Since I often cycle to work I spend a lot of time at the front of traffic lights.  During rush hour periods or during the day I can see how they help with the overall traffic flow.

What I don’t understand is why they don’t get turned off outside peak periods or at night?

This morning I left for work at 7:15.  I must have had to stop at three or four sets of lights with absolutely no other traffic on the road!

I’m 39 today – just one year off the big 40.  It’s lovely sunny day here in Belfast and I’m going to have a quiet day at work and then go home for a couple of top beers.  Got some friends coming to stay over the weekend so will probably have proper celebrations tomorrow.

Anyone doing anything more exciting for their birthday?

Next month we are playing Golf at Killymoon Golf Club.  The last time I played golf there was 10 years ago the day before I got married.  I have played golf once since then.

Conor organised it but did not know there was a competition on that day – and we were entered for it.

We showed up in our scruffs with half a bag of clubs and no clue.  The place seemed a bit more upmarket from Altrincham Municipal where we were used to playing.  The club house overlooks the first tee which seemed dangerously close to the car park to me.

We made Conor go first as he can actually play golf.  He made the fairway.

I went next and landed in the rough just short of the fairway and rolled onto it.

Still – now I haven’t played for 10 years I’m sure it will be much less embarrassing.

Is it me or does everyone get embarrassed going to the bottle bank. The longer you leave it the more the bottles pile up and before you know it you've got a boot full and you're there with 3 kids chucking about £500 worth of drink bottles into the bank whilst people around with their 3 alcohol free wine bottles look at you as if their about to ring social services to take your kids away on the basis of the amount you drink.

If only they knew - this isn't all the bottles - I ran out of boxes!

In all fairness though I noticed some of the bottles were spirits that were bought and drunk at Christmas - so maybe I just need to go more often.

OK - so I must be a bit mad.  Last year I go tired of my Honda Accord 2.0 VTEC.  In fact I got tired of it as soon as I bought it.  Why - because it was just so good it was boring.

It was big enough for 2 adults, 3 kids and a dog.

It went pretty fast with a 2.0 vtec.

It handled OK for a front wheel drive.

It looked OK.

It sounded OK.

It never broke down.

Everything worked perfectly - It obeyed the law of least surprise.

It was just boring.

So in a fit of madness I decided to downgrade to a Land Rover.  Ideally I fancied a Defender 90 (the short 1) with 7 seats (known in the trade as a CSW).  However, my wife told me she was not having a tractor parked in the driveway.

This didn't really put me off.  She tells me a lot of stuff and I don't listen to that either.

What did put me off was the price - boy do those things hold their value.  2K will maybe buy one that's about 20 years old!

So instead I opted for the slightly more up marked and cheaper Disco.

I don't piss about when buying something.  Spotted one on EBay, bid on it, took a plane to Newcastle, handed over Dosh, Drove towards Ferry, got puncture, realised no Jack, rang AA, managed to lose wheel nut key, got wheel changed, missed ferry, got in at 7am, got new tyre, went to work.

Summary

 

Only buy one if your mechanically minded and a bit mad.

Pros

• Big enough to fit loads of kids, dogs, luggage and tow things
• Disco 1's can run on bio-diesel or vegetable oil which are both cheaper and carbon neutral - which annoys the crap out of any Green friends you might have who drive an elastic band powered match box.  Mind you, according to Not Jeremy Clarkson, the best way to annoy Greens is to punch them.
• People let you out and get out of your way
• Old enough so people don't think your a bit of t055er - or maybe they do
• To big for wife to drive

Cons

• Drinks fuel in town - but can get 37mpg on a good run
• Leaks
• Electrics were designed and assembled by a man who fallen through a time warp from 1820
• Built by a bunch of idiots who were managed by a bunch of idiots who managed to turn the British car industry from world beating to crap in 30 short years and then sold it to India for 50p.

So this is Britain summarised in a car.  In the late 80's a bunch of guys in British Leyland thought it would be a good idea to build an up market 4X4 for the middle classes to fit between the Land Rover's that had been used by farmers, soldiers and everyone living in Africa for years on end and the Range Rovers used by toffs to run plebs over.

How could they go wrong - they had a massively famous brand and a great market.

So they took the Range Rover chassis and bunged in the Land Rover innards, got some fancy styling and bingo.  Car looks great - does pretty well off road and can pull and carry just about anything.

And then it started to rain and water leaked in through the windows.

Someone pushed a button and bits of circuit board melted.

They pushed on the brakes and the ABS warning light came on and stayed on.

All the lights stopped working on the way home and they crashed and the car industry was bought for scrap by India.

Maybe I've been spoilt by driving Japanese cars previous to this but here's my faults so far:

1. Windows leak and cause rust holes in boot - fixed with sealant
2. ABS brake light comes on and I have to re-program computer to turn it off.  3 mechanics/auto electricians were unable to fix this or simply refused to look at it!
3. Gearbox graunches between first and second
4. Light bulbs literally fall out as you're driving along and you have to push them back in each time you stop
5. Alternator burnt out.

I could go on.

I bet none of its Japanese rivals leak!

I actually love this car - but I wouldn't recommend buying one unless your a bit mad.

OK - starter for 10 on how top beer site will look.

Home page

The presenters

  Not JC - guess who this is.

  Not James May - that's me

  Not The hamster - CM

  Not the stig - not actually discussed at ideas stage in pub in standstead - but really should be either PC Dave as he can actually drive fast or Shamey as his driving is so scarry.

Then the crew

  Everone else.

The Beer

Maybe pages about up and coming/previous Beer trips.

Cars

Reviews of cars we own/like

Blogs

 

 

Or - I'm happy to make everyone a presenter.

In terms of admin - I've made marting a site admin too and will make anyone site admin who wants to be - else I'll make you a "Presenter" which means you can update pages but not add new ones or screw about with some of the settings.

You may wish to remain anonymous on site by adopting pseudonyms.