Kelly

Might have been due to the cost of fuel, the 2/2.3 engined Vivas were in the region of 10mpg or less if you weren't careful, whereas the 1256cc you can get a comfortable 30+mpg without much effort.

1256s were a little underpowered for the Viva HC as it was a fairly heavy car compared to what came before, early 1970/1971 cars would have had the HBs 1158cc engine, which was even more underpowered. I always found the HC very good at cornering and as a everyday cheap runaround it suited me fine. Reason my ex had the Vivas was he got one on a whim after not being able to afford what he wanted at time (Morris Minor). The Vivas were only meant to be a cheap 'get his hands dirty for a short time' affair really for him... I think iirc he still has at least one (last I heard a '67 HB GT). By comparison the 2ltr and 2.3ltre Viva HCs went like stink.

Now you'd be lucky to find a genuine one for under £2k I'd suspect in that sort of condition, as they're more sought after by people wanting Escorts and going 'How Much?!' at the prices of those (imho the Viva is better than the equiv. Escort in terms of handling etc). The 1973 cut off for tax free status also meant a lot of Firenzas/Magnums got scrapped as well as standard Vivas as no-one wanted them for a fair while.

Any sensible (and I know a fair number probably aren't sadly) person running a classic car would as a first job with any new classic (to them) replace all fuel/brake lines and leads for this very reason.

Yep, tough and cheap to run as classic cars they were until more recently when people started to cotton on to them being good and the prices shooting up, mostly with everyone trying to make their own Viva GT or Firenza/Magnum without the costs of the genuine articles. Had a HA that suffered brake failure down hill when doing 40mph towards a mini roundabout, with traffic on the roundabout and nowhere else to go I managed to get it around the turn and into a car park. My passenger was rather gripping the dashboard with fear! (no seat belts, seats folded forwards on a pivot with nothing locking them, drum brakes and crossplies). The simple act of engine braking was the key factor which i knew about, hence my not being worried. Ouch. The first Viva HC I drove had similar (a van decided to scratch and itch down it's side) Had some great fun driving old Vivas for a while, I think they made me a bit of a better driver (even if they were fairly limited power wise with the 1057/1256 engines in the ones I drove), very different to the modern boat I drive now! (Mk3 Mondeo estate).

Reminds me of the time an ex's VIva HC was parked outside mine and a cop car (brand new focus area car) came flying around the corner chasing someone, lost control and rear ended the Viva. Car car totalled, passenger had to climb out of the drivers side. Viva? a busted brake light and a slight dent in the bumper, though we couldn't be sure if that was already there or not as it'd been replaced previously with a salvaged one anyway!

I remember my father always having Sierra's, usually estate versions until they introduced the Saphirre version. He once had a bit of an incident with someone pulling out in front of him and almost writing the car off in the process. It being a company car he got a replacement in the form of equivelant age Orion, which he hated as it lacked any punch to what he was used to (always had 2L Ghia models) I recall. His last Sierra Saphirre had a bit of a disagreement with a lamppost when I was driving it oops. He replaced that with a Mk1 Mondeo iirc, though can;t really rememebr if he liked it better or not as by then I'd moved out and he drove less and less due to living and working in London. As to the size of the Mondeo's, they're rather big, my mk3 estate is massive and will happily swallow anything (almost) put in it (it being bought for that very reason due to needing a rather hefty mobility scooter). Now having lost over 5.5 stone in weight thats been replaced by a much lighter model so I could probably now get away with a Focus estate instead just about.

Thanks I started in July. Found it fairly easy to follow, lots of yoghurt and fruit

I wouldn't have gone to slimming world without a GP referral giving me 12 weeks free. Made a big difference so far. 11 lb is still progress in the right direction is the way to look at it

Today has been a bit bittersweet. On the one hand I got a 4 stone award at slimming world so I'm rather happy with that. On the other, Sir Terry Pratchett died my favourite author, and the reason for a lot of friendships, memories and why I read so much.

Covering themselves from return disputes, effectively making it sold as seen, or 'hard luck pal' auctions. Can make for some bargains, or some piles of crud.

Glad you're out the other side and on the mend John. It is a diffucult thing to cope with, though by balancing as best I can i manage better than in the past. But I have to make certain allowances, for instance if I go to a show like Warley or Ally Pally I have to keep the days before and after free to rest best I can. My other half helps a great deal with my abilty to cope at least though, he's been great, especially when he visits as he loves to cook. Medication doesn't really work too great most of the time though, and the only painkillers that do (morphine) have more side effects than benefits some of the time. The links should all work, though I just noticed that the first one doesn't, something odd with the domain name, not something I can fix atm. Kelly

Theres been other research suggesting that it is to do with the nerves going haywire. Though the blood vessels in the hands could fit as raynaud's is a common co-morbid condition with it.

I think Minidisc failed due to the format wars type effect. CD was dominant by then and everyone had a CD player. That and Sony's licencing model and it using ATRACK (which itself required a licence fee to write/read) instead of writing directly to the medium. It was just never going to work in the consumer market, which meant the price never came down and by the time it did MP3 was king (rightly or wrongly).

One of the current 'theories' in the medical circles for my illness is hard blows to the head. Of course they still don't know for sure what the heck causes fibromyalgia. Slightly related to banging of ones head, this post reminded me of this story I saw pop up in my news feed today: http://www.nme.com/news/various-artists/83117

And the tears of sorrow when you didn't get what you wanted from it Sadly, the market for magazines is likely to continue to decline so more and more will go towards digital content over the next 5-10 years. That may well mean a lot of 'niche' magazines will go the way of the dodo or online only. Sadly DRM will rear its ugly head here as well, as even if they give you PDF copies, PDFs can have DRM which limits how long they can be written to, prevents printing and so on. Printing costs are likely to continue to rise, so I wonder how many years before we see magazines getting to the book price levels (ie approaching £8-10), at those prices they'd be unviable. Sadly all magnetic storage mediums suffer this sort of thing. They're prone to as said in another comment mould, as well as stray magnetic fields etc wiping the data. Then thats before you get to the data formats being usable after that. We were promised optical mediums were limitless in their lifespan, but CD/DVDs both have the same problem with scratches and mould causing them to become coasters. Having duplicate copies is the only way to lessen that, and when combined with cloud storage can be pretty robust at least (as long as you don't limit to just one server/cloud provider of course).

It was one of the things I liked when I subscribed to Linux Format a while back, subscribers got access to all past issues(where available) in .pdf format to download, drm free. If only the BRM/Hornby/MR et al mags offered that. But its all drm as long as you're paying, though iirc on google play magazines when bought via subscription stay with the google account at least.

what gives with the 35 mph top speed in the Birmingham area of the M6?? Baz That is normal

Lovely models James. Especially liked the Electrostars you did earlier in the thread. Wish I could justify a 375/377, but the area I'm looking at requires a 376, which as you know is a much harder prospect and rather different. For now I'll concentrate on a 465 and 4EPB, but a 376 would be good to bring the ideas into the modern era rather than the current plans for early 90s when the Networkers were just coming in.

Plans for working on the layout have taken a back seat again due to funds and lack of space to store any boards sadly. Hopefully in the summer I'll be able to get a shed in the garden sorted out which will allow me to store some layout boards. Obviously stock would always be kept inside. Talking of stock, I'll hopefully get the extra bits I need at Ally Pally from Replica to be able to make another go on the 4EPB project again. I've also managed to source 4 more bodies (3 toilet, 1 non-toilet) for my 465 project so should be able to make progress on that soon. With the 2 bodies minus cabs I already have I should have more than enough to make a complete 465, though think I'll end up needing to make glazing so it looks uniform. 1 465 and 1 466 should be enough initially. The plans have sort of changed a little to try to make it possible to be in (almost) any 2 track electrified area of the SR. As well as the Woolwich Dockyard are, Addiscombe Park is being considered too, with possible plans for a terminus added at a later date. Kidbrooke is also being considered. Thats all for now.

So it has been over a year since the last time I updated this blog about what I was thinking of/planning. Some big changes occurred in that time, namely I moved house, to a smaller 1bed ground floor flat. This has presented problems and Improvements in equal measure. The biggest improvement has been mobility/health. I no longer have to contend with a myriad of stairs which helps immensely. Unfortunately the nature of the flat means I have very little in the way of storage space other than a small room where the fridge/freezer and boiler occupy most of the space. There is an out building, but it is a bit rickety, and I wouldn't trust anything that needs keeping dry out there really. Though I do have a small garden so hopefully next year a shed might be possible, which would make a huge difference. Out of all the plans myself and Natalie came up with the one that has my interest the most is the Woolwich Dockyard one, so I am likely to focus on that for now. Though I am tempted to do the narrow gauge portion of the Chilmark based layout plan as that is fairly small and should be easy to store at least. I have gotten inspired to actually do something at least now though, though as always money hampers that. But I think by early/mid next year baseboards (from Tim Horn) will be purchased and track from c&l to EM gauge most likely. For now I am going to continue to plan and research and get bits as funds allow. Another Hornby Networker set and another Bachmann 2EPB will probably be added as well as a Class 33/37/47/60/66/92 for freight duties at some point. I am intending to get my head around Blender/Sketchup to have a go at seeing if I can manage to get some items 3D printed, perhaps even making a 4DD or the 465 bits I need (2 more bodyshells for the TSOL carriage), though I am also considering resin casting the Hornby body to make a complete set from them. I think the early 90s setting will be rather nice, and will be more what I remember having traveled the line numerous times growing up (though before University it was the Bexleyheath line most often). The idea is to make it possible to make it represent most 3rd rail locations within reason and fixture being changeable to allow different eras to be represented later. Obviously DCC/Computer control will be a priority to make wiring simpler and give much better control. Besides I have plenty of spare computer parts so something that utilized them will be feasible for me. Next stop Warley to collect more bits for the 4EPB project which I made a rather botched attempt at due to a mixture of sloppiness and bad tools (since ordered a better quality razor saw rather than the ancient one I had) at the Great Electric Railway Show at Gaydon earlier in the month.