Steve K

Yes and yes!

Also spotted recently, something a lot newer, but which would probably count as old(fashioned) in most eyes. Surely one of the last Reliant Robins produced? Oh, and next time I hear someone say "Robin Reliant", what should I do? Petition to bring back public flogging, or simply tell them how much I like their Fiesta Ford? Funnily, I realised that that Reliant, despite belonging to another era, is actually the same age as my own car (from which the above photo was taken - from a stationary position, I must emphasise). I tend to think of my own vehicle as being modern, despite the fact that it and the Robin above are both nearly 17 years old. Just for fun, I then took a picture of my own 51-reg's dashboard, and no money whatsoever is on offer to anyone who can identify it:

Spotted outside the local Wetherspoons recently - I'm not great on the minutiae of Porsche 911s in all their variations, but I'm sure most of you clever folk will know exactly what it is (unusual colour, certainly):

Three? Three? Was that deliberate? Had they missed a couple out by mistake? Maybe the gearbox was in back-to-front. Three... (I need to gibber in the corner, I'm not feeling quite right)

You're welcome.

I'm trying to be positive about Sterling - obviously a great potential talent - so I tend to agree with "poor decision making" in respect of his tattoo. In his own limited brain, he probably really does think that this is an appropriate tribute to his late dad, but to almost anyone else, it's a crass and ridiculous idea, especially with all the gun-related death in London and elsewhere this year. Maybe it's lucky that Raheem's dad hadn't been abused as a child - he might be sporting a tattoo of Jimmy Savile now... Sorry if that last remark is in bad taste, but it sums up how I feel about this nasty tattoo. After seeing recent TV appearances, I have come to accept Sterling as a quietly-spoken, decent lad, but someone should have been on hand to advise him on this.

Dunno - Cortina is in the Dolomites...

I'd have thought that, since Olivia's are a known retailer, they can sell stock as "new" without any problems. Yes, technically, the buyer will receive the items, not direct from Heljan, but via Olivia's, but I don't really see that as misleading. On the second point, they've probably got a similar advert for the class 47 chassis, with the same photo, and someone is looking at that one, and asking "why is there a class 26/27 on show?"...

Is that a Renault 12 estate at the back? You don't see many of those these days - didn't see that many back then, in fact. Apart from that, nice to see a Toledo and a Dolomite in the same shot!

Humour is very subjective, isn't it? I mean, if Sergei Skripal dies, will that still be even vaguely amusing?

The simplest way to avoid being penalised by this rule (and as you say, it was probably ever thus, but just not enforced) is not to have your car MOTd too early. Book it in a week or so before the ticket runs out, time enough to get any jobs fixed. For most people, that will probably work out fine, though I understand that you could get caught out by a previously-unknown problem, and find your car off the road. But then, if it's not safe, wouldn't you want to know, rather than drive around like that?

No - all I've heard recently is the relaxation of the rules for cars 40 years old. Grumble... it used to be free tax for 25-year-old cars until that stingy Mr Blair came in, but at least classic cars owners are getting something now... Anyway, do tell, but in the meantime, here are a couple of oldish cars I've spotted in the North Birmingham area recently:

That place is very close to where I live, and I'm often tempted to pop in and take a closer look at all the cars I can't afford to buy, and wouldn't know how to keep going if I could! They've even got a coffee shop, so I guess they'd get some of my hard-earned! I saw that Europa the other day, and also a Dolomite Sprint which looked pretty tidy. Nice...

Yes, I get the same thing. Someone mentioned one of my old teachers the other day, and that he was just turning 70. That can't be right, I thought - he was definitely pretty young when I was at school. Then I did some quick maths, and the penny dropped.

To counter that, I owned a Scirocco (F-reg, Scala model, in a fetching shade of dark metallic blue) for a few years, and at no point - and I really can't stress this strongly enough - at no point did any of its wheels fall off. Nice enough car, really, which reminded me of the MK1 Golf GTi I'd had years before. It's almost a shock, now, when I see a Scirocco around, just how small they are* compared to newer stuff (such as the current Scirocco, which looks enormously lardy, though I'd still have one. Anyway, having enjoyed 2 classic 90s VWs, I probably need to buy at least one MK2 Gti 16v and a Corrado, so I can say I've covered the early 90s, too! *Conversely, just before I owned the Scirocco, I had a MK1 MR2, which looked tiny, but actually wasn't. IIRC, it was longer and wider than the contemporary Escort.

Not as old as some cars posted here, but I spotted this relative rarity quite recently (outside B&Q in Tamworth, in case you need that sort of info!): Time was this was seen as a grown-up alternative to the XR3i, but I can't think when I last saw another one.

It's not too late to change to OO, you know!

Literally?! I do hope not!

Spotted recently: Two cars made more interesting, perhaps, by their miserable state. Well, the early 70s Clubman is certainly beyond all but the most skilled restoration, though the mid 80s 3-series isn't too bad on the face of it (the amount of rubbish thrown into the back of it suggests it hasn't been driven in a while!)

Might try and pop along later - it's so local, it'd possibly be rude not to. By the way Hammy, too late for this year, but your signature, while a good advert in theory, still refers to last year! Get the 2018 date in there ASAP!

And on the plus side, death stopped being seen as an intrinsic part of F1 at about the same time.

We were burgled recently, and all of our mirrors were stolen. Whoever did it needs to take a long hard look at themselves.

A visit to a local garden centre provided a pleasant surprise recently. Not often that I can say that - more often, all it offers is a couple of hours of my life that I'll never see again! Anyhow, maybe I shouldn't have been too surprised. The days when garden centres only sold stuff relevant to gardening are long gone. This one - the Wyevale garden centre in Shenstone, Staffs (just off the A5 and the M6 toll!) - has everything from a branch of The Works and an Edinburgh Woollen Mill to a pet store. To get to the point, this shop (and no doubt other Wyevale centres) has a toy area, which has recently started stocking a large range of Siku die-cast. There's a lot of non-scale stuff, like an upmarket version of Matchbox, from £3 to £7.50-ish, some of which would doubtless be of some interest, but there's also quite a range of more interesting kit: I'm quite a fan of Siku's large construction stuff - mostly models of Liebherr and Volvo equipment - and any HO modellers out there would hopefully feel the same. I don't know just how much of a bargain any of this is, but it's the largest range of such stuff outside of a dedicated model shop that I've seen for some time, so I hope you'll forgive me sharing it here.

I know, schoolboy error, giving the worst of the cut 'n' pasters the oxygen of publicity.

I never noticed the change from 1972 for tax exemption - what happened? IIRC, it was originally going to be a rolling 25 year thing, but then Mr Blair came to power in 1997 and froze the date at 1972, where it remained. Is it a 40-year rolling exemption now, or something more confusing?