Ekona

It's a badging exercise, nothing more. Tbh I'd rather drive one of those than a Cygnet.

Once your cobtract is up you can do what you like with the phone. For the record, O2 didn't charge me a penny to unlock my 3GS and it was all done via the interwebs.

Pop a SIM in and find out.

Wave and Buzz would appear to prove the opposite though Unless Google+ does something much better than FB, it'll die within a year.

Why is everybody so quick to try and find a scapegoat for all this? The world of the media moves incredibly quickly and is very cut-throat, so really there's every likelihood that Brooks and Coulsen didn't actually have any idea that this was going on. One of their journos comes to them with news that looks good, do you really think the editor is going to have the time to sit down and work out exactly where it came from? Of course not, so trying to pin all the blame on them without a shred of evidence (that I've seen) is completely unfair. Don't even get me started on the whole anti-Murdoch campaign trying to use this as a reason he shouldn't take over Sky...! How many big business out there know exactly what their employees are doing at all times, and how all the results happen? Probably very few: Hell, there's only 6 of us at my firm but I couldn't tell you what everyone is doing right this instant or exactly how they're going about their jobs, I just have to have a little bit of trust in them. Make that into hundreds of people and it's even more difficult to do. Yes, people at the top do have a responsibility to ensure that things are done correctly, but they can only do so much. Whether you actually like/read The Sun and/or NOTW, what isn't really known is that they're incredibly highly respected amongst their peers as generally they are at the cutting edge of the English language. That gets a scoff from everyone I tell, as it used to from me when my A-Level lecturer told me the same thing, until we sat down and analysed just how the Sun used language compared with the broadsheets. It opened my eyes significantly, and reading different papers from that viewpoint to this day I can see that nothing really has changed. You can use all the big words you like, but that doesn't always make for the best journalism. FWIW I actually couldn't have cared less about the celebrities getting their phones hacked and pretty much ignored the whole story, but this thing about deleting the Dowler messages makes me sick to my stomach. Utterly disgusting, but we must only appoint blame where it is clear IMHO.

Haven't even given it a second look tbh. FB is so ingrained now and sensible in what it does (which is where MySpace fell over) that I can't see anything topping it now. Everyone I know has FB, and it does everything I need it to. Why would I bother switching?

A Cat D is a write off and for the car still to be on the road and in ownership of your Dad he would then have had to buy the car back off them and repair the damage himself. In short, it's definitely not Cat D.

You're stuck unfortunately. Bin it and buy a TomTom If it's any consolation the Porker one is exactly the same, utterly useless

Because you're 85?

This, as long as it's not stretching the truth too much. I'm a plumber by trade, but spend most of my time these days project managing. That said, it's my own company and so I put down Company Director as my job title.

Whilst I love the way they don't give any figures or any hints as to the questions they asked in that article, which leads me to believe it's a total load of crap, I do hope it's true as that way there's more space for me!

So? So does everybody else. No-one becomes a teacher because they want to earn a fortune, they do it because they want to teach. I went in the opposite direction and decided that I would rather have the money, hence I stick my hands down toilets for a living

Pffft, my car's only a weekend car but it still does 10K fun miles a year, no point in owning something nice if you're too worried about the money involved to never drive the thing! I wouldn't want to use it for work though, or at least just the commute, as that would spoil the specialness of a weekend car for me. Same as when I had the Zed, loads of fun miles but zero boring ones.

A couple of questions/points then Vik: 1. How do you propose we (as a country) pay for your (as public sector workers) pension? Where should we find the £Bns from? 2. If your pension is that important to you, why not top it up with a private one instead of downing tools?

Fiat Multipla It's slightly funny looking, no arguments there, but it's Italian so it should be something different. Practical, roomy, easy to fix: If I needed something big and disposable I'd buy one in an instant.

I don't really care where he's from, he's an irritating tw@t face and that's why I usually want the other guy to win. Same reason I want Klitschko to win tomorrow night, Haye has zero class.

I don't care if it's 5 pages in already, this thread needs a poll. I'm going to add one, if for nothing else than my own curiosity. Sorry Rich to abuse your thread

My missus is an NQT in primary, and is a member of one of the unions who went on strike yesterday. She still went into work because she didn't vote for the strike. I've never been prouder of her for standing up for her own principles.

Am I b*llocks!

Or, to give you another reason why manufacturer weights are a load of rubbish (Porsche included), I had my old Zed weighed on a proper weighbridge. Full tank of fuel give or take the 10 min pootle to get there, myself @90kgs, K1 exhaust on so much lighter there than stock, all on a revup Roadster... 1860kg. Work backwards and that's still stupidly heavy. No chance in hell a normal coupe weighs anything less than 1550kg minimum. Nissan themselves claim (via here) a weight of between 1528kg and 1550kg, and I can promise you it's nearer the end of that.

Did you even read 10PS's diary?

I'm not sure why there's such a big stigma from getting financial aid from your parents tbh. My folks bought my first car for me and insured it from the ages of 17 until 21. My Dad went guarantor on my next car and it was also pretty decent of him to give me a job working for his company where I am today. Sure, I've worked pretty hard since and made the most of the opportunity, but I won't sit here and say that it's all been off my own back and I've worked in the mines since the age of 9 to afford everything. I've got amazing parents who have helped me out in life, and I don't really care who knows it or what they think of me. In all honesty if I had parents who were worth millions (mine aren't btw!) and they wanted to buy cars and houses and ponies for me, I'd snatch their hands off. I suspect most people would.

The Boxster's gone back now, but I did manage one last extended hoon in it yesterday before dropping it back: Well, it would be rude not to really! In equal measures, I'm both more impressed and more disappointed with it at the same time after having driven it further, and certainly after having my own car back and being able to do a back-to-back comparison. I'll start with the negatives first, as they're slightly harder to quantify in a way. It simply doesn't feel that special, and it should: This is a £50K car, and one by a premium manufacturer who knows sports cars better than almost any other company in the world, and yet it still felt slightly dull. Maybe it didn't help that it was a silver car with a black interior which is about as boring as you can get, but whilst there's certainly nothing wrong with the inside as such (indeed, 90% of manufacturers out there could learn a lot about the use of quality materials in a cabin from Porsche) it never gave me that little shiver you should get when sitting in a roadster. The more I think about it the more I suspect the lack of colour really doesn't help it, and I would hope that a buyer would add a row of red stitching here or a yellow seatbelt there to liven it up, but seeing as how this is only a courtesy car I guess there wasn't much sense in the dealer speccing it to daft levels. The only other downside were the brakes, which I never grew to love. Yes they're progressive, but they fade far too easily for my taste and I never felt truly comfortable in their outright stopping ability. That said, being able to dab them lightly to shift the weight forward on a section of fast flowing corners was a joy. Honestly though, that's me being picky: The brakes are still better than the stock Zed ones, although (and whisper this) I think I found the post-facelift Zed to be a more characterful place. All those Zs everywhere make it look like someone really took their time over it, whereas the Boxster just looks like it was lifted from the 911. So the positives then. Ahh yes, the positives. Sod the boring interior as it's instantly forgotten the second you open the exhaust valves and blip the throttle, especially with the roof down, as you get this gorgeously throaty bark that feels like a rather sizeable dog is just itching to get out from the rear of the car and go chase some particularly pesky tomcats. This is how to do an exhaust without adding drone or volume for the sake of it, and whilst I personally could've lived with a little more noise I appreciate that there's a limit as to how much a normal person would put up with. Porsche went for tone over volume and that's fine by me, especially as every light toe tap of the right foot gives you that aural orgasm of a flat-6 lump. Wind it right up in 2nd and 3rd and it's heaven, it really is. The engine is very similar to the revup and HR Zeds, in so far as it wants to be rung right out rather than ride the torque. It never feels especially quick until you glance down at the digital speedo and realise that you probably should back off a fraction... It pulls right through from 3K to the 7.5K redline with an ease and a smoothness that only the very best engines do, and it makes you want to do it again and again just to savour it. The car always feels like it's very much at ease regardless of whatever roads you throw at it, although much like my 911 the stiffer suspension setting is just too stiff on UK B-roads, and it can get a bit crashy. When that's the case you just push the PASM button and return to normal mode which allows the chassis to ebb and flow regardless of surface, and allows you to pick the pace back up. It's not so much Jekyll and Hyde, more bacon sandwich and 21oz T-bone: There's a time and a place for both, but you wouldn't want to live without either. As far as the drive goes, it's practically flawless. The steering wheel is chunky and well-weighted, the gear shift positive and smooth, the seating position supportive and comfortable, and the drivetrain engaging and urging. This is by some margin the best roadster I've ever driven, and it makes me remember just why I was so excited after that initial test drive in an almost identical car those few years ago, and just how I started my infatuation with Porsche and why I ended up with one on my drive. Given that there's a plethora of decent Boxsters out there for prices that compete against a new Zed, this is the benchmark that needs to be beaten and I would say that whilst there's definitely reasons to get the Nissan instead, if you don't at least drive one of these as a comparison then you're really missing out. Besides, you don't need both kidneys...

What was he then, a magic forum ninja? Only the cool kids get a warning anyway, so don't sweat it Neil

Without trying to state the bleedin' obvious again as I think most people have already done here, this thread can pretty much be summed up with one sentence: You can't afford a 350Z right now. There's a difference between able to buy a car and being able to run a car, and it looks like you can't afford to do the latter in this case.