coldel

Running costs...

Had to drive my VX220 home 180 miles, no problem at all, a great drive - admittedly was very excited but it was not uncomfortable. In terms of boot space, missus and I went on a trip and packed two 'carry on luggage' sized suitcases in the boot.

Supercharged VX220 and a travel card BMW 135i Seat Leon Cupra K1 Renaultsport Megane AR Brera

Gatwick is in a bit of trouble, landings aborting then heading off to northern parts of England to land. Maybe I missed it, but not much in the way of weather warnings about this yesterday?

...as in storm Katie for causing havoc, glad I parked outside my house last night, my neighbours car is not faring so well.

Make sure you clean that engine bay every week from now on! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I have a JapSpeed exhaust on my ST205 came with it. Sounds a bit drony and looking to replace it, but there is a very good post by a guy who use to work at RTP I think called Ray on one of the Celica sites where he bought a couple of them, cut one in half and checked the build quality and found the interior to be of a very good standard given the price and easily on par with other more expensive exhausts. The usual problem was fitment, so he fitted one to his GT4 whilst up on a ramp, putting each individual part on separately and found it all fitted perfect, until he tried to put it all on together one part went on which forced the rest of it to move out of place and foul on the underside of the car. So he cut about 3cm off the pipe and refitted and it all fitted perfect. His findings, were that quality for the £250 he paid was much better than he realised, the fit was poor but can be fixed with a bit of work. I thought it was a good piece of investigative work actually.

What you are referring to is Overcrowding, this is nothing to do with Overpopulation which is a different issue entirely. You can have overcrowding in a number of places in a single environment say a single country, like the UK and as you referenced London is over crowded, but thats not the same as a country being overpopulated.

It's not about space, it's about resources. For example, deforestation doesn't occur so people can live there. And I certainly don't choose to live in a crowded area - it's where I can make money, same as most other people that live in or around London. I'd imagine there's space for far more than 10x the current population, but that's not the point. The problem is that it is not allocated correctly at the moment, that is not overpopulation that is purely a planning issue of the human race. Famines are never an issue of lack of food, they are political failures. Famine is caused by political issues, war, poverty and poor infrastructure - none of these are overpopulation issues. There are also plenty of famous philosophers of the past that said we cannot sustain population growth due to food production capability, unfortunately they could only make that assumption based on the facts put in front of them - you can only make so much bread with my horse driven grain mill - basically as population grows, technology and capability does also which deals with it. Population numbers also show it growing slower than it was in the 50s/60s/70s etc. So, should 'population' be an excuse for no children, other than a tongue in cheek sarcastic comment on here, it isn't. Anyway, bottom line on kids - if you want them go for it, if you don't, don't - it really is just that isn't it.

Actually the world is not grossly overpopulated, I have yet to see any evidence it is? Who said? There is more than enough space to take x10 the amount of people, its just that some decide to live in very clustered parts of the world.

Ejector seat

Centre caps are £50 for a set of four as well

My goal of having the best OEM+ GT4 is going well me thinks!

Well try it and prove yourself right mate, in fact I will buy you your first pack of nappies

Going on the registration date on the V5C, what was going on when your car was 'born' ? My Four was born February 1995, Celine Dion was at number 1 with Think Twice and Barings Bank went under with debts of $1bn+

Me, Darren B and Ebized all went to Goodwood a few years back, parked up, some guy walked past our three Zeds and said he would love to get one but didnt think he could afford one as good as ours as he only had £12k to play with. To be fair Daz's supercharged 350 and Colins 370 maybe not but sure could have had mine for £12k! Colin as ever the perfect forum enthusiast had forum cards to hand to him with the website address on!

...spacers

Took the opportunity in the sun to pick and install my new front speakers, Pioneer 2013i's, not much choice really as the fronts are 20cm in diameter which is a pretty rare size. Anyway, they are 80w RMS which fits great with my head units 50w output. Door cards came off easily enough, unbolted the speakers and had to contend with some serious amounts of black goo which acts as adhesive/sound deadening, anyway after some gentle persuasion out popped the old ones in not bad nick for 21 years old! The Pioneers were not a direct fit, but a bit of a squeeze and managed to get them in behind the grills. Annoyingly the grills are attached to the door card so it all has to come off rather than something nice and easy like unscrewing them...still... Sounds fantastic, JVC double din head unit, Alpine bass speaker and now these, perfect for me

I guess peoples priorities and what they deem exciting change, there was a time as a ten year old I am sure you thought cars were stupid and that Pokemon was the real deal, and I am sure when you hit 90 just making it to the toilet before you wee yourself will be deemed a very exciting achievement its all a matter of perspective and not everyone will come from the same angle as you

Of course there are people with kids that are rude and refuse to cooperate, and rightly so you would get annoyed. There are plenty of adults who behave the same way who don't have kids, in fact many more of them than those with kids in venues, you have to deal with them all equally. Would you ask some who talks overly loud to leave the bar or talk quieter. Would you ask people to go sit back down if they push in at the bar. My point is live the parents shoes, next time you see the situation check out the parent closely, yes they could just be ignorant and rude but its not always that, in most cases its that they are hugely stressed, really do not want their child to be causing all that fuss and would give the world for their child to sit and be quiet but just need a little understanding...I don't think for other people that is an unreasonable ask in the first instance. Remember, that screaming kid could grown up to a be doctor that one day saves your life on an operating table...give them a little slack

Happy to discuss. Actually I had that exact issue with parents before I stepped into their shoes. We have a babysitter, we use occasionally if we want to say go watch a movie at the cinema, a quick drink beforehand, ticket prices, babysitter cost and you are looking at a £100 night out to watch a film. Yes I understand I took on that cost when having a child, but you can excuse people for not defaulting to them as much as non child owning adults would like. Actually parents who are perceived as 'ignoring' their kids that run around are generally all over it but because they are not doing the same thing i.e. chasing after them or shouting at them to behave doesn't mean they do not care or are not being considerate to other people in the venue. What do you think will happen if you tell a 5 year old not to do something, or if you got up and ran after them, it will only exacerbate the situation and become a bigger 'game' to a 5 year old. Parents also naturally understand how and when their child genuinely needs attention vs unnecessarily demanding attention, often you will see a parent almost ignoring a child but this is deliberate and its part of the long game i.e. if you run to their aid every time they cry out it only gets worse. Most adults without experience of their own children will not understand the psychology or day to day learning that goes on, perception is everything and unfortunately it leads to lots of assumptions that are quite untrue. I agree in Richmond, hardly anywhere for adult only, but they are there. I do not spend all my time with my kid, I have plenty of time where I go off and do my own thing childless, and there are plenty of places because I have deliberately looked. I could name 5 or 6 bars in Richmond which are my adult places. That then brings its own social issues, as much as some people don't like kids running around being noisy equally I don't like adults who talk loudly, slurp when they drink, push in at the bar, are rude, smell bad and clearly don't shower, etc. and all behaviours much worse than the odd kid making a noise. I guess the upshot is if you don't like kids, you will spot the times when they annoy you and ignore things which clearly would annoy other people but have no effect on you.

I think SW London thing is the other way around, it has great schools, lots of green areas and is easy access into London for commutes so attracts that type of person. In terms of social stigma, it also goes the other way around, I find it interesting how people treat me when I am with my 4 year old. Its so polarising. I have had comments when I am sat on the train to 'control your child' - like he is some sort of robot with a controller attached to him you ***king moron, I haven't actually switched him into 'loud mode' on purpose. I have also had people who quietly lean over and whisper 'I totally understand' when he has the occasional strop and suddenly all the pressure just goes away and I could honestly hug that complete stranger. Funny as well, when my wife was pregnant people couldn't have been more helpful on public transport, the second that kid is out and in a pushchair she was tutted at, commented at, told to do this and do that - disgusting behaviour if I am quite frank. Sorry, it turned into a bit of a rant...back to my Little Book Of Calm...

Sorry to sound serious after some riotous posts but I think its worth mentioning like I did on the other thread, the idea that 'oh we will hit around 35 and have a kid then' will just happen, we were in that boat and took a fair bit of time for little 'un to announce himself on the coloured wee stick and for a while genuinely thought it wouldn't happen. Also have a few friends who are having children later in life and having similar issues...

...so a baby born here to foreign parents is suddenly British and entitled to anything they want because they are not an immigrant. I would wager a full british pound that many of us if you go back 10 generations probably are immigrants at heart - its not like we all genuinely started here. My grandparents on my mothers side are Irish.

Just found this pic of mine...looks like the new owner did a few bits to it!