Early Risers.

[PhilJ W]

13 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

 

In 1981 my mum upgraded her Fiat 500 to a new Suzuki Hatch which had probably the same motor (3 cylinder, 798cc I think). After the Fiat it felt like a Ferrari and was the first time I was able to reach 100kmh thanks to its 40HP!

 

Being Australia, we also got a ute version but mum wouldn't be in on getting one, though she did pick this colour at least..

 

 

 

 

Austin got there first with the micro ute.

 

[Coombe Barton]

... marking ... quite what relevance to Hotel performance the citation which refers to “Prolonged presence of SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA in faecal samples” I long to find out ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2024/04/15/vaccinations-more-summons-to-vivas-and-getting-cross-eyed/

[jamie92208]

3 hours ago, Sidecar Racer said:

 

 

 Can happen to anyone .       😂

 

It's one way of keeping death off the roads. 

 

Jamie

[Erichill16]

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

so far today we have had heavy rain, wind, hailstones/snow balls from the sky, bright sunshine but its blowing a hoolie and is flipping cold (about 3C)

 

PAH!

 

Game tomorrow cancelled .. pah!

 

Disgruntled Baz!

Had all that while taking Syd and Hovis out!

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Austin got there first with the micro ute.

 

 

 

Was that commercially available or an AA special?

 

Australian manufacturers by then were building cars more US sized than UK sized:

 

 

But we still had some novelties -  Lightburn put this out in 1961.

 

 

 

 

 

The ultimate ute was the VF Malloo, then GM closed down Holden and  are now committed  to trying to sell us US MAGA style  pickups...

 

 

  But, on quiet country roads, miles from anywhere on a moonless night you'll be driving along and suddenly sense something in the rear view mirror, and  as it tears past you you'll realise that it was  the ghost of the last of the Aussie V8 utes, still out there lamenting how sh!t cars are these days.

 

Edited April 15 by monkeysarefun

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

Here in the pre-airconditioned 70's and '80's cars came in every colour EXCEPT black and grey, because the Australian sun turned them into an air fryer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the UK,the basic "free" car colour is van-man white. Anything else is £500-£600 more.  You have to pay the extra to show you're not a cheapskate.  The best thing is to get an ex-demonstrator, which might not be the colour you prefer, but it won't be white and it'll have a good selection of optional extra goodies and will be at a nice discount....

 

[jjb1970]

On a lot of cars white is now a 'premium' colour. It became very popular, and as it did so the manufacturers did the honourable thing and made it expensive. I've had a couple of white cars and like it as a colour (though it depends on model, like any colour).

[Hroth]

Grey is a nice colour, it doesn't need washing as often as lighter coloured cars do.  White can look disgusting as little as a couple of days after its been washed!

 

Choose Grey, use less water! Grey is an Eco-Colour!!!

 

🤪

 

[TheQ]

The eco colour round here is brown mud, I won't by grey or white, it's a good way of not being seen in fog.

I think Ford got in early with Utes.

Edited April 15 by TheQ

[New Haven Neil]

4 hours ago, Hroth said:

Windy, but presently dry.

Waiting to see what NHN is experiencing, as advanced warning...

 

 

You'll have to go back a page before your post!

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

11 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

On a lot of cars white is now a 'premium' colour. It became very popular, and as it did so the manufacturers did the honourable thing and made it expensive. I've had a couple of white cars and like it as a colour (though it depends on model, like any colour).

 

 

In the 1970's "Cream" was the posh colour here, my dad had a series of toyota Crowns in Cream because he felt a cut above the bloke next door who had bought a white one. Then cream as a car  colour  just suddenly vanished for ages.

 

Its now starting to reappear here, but only on "prestige" cars like Porsches, oh and Hyundai have a cream option going by the handful of cream ones of them I've seen.  Battleship grey is very trendy as is matt black but both of those I'm assuming are aftermarket  wraps rather than factory options. 

[monkeysarefun]

25 minutes ago, TheQ said:

The eco colour round here is brown mud, I won't by grey or white, it's a good way of not being seen in fog.

I think Ford got in early with Utes.

 

 

 

No, see officially that's NOT a ute , rather some kind of little truck. @Ozexpatriatewill fill you in on the ute requirements as far as Australian ute certification depends, b ut this is the first ute.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And in the name of gratuitous showing off stuff, this is my one after 75 years of ute refinement.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 15 by monkeysarefun

[Hroth]

13 minutes ago, TheQ said:

The eco colour round here is brown mud, I won't by grey or white, it's a good way of not being seen in fog.

I think Ford got in early with Utes.

 

Fog or mist is actually quite rare in these parts, despite being coastal!

 

12 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

You'll have to go back a page before your post!

 

 

 

How about an update?

🤪

[New Haven Neil]

Just now, Hroth said:

How about an update?

 

Sunny.  No, chucking it down.  No, wait.....sunny, and still raining.  More rain.  Then sun.  But always, always windy, like proper uncomfortable blowin' a hoolie wind.  I hear there are damaged cars on the fast-craft ferry.  then they complain if the boats don't sail....you can't win.

[Hroth]

Its just brightned up here, so I expect precipitation is due...

 

[monkeysarefun]

On another matter entirely, demonstrating how cheap tech is  these days, the Elegoo Saturn Ultra 4 3D printer went out on pre-release at midnight tonight, which is why I'm still here basically, waiting to press the buy now button ...   Under $700AUD  is a crazy price for what it has.  If you are 3D printer  curious, this would be the printer to get as far as print size and ease of setting up is concerned. 12K definition, self levelling, foreign bodies in the vat alerts, AI camera monitoring...  Basically just unbox it, setup the WiFi,   pour resin into the vat, and off you go - we live in a wonderful age. 

 

I don't need it, but it'll add to my stable of 3D printers  ( number 8...) for when I start a 3D printer museum or something, but I want it and I have therefore ordered it. Main goody for me is a little camera that will show how the print is going so I don't need to  walk down the stairs to check it for myself. 

Edited April 15 by monkeysarefun

[New Haven Neil]

26 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Its just brightned up here, so I expect precipitation is due...

 

 

It is........

[DaveF]

It's been mainly dry here so far, just a few raindrops every now and then as clouds speed by on the wind.

 

Leonie came and cleaned very efficiently as usual, I've got the washing done and dried.  After coffee I went for a walk along the promenade, it was breezy and cold but invigorating.  There were several patches of cowslips in the grass, larks singing overhead, house martins chasing insects and terns fishing some distance offshore.  Real Spring weather!  Even a kestrel flew past on its way to look at the grass in the dunes by the harbour.

 

During the afternoon I have cleaned the fridge and tidied the freezer, some very old bread went in the bin - it had got behind other things, goodness knows how many months it had been there.

 

I put some things in the garage and bought a small bottle of plastic solvent back into the house which I had used a while back.  Later on I looked for the bottle as I thought I had put it on my modelling table.  I eventually found it in the porch - then I remembered I'd picked up some leaflets which had come through the door and must have put the bottle down.

 

I had an e mail from Teachers' Pensions saying I could download my P60 and look at payslips etc.  It "only" took 10 minutes to log in as the site was very slow.  Then I had to confirm my details but unless you actually pressed at least one "Edit" button nothing happened when you tried to "Confirm".  Eventually I got what I wanted and downloaded it.  To get back to the site from the pdf you see for downloading or printing you have use the back button which is not really a good idea.  I have just had a look at the help pages, it actually says that even if you do not want to change any details you may have to press edit before you can move on.  I think the software was written by the same company who wrote other software I encountered when I was teaching and afterwards, it was always poor and glitchy.

 

I've had a look at my garden, there are 34 different species of plant in flower which is pleasing, the garden is only a typical 1980s semi detached house size.

 

Cowslips by the beach

 

David

[Tony_S]

I have just booked my Spring Covid booster for next week using the NHS app. Quite simple, it realised  I wasn’t over  75 so asked about my immune system and let me proceed to choosing a time and place which will be a local pharmacy. 
 

[The Lurker]

I got hailed on when walking home after dropping the car off for Mrs Lurker to use on the afternoon school run. I didn't see but think I heard the skylarks so maybe they will manage to nest in among the sheep and cows. at least there is now less risk of a dog disturbing them.

 

Speaking of cars, mine is "Portimao blue". It's surprisingly good at hiding the dirt. It too has a lane change control that actually steers you back into the lane if you have not indicated. This is irritating if you have to move around an obstacle on a normal road (like a parked car), or a bus stop, where indicating might be confused with wanting to turn right. I could turn it off but have chosen not to. Thus it is a BMW that has working indicators....

 

 

 

 

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

35 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

, it realised  I wasn’t over  75

Due to it working out that  you  were doing it on a mobile phone?

Edited April 15 by monkeysarefun

[PhilJ W]

3 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Was that commercially available or an AA special?

At the time it was introduced passenger cars were liable for 50% purchase tax but commercials were not. Because it had a jump seat in the back the authorities classed it as a car not a commercial and liable to the 50% tax. This effectively killed it after only a few hundred had been built.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/classic/uks-rarest-cars-1957-austin-a35-pick-up-one-45-left-british/

[polybear]

Bear here.....

 

A day of "stuff" - including all the joys of booking Travel Insurance (a yearly policy this time) and Airport Parking; for the latter I did go thru' all the cheapo comparison sites but the vast majority want you to leave the keys with them - nottafuggin'chancematey - especially as the savings are not that great over official Airport Parking anyway.  End result?  Payin' to make Mickey stop for a week is painful.....Poo.

Oh yes, and making sure Mickey is all sorted for the Dart Crossing Charge (it turns out he wasn't - the CC was out of date) and also investing twelve quid for fast-track Airport Security & Passport Clearance too.  Whilst Bear's Great Adventure isn't for a while yet I do like to get the boxes ticked sooner rather than later.

 

Oh yes, and the great success of the day - the Storage Receipt from the Probate Registry for Bear's newly prepared Will (at a cost of several Deltics 😭)  FINALLY appeared at long last.  Huge Tick - eventually.  It now means I can finish off the Notes to go with my Will, which will hopefully assist those concerned when I finally go to the Great Cake Shop in the Sky....

 

No wanderin' achieved today - the "other stuff" took precedence and the weather was, well, on & off Pooey.  Maybe tomorrow....

 

ION.....

 

18 months?  In the USA?  Stunned.....

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68819796

 

Bear gone.......

[polybear]

In the news:

 

Woman's one word answer gets her excused from trial

We have our first juror curveball.

The question was:

"Do you have any strong opinions or firmly held beliefs about former President Donald Trump, or the fact that he is a current candidate for president that would interfere with your ability to be a fair and impartial juror?"

The woman being asked, answered: "Yes".

Justice Merchan asks if either legal party objects to excusing the juror.

The prosecutors do not, but Trump's lawyer does.

Ultimately, she was excused, and they refill her seat with another juror.

A reminder that there are 500 prospective jurors here today.

 

It'll be a long Trial methinks.

[Tony_S]

47 minutes ago, polybear said:

In the news:

 

Woman's one word answer gets her excused from trial

We have our first juror curveball.

The question was:

"Do you have any strong opinions or firmly held beliefs about former President Donald Trump, or the fact that he is a current candidate for president that would interfere with your ability to be a fair and impartial juror?"

The woman being asked, answered: "Yes".

Justice Merchan asks if either legal party objects to excusing the juror.

The prosecutors do not, but Trump's lawyer does.

Ultimately, she was excused, and they refill her seat with another juror.

A reminder that there are 500 prospective jurors here today.

 

It'll be a long Trial methinks.

It was a good question though. Must have been thought up by some clever lawyers.