coldel

I also got nominated, but as I look at facepack about once a week sometimes less I only noticed it yesterday and in the intervening 5 days since nomination I have had messages giving me grief for not doing it. A. I give to charity because I want to and to the charity I want to and I do it when I want - this is not dictated to me by someone else who only gives 5 quid once every decade to a charity they know bugger all or care one jot about B. Why is it that every person who goes on facebook ten times a day assumes everyone else does and also think that everyone else is so bound by its unwritten peer pressure rules

Tut huhhh why copy a GTR when its not a GTR

Haha you boys should cut down on the fried food and lager and make the most of your pension then In terms of the south east, yes there is a big sway in total spending, but there are something like 12m people living in London, Kent and Essex, more than double Scotland and about a fifth of the total UK so in terms of perception, it will appear like lots of money is spent there in total vs rest of UK. I don't have the numbers off the top of my head so could be wildly wrong, but suspect in terms of tax paid per head it is also likely to be higher in the south east than the rest of the country so why shouldn't it receive more as per AS argument - but like I say could be completely wrong on that front.

Can see your point regarding HS2, however you can't look at it like that in isolation. There is so much that is not in the public eye that is public money spent north of the border also. Government subsidies for Scottish power companies R&D dwarf the HS2 project for instance. Average public spending per head for people living in Scotland is something like £1k more than the rest of the UK, although you could argue that is offset as tax revenues per head in Scotland are higher on average than the rest of the UK. All swings and roundabouts. I find it hard to believe as well that Scots would by voting Yes effectively be laying at their door tax increases, historically anything which involves more tax has not sat well north of the border, Poll Tax for instance and rate rises have all been badly received, moreso than south of the border, although thats just my perception of it.

Had a quick dig through on Facepack and found some old photos Golden Temple Some statues in Nara Getting ready to tackle Nagano ski slopes! Also we climbed Fuji, I think it was August, there is literally an 8 week window you can do this an amateur. Walked up and stopped at a base camp halfway up from 10pm till midnight, then set off again and was at the top for sunrise - awesome! And one fearless dude trying to get a signal!

Steve, it was about Ekona and SMD saying they wish they had a 370ZN ... honestly Nooooooooooooo My £35k will be going on a 3/4 year old XKR next year, 5.0l V8 Supercharged 510bhp Jolly good show old boy!

Drive it all the time carefully/winter tyres or stick it in the garage with a trickle charger and forget about it for a few months. Not sure what else to suggest?

TTRS looks 90% like a bottom of the range TT - the Zed is designed to look like just what it is, a sports car with decent performance. I could argue if there was only the TTRS available and no other variants you wouldn't be seeing it driven around by girls and it would be uber rare and probably a lot more desirable and we would all be drooling over its unique design

Yes the mileage is a bit of a red herring. So in 12 years its done 2500 miles per year on average, so spent plenty of time sat around not moving. How has it been stored? Sat out on the road or garaged? When was the import and was it under-sealed? All these can combine to create rust problems etc. As Kyle said, for the sake of 20k extra miles you could have had the car with a new clutch etc. There are people in the US who have Zeds on 250k miles so its not anywhere near the end of its life at 60k miles.

TTRS is faster in a sprint than the Zed, did the original post need anymore than that These threads do have a tendency to pop up - we should have a standard templated one "I raced an [insert car brand here] the other day etc..." Then have standard responses of "The Zed is a GT car not a sprinter" or "Its a ten year old car vs what is a more expensive/newer/higher tech/lighter/[insert other reason here] car so it wont be quicker"

Not making any sweeping assumptions on your financial status also - but if you are buying the whole car on CC I would have in your back pocket about £1k in cash to sort out any faults that may come along. New clutch and flywheel for instance is around £650-£700 to buy before labour costs etc. If you don't want to be paying out immediately I would not be focusing on miles and instead be looking at the service history, clutch replacement, and so on and so forth.

UK spec was just GT or Non GT - JDM had multiple levels of each so you will find some things missing from a JDM GT which you would have on a UK GT.

Yeah took a few photos of that golden temple - something like 1 tonne of gold leaf covering it or something? Also when doing that tour you can stop and have green tea - they will show you how to drink it in traditional fashion as well (so quarter turns of the cup etc)

Kyoto! Anagram of Tokyo and the old capital city I went there for a weekend with some Japanese friends - they surprised me and my wife with a make over session. Kyoto is famous for the Geisha and Rebecca got done up in that kind of outfit and me as a Samurai. You are then allowed to walk around atop the hill in your outfits for the day. So you will see 'geisha' being photographed but mostly they are tourists done up! Bullet train is awesome - Japanese friends paid (they ran the biggest law firm in Tokyo) so we went first class. I also saw whilst there a 300 strong Santa Claus charity run (we went on the 24th Dec) which was a strange sight! Nara is awesome for temples, loads of them and a very famous red bridge there. Book yourself into the B&B style places for a great unique expereince. There is also a famous little bar in Nara where all the visitors pin their business cards to the wall. tens of thousands of cards, so remember to take one if you have one. We also did skiing in Nagano - about 2 1/2 hours from Tokyo by train and bus - I did onsen there on a mountain side outside in a rock pool which was fantastic. Loads of great skiing, very expensive though.

Your money , Your choice. This Plenty of reasons not to buy - biggest one probably is that you don't have to buy straight away - always plenty on the market.

For £6k you could buy privately and get a non write off, original colour, UK spec, later year, service history but with more miles? Probably wouldn't lose much cash selling this on (private sale £5k?) but would would take you some time as there are a lot of zeds out there at the moment. PS, nothing against tradelink in any of the above, just answering the guys question in terms of why wouldnt he.

As Will said traditionally tattoos were only on Yakuza who are the Japanese mafia - it tends to be less of a problem if you are western as they know that tattoos are not a sign of criminal involvement.I actually got my tattoo done in Tokyo, sat next to a Yakuza guy getting his back done - he spoke some English, was a really good few hours actually! So I did the onsens before that - I did play for a football team and in the hot summers wore sleeveless tops and I got a bit of a reaction but not to the extent Will mentioned above (which I can imagine could happen if you are Japanese). You wont get in an onsen with any tattoos which is a shame as its such a unique experience. I went to a gym once and said I had a tattoo, they let me use it that once but I had to change in a cubicle not in the general changing area and I had to wear a long sleeve top. Oh and thought of some other things in Tokyo overnight! Pachinko vanues - gambling is illegal so the guys go in and drop thousands of ball bearings into machines which can return more at the bottom (think the penny shove style games in the arcades) - if they get more then they take them to a clerk and get a prize which could be a teddy bear or something branded to that establishment - you can then go outside and find a vendor who will buy that teddy off you for the amount you should have won so they sell for like £500 or something if you win big. Just their way of dodging the laws! Karaoke - you must do this, its not like UK karaoke - you will often find stressed businessmen go and do this on their own after work to wind down before going back home. Make sure you go for ones that have deals, you can pay something like £20-£30 each and you get plates full of great food, all the alcohol you can drink and 2 hours in a karaoke booth (with English subtitles so you can sing along!) Make the most of the food - worth learning about yakitori, katsu, and all the different variations of food (sashimi is lovely and even though it might not appeal) If you want a boozy night out Roppongi (not to be confused with Roppongi Hills which is very different) is bar and club lined - I did an all nighter along there once, started at 7pm did about five bars/clubs and ended up having pepperoni pizza at 4am in a diner before clubbing on till 7am and then heading home! Shinjuku has tonnes of stuff, but it is very much the more commercial part of Tokyo, very busy, lots of department stores (such as Iseten I think its called) the train station itself is sprawling and covers something like 4km of walkways. So its tempting not to venture far. But you are in a great hub so make sure you get on the metro (which will astonish you with its reliability, never late, never delayed, it just works all the time - and watch out for the white gloved 'shovers') and venture off to different parts of Tokyo.

Wouldn't worry about red light district, one of the safest cities in the world Tokyo. You can wander through there 2am and never know what you just wandered through. What to do in Tokyo, so much cool stuff, the typical touristy stuff to do on a first trip: Meiji Shrine and harajuku area, all the alternative Japanese plus a huge shrine area - go on a weekend and you will probably see a traditional Japanese wedding (have to be millionaires to marry there so its pretty amazing) Sumo wrestling isn't as popular as it used to be but for a foreigner its a stunning day out - think its on in May, you will need to check - great thing is you wander around the outer arena and literally have the wrestlers walk past you, they are 30 stone of solid muscle, enormous! Shibuya, where all the cool kids hang out and has the multi way pedestrian crossing as well as the bronze dog there (Hachiko, google it) There is a national park in Shinjuku, you will be able to walk there, fantastic tranquility in a busy city There is a twin tower government building, you can go to the top for free something like 48 stories, great view of the city, again walking distance from Shinjuku Roppongi Hills for your posh shopping experience, similar can be said of Ginza which has all your designer stores plus traditional theatre Also get the tram across to odaiba you will go over the rainbow bridge which is amazing Fresh sushi at the fish markets, but make sure you are there for 5am latest Try all the local food, just don't ask what it is, you will enjoy it more If you have no tattoos, get yourself into an onsen - get naked - be brave In terms of places to visit outside Tokyo, Nara is a good shout, I never got the chance to go to Okinawa, wish I had. Oh and if you are near Yotsuya station, you can visit this pub the Three Threads for an English pint - it was my local! Very bizarre building in the middle of such massive high rise apartments. I lived in the apartments on the left of the photo!

Lower it and complete the look!

I used to live in Tokyo - when I am home tonight will compile my dossier for you "Sumi-masan" is the first word to learn, it effectively means 'excuse me' in any context and you will use it a lot staying in Shinjuku! Accommodation is expensive but food is relatively cheap - I remember using the Tokyustay hotel chain I think its called for fairly cheap, reasonable quality western style stays around Japan.

Absolutely, although the problem is that the Yes campaign have driven a hard message that voting No is being anti-Scottish, which is clearly not the case. Some people I know who are going to vote are going to vote No but are seriously worried about the violent repercussions from the 'Braveheart' Yes voters who think they have let the country down voting no.

Its because both countries will suffer if they split up and Westminster knows it. They only plus for Scotland if they go it alone is exactly that, they can make whatever decisions they like, it doesn't mean they will be financially sorted which is what Salmond is trying to convince everybody of. In terms of the energy sector, it is not wholly Scottish owned, the UK government subsidies heavily all the development that goes on within these businesses. As much as watching the debates is interesting, it doesn't even scratch the surface of what will happen if they go it alone - they are purely popularity contests which contain about 0.1% of the facts - both sides have so much to hide.

Sure they were pointing at the car...

Haha love it Ian! I have caught someone taking a selfie of mine in the background and in a car park was asked by a passer by if I could step to the side so he could take a photo of it when I went to get in and drive off! I wish I had grabbed a photo of both!

It is somewhat ironic, that the people involved in the energy industry that Salmond seems to have chucked his eggs into, he has very little support. I don't want the UK to break up because we are just getting ourselves back on a level footing after a disastrous recession, if a Yes vote goes through it will set us back years, both countries. If they want to go for it, then good luck go for it, but if boot were on the other foot and England wanted to cut loose the UK and I had the case put forwards as Salmond has, I would be seriously concerned that this guy is just making it up as he goes along and has no plan on how to actually make this work.