coldel

A shot from Oslo last weekend, done on iPhone 4s no post production/photoshop...!

On tints, I thought they looked a bit crap in photos - that half the car is black and the rest completely see through. But, having it in the skyline and seeing it in reality it looks ok. Mine has the functional element that it keeps the sun out of little Alfies eyes in the back!

But again, you can't tailor a nationwide schooling system to an individual level, its just not feasible - what would you do instead? The spectrum of study is broad at GCSE level, it has to be (just because one person didn't like History doesn't mean the next won't either, why deprive them?) - but is it viable to teach welding and plumbing to 12 year olds who can't handle maths and english? Having taught in a school recently, it is incredible the lengths teachers go to after school to provide extra curricular stuff for kids. Funny thing is most kids find anything interesting if its made interesting to them - I was teaching survey writing and analysis in a maths class, boredom written all over their faces saying that no one uses this, so I asked them to guess how much money companies like Coca Cola etc spend on doing surveys globally every year - once we got to a figure of $40,000,000,000 everyone in the class suddenly took an interest and they really cracked on What I also love, is how the poorer students can be so inspirational. When teaching prime numbers, a student at the back who hated maths put her hand up and asked how any number can be prime when it can be divided by its own negative (therefore the rule that its is divisible by itself and 1 only is wrong) - genius. Made me go home that night and find out why! I think the great tragedy of our schooling is that so many kids do not make the most of it. With it all supplied on a plate, there are so many knockers.

Not true...it just mutates into another variant. I have had VXistus and now am severely suffer from Skylinitus!

"Bob, to the Zed-mobile!" Shame to hear about this mate, it is a bitch doing it lying under the car the whole time. Must have been gutted when you started it up.

The whole education system is not completely flawed, it is laid out in the best possible way to service as many people as possible in a way that is viable in a financially constrained environment. At uni we had over 150 students sit in on Statistics lectures, we had 2 Stats professors at the uni, so, apart from having lectures how is the information to be divulged across high numbers of students with this limited resource? Of course 1-1 teaching would be lovely, but, as per the clip, I am yet to see alternatives that are financially and sensibly viable. As for emotional and social intelligence, I believe the basis of this comes from good schooling and having proper social interactions - if there is a failing in this nowadays its more likely to be due to kids locking themselves into Facebook or the like (car forums haha!) 24 hrs a day, texting or emailing instead of speaking to each other - its a lifestyle thing in my view. As Gangzoom said, you don't know how good you got it sometimes. Yes sometimes life 'tosses you a lemon' and some people take it on the chin and stand up stronger for it, others make you tube videos blaming systems.

Finished yet?

so true that! Only a few degrees instantly give people access to reasonable wages, I'm thinking teachers, Dr's, lawyers. But then all of them also have to do years of further and continuous training to earn those 60k plus figures. I started my teacher training by doing the GTP (teacher version of an apprenticeships) so I have no PGCE, but I do have QTS. My initial salary was just about 14k before tax. Once qualified it only jumped to 20k. And its been a slow hard slog up the ladder. I'm now in a management position after 8 years of teaching, and I probably earn 10-20k less a year than all my mates from uni who didn't go into teaching. But I love what I do, I'm home in time to see my kids before bed. I'm around at the weekends, I have time off when my kids eventually will. I still do loads of hours un paid, but I do it because I like what I do and I like to see my students succeed. And I'd like to think long after I die, my students will be teaching their own kids the skills I taught them and I shall live on long after I've shuffled off this mortal coil. Never going to be a millionaire, but I've come to terms with that, and I'm content. Yeah, but you got a Jag!

History is what happened till yesterday and can't be changed, tomorrow is the future and any decisions I make can either help or hinder me and my family's fortunes. Maths and English are the important subjects, if you can't communicate and calculate your boundary's are restricted. Success cannot be measured in money volumes, it is measured in lifestyle and personal happiness. Personally I find history fascinating as it very much about discovering what people did in the past that worked, or didn't, and can influence what I do in future to avoid similar pitfalls or seize similar opportunities. But, as Rich said, you should study across the board to give you the opportunity to decide what is and isn't important to you.

Like the vid Rich, saw something as well the other day that was along the lines that of all the information generated since the dawn of time on this planet, 90% of it has been generated in the last 8 years or something equally incredible.

Yep no doubting people without degrees also do well, I am pretty useless with practical stuff despite a whole family of car mechanics! There will always be a market out there for people who come out of school and just throw themselves into a trade, some go on to make decent money some don't. Just to the point I made above, there will always be successful school dropouts, but equally, if not more, successful school 'stayers' - I read somewhere that over the last 10 years adults with a degree in the UK on average earn more than non degree holders by something like £10k- £15k a year.

I also did Of Mice and Men at school haha. Only book I read, but I got my English GCSEs and enjoyed it actually. I have to say having lived abroad, it is embarrassing the lack of education we have here into things such as History ( I know someone said it was dross), we like to think we are a proud nation of Brits but most people know naff all about our own past, how we got to our current state of affairs and why our culture contains what it does. I volunteered some free time a while back to helping out in a local school, kids loved History actually - it was the usual Mathematics subjects they hated (which are ironically probably the most important, but I am biased!)

When it comes to getting a post degree job, no one will want to know your GCSE results, or in some cases A-Levels, they become the stepping stones to a degree. But yeah I agree, don't sit in a job you hate for 40 years - you will get to retirement look back and wonder what the hell you did with your life!

I find both those clips quite disturbing if I am honest. I believe I owe a % of my success in life to the teachers at my god awful school who believed in me and helped me be better than I thought I could be. My school was ranked 3rd from bottom in the country but I got through with GCSEs to go on to A-Levels to a degree and I still use a lot of that education now (statistics, accounting, economics, mathematical modelling and so on). I find it shocking nowadays the level of mathematical incompetence across the UK, I ask someone to add two numbers together and out comes a smart phone with a calculator App. Yes you can shout out names such as Richard Branson, who had a very rich family (father was a barrister) which makes life a lot easier when setting up your own companies. But for every Richard Branson or Steve Jobs there will be 1000 other school drop outs who go on to struggle at the bottom of the job pile. Its just the same as usual, people complaining and picking holes in things but without offering any other viable option. I could quite happily write a rap about a number of people that are worth just as much money who did have an education, what does that prove? As for uni students in Tesco, maybe that is the case, but all my mates from uni are currently running their own businesses or in very well paid jobs (left uni in 1998). The problem now is not so much the students, although there will be dim ones, but the lack of jobs on offer - we put a job out there for a grad and we get 150 applicants minimum - all with the right qualifications.

I think the answer is, don't buy it, unless of course you really want it then by all means go ahead

Most cars have their own strengths, I think the 350z has character more than anything! My VX220 would monster a 350z on a track or a country road but it lacked an emotional attachment, its hard to explain but it just felt like the car just didn't give a crap about me haha. My Skyline, just looks outrageous and when that boost kicks in, wow you feel the power like you didn't in the Zed which has its 'lazy power'. On paper, its hard to argue that the 350z is 'better' than the Z4M (top speed is limited on both cars so no point looking at that) as it does have better stats, and having sat in both, the interior is a better quality in the BMW. But its the intangible stuff that the 350z had that my VX220 didnt have and most BMWs I have sat in or driven likewise don't have - in my humble opinion (although I did like the new M5, what a car).

Just seems like a lot of money for an auto with a dodgy body kit spray job mate and non of the extras. You can get a non import, manual, GT, newer car for that money.

I found that the genuine Nissan stuff worked best with some molyslip (or whatever its called!) - got mine off Alex back in the day, Clark Motorsport now...

My dad, brother and I (about 48%/48%/4% contribution respectively!) changed my clutch with the car on jacks, it is a pain and as Alex said you probably need another jack under the car to support the gearbox with two guys working it as well. Took about 3 1/2 hours I think with a short sausage sandwich break in between - although both my dad and brother are car mechanics by trade so were not following a step by step guide as you might have to. Good luck with it mate!

Doesnt float my boat sorry. Bodykit looks a different shade to the rest of the car (or maybe its the light?). Auto box...hmmm. No GT features. Seems like you are paying for the miles and little else?

Ouch! geez that was bad luck, sorry to hear that. All I know is that it has never been replaced and has covered 57k miles. it feels fine. All 4 Zeds I have driven have a high biting point so I can't go on that either. I might get an oil change and an inspection at MOT time in a month from now. My clutch passed all the above mentioned tests when I test drove it, then 2k miles later at 41k miles it went - unfortunately it really is hit and miss with clutches on these cars, some last 40k miles some go to 100k depending on how the clutch has been treated in the past.

Not for five grand...

Havent driven a Z4 in any shape or form cannot comment, but those that have say its a very capable car? It is on paper a quicker car than the 350z in any format, and if I am brutally honest, its looks better in roadster form than the Zed if you like your drop tops. But it is still a BMW, and if you like your Jap cars, its hard to take that on the chin everyday if you own a Beemer!

I do find the whole traders being secretive about prices just plainly wrong, fair play to those that have their prices up and for all to see on a website and then offered on here for a discount. But those who want to hide their prices from other traders, thats just daft and quite frankly a bit wrong. I think there are times when people plainly just forget to add a price, in which case the mods should give that 'nudge' but plainly ads where people are overt in wanting to field bids, should not only be locked but also deleted. I don't think bidding should be encouraged in here, if you want a bidding war, just stick the ad on eBay and be done with it.

Thats because you haven't bought a Skyline yet...