wrighty

R4 played an interesting interview with him when he was saying how dangerous F1 used to be, such that you'd expect to lose one or two racers in a season, and how terrible that was. We're about to enter a fortnight on a small island where we will, on the balance of probabilities, lose 3 or 4. I flew to Australia on Lauda Air in 1993. Best food I've ever had on a plane.

Doubtful. Most people don’t have the required dexterity. Try making a fist and extending your ring finger alone. Stuck at 8

There’s a carnivore movement that wants veggie burgers and the like banned, at least their names. They’re suggesting ‘burger’ is a protected title for a product that has to contain a certain proportion of meat, and that a veggie burger should be retitled as a ‘vegetable disc’. Similar with sausages that will have to be renamed ‘vegetable cylinders’. I tend to agree.

Here’s an outrageous idea. Why not just not smoke pot, or in fact anything else?

They rely on people not looking at use-by dates. I check everything, and usually pick from the back. I doubt the home delivery shoppers would be so fastidious, even if they don't deliberately select the oldest stuff. Still don't understand why you go 2-3 times per week though. Wouldn't you save more if you planned and did it all in one go? Going 2-3 times means you have 2-3 times more temptation to buy crap you don't need as a result of Tesco's extremely clever marketing and product placement.

Not really, not my area. I will say though that there’s nothing really special about 24 hours. Overnight and most of the day will be fine - 19 hours will be easily enough for diagnosis. Fitting them in the pm, return next am seems to be an efficient way of using what they have.

Why on earth would you do that?

You do realise it’s April 1st?

£380 plus VAT for parts (discs, pads, sensor) and labour. I appreciate I could have done this more cheaply by getting some bits from eBay and finding someone to fit them, but I’ve been down that route in the past and regretted it. Rightly or wrongly these days I stick to main dealer. Having said that I will sort the wiper blades myself

So had my service today. Turned up about 8:15 and they were expecting me, paperwork ready. Gave me a nice Merc demonstrator to use for the day. Called me about 3:15 to say the routine service was done, but needed discs as well as the front pads. Told me how much it would cost, asked if it was ok to go ahead, picked up the car at 5:30 all done. And cleaned inside and out. There was a hint of disorganisation there, but judging by my own experience they were pretty good.

Is this because cars are far more reliable and long-lasting than they used to be? My grandfather (yes, donkey's years ago!) used to buy a new car every 18 months. Does anyone do that these days?

I was sent an email reminder for 12 months after my last service (with Buchanan) - the link to click was there.

Booked online. Couple of clicks and it was done. They phoned me a couple of days before too to remind/confirm and checked I still needed the loan car.

I've said this many times when trying to spend Manx cash in the UK. It sometimes works - at Manchester airport once the guy refused a Manx tenner because of this, until I pointed out that it was meant to be an international airport and presumably I could pay in Yen or whatever if I wanted to, which persuaded him to take it. I also sometimes leave them as tips in restaurants - they rarely complain!

I’ve seen Star Trek and these proposals would be considered somewhat fanciful in the 24th century, never mind in 24 years.