JetSet

Last time Google came around here was 2009 and my lane was barely navigable, this is the closest they got. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.193703,-3.087209,3a,75y,90h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s95yFEMQtMmvjkbZusMnbCg!2e0 Pete

+1 Pete

I once got pulled for having my fog lights on, nice policeman told me only to use them in fog and falling snow. That was back in the early 1970's though. As others have pointed out dipped headlights in poor light, heavy rain, snow, etc are a must, not that you can see any better its so that other road users including pedestrians can see you. Most bikers leave their dipped lights on all the time and in Sweden it's mandatory for all vehicles. Pete

Tree Sap is actually Aphid droppings, sometimes known as honeydew. These aphids suck the sap out of the leaves then poo on your car. From experience, Lime trees are the worst (aphids just love them) but all trees and bushes will have aphids in them. As Ricey has said our cars were covered in sap but not as first thought from the conifers. I think the conifers just shed the tips of the needles which then got glued to the car by sap that the aphids dropped from the oak and Black poplar trees also in the vicinity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeydew_(secretion) . Link not working, final bracket needs to be added manually for some strange reason. Pete

Adding extra lanes, well for a start it's very expensive, imagine the cost of widening for example the M6/M5 bottleneck junction in Birmingham. Buying up land is also very expensive, the proposed M4 relief road will cost £1 billion, much of that in compulsary purchase, for just a 14 mile stretch around Newport. There were plans to widen the A55 in North Wales to 3 lanes but the cost was horrendous. The 2 lane 1 mile long tunnel under the River Conway which cost around £150 million in the 1980's would cost a further £500 million to add an extra lane and with the other tunnels that would need to be widened, junctions altered, etc we're looking at several billion. I know that the proposed widening of a 5 mile section by our house was costed out at £250 million in 2006, you're probably looking at £400-£500 million today (more than the entire annual budget for road building in Wales). Accidents are the main problem and widening roads will in general make little difference in reality. We were extremely short sighted in the 60's in ripping up our railways, mind you it didn't help that at that time the minister of transport was one Ernest Marples, managing director of Marples Ridgeway which constructed much of our early motorways. Pete

That's one of the problems with low profile tyres, the walls are so stiff that it can disguise the fact that your tyres are almost flat. One of Caroline's ultra low profile tyres once showed 6 psi yet it looked fine from the outside. I bought a digital Michelin tyre gauge/pump, £30 or £40 and stash it behind the passenger seat and check at least once a month. Tyre pressure will vary considerably depending on ambient temperatures and if your car has just completed a run or if its sitting in direct sunlight. Pete

Almost certain this was Screamer (Mike) as he waved at me and I was on foot having just got out of my car in Buckley today. Pete

They are under the bird feeders. Yes, they hoover up all the stuff that the birds drop. On top of that we put out just about every bit of food waste that we can, stale bread, food that the cats have left and remnants of our meals. Of course, the crows, magpies, jays and jackdaws will scoff some of it too and almost certainly foxes as well. Putting food out can attract vermin but I wouldn't expect anything from the size of a rabbit downwards to last too long with all the cats about We believe that these badgers are from a sett that is relatively new and I've got a rough idea of where it could be. There is an established and well documented sett about 600 yards away but this is on the other side of The A55 and it's suicide for badgers to cross it. Pete

Very true, most people will go through their entire lives without seeing a live one. They started coming into our garden about 18 months ago but until last week I'd never seen more than one at a time. Despite living in a rural area with plenty of badgers about I've only ever seen 2 before last year and they have been in the early hours of the morning . They don't make much noise and don't worry the cats who go right up to them. Pete

Not the greatest quality but..... Fairly frequent visitors to our garden but first time I've seen this many at once. Pete

If that comment was aimed at me then you can rest assured that I don't drive like a knob. I've yet to have any sort of accident in the 45 years since I passed my test, how long did you manage . Pete

The latest figures I can find are from 2008. Deaths on German Motorways 495, Deaths on U.K Motorways 157. 67% of German Motorway deaths are on unrestricted sections. Of course Germany probably has more Motorways than us but if we look at % then 12% of all road deaths in Germany are on Motorways compared to 6% in The U.K. Pete

Middle lane hogging, hmm, If you're on a busy motorway then I can understand why people do it. If you move into the inside lane and there's a truck say 1/4 mile ahead by the time you come to pass it can be so difficult to get back into the middle lane as cars are driving in bunches so close together. Just to be fair, we all complain about the standard of driving but has anyone here driven in Spain, Belgium, France, The U.S.A, etc . Pete

Yeah, I got egged leaving ASDA late at night in Caroline's Z4 a few years ago, it hit the hood near the back window then slid down onto the boot and rear panel. Pete

Here's another one. I started work at John Summers Steelworks on June 30th 1969, one day before it became British Steel Shotton. Anyway, there were from memory 4 new starters that day and 2 of us were destined to work in the laboratories. We spent the entire first day and part of the second day on an induction course and signing contracts. It turned out that whereas I was a Chemist, the other guy was a Metallurgist so we were sent to different departments. The other guys name was Dennis Darker and although through the course of my job I spoke to him several times over the phone I never met him again until May 1980 when he was next in line to me in the queue to pick up our redundancy cheques. Imagine my surprise when finishing the London Marathon in April 1991 he finishes one place behind me !! My surname and variants of it are fairly uncommon so I had a chuckle when the guy that finished one place ahead of me in the very same 1991 London Marathon is listed in the results as P.Broadbent ....and I'm next as P.Broad . Pete

Another random couple. My uncle lived in Orpington for a few years and when I was 18 or 19, I went down with my parents to visit him for the weekend and on pulling in at a petrol station a couple of miles from where he lived who should be filling up there as well but our next door neighbours . Last time I was in The States 2010 we camped in our rental RV at a small campsite in Southern Colorado and got talking to a couple from Oklahoma who had both just retired and were on their first ever road trip. 2 weeks later we bumped into them again in the visitor centre at The Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument about 500 miles away . When I was 18, I dated a girl who was born in the same hospital as me and on the same day too Pete

No, but I did work in the North Lab at Stanlow for 2 and a half years and got to know a fair few people who worked at Thornton. Pete

Astonishing!! Went to look at a Zed today for a new member on here and very nice it was as well. Guy invites me in for a brew and we get talking, his G/F then arrives and we get talking about work. Told them I worked for an oil company on The Wirral but had retired some years ago and the company had closed. Well to my surprise it turned out she worked for the company that took the site over in the very same laboratory and that her boss was one of the guys I worked with on shifts! She then phoned him up in work and said "you'll never guess who I've got sitting in my living room right now". Then it gets really amazing, it turns out that her father was on the same production line as me when I worked at British Steel 40 years ago!! Be good to hear other people's amazing coincidences Pete

They have closed road racing in The U.K right now (or until very recently at least) down in New Brighton on the Wirral. They close(d) the roads for the day and had races for motor bikes and cars...possibly set off at intervals TT style. Probably a local by-law or an historic loophole? Pete

When I was growing up in the 50's on Merseyside our milkman had a horse drawn cart and so did the rag and bone man . At the time, aged 8 or so I used to think why the hell are all these people dashing out and picking up the horse poo, weirdos I thought . Pete

As soon as that? I would have thought that next years cars have already been designed by now? And yes,tyres are very heavy, even heavier in the 70's when they were much wider and had to last the entire race, Pete

Did the same to one of mine. Garage got it off using an impact socket which they hammer on. Completely destroys the low profile nut so you'll have to get a new one, about a fiver each from Alex. Pete

But that's what F1 is all about, facing new challenges, new regulations, stretching the boundaries, evolving. When was the last time that a leading team ran the same car for more than one season? When was the last time that regulations didn't change from season to season? Probably 20 years, maybe more. Yes, it is a massive overhaul, the whole car will need to be redesigned but they do that every season anyway. Pete

I don't understand the thinking behind 13" wheels, surely, 13" wheels and high profile tyres are completely outdated and have been since the 80's. Pete

You used to be able to buy used F1 tyres in the 70's. Mate of mine had one in his living room and turned it into a coffee table. It was massive and really heavy even with the glass removed. Pete