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oldgregg
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Posts posted by oldgregg
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There's some pretty good pictures here too, you'll need to click/tap to make them bigger.
Norwich Castle Mall Development (georgeplunkett.co.uk)
There's also a (paid) article about it at the Institution of Structural Engineers. I have no idea whether it's any good...
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It's awesome isn't it. I have also wondered where the rest of it is!
There's a documentary about the building of Castle Mall, it really is a fascinating project as it it woven into the fabric of the city centre like pretty much no other shopping centre ever has been.
I was fairly young when it was being built, but I remember standing on the temporary bridge to the Castle circa 1990 and looking into the massive hole and seeing the decks of the structure being built under Castle Meadow and Farmer's Avenue.
Such a complex and clever project. It will be an absolute nightmare to demolish, I suspect they might not do it as a whole.
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6 hours ago, ChrisB said:
I don't know what the answer is either, but I am in the same boat.
I used to buy new, every three years, then along came covid so I put it off as my mileage was low and bought my "Picnic Car" for summer pottering up to Blakeney, Morston, Wells Brancaster and the odd few days away in Summer.
So I now have a six year old Ford with 24000 on the clock, worth about £9K on trade in. I would have to put at least £25K to replace with a similar high spec Puma. To do 2500 miles per annum, the economics just don't work. In fact this last year I have done more miles in the Fiat running about in Summer (3500). But that car with 6000 on the clock will be three in Sept.
So I am going to do the same, Nothing. Like Grendel I do
three or four long journeys per year and electric just would not suit me as I am widowed and live alone with my only relatives 180 and 11000 miles away, in an emergency I can fill either car in 5 minutes from empty and have a genuine 400 mile range.
If that's your mileage, you're best keeping those cars until the wheels fall off. There's no real need to replace cars that aren't causing trouble.
I think @BroadAmbition would approve of those numberplates....
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Given that the other rumoured sale appears to have fallen through, you'd have to wonder who else would take the site on.
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1 hour ago, Bikertov said:
Yes, a lot of banks do offer it, and for us it is worth it.
I only use the Nationwide account for the benefits and the credit card (fee free overseas) - I don't use the actual bank account at all !
- Family Travel cover is typically about £100 a year, and between us all we are away around 6-10 times a year
- Breakdown cover (personal) for 2 people, can be at least £100 a year
- Mobile phone cover can also be about £100 per phone, and I have clumsy kids (the OH also dropped her phone down a lift shaft on holiday ...)
So for the £150 or so a year it costs us, I find it good value
I've bought phones outright and been on negotiated SIM only deals almost forever. I tend to keep them 3-4 years, so do much better than full-blown airtime and phone bundles
Just be really careful with bundled or 'affinity' insurance as it is known in the industry.
Those policies seem really cheap for a reason - There will be a list of limits and exclusions as long as your arm. I spent a fair amount of time in the insurance industry and those schemes were seen as a good money maker, you can guess why.
You can imagine how much the bank is paying the insurer for that cover (and how much commission they earn on it) and you can see how cheap it is versus a 'regular' policy.
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On 27/01/2024 at 09:36, Mouldy said:
I don’t think they won a lot of friends during the pandemic with the way cancellations were dealt with, or that’s the impression I got from reading so many instances of less than adequate customer care on social media.
We always used to book our next Broads holiday direct with Summercraft, but Sue used to phone Hoseasons to make the booking and told them what to invoice. Not many folk used to argue with Sue!
I personally haven’t booked anything through Hoseasons since 2017 and frankly have no wish to now. They’re a very different company to the one set up by James Hoseason as my last experience was not ideal, when they disputed an advertised discount and tried not to honour it.
I did think it would come back to bite them....
They're a company that clearly spend a lot on marketing but they seem totally unable to understand that keeping customers happy is much more likely to lead to repeat business.
I had a run in with them a while back now over their 'Low deposit' BS. I booked with a £50 deposit (as I did with Ricko's at the time) and later needed to cancel / reschedule as we had other plans. To cancel would have cost another £100 as the 'full' deposit was £150, apparently.
I suggested moving the booking back a year as that's what I actually wanted to do, but they said to do that I'd need to cancel and make a new booking or take the holiday in the same year. I didn't have enough leave left to reschedule in the same year so it would have needed to be the one following.
I asked if they'd waive the £100 if I re-booked for next year and they said no I'd still need to pay it. Bear in mind this was some months before the booked date, and the booking was for a Silverline boat in june so there was no way they'd have struggled to re-let it.
In the end I said okay, I will pay as contractually I have to. But I made it clear that they took the payment on the understanding that I would not be re-booking for the following year with them and would not use Hoseasons for boating again.
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5 hours ago, Meantime said:
I often drink at The Wherry at Oulton Broad and you see these people coming back from the carvery counter with what can only be described as gravity defying towers of food on a plate. If I go to a carvery, I will only put on the plate what I think I'm going to eat.
I think those establishments are for a certain demographic who consider a plate piled high to be the ultimate holiday dining experience.
Personally, I don't really like that sort of eatery but have been to a fair few of them in my time (the Wherry included).
When you're out with a boat load of mates and everyone is enjoying a few liquid accompaniments then I guess it kind of works, but it wouldn't be my choice if just out with Mrs OG and actually when out with the lads we tend to go for something else.
The Indian in the old station building at Oulton Broad was great last time we were there, and I know the Commodore has changed hands but that was a decent meal.
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The frustrating thing is that insurance is now supposed to be the same price for a new customer as it is for existing.
But that's blatantly absolute nonsense, unfortunately. Mrs OG's renewal has come up, last year was £100 less than the renewal quote.
A quick look with the Meerkats and we're getting quotes for £150 less. Not really a shocker, but not how things are supposed to be.
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There are SO many videos around of Range Rovers on fire, due to failed turbos dumping oil everywhere, electrical issues etc etc.
And there's a video of the initial Range Rover on fire in the Luton airport car park.
A lot of lobbyists want you to believe that electric = bad, because the oil industry is in serious trouble if we stop burning the stuff.
A lot of the legacy car industry is also going to be toast in the next ten years, so you can be sure they're not helping things. We're talking multi-billion dollar corporations that know they can't change quickly enough. Are they just going to idly sit there and do nothing or are they going to try to delay the shift to electric so that they might have a hope of competing?
Yes, some older EV (and hybrid) battery technologies are unstable. The LG Chem batteries used in the Jaguar iPace (again, JLR cutting corners) can be particularly troublesome and that's one of the reasons you can now buy an iPace for a third of its original list price.
There are certain brands and models of EV that you really shouldn't buy because they will be trouble, but that's due to corner-cutting based on sloppy engineering and products being designed by accountants. It does not mean that the technology itself is fundamentally flawed.
Newer battery tech is better, and it doesn't use anything like the amount of rare metals that people think it does and it's much more thermally stable.
All of the information is out there (in credible places) if people care to look. It gives me a good laugh seeing such uninformed nonsense in the mainstream media, but I do think those funding it would be better placed investing in getting their industries into this century. They'll regret not doing so, I suspect.
JLR really need to hope that Tata sell them to a large chinese outfit. I don't think India has the right mindset for quality high-tech manufacturing.
I suspect the Chinese will wait until they're bankrupt and then hoover up the rights, though, as SAIC (indirectly) did with MG. With the cars being uninsurable in some parts of the UK (even now there's in-house JLR insurance) due to the amount of total losses, they can't carry on like this. There's a lot of smoke and mirrors (and a lot of the former) because they're seen as a prestige brand.
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On 05/01/2024 at 17:22, mikeyboy1966 said:
I prefer an oil filled rad,
#1 it’s silent
#2 it doesn’t dry the air like a blown air heater.(just my opinion)
But.... Number 2 is a major reason that boats have warm air heating rather than rads.
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On 05/01/2024 at 18:48, grendel said:
I was shown a trick, using the car seat heaters you can get really cheap, and that is that you dont need to heat the room if you heat the person, so put down your pad heater, plug it into 12v and sit on it, this makes you warm, and they only draw about 60W or so.
heres one you can get from b&q for just £15 and only draws 45W
That's a really good shout Pete.
Now I'm thinking heated helm seats and saloon cushions
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They won't be the solution for all boat berths because of the shape / size, but electric blankets are very low power consumption and there's nothing like climbing into a warm bed.
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50 minutes ago, Broads01 said:
Continued "pensioning off" of the older fleet boats is inevitable given the number they have being 30+, 40+ and even 50+ years old. However, I do hope they retain at least a small core of the older boats as the market for them is still very much there. Some years ago they went through a phase of gutting out older boats and fitting a brand new interior which I thought worked really well (e.g. Concerto, Calypso, Capri) and I'd love them to do that again.
I think there's a desire to get rid of the 'colourful' stuff which is why you see a lot of the older bathtubs with vinyl wraps on them and I think over the next decade we'll see the fleet shifting towards being primarily boats in white gel.
But generally, yeah I agree. The public only has such a desire to have new boats because in many fleets the older ones aren't looked after.
It's something the industry has done to itself really and Richardson's proved back in the early noughties that a half-decent refit is pretty cost effective.
New boats are lovely and shiny but they're also very expensive and when times are harder it is much more difficult to fund the purchase. If you have a fleet of 'middle-aged' boats that are kept in great condition then costs are lower.
Earning potential is lower if everyone has the new and shiny stuff, but if they don't then it's all relative. 50 years is too old for a hire boat really, but 20-30 isn't.
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You can filter out the topics / forum areas you don't want to see and create your own 'view' of the content so you'll never see the stuff you don't want to.
I think in general cars are a popular topic as most of us have owned one or more of them and also it helps boost engagement with the forum, which can only be a good thing.
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41 minutes ago, dom said:
We once did Hardknott and Wrynose 5 up in a brown Citroen Visa with horrible soft rolling suspension and a gutless 1100cc engine. I think you'd struggle to come up with a less appropriate car for the job. I genuinely thought we were going to have to get out and push at a couple of points.
There is a bit which is very steep, if I remember rightly that bit is the steepest gradient in the UK.
Last time I went up there, I actually stalled (in first gear) because some idiot slowed to a crawl right in front of me on the deep dip at the very steepest bit and I had to stop to avoid them.
They hadn't stalled but for some reason were driving ridiculously slowly. We think it was americans in a hire car, why they didn't go faster I really don't know. They ended up being passed by everyone.
Anyway, my Honda - being a Honda - didn't have enough low-down torque to deal with a hill start on the sort of gradient so I had to reverse (with cars behind me) and take a run at it.
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50 minutes ago, floydraser said:
Vauxhall Astra Convertible: Told you. Rule 1: top down only above 12 degrees C. Unless you're going over the Hardnott Pass – has to be done!
I'm in agreement with all of this.
Which reminds me, I've not been over Hardknott in a while. I did do the Bealach Na Ba in September though....
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I think cars peaked somewhere around the turn of the century...
Safety and economy were much improved and reliability was much better because they weren't burdened with all of the emmissions tech that we have to put up with now.
Think of the VW group's 1.9 AHF (the simpler predecessor to the PD). With a turbo it had decent power, yet was insanely reliable and also pretty economical.
It sounded like a tractor on startup and wouldn't pass current emissions regs, but there are 25 year old cars running around with that engine and half a million miles on them.
The PD was basically the same engine with a different head but with unit injection and is also pretty reliable but parts will probably get harder to source over time.
The later 2.0TDI that followed the PD was an absolute dog initially, having been built the last time the VW group was close to bankruptcy (ironically, they're in that place again) and so corners were cut everywhere.
We all know how good accountants are at engineering, you only have to sit in an ID.3 to see it. It's basically just another household appliance.
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They're getting a bit less mad pricewise.
They were about £35K new, and at the peak of the silliness they were on dealers' forecourts for over 40K with way more than just delivery miles on. Pricing now seems to be much closer to what you'd expect to pay for a five year old car.
As it happens, Hilton Garage is a huge car supermarket near Derby and where my Kia came from...
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You'd need a lottery win! My mate has got an AP2 S2K and he's spent loads on it keeping the tinworm at bay.
Having said that basically there's nothing I like... The Fk8 Type R is actually getting sensible money now and in Sportline trim it doesn't look quite so ridiculous.
The current-gen FL5 model is also really good but I think the pricing is ludicrous given that it's essentially a reskinned Fk8.
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The 1.8 was great when on song, but it needed to be worked fairly hard to be in that sweet spot.
The thing with the R18 engine was that it was designed to be economical but with decent power, so it needs the usual 'drop a gear or two, foot to the carpet' treatment. Although it technically has VTEC, it's SOHC and doesn't give anywhere near the kick that a Type R does.
Although you still get decent MPG, the 1.8 is a bit tiring compared to a turbo car where the torque is available nice and low down. It's still very economical for a 1.8 though, even when driven hard.
I know a lot of people swear by the 1.6 diesel because of the 300nm it gives without a remap, and it's pretty conservatively mapped (as you'd expect from Honda) so many people do up them to 150hp and over 400Nm and that makes quite a nippy car.
On the other end of the scale, I've seen those with a more sedate driving style posting up pics of 80+ mpg out of the 1.6 diesel. It's a very good engine, coupled with (in the 9th gen) a very aerodynamic body.
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22 hours ago, dom said:
so I ended up buying a diesel Civic Sport. I had to buy nationally to get one in the right colour and it's an OK car - surprisingly quick for a 1.6 diesel, zero tax, 60mpg - but it's a bit rattly and very definitely in a different class to the models I'd had previously.
That would be a 9th gen then I guess? I had the 1.8 VTEC for almost 9 years and they're a very reliable (and economical) car. But the chassis really was quite underwhelming and though I think they made suspension tweaks with the facelift, mine was an earlier 62 plate car and had none of that.
But... It owed us absolutely nothing and having paid £12,500 for it secondhand from the main dealer in 2014, we sold it in August for £3400 with about 96k on the clock. The only thing that ever actually failed in that time was an ABS sensor.
It had a few sets of tyres of course, brake pads, one set of discs, one set of iridium plugs, bulbs and a battery. No exhaust components, nothing on the engine, nothing on the suspension.
We did main dealer service it, but when an MOT and service (plus AA breakdown cover) is around £300 a year then it didn't really feel excessive.
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18 hours ago, dom said:
I had a 99 2.2 VTEC Prelude. It was the absolute top spec Motegi model with 4 wheel steer.
18 hours ago, dom said:The really mad thing is, I eventually traded it in back in 2015. The new owner stuck a private plate on it, and when I last checked it was still on the road.
18 hours ago, dom said:I always vowed to never buy a Japanese car. I'm now on Honda number 5. I suspect the only reason I'll ever buy another brand is due to the diminishing range Honda now offer.
They're a bit of a collectors car and I suspect will go up in value.
It is very sad though that Honda do not offer a lot in Europe any more.
I was going to buy the latest Civic but lead times made me think again and I've ended up with a Kia. There's nothing that Honda offer customers after something a little bit more sporty than a Civic.
Hyundai group really have upped their game. Ironically, in Norwich, Holden have swapped sites around and Holden Kia is in the old Honda showroom and Holden Honda has been relegated to an even smaller site. Holden know which brand they're going to sell more of.
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My Honda was getting that way, I did a trip to Blackburn at easter to see Norwich play and I topped it up before leaving Norwich and it needed another litre when I got home.
Now admittedly the VTEC got a lot of use on that trip because we were running a bit late, but it was definitely doing its own oil changes at that point.
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2 hours ago, floydraser said:
Having watched Robin's videos, in the "you may also like" column it seems there is a trend for all the Clarkson wannabees on Youtube to buy a car from Ebay/FB Marketplace and take it to a main dealer for assessment. Four grand for a pair of Jag headlights!
Yep.
The format seems to be something like this:
1) Oh no, what have I done, it's the worst financial mistake ever
2) Take it to a main dealer or the most expensive specialist we can find and get a quote as near five figures as possible.
3) Fix it up with parts from sponsors, run it for a bit and then flip for a tidy profit because you're 'famous'.
Bonus points for poking a screwdriver through the easily-replaced rusty sills, or for putting the car on a dyno to see how many horses have escaped.
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Car Talk
in The Broadscot Lounge
Posted
The pun is that the Nag is Sat next to you.