Kieran O'Quick

I'm out near J27 on the 62. Work in Leeds. I hillclimb the Zed at Harewood for fun most months. Would be great to see some others up there.

You can't resist the supercilious lines can you? Could you be civil please? Growth is all on paper. The way I see it is we had a chance to crash the false economy or punt it down the road and stick it on a card. We postponed the pain for greater pain later.

No problem nationalising the banks- I'm all for that. It was the screwing over the small shareholders and paying out other professional investors that was wrong.. And as for greedy stupid people - fair enough that buy-to-let folk get stung. But not people trying to buy a decent home for their family in a safe area.

Exactly. It's the blatant lies both sides are flinging about that is so depressing. But a politician who admits he doesn't know everything would be destroyed. I can't be sure about what will happen or if I'm getting played by someone. It seems at times that the old classic reverse psychology is being used. All the big banks, the City, want to stay in, they claim. That's enough to make me want to vote out. But maybe they actually really want Out because Yurp wants to bring in a transaction tax... Who the hell really knows? A lot of people peddle financial doom but haven't we just had a huge crash with Europe at the helm? And instead of protecting the people they bailed out the financiers? They let the thieves keep their cash and handed the bill to law-abiding people of the southern states and their descendants? And let countries with better credit ratings do some insidious usury by borrowing cheap, lending to the PIGS and calling it a bail-out? Nice club.

Nicely put TT. All perfectly fair and reasoned. But some people will still call you a swivel-eyed racist...

Dave nails it again. What a legend. Terry Wogan ain't lauhgin' at him now.

Top Gear was great stuff so they sold the format off to other countries in turn- the US, Germany, Australia etc. And eventually they got round to the UK last Sunday. But it looks like the metros got the gig. The closest parallel to what has gone on would be if a comedian like Stewart Lee died and they decided to give his show to a popular stadium comic to keep the money coming in. Top Gear died. It's either immature or greedy to not accept something died. Mind you, they replaced Pippa in Home and Away so anything's possible ..

Trust me, the guys I'm talking about are just as dodgy as the local scroungers/opportunists. I'll say it again - where I am, there is a stupid number of ropey characters appearing daily. Tell me what is positive in that? And why are our future foreign-relations possibly dependent on such a situation?

Sorry, I see them every day. Nice guys actually, quite polite and stylish. Doing the best for themselves. lol back at you

But it comes a point where immigration does become the issue. America took in every creed and colour when they ruled the world. It changed when they filled up. I was in America in the 90s and they were so strict about throwing me out when the time came. And they didn't even have much of a welfare state. And a country that doesn't jail people who rip-off millions (just bans them from being company directors for a bit) can't complain about some bloke who claims for a bad back, three non-existent kids and a gastric band.... (BH Monday tomorrow , this could run and run. . )

You are 100% right. That's my point We have the luxury of an attractive welfare state because we don't like tripping over dying babies on our way to the opera... But we can't open it up ad infinitum...

But it has always been like this? My old Irish relatives were dragged into America to screw over the locals by undercutting their rates of pay. What do all the white benefit cheats add up to? Not much. But I saw 4 Romanian guys today, all sat down drinking coffee and Pelligrinos, clutching a cane. The real cheats are at the top but why would someone at the bottom not opt to do what those guys were doing?

10% is a lot though isn't it? It has turned incredibly foreign here where I am. They shout and scream on the street... what's that about? Our local green lesbian community have upped sticks and legged it. Property prices have collapsed...

Interesting - I haven't spoke to anyone who wants to stay? I'm up North and interact with small business owners and minimum wage Brits. Naff-all to lose for them I suppose. They're worried about how many foreign people are hanging around the streets doing nothing on work days..

Well done Andy. Must have been hard at times to keep sight of the end result. Bet it feels good now though. Now get yourself up to Harewood and set the roadgoing 2WD record..

Spoke to an old chap last week who said we're definitely going to stay in ... regardless. He said he'd been asking everyone he ever met for the last 40 years if they had voted to join. He reckons he still hadn't found anyone who had.

The old show played on cynicism and slackness. Evans is enthusiastic and shouty. "ROCK AND ROLL!!" he said at one stage. Compare this to Clarkson who refused on principle to ever use an exclamation mark. He can't read his own script out loud for God's sake. Why would you even try to do that when your strength is live broadcasting? And why get shackled by someone else's inventions? The old seats and table and the old lap board were the weird bit for me. Dead man's shoes. Bastardising the old format doesn't suit him. Evans has a style that is popular with lots of people. He should have held out and demanded his own car show. (pause) ... Like Clarkson did back then.

"police are taking no further action".. How the hell do you talk your way out of that? Kudos. Or is it about knowing the handshake?

What? I clicked on this because I was trying to work out whether the spare wheel should be taken out for performance benefits... Warning!!! Don't anyone click on this link.... It's basically a 35 page argument between science and semantics. You don't know who to believe by the end of it. (I'll admit there's some interesting info but ffs.. the bickering and bullshhitt?)

Sounds like you had a brilliant day. Nice one. Track days are crap if you don't come across someone closely matched. A good battle over the "gap" is what it's all about. Especially if you edge it 120 laps? That's a serious amount of caffeine ... How were the brakes? Did you have to do a pad swap?

Spot on. After years of reading papers and books etc.. what the hell? how come you only find the good stuff on car forums?

You can steal a few months with that stuff - you might get lucky and go a year or so. Give it a lash. The trouble with all patching jobs is that it's tempting to keep patching because it's only a tenner a time... You can end up with an exhaust made out of more gunk then steel, that you've dropped quite a few tenners on. (I was pretty ashamed of mine when I finally brought it to someone for a new Y and mid...)

I was just going to say that - the extra price at the dealer is because it has to be fit for purpose. Private sales can go wrong even from forum members (or family members..). But these days when negotiations and representations are usually made in email form it's easier to prove who said what.

A friend and I built a wing that would do a DRS type thing on the straight and flip to an air brake when the brake pedal was pushed. We fitted it to our trackday car. The internet totally slated it. Apparently we were idiots because it wasn't tested in a wind tunnel.

Yup, blue. Going to swap to a classy leather and mesh.