all this guff all day long about fraudulent claims, accident management companies, and injury claims. One quick look at their books shows you exactly where these huge insurance increases are coming from. Its also interesting to note that when buying a policy from Admiral, you get through to a very friendly knowledgeable centre in Wales. Try making changes to policies, like I have recently and you get through to an offshore call centre that has zero product knowledge, zero understanding of the issue and in my case expected me to know exactly what changes a particular factory fitted option called the "x-pack" on a ford Kuga, added to the standard vehicle. I will be leaving Admiral even if it costs me more at the end of the current policy as I cannot be bothered to waste my time with offshore call centres, and in the days when our economy needs all the jobs and income it can possibly get, I shall be specifically moving to a company that has NO offshore call centres.

HRN released news on their shows of oil in the puntland drill. RMP and RRL having a good day today. If RNS is forthcoming from RRL/RMP on success in the puntland drill, it could be a very good day indeed.

If they brought the same in over here, the zed and the fezza would go instantly. the resultant saving would go on a holiday for the family, including probably hundreds to Disney or some other none UK business or company. The UK revenue would receive next to zero and i would just enjoy life with my son rather than with the cars. Italy would do well to actually put the effort into pursuing income tax payments rather than taking the easy way out with car taxes and puting hundreds of ferrari/maserati factory jobs at stake. But their politicians are probably as lazy as half the workforce which got them into this pickle in the first place.

I didn't include the lawnmower or the van this time. probably going to shed 485 of them in the spring too. Family and house extension taking precedence this year

Just shy of 1200 on mine for now You pay for it in f***ing road fund license though.

Did you buy your 350Z budgeting for £1500 a year in road tax? People live and budget to their means. What about the Ferrari 355 that can be bought for £34k - costs £215 a year to tax, and would now cost £2000. Lets say they inroduce that system here - every Z owner would be looking at about £1k a year or more increase in road tax. Would we all keep the cars and cough up that each year? I doubt the majority would. And then when they cant be sold, as the market drops through the floor as nobody else wants to pay the £1500 a year, you would be looking at a £15k Z, being worth maybe £8-9k overnight in order to shift it. So, you either cough up £1k more a year in road tax, sorn it until it maybe blows over, or sell it for a 6/7k loss. But you bought the car, so you can afford it, right?

I dont know if its already been posted before, but what are peoples views on the new bhp tax in Italy? Its noted in Autocar and on pistonheads. Any vehicle with more than 248bhp is subject to an additional tax on top of the standard road tax for the vehicle. A cool 17 Euros per bhp or about £14 per bhp. It adds a ridiculous amount to the most powerful cars. A 599GTO has had £5780 added to the annual tax for example. An Aventador £6,200. It wouldnt surprise me if there were some cut price supercar deals to be had (albeit in left hand drive). There may be a glut of people wanting to shift these cars now as tax levels of that amount are just daft, and they dont just have an effect on top end cars..... This effectively adds about £1,100 per year to the road tax of a 370Z. Its also been applied retrospectively - so older cars are also subject to it. The quite frightening thing is that this is just the sort of leftie idea that would probably get voted in here by people who have no clue. It will be another "well if they can afford the car they can afford that tax". Sales have apparently (and unsurprisingly) fallen off a cliff for higher performance cars.

Also worth bearing in mind that yours is bought and paid for unlike a large number of supercars.

There is a placement for RMP going ahead. So.... Either they want to take up an option on another drill in puntland, or they could possibly be raising the cash for production testing on the first one... If either of those scenarios are true, then its very good news indeed as it means they must have had some success on the first drill, or at least the sense that its worth some dilution to get in on another.. Or, they could be just throwing good money after bad and the first well is a duster - who knows..

Over the trips we have stopped at the Hilton a few times, Tropicana, Luxor, Excalibur, and the Bellagio. Luxor - quirky, half the room unuseable due to slope of the massive window (we stopped in the pyramid), if you dont like heights, you wont like the corridors to your room as they form part of the pyramid. It also forms a huge chimney for all the smoke from the casino floor - not a good thing. Daft length queues at restaurants, and its a fair old trek from your room to the next hotel. Tropicana, recently had a refurb, and was/is a great hotel to stay in, dont expect spectacular surroundings, but location and value are great. Foot bridge to the MGM and then over to the excalibur or New York or next door but one to Planet Hollywood - good food at the Tropicana too, and no stupid queues for buffets etc. Hilton - nice rooms, quiet casino, sligtly off the strip, but it is connected by the monorail to several other hotels (but watch the ticket prices on this can be expensive at $7 a trip - but factor one trip a day in per person and look at the price saved on the hotel and it may be worth it. Good food too, and not silly busy either. Excalubur - half decent rooms, rammed with kids, very smokey casino, and its a massive long walk to the next casino or the short monorail between that and the luxor/mandalay bay. Id give it a miss tbh. Bellagio - very plush casino, but the "minimum" on the minimum stakes table lets you know you are in a pricey place. Rooms can be very good value for money, but dont expect a cheap night at any of the restaurants within this hotel. Never visited the buffet as the queues for this were large. again a good walk to the next hotel, but if you go out the front they have about half a mile of moving walkways, so you can just stand on them and admire the lake/fountains while you are "transported" to the front of the property and then its across the road to Planet Hollywood. Best deal on food is the "Buffet of Buffets" - you pay for a 24 hour access to 7 hotels buffets. Time it right and you can get breakfast, lunch, Dinner and breakfast the next day - which is good value. It also means you can just pop into any of these hotels buffets during the day for a snack or drink if you like. Ceasars buffet is one of those included in the above, but its pathetic. I was amazed at how small the place was for a buffet at Ceasars Palace. Litte choice and if you want anything veggie, then just forget it. Best by far is plannet hollwood buffet, which has everything from English to Chinese, Mexican, European - you name it. Though their take on "Fish & Chips" was interesting, as what we call Crisps, the Americans call Chips. So they serve what we would call "Fish & Crisps". Buffet at Aria is also good, but you pay well for it As for shows, there are numerous "tix 4 tnight" boxes located around the strip. They sell very good price tickets for shows, and we used them several times. Much cheaper than the box office. However you buy a voucher etc at these places, then you have to exchange this for tickets at the actual box office at least 2 hours (I think) before the show. As you would have had to go to the box office to buy the tickets anyway, its not really a great hardship - but you need to remember to go and get the actual tickets. You can often save 30-50% on ticket prices from these tix 4 tnight places, and if you keep your ticket stub, if you go back to them the next day for tickets to another show, you get fasttracked though their queues. We visited 3 shows in 3 nights using tickets from them and it saved us a fortune. As above, any Cirque du Soleil shows will be good, but can reccomend "O" at the Bellagio - fantastic water based show. "KA" at the MGM is incredibly dramatic, and quite long. "Le Reve" at the Wynn is also very good again partially water based. If its laughs and humour more than serious arts, then the blue man group os a good show - weve been to that twice now, and its still funny and very entertaining even when you know whats coming. We have also seen Coperfield as he was there for a week. So worth checking out who is "in town" whenever you go as they have various artists and shows on each week at various resorts. You may drop lucky and get the chance to see a rare performer. For new year, the strip is closed to traffic, and they stop serving glass bottled drinks the night before - you can then take your drinks off the premises on New Years Eve. When they make the switch to plastic bottles, they usually also switch to offering only two types of beer. When we were there it was Bud light or Coors light. If you wanted anything else you are out of luck. They normally have a lot of this to shift, so New Years Day will probably be the same for drinks - though some bars will start getting back to normal earlier than others during that day/night. They have fireworks off the top of several hotels, if you can get a spot with your back to the Bellagio or Ceasers, then you will be able to see a pretty good show. Shopping - There is more than enough to keep the wife happy. If the miles (litterally) of shops inside the hotels themselves is not enough, then there are retail outlets which offer much better prices than in the hotels just a short taxi ride to the north or the south, and to the south there is also a large shopping village (just past Mandalay Bay). There is the fashion show mall next to Treasure Island which is probably half the size of meadowhall too. You wont go short of shopping opportunities thats for certain. Take some very comfortable shoes. You will be doing LOTS of walking. Down the strip and back again could be up to 7 miles alone, and thats without walking round the hotels at all - which are just massive. You could walk 10 miles a day without even realising it, until you get a blister, then you will know about it. Sensible shoes and comfortable ones for walking during the day are essential. If the wife wants to wear heels to a show, then Id advise putting some comfortable ones in the handbag too for the walk back to the hotel or even to the taxi rank as they can be quite some distance from the theatres. Free cash machines are like rockinghorse droppings. Pay on card where possible. The machines will all charge you a fixed fee for taking cash out, so if you have to, take it out in decent sized chunks to ensure the percentage you pay on the transaction is kept to a minimum. Cant think of anything else just now.

Have been several times James. Probably about 6 or 7 now, cant remember. Including New Years Eve Get yourself round to ours for a beer and a catch up and Ill tell you all you want to know .

Just fallen out with Admiral. Have recently bought a Kuga, which is lower insurance group and lower performance than the Seat Altea FR that it replaces. Its a piece more expensive, but still. £60 increase on the premium for the remaining 11 months. Negotiated it down to a £32.50 increase, but still, an increase for a lower group lower performance car. Excuse... Relatively inexperienced in driving this type of car. The cancellation fee, and the discount I would lose on the second vehicle (multicar) outweighted the difference that I could make by insuring with a cheaper quote elsewhere, so I had no choice but to suck up the increase. They also seem to have offshored the last of their call centres too. There is a lovely Welsh lady on the menu options, and even spoke to one when I tried calling another number - but in the end, to make changes to my policy, Im talking to an offshore centre. They had no idea what the car type was. I couldnt remember its original reg, and Ive just put a private plate on it, so couldnt get it from the reg. When asking about options or factory fitted extras, they couldnt just list the "X-pack" as they wanted to know what that gave the car over standard. I knew some bits but not all, and the latest brochure doesnt shed much light on it as they changed the model year in October, and ours is a September manufacture date, so different packs added different things at that point in time. The Panoramic roof doesnt need to be listed as part of a factory fitted option, but the parking sensors do! Heated seats are an "interior modifocation", even though they are factory fitted as part of the "x-pack". Im not confident Ive got the car insured with all the options listed - but at least most of it should be covered. Glad I got the gap insurance on it now, as at least I may have something else to back up a flimsy policy from Admiral if the worst happens. Come renewal time, both cars will be leaving them, and Ill be insuring with a company that does not have any offshore call centres, even if it does cost a bit more. The policy price from Admiral on the multicar was nice while it lasted, but its not worth enough to put up with a 45 minute call to try and make what should be a simple change - and then get shafted for it too.

As above, seen these some time ago. My first thought was that I could finally replace that missing level gear from my technic lego differential. Prices have come down in the last few years and it won't be long until they are feasible for home use.

There may be a lot of interest, as many in texas will have their ear to the ground on local events there too.. As long as we dont get any further bloody dilution as part of it....

Have seriously considered swapping for a dino on several occasions, but never taken the plunge. Right now, the film/tv car I would love in my garage is Elanor. 1967 Shelby GT500. Or in a dream world, a 1964 DB5.

For eight and a half grand I could probably employ someone for the time we are away from the home to sit in a little shed and sign people in and out.

The £860 was for the motor units with photo cells, control panel, remotes etc (clicky). Their quote was £4800 in vat for the gates and equivalent motor units. The full quote was as follows: Pair of metal gates total span 3.6m height 2m inc automation: £3997.23 + Vat Wireless intercom £500 +VAT, or GSM intercom £899 +Vat Keypad: £125 +Vat Exit loop: £400 +vat Letterbox built into pillars: £300 +vat Brick built pillars inc caps: £995 +vat Galvanised steel inserts for pillars, including footings (600m cubed): £450 +vat So with the gsm version of the intercom, its £8599.48 including the vat. Go for just a standard wireless and its a much more respectable £8120.68. God knows what they would have quoted if power wasnt already available at the end of the drive (aprox 120ft away). Suppose my search continues for a company prepared to provide realistic prices and not try to pull the wool over my eyes.