JetSet

That's a good point. I don't know the situation in London and the other big cities but around here the armed response units are just ordinary policemen who probably only carry guns when needed. I'm pretty sure that we don't have policemen sitting around waiting for a call out. Pete

Sad news that F1 engine guru Brian Hart has died, he supplied engines for a number of teams in in the 90's and early 00's. Pete

It's very nice but at least £1000 overpriced. It's not a genuine Nismo, they were never sold in The U.K, more like a genuine Nismo kit in reality but still a very good looking Zed. Pete

Yes, looks like a pre facelift so it'll be Brickyard Red. Pete Quite a nice colour but is it really called brickyard red ? They also have a dark bronze in the US I believe That's knows as Interlagos Fire, That's only found on 296 bhp Facelifts 2006-2007. Brickyard Red Interlagos Fire Pete

Yes, looks like a pre facelift so it'll be Brickyard Red. Pete

Well said Pete

Some big hitters missing from this list . On the other hand its great to see so many first timers . Pete

I once bought some computer equipment from The States through EBAY, The AMD 3700+ CPU's turned out to be test chips sent out to various companies, in theory they were still the property of AMD, the motherboards were PcChips flashed with an ECS bios to get the CPU to work, one of the motherboards had the Bios chip in the wrong way around, which I didn't notice until it was too late. These CPU's wouldn't work on any other motherboards, like Asus or Gigabyte for example. When I eventually got them all running after almost 12 months The CPU's ran really hot requiring a better fan than the ones I was sent. I didn't dare give him a negative as I wanted to maintain my 100%. The guy was eventually kicked off EBay, there was even a web site dedicated to exposing his cheating ways. If you do a google for "FastMemoryMan" he's a scam legend on EBAY . Ebay were worse than useless, despite multiple, well hundreds, of complaints by ripped off buyers it took about 4 years to finally delete his account. They even threatened to delete my account after I posted a warning about him on one of the EBay forums. Consequently I no longer buy stuff from The States and will only deal with traders with 100%. Pete

He's right . Pete

You seem to be intentionally misreading the emphasis within this sentence for the sake of an argument... I read that sentence as "No matter what all the rhetoric is about - If Scotland becomes independent we will have to enter the EU as an individual and go through the same processes all have to" If you google Scotland and The E.U you will get several different interpretations of what will happen from legal experts, they may be able to remain in The E.U and negotiate or they have to start from scratch. This is a unique situation and we can at the moment only guess at the outcome. Things may become clearer closer to the referendum which in reality they need to for people to know the exact situation...as a neutral it's all too vague to me at the moment. Pete

Yes, Spain isn't to keen on the idea, they think it'll spark independence calls and maybe more violence from several separatist movements within Spain. Whatever, Scotland will enter The E.U on the current member states terms, not on their own, same for any new E.U country really. Pete

1. glrnet+1 24th & 25th Drives. Hotel booked 23rd, 24th & 25th 2. Ken 24th & 25th Drives Hotel booked 23rd ,24th & 25th 3. Ebized +1 24th & 25th Drives. Hotel booked 23rd, 24th & 25th 4. Darren-B 24th & 25th Drives. Hotel booked 23rd, 24th & 25th 5. Will370z +1 24th & 25th Drives. Hotel booked 23rd, 24th & 25th 6. Paddy78 +1 24th & 25th Drives. Hotel booked 23rd, 24th & 25th 7. Buster + Mrs Buster 24h & 25h Drives..Hotel booked 23ed,24th & 25th 8. Wasso + Mrs Wasso 23rd, 24th & 25th for everything!! (Booked) 9. TheBountyBarKid +1 23rd-25th booked. 10. SpursMadDave +1 23rd, 24th & 25th. 11. octet + 28,999,999 RO and BG - 23rd - 25th - Hotel booked. Drives booked 12. Humpy +1 - 23rd, 24th & 25th for everything!! (Booked) 13. Grundy +1 - 23rd & 24th For every thing (Booked) 14.Mopedmark + Mrs Moped 24th,25th Drives, Hotel booked 23rd, 24th 15, 14N 24th,25th Drives, Hotel booked 23rd, 24th 16. Andyvvc +1 - 23rd, 24th, 25th. Quiet double-room booked! Everything! 17. Mr + Mrs Keyser - 23rd, 24th, 25th. Quiet double-room booked! Also Booked bumper repair kit, a reversing camera and ordered 1:1 scale map of Wales for Mr G 18. ioneabee - 23rd, 24th & 25th Drive - (hotel not booked) - waiting for permission 19. Howee 350 +1 23rd & 24th (no accommodation required). 20. JetSet + Caroline350Z 23rd and 24th (hotel booked 24th only) ListAdjusted again Pete

Only those who want to. Salmond has made it clear that Scottish Nationality won't be forced upon those that don't want it. It'll be along the lines of Northern Ireland were people can chose between Irish or British nationality. For people living outside of Scotland, the same rules will apply, you will have to prove you were either born in Scotland or at least one of your parents were....possible that it might go back as far as grandparents. Pete

Yes, keep them coming. Although I love dogs I've never actually owned one and all the other things I've had never lasted very long. Tried both Tropical and cold water fish, my rabbits got myxy and my hamster lasted about 18 months. I'll stick to cats and most likely rescued cats (although I wouldn't mind a Bengali), they have a good life span, one of ours lived till an estimated 20 and the majority 15 or 16 years and I've probably only spent a grand on vet fees in the 34 years I've lived in this house. My daughter in law has spent that much in 12 months on her Boxer . Pete

Canada has a population of 35 million, Australia 23 million and Switzerland is one of the most expensive countries in the world to live in. I would compare Scotland more to The Republic of Ireland or Wales really. Pete

10 Billion is the latest figure I can come up with but this includes revenue from the North Sea oil/gas fields off the English coast and presumably the gas field off the North Wales coast, so about 9 Billion is Scottish. Norway has revenues of around 21 Billion. Both of these will obviously decline but Norway has built up a huge pot of money (about 500 Billion). Pete

Welcome along . Also, the biggest meet of the year is based in Shropshire (1/2 a mile away from Chirk) Pete

I was always against the Welsh Assembly, living up in Flintshire I get the impression that the Assembly doesn't really like spending money up here and consider us as foreigners (over 60% of Flintshire's population were born outside Wales) Pete

I don't like nationalism whether it be Welsh, Scottish, Irish, British or whatever it too often leads to trouble. I agree though that Scotland could survive as an independent country, no problem, but like other small European countries for example Norway, Sweden, Austria, Finland, etc it'll become very expensive to live in within a few years. Taxes will go up for sure if the left leaning Scot Nationalists remain in power. To those who say let's give it a try well there's no chance of Scotland rejoining The U.K if and when things fall apart for a long long time. I also dread to think of the cost of setting up an independent country, you will need a new DVLA, Army, Navy, Air Force Customs and Excise, just about everything that's shared with The U.K at the moment including setting up embassies all over the world. As I understand it Scotland may have to use the Euro and all new countries joining the E.U have to become part of the free movement zone. Alex Salmond has glossed over most of The E.U issues thinking that he has the whip hand over the rest of Europe and that he'll get the terms he wants....dream on Alex. Pete

Hmm, If you've heard of David Soul of Starsky and Hutch then he has dual nationality despite having no connection with the U.K before he came to live here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Soul However, this site here says you may lose citizenship, it's all rather unclear really. http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1753.html Pete

Welcome along . The U.S.A allows dual citizenship with The U.K, so you don't have to renounce your citizenship, the only proviso is that when travelling into The U.S.A you must use your American passport and you cannot get any consular help from The U.K while in America. If either of your parents were born in The U.K then citizenship is normally granted fairly quickly, if it's one of your grandparents then you can still apply but it can take a fair bit longer. Pete

We have had a couple of cats that have gone AWOL over the years. In the 80's we had a little tortie who regularly vanished for 3 weeks, 28 days was her record. Where she went is a mystery there's no one else around here who'd feed her. I used to go searching but after a couple of years just waited for her to return. The neutered tom cat that died last year would also go missing for 10-20 days although we would get the odd glance of him hunting in a field about 1/4 mile away. When I was 14 or so my Grandmother had to go into an old peoples home so we went to Birkenhead to pick her 2 year old cat up. Upon arrival at home the darned thing wriggled out of my grip and ran off. Didn't see it for 3 weeks and it took another week to ingeniously trap him. Lived till 19 years old that cat . Pete

I rarely drink anything other than tea these days, I'll maybe have a shandy if we eat out but that's about it. I've managed to drop my weight to 80 kilos from 85 by walking 2 or 3 miles a couple of times a week. When I was running anything from 30-60 miles a week I was under 65 kilos . Pete

In my experience misting is always worse in 2 seater (sports cars), reckon its down to the smaller cabin area. Mine mists up in seconds if I get in with even slightly wet clothes on. Pete

Let me introduce Tigger. There's quite a story attached to this cat. Back in October Caroline was approached by a friend of hers who asked us if we could rehome her 2 year old male ginger cat. This cat had been through a lot, it's first owners were very cruel to it (I won't go into details) and eventually after living semi wild for 6 months it was adopted by a couple who lived a few doors away from the original owners. Disaster struck within weeks when it was was knocked down by a car and it was touch and go whether it pulled through. The couple in question had a problem though, their son in law was extremely allergic to cats to the extent that he had to stay in a hotel when visiting them. Anyway, after some thought we decided to adopt him and a couple of weeks later he arrived, extremely nervous and agitated. No problem, I'm good with cats and figured that if we kept him in for a week or so he'd be O.K. Well, things went badly, despite locking the cat flap he managed somehow to rip the actual door of the flap off and escaped. Caroline spotted him up the lane that morning but despite all the tricks in the book including the previous owners driving down here there was no further sign of him. Over the next few weeks I expanded my search covering the 2 local quarries, the large woods an abandoned farmhouse, etc but saw nothing. The lady who trusted us with the cat was besides herself with grief and she joined me on a couple of wide searches. We asked at the Truck Depot at the back of us, the 3 or 4 houses within 2/3rds of a mile the local MacDonalds, half a mile away but no one had seen him. After 3 weeks we put out some posters and a couple of days later we had our first lead, he had been spotted sitting on a bridge at twilight about a 1/4 of a mile away but there were no further sightings for 3 weeks. Then on XMas eve I spotted him in the lane just 20 yards from our house and on Boxing Day we put out what was left of the turkey in our garden and within minutes he was there he was picking away from it. Of course, as soon as I went out off he went...this was going to be tough to get him back. Sightings increased, my daughter spotted him in our lane and he was coming into our garden every evening. I was leaving out food and on the 30th he came to our back door and cried for food. On New Years eve he allowed me to approach him with food and yesterday he just simply walked up to me allowing me to pick him up, he'd obviously got fed up of living rough and needed somewhere warm to rest up. Well, here he is this evening relaxed on our couch and loving the attention (and food) being lavished on him. Pete