(Again)
For anyone who may have been wondering where I went, that is the answer.
Basically, we started on Friday (as in 1st May) and trotted off up North. Rather than taking a plane like last time, and then hiring a car, we simply took my nice shiny new car instead. It must be said that after putting a couple of thousands of miles on the clock, it only cost just over £225 in total, despite lugging all our crap around here, there, and everywhere.
Alas, this time I didn't take any notes, so it might get a bit vague...
Can't really remember much exciting about the trip, we just put on the satnav and headed northwards. Somewhere along the way we left all the traffic behind and crossed the border from Northern England into Scotland. The first major stop was Galloway Forest Park, one of those parkland areas set aside for nature and fluffy animals of all kinds. About this point was when it first started to rain.
The first thing we came across was some form of standing stone, but it was so unexciting I didn't photograph it (also my camera seems to be focussing rather poorly these days). The first thing that did catch my eye was the strange fungus above. Normally it grows on trees but this stuff was in a huge mound. It's quite fascinatingly fractal, isn't it?
Just around the corner was a centre for local wildlife, with these fluffy lambs nearby. There was also a large group of birds but I couldn't get the camera to focus on them decently.
Further along we came to a walk up to a monument, which also had the view above. Not sure quite what the plaque thing is about, but it gives some idea of how mountainous things were becoming. Not much further on was the memorial stone for Robert the Bruce, King of the Scots:
And not far from there we finally arrived at our destination for the evening, Cairnryan, and a bit north of there, Ballantrae, which basically looks over towards Ireland:
We stayed in a rather nice little B+B that is only round the corner from a ferry to Ireland. The nearest major town was interesting-looking but unfortunately packed with chavs...I think they're called neds in this area though. Or townies. Or charvas, or something. We go to a chippy and have what is probably the worst meal I have had in quite some time. Many years ago a fair few chippies seemed to serve the most awful chips that seemed to have very little crispiness and were basically little soggy lumps. They seem to have largely died out in recent years...but this harked back to those dark days. I also had a cheeseburger. Thanks to the guy loading the entire lot up with vinegar, the cheeseburger bun soaked it all up and was soggy and acidic as a result. The only bit that was any good by the end of it was the cheese.
The following day, after a rather nice and filling cooked breakfast of fried egg, sausage, potato cake, bacon and haggis, we set off further north.
Somewhere in the Highlands we discover an Osprey Centre, but I'm damned if I can remember where it was. Hence this unnamed loch:
We finally arrive at our second B+B, this time just outside Inverness. Inverness is an interesting place, but alas it also seems to suffer a fairly serious ned problem. Some Americans ask me, mystified, why they aren't allowed in various places because they aren't wearing shirts with collars - I'm afraid I have no idea. We end up having dinner in a pub that looks OK at first, but goes downhill as the evening wears on. There's some kind of rugby match going on and we end up sat near a TV, little realising that around here people are quite content to stand over you, watching said telly, while you are trying to eat. I probably wouldn't have minded quite so much had I noticed early on that one of said watchers was quite muscular.
Adding to this, the food was shite. I had a king prawn and sweet chilly wrap, in which the king prawns had not been properly de-shelled and de-tailed, so it got rather crunchy. At one point a russian guy tried to que jump me at the bar too.
The only highlight was when a bunch of hen nighters came along, and then some guy dressed as Bob the Builder turned up. As my pulse shot off at the thought of ending the evening watching a hot muscleman slowly discard his clothing, it gradually became clear that because of all the rugby-watching thugesque drunkards, the guy decided not to complete his act. Sigh.
The B+B is rather a large disappointment. For starters, it is brand spanking new. The owners, being a mixture of Scottish and Spanish, have decided to make something a little like a Spanish villa. It's all very open plan. And very lacking in sound-proofing. Quite simply you can hear a pin drop in the next room, and on the floor below. Next door is an infuriatingly loud Indian couple who refuse to lower their voices from a shout, and on top of that one of them snores.
The following morning we have a buffet breakfast that consists of some incredibly cheap nasty meat (the kind you get in a packet at a supermarket, with words like "value" or "smart" or, in more honest cases "mechanically recovered unnamed foodstuff"), a variety of breads, yoghurts, fruit, and some cereal. The only good bit here is the toaster, which is a fantastic contraption that you slide bread into. The bread is then carried along on a conveyor belt, browning neatly until it drops off the end into a tray. Genius. Beyond that, the Scottish guy who runs the place merely turns up to provide a small pot of boiling water for tea of coffee. Of his wife, we see nothing whatsoever all week.
We decide to do some walking and head off up a mountain by the side of Loch Ness.
After some insect close encounters, several periods where it pours down and we have to shelter behind and partly under some rock outcrops, and one point where it actually snowed, we got to the top:
That last one is the strange spongy moss that seems to come in a huge range of greens and reds.
Next day, we had...the strange church. Not only was there a graveyard, but the church itself lay in ruins...as if it was also dead...
Alas, I can't remember where it was.
I seem to recall a rather nice meal at a place called Jac-o-Bite, which was on the banks of another loch, and was inundated with tourists. It seems they had a whole coachload turn up at once, thus it was rather busy and took a while to get served. Otherwise very nice and friendly though.
The following morning we bugger off really early because we've got to dash off to Gills Bay, where a ferry goes to Orkney. It's all a bit of a stress because we're finding by this point that the car has a slightly small fuel tank and several stations in Scotland that are listed on the satnav are completely imaginary or alternatively long closed down. We manage to get fuel and arrive in time though. I set about photographing the various grot at the dock:
After that, the ferry arrives...
Much faffing about and the car is aboard. Actually, it's not really very full.
Click 'ere for video 1
Click 'ere for video 2
The first thing we discover after docking at St Margaret's Hope is that the Orkneys are very windy and very exposed. Everything's very small-village-y. There really isn't too much about, including trees. We stop by the side of a bridge and have a nose about.
It seems that a lot of ships were deliberately sunk here to stop German u-boats wandering about.
After nosing at some old military emplacements that have long been abandoned, we proceed to Mull Head, which apparently has some rather nice geographical features.
I believe those birds are some kind of shag. But I'm not an expert. At this point it's drizzling like crazy and we both manage to slip over. After several more minutes we're soaked to the skin and decide to abandon the whole thing and go back to the car, attempting to dry off inside with the fans on full blast.
Later came the Stones of Stennes, a couple of ancient stone circles similar to Stonehenge.
Alas, there's little time before the ferry comes back and if we miss it then we'll be there until the following day.
Click 'ere for video of rather rougher seas than before
The last shot shows an island covered in abandoned buildings.
Since we're already up this far north at this point, we go to the northernmost tip of the country:
We also pop to John O Groats (largely regarded as the "top" of the country) but are rather bemused to find that the famous sign has been removed due to vandalism and theft. Not to mention that John O Groats is rather boring.
That evening we get back to find the B+B is almost deserted, apart from our loud friends. They wake us up the following morning by putting on some CD of Indian music and then opening their room door wide and leaving it like that for the next hour. I have no idea what would posses them to do something so stupid in a place where they must surely have discovered that they could hear everything going on elsewhere in the building. I think they assumed no-one else was there because once we had gone to the bathroom they quietened down somewhat and looked a bit sheepish at breakfast. Although not too sheepish, because herself obviously felt she was someone important in society, judging by her overall attitude. Pillocks.
Luckily, that was the last we saw of them.
We set off to the western end of the highlands and found various beaches:
...followed by Smoo Cave (called Sumo by Boyfriend):
A small sign says the cave tour is closed due to the possibility of flooding. When we inspect more closely we discover that all the rain has quite definitely flooded it. On the way back we stumble upon Ardvreck Castle, or what's left of it:
By the end of the day the B+B now has just us and the occasional one-nighter guest. This does little to help the noise issue because the family running the place can be heard throughout it anyway. They also have a little girl who screeches every so often, and I'm sure I heard a dog. In fact, overall, I'm left with the impression that this lot are rather like the recent breed of Buy To Let landlords that jumped into the housing market in recent years (and are now, I suspect, wishing they hadn't) - in essence, they want the guests' money...but not the guests themselves.
Fortunately it's the last day we're there, so after taking advantage of the buffet's mini Baby Bels and Pain au Chocolat a la Supermarche avec plastic wrapping (so easy to stuff in pockets), we continue on our way, this time heading southwards. On the way we visit Corrieshalloch Gorge, which is insanely deep and rather frightening. If you have vertigo, just don't go. There's a bridge across it which sways merrily from side to side with every step you take, and a viewing platform that reaches out into nowhere, and it really is very deep.
After that sphincter-loosening experience we head to the site of the Battle of Culloden, where apparently a bunch of Scots and English had a right to-do and beat the crap out of each other.
It's a strange place, and it must be said, very expensive if you opt to go inside the centre. The rest is accessible once you've paid and displayed. It's complicated for me, because my family name is Scottish but I'm technically Welsh, and my immediate family is essentially English. So who knows what side I'd be on. They're also attempting to return the area to the boggy conditions it was in back 300 years or so ago.
Later on we arrive at the Cardhu distillery and take a quick tour. To be honest, it's not very complex. They basically make a beer out of malt, then they use distillation to refine it until they get what they want. We each get a rather expensive bottle of finest whisky, for special occasions.
Moving on, we proceed southwards until we're near Newcastle (upon Tyne). It is absurdly windy crossing the Scottish-English border, and we find to our surprise that the area is very countryside-y. The final place to stay is a place called the Lord Crewe Arms Hotel, which, charmingly, is built out of an old abbey. The place is amazingly solid with huge thick stone walls. The village itself is very pretty, but infuriatingly has no phone reception, so we have to update our respective mothers via the phone box. Phones seem to have changed a bit since I last used them. I seem to recall you put money in after it connected you, but this one wouldn't budge an inch until you'd put in 20 minutes worth of money.
Our evening meal is very expensive, but quite exclusive too. I have Guineafowl, which I've never had before. It tasted very familiar, but I can't think of what. And, no, it didn't really taste like chicken.
After another cooked breakfast (I really shouldn't order fried bread again - every time I have it, all the fat makes me feel nauseated) we set off for another local geographical feature, High Force, which is basically a damn big waterfall:
We attempt to see a number of places around Durham but they are all infuriatingly closed, apart from the Cathedral, in which you can't take photos. Also, my gaydar is going off like crazy through most of Durham and surrounding area, including a very suspiciously-familiar couple when we go to see the Angel of the North. Maybe I was just imagining things.
Somehow I expected the Angel to be twice the size...
After that, we dragged ourselves home. And here we are.Current Mood:  tired |
Having now done over 1000 miles, I can give a reasonable verdict of the new shape Honda Jazz so far. It's an exceedingly well-designed and well-screwed-together car. I've managed to put all of my junk into it but virtually all of it remains out of the way and out of sight due to various cubbyholes and storage areas. It's transported four adults with ease. It's lugged around our grubby walking boots and various paraphernalia. It's taken me to and from work.
Got some mats for it for a decent reduction from Halfords because they were in damaged packaging, so that was nice. Still waiting on some door protector strips and trying to find a second boot protector for use when the seats are down.
The seats are a work of art. I've never seen a mechanism so easy to use or so useful, or that results in so much space. It really is a Tardis inside. There's about 8 cupholders, the handiest being the one to the right of the steering wheel. Beyond that there's a bajillion different holders, slots and boxes.
It's as frugal as they get. I'm averaging between 53 and 54 miles per gallon most of the time. It's so quiet at idle that you sometimes wonder if it's stalled. There isn't the slightest squeak or rattle.
There are only a handful of things I could complain about. The most major one is the engine - I feel like I should have gone for the 1.4 instead of the 1.2 because it's a bit breathless on hills. 0-60 time is nothing special, but then neither was the last car's. The 1.4 would only have been fractionally less frugal, but the bigger issue would have been paying at least £2000 more, and I was already over budget. Otherwise it does the job well.
Other minor irritations... It has only one power socket, but a splitter would fix that. It's also difficult to mount anything anywhere, e.g. mobile phone holder. The dash has nothing on it for anything like that and the windscreen slopes at such a shallow angle that it sweeps away from you, making it a bit awkward to find anywhere to attach a suction cup that isn't right by the mirror. Anything else would involve drilling holes in the dash or sticking things to it.
All in all, it's doing a very good job so far. It's actually managed to out-do the Almera, which is a big enough feat in itself.Current Mood:  happy |
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Out
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Apr. 7th, 2009 @ 09:33 pm
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Well, 'tis done. I got a phone call saying she had suspected and she would always love me regardless etc. She did seem to not understand why I'd want to put it all down in an email, but I've done that anyway and told her everything*. So we shall see how it unfolds...
*OK, I didn't go into extreme detail, before you get ideas.Current Mood:  optimistic |
Since I didn't go to the Mother Hive a few weekends back, I decided to go this last weekend. It was also the first major run of the new car, which performed wonderfully.
So far it's pretty much all positives, the car being comfortable, ludicrously spacious for its size, quiet, nippy and nimble, and very well put together. It was an instant hit with my parents who thought it was great. It does have some minor annoyances though - the dash vents aren't particularly good and the engine could do with a bit more oomph, but that would have meant going for the 1.4 which would have cost a few thousand more, and I was already over budget. The only other issue is that the windscreen vanishes away from you so quickly that it's hard to find anywhere to stick the satnav without it being miles away.
Otherwise, the weekend had one rather large surprise. After a sort of cat-and-mouse type situation going on for a while now between me and my mother, with us hinting at things but never actually confirming anything one way or the other, she finally made some more obvious remarks about me being "with" Boyfriend and thus it became clear that she's obviously sussed at least some of it out. So now I shall be filling her in bit by bit.
I predict complicated times ahead.Current Mood:  indescribable |
Well, it's almost done. The new car is being prepped and I will be collecting it next week. I have to confess I'm feeling quite sad about it all. The outgoing car has served me outstandingly for over 8 years and over 101,000 miles.
On top of that, the circuitous route to try to get from work to the dealer meant I ended up passing most of my old haunts since moving here...which is where the car has spent most of its life.
~~~Wibbly nostalgia lines~~~
It was 2001, and I was fed up of my job at Jism (alright, not the real name, but it's not far off the mildly childish name the company had) and had decided I wanted to move on. Having started saving for a housing deposit I began to realise that there was no logic in actually going ahead and buying a house if I didn't actually want to stay.
In the midst of all this, my ever-useless car at the time, the Fiat Bravo hot hatch, was driving me up the wall. For the 3 years I'd owned it, it had broken down in a major way at least twice for each. The final straw was when it started to develop an intermittent version of the hair-pulling issue it had had two years previously, the Fuel Injection Warning Light Problem, accompanied by its friend, the Occasional Mis-fire. Add to that its new trick of the engine cutting out mid-gearchange whilst accelerating up to motorway speeds - an extremely dangerous situation that resulted in essentially unknowingly bump-starting the car, which causes a sudden braking effect with no warning to anyone unfortunate enough to be behind - and I was about ready to push it off a cliff.
So the situation seemed obvious enough - use the money to replace the unreliable shit-heap with something that would actually last while I looked for another job. And so, after a similar narrowing-down episode to the one from recent weeks, it came down to the Toyota Yaris or the Nissan Almera. Unimpressed with the disconnected feeling of driving the Yaris, I plumped for the Almera.
The first thing that happened was the passenger-side door pull came off in my hand. Fortunately I realised pretty quickly that the retaining clips were on the wrong way up, so having put it right I fitted it back in, and it's never budged since. The sunroof motor packed up about a week later and was fixed under warranty. The roasting hot summer melted the number plate glue and I took it back to have the number plate screwed on instead.
After these teething troubles, it had no further problems. It was smooth and quiet and totally reliable.
Time passed. I procrastinated over my job hunt and in the end, the games industry took a lurch, I suspect as a result of fallout from the Dot Com crash and 9/11, and Jism decided to let go some 10% of their staff, which happened to include me. My reward for completing projects ahead of schedule, you see.
Having it all blow up resulted in me having to return to live with my parents briefly while I sorted out another job. The car was with me the whole way, from the day I returned home devastated at the shitty treatment we'd all had at Jism, to the day I left home again heading for my new job in the South West. It was on that fateful journey that I finally began to face facts, and having had the old adage of "life's too short and you never know when you'll lose everything" demonstrated to me, I started to accept my sexuality.
As I started my new job and explored this exciting new city, the car was with me the whole time, loyally carting about my junk and never missing a beat. While I lived in an uninspiring B+B it carted me around the city of an evening, taking in the sights and sounds. When I began to explore the gay scene, it happily took me to various bars and nightclubs. When I met my Boyfriend, there was the car, totally dependable. When I moved house several times, once again it performed perfectly.
There was a small wrinkle when it broke down and refused to start after a recall was missed, but otherwise it kept on plugging along, carting me to and from work on rough back roads, carting junk backwards and forwards, always fine, never an issue, started from the key first time every time.
When the new company got shut down, there was the car again, reliably taking me to interviews so I could switch careers and move to something (hopefully) a bit more stable.
~~~Wibbly return-to-present lines~~~
Alas, the years took their toll. Unfortunately most cars of this type aren't designed to last more than about 10 years or 100,000 miles, and when I'd had a string of issues with brakes seizing due to old age, and realised that all the car had ahead was a string of parts failing and giving up because they were past their designed lifespan, I realised it was time to replace my loyal Nissan.
It's been a hard slog finding something that is worthy of picking up where it will leave off. I only hope the new car can perform as well. I couldn't have asked for more from the Almera. I've heard plenty of negative things said about them, particularly stuff about them being dull and uninspiring, and more recently a number of reliability issues that seem to have crept in since Nissan was bought by Renault - but the fact remains that my Almera has been a loyal, dependable and fun friend for almost a decade and I will miss it when it goes.Current Mood:  sad |
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Pheh! Haven't posted much recently so I should do a catchup.
First off was the Hivelings' Birthday Bash, and I got invited specifically to the Sister Colony to help with their weekend (last weekend). This involved going bowling with ten screaming eight year old girls, which was surprising fun.
The actual journey there was a tad surreal. Since I only know how to get from here to the Mother Hive and from the Mother Hive to the Sister Colony, I decided to rely on the satnav. Somewhere north of Gloucester I got tired of it constantly trying to route me onto the motorway and told it to prefer shortest distance over shortest time - at which point it started taking me down alsorts of strange back roads and straight through various towns, cutting across in as straight a line as it could possible manage. Within half an hour I had only the vaguest idea of where I actually was. As a result I spent almost the entirety of the rest of the journey (up until the last minute or so) not having the first clue where I was or where I was going, just following the satnav lady. Bizarre.
The weekend also involved a sleepover for a few of their friends...they then proceeded to wake up at 6am and put Mamma Mia on the DVD player at some ungodly volume.
Following that was a fairly uneventful week. Finally at the weekend I went to the car dealer and ended up buying a Honda Jazz. I'm just praying there won't be anything wrong when I get my hands on it in about a week or so. Boyfriend spent half the transaction helpfully pointing out all the bullshit the salesman kept trying to spout, but there was definitely more than a hint of desperation about it all. I probably could have got a better deal if I'd have pushed it more, but it'll do. I hope.
And finally...a friend of mine from uni is getting married. There was mention of me bringing a guest, which threw up a quandary. Would I take Boyfriend, given this guy was unaware of my "status"? I wasn't even sure if he'd want to go but when he said he would...well, I didn't have a lot of choice did I?
Rather than turn up on his wedding day and spring that on him, I decided to run a mile and give some wild excuse as to why I couldn't go I realised I was out of options and it was time he knew. So I came out to him. He was completely understanding and quite happy I had, how to put it, found lurve, and he's also going to have a word with our mutual friend who I'm not sure how to handle - I think he's a bit homophobic, so I wasn't sure what to do there. I guess it all works out in the end.
Mar. 22nd, 2009 @ 07:47 pm
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| » It's a knockout! |
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For the Skoda, anyway.
After the cancellation of the test drive I located two examples on the internet in Bristol and went and had a look at them. Straight off it went downhill.
First off, from a side-on view I began to realise that the difference in length between the Roomster and the Jazz and Note was negligible. Most of the extra space was in the higher roofline (i.e. no practical way of using it) although the more boxy rear probably gave more width too.
The second issue was the interior. It just simply isn't very interesting and looks frankly frumpy. It looks very old-fashioned, more suited to a 1990's Toyota Corolla or something.
The final issue was the exterior. Although it's kind of grown on me, the shape is eye-jarring and strange when you're stood right next to it.
All in all, I just don't think it's the car for me. Combined with the ineptitude of the dealers (and remember, cars need servicing and occasional repairs and if the dealers are this hopeless at actually selling the thing, then you can't help but wonder what they'd be like at the rest), the above issues mean that I'm not going to consider it any further.
So that means we're down to two very similar cars...
Mar. 7th, 2009 @ 07:08 pm
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| » Why are people so inept? |
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You've got to wonder sometimes. Today I had two phone calls. One was from the guy at Honda who was falling over himself to see if he could find the right car for me. I had to put him off because I haven't tried the Skoda Roomster yet.
The other was from Skoda to tell me that they had bad news, the car I was going to test drive had been bought by someone and so they would phone me when they (eventually) had another one that I could try.
It's like chalk and cheese. Here's how they stack up so far, from best to worst:
Honda - Happy, ready to do a deal, trying to go that extra mile.
Nissan - Also quite enthusiastic, professional, doing the job well.
Skoda - Well...I suppose we could let you test drive it. Are you going to buy it today? No? Oh well, you'll have to wait a week. Oh, and now there's no car available after all. Do you want to wait a few more months? We might do something about it by then. Maybe.
Citroen - Er...a what drive? Test drive? Erm. Well, the car has no actual fuel in it. And the battery is flat. To be honest I'd rather spend all day in the empty showroom, playing solitaire on my PC and polishing my nails. I'm just gagging to go on the dole, me. Looking forward to the day when the company goes tits up because we can't be arsed to actually do our jobs. Oh, have you met my friend? He'll make some stupid remark that makes you feel as if he's objecting to you disgracing our forecourt.
Utter bloody morons. I mean, maybe I'm just stupid, but if my industry was up shit creek, with the manufacturers having such a backlog of unsold stock that they've actually stopped making any more, then I'd be leaping on the increasingly-rare customers as if I wanted to fulfil their wildest dreams in any way possible. I mean there's got to be something wrong when you walk into an empty showroom and they can barely be arsed to serve you.
Mar. 6th, 2009 @ 06:20 pm
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| » Argh! |
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Decisions, decisions. So annoyingly difficult to make expensive decisions...
Honda Jazz
+ Very economical
+ No need to remove rear seats to get maximum space
+ Packed with extras
+ Bullet-proof
- Expensive, some £2000 more than equivalent Note
- Unwanted extras hike the price
- Stiff ride
- Smaller than Roomster
Wins on reliability and flexibility, loses on price. |
Nissan Note
+ Economical
+ Cheaper than Jazz and Roomster
+ Current Nissan has done over 100,000 miles and broken down once
+ Better to drive than Jazz
- Less economical than Jazz
- No ability to remove rear seats
- Lower interior versatility = less space
- Probably not as reliable as Jazz
- Smaller than Roomster
Wins on price, loses on flexibility. |
Skoda Roomster
(Not yet driven)
+ Economical
+ Similar price to Jazz, but a larger car
+ Interior more versatile than Jazz and Note
+ Bizarre looks
- Less economical than Jazz
- Less likely to hold value
- Less likely to be as reliable as Jazz or Note
- Maximum space requires removal of seats
- Bizarre looks
Wins on flexibility, loses on reliability. |
Mar. 2nd, 2009 @ 08:34 pm
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| » Test Drive 2 |
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In the intervening week I've been having a damn good think about any other alternatives, and eventually found myself reasoning as follows:
1. I like reliability. I need reliability, it's the most important thing.
2. I need flexibitity too.
3. The above generally goes hand in hand with interior space, so bigger is generally better - provided it isn't at the expense of 1.
4. Highest reliability is Japanese and German.
5. Volkswagen is German, but none of their line-up really interest me. The Caddy, whilst similar to the Berlingo/Partner/Kangoo-type vehicle, is a seven seater and is too big, too expensive to run, and too rare.
6. Skoda is now owned by Volkswagen...
And so we come to the Skoda Roomster.
Now it must be said that Skodas used to be a joke. I used to tease a "friend" of mine (inverted commas because he was the kind of friend who was a constant nuisance - I wouldn't have teased him if he'd been a decent person) about his mother owning a Skoda and in fact it seems Mother-in-law once owned one too. That all changed when Volkswagen bought them and they've improved vastly ever since. In fact they're one of the most well-regarded manufacturers around according to the customer surveys.
Now I'll grant you the Roomster is a bit odd looking. It looks, basically, like two completely different cars welded together, but it does have the same kind of abilities as the likes of the Berlingo whilst apparently being very well made.
Alas, when I wanted to test drive one I found the Bristol Skoda garage has closed down. The one in Bath was less than impressive. They had hardly any Skodas at the place at all, and there was nowhere to park. I had to book a test drive unless I was willing to buy it that very day (an attitude I've had before that I vowed I wouldn't tolerate again, so the salesdroid got a flat "no" when he asked if I was buying on the spot). They ungracefully failed to answer my question as to where the other Skoda dealer was, and that was pretty much it. So now I have to wait until next week.
Obviously there were other cars to investigate so I got on with that.
At the Ford garage I decided to investigate the Ford Fusion:
After having a nose at the interior of the one Fusion they had (which was an automatic), I was less than impressed. After sitting in it I was even less impressed. It's just too pokey and something about it screamed "cheap" so I didn't bother going any further. Also saw the new Fiesta and Ka, which are pretty...but too small.
We drifted off to another Citroen garage and took a quick look at the new Berlingo, but I'm beginning to think it's just too damn big. On top of that, the fuel economy figures seem to be wildly optimistic according to many reviews, so I decided not to investigate that any further. At this point a salesdroid appears and wants to know what I'm interested in. When I wouldn't give any specifics beyond "I'm just looking" (because I was about to leave) he prattled out some bloody stupid remark about how I could see lots of cars in Sainsburys car park. What on earth that was supposed to mean I have no idea. If it was supposed to mean, essentially, "Get off my car lot unless you want to buy something" then frankly I don't expect that guy to have a job for much longer, especially in this economic climate.
What a tit.
After that we headed back to Bristol and to Honda, specifically for the Jazz:
I didn't really expect to see anything much different from the Nissan Note (see prev entry), but I was rather surprised. First off the sales guy actually did a good job and actually was willing to show me the car and all it's features, and we did a test drive. He demonstrated the rear seat folding.
This was surprisingly special. Most cars of this type (my current car included) have the fuel tank placed underneath the rear seat area, so that many (like mine again) just put the back seat directly on top of it. This means there's little you can do except fold it out of the way or remove it. It's certainly fairly difficult to have a completely flat load area with the seats folded in many cars. On the Jazz, however, the fuel tank is elsewhere and so the rear seats can fold downwards into the floor, resulting in a large and completely flat load area. It's really quite impressively large and you don't even have to remove the headrests from the rear seats - they tuck in under the front seats. It's also done in literally seconds, far simpler than anything I've seen so far.
The car itself was astonishingly-solid feeling. I was concerned that a Jazz might feel a bit delicate, but in fact it feels as if it's been hewn from solid granite. It's not hugely powerful, but then neither is my current car. And they just don't go wrong. And they're cheap to insure and tax. And they're economical.
The only issue is that they're expensive.
The sales guy was quite astonished that I was the only owner of my 8 year old car and that I would want to pay cash...which is probably what got him trying to push to contact me next week, but I refused to budge until I've seen the Skoda and anything else I think of.
But I must admit...the Jazz is impressive. It's just difficult finding that sweet spot between sheer space (as in needing something big) and economy (as in needing something small).
He also refused to make an offer on my car unless I was talking about buying a specific vehicle, but no doubt their attitude is "we don't want that thing disgracing our forecourt so give him £100 for it and then throw it away somewhere."
Hmmmm.
Hmmmm.
Complicated.
Feb. 28th, 2009 @ 02:10 pm
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| » Test Drive 1 |
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Vroom! Vroom! Ready! Set! Go!
Something like that, anyway.
After some dog walking and some faffing involving a stained carpet, we finally got around to driving some actual cars.
First off was the Nissan garage I generally use to service my existing car. After having a damn good nose around the lot, several cars stood out.
First off was the Nissan Micra. Having driven a couple of these as courtesy cars I will straight off say that they are decent little cars, spacious and quite nippy. Unfortunately they weren't considered any further because they're simply too small in the boot department.
Second up was the Nissan Qashqai. This is the first replacement for my existing car, it having been succeeded by two different vehicles. Whilst it's high up and an interesting-looking vehicle, the fuel economy doesn't look too special and it's not as flexible in terms of cargo lugging as some of the other vehicles being considered, so it also wasn't considered any further.
Third came the previous-generation (Mk 6) Ford Fiesta. Whilst it's a nice little car, originally brought to my attention several years ago when a friend gave four of us a lift in it, I have to admit that it seems almost totally pointless it terms of carrying space. It's just not the right kind of thing.
Next was the Nissan Note, the second replacement for my existing car. There were a fair few of these on display and, having already had one as a courtesy car, I was impressed already. I had a damn good fiddle with the loadbay and rear seats, and it has an impressive flexibility. There are two boards, one side tough plastic, the other side carpet, that can be put across the top of a recessed area in the bottom of the boot. These, when combined with the rear seats being folded up flat, result in a large flat loadbed. Alternatively, the seats can be up and the boards removed, thus deepening the boot and making it larger. The rear seat can be slid backwards and forwards too. It's all very clever. Unfortunately, the car just simply isn't as large as I remembered, or thought I remembered.
We (me, Boyfriend, and Mother-in-law in tow) took one for a test drive. It was a comfortable, well-made car, nice to drive, well-handling, and with substantially better suspension than my own. Boyfriend and Mother-in-law found it quite comfortable in the back, although apparently there weren't many places to put things back there. Impressive, overall. But I wonder if something else might be more suitable. There's a feeling that it's the obvious choice, and maybe it's a bit too obvious.
A Vauxhall Meriva was also in the car lot, so I decided to have a damn good explore of that too. In terms of the load area it's even more flexible than the Note. It has a folding parcel shelf like nothing I've ever seen before, and similarly to the Note it also has a board-like setup over a recessed space under the main boot - only this also folds up. The seats can be folded, slid backwards and forwards...and rather interestingly can be moved inwards such that a five seater is converted into a four seater with extra room for the two in the back. It's all very clever - again.
Unfortunately the test drive wasn't so impressive. The bad sign was when I closed the door and rather than clunking with the reassuring quality of a well-made car, it clattered with the rattly tinniness of a poorly-made car instead. Within minutes I was finding the drivers seat deeply uncomfortable. I just couldn't find a position that didn't produce pain in my lower back. Mother-in-law kept stating how cheap it felt. As for the actual drive, it was fairly smooth but with more noise. The engine sounded unrefined and the body roll when turning was pretty large - only to be expected for a taller car I suppose, but still a bit worrying. I'm sure it could have been dampened somehow. The switchgear looked a bit cheap, and the dashboard screams "I love right angles!"
So all-in-all, not too impressed with the Meriva, flexibility or not.
After getting a quote for what they would offer me for my car (laughable), I said I'd think about it and moved on to the next garage, which happened to be Citroen.
After having a quick look at C4s and Picassos I made a beeline for the unusual Berlingo. This kind of vehicle is a different setup altogether. So far the vehicles I've looked at all fall into the supermini, mini-MPV, supermini-MPV-crossover, or supermini-pretending-its-an-MPV categories. This, on the other hand, is a category of vehicle I've never driven before. It's basically a small van. With windows in the sides. It's what you get when a company decides it wants to make a budget MPV and realises that if it takes an existing van and bungs some extra seats in, it might just make a really tough and flexible vehicle, provided the driver doesn't mind it being utilitarian and possibly a touch spartan.
As it was, the saleswoman was keen to point out that the one diesel Berlingo they had there (which, I might add, had about 1 cubic centimetre of diesel in the tank and had to be jumpstarted because the battery was flat) was a far cry from the new generation of Berlingo, which is more car-like.
To drive, it was definitely van-like. The steering wheel is tilted more horizontally than a car's and it was very much a reminder of the Ford Transit I used to move house recently. Having said that, I kind of liked it. Something utilitarian and tough appeals to me because of all the punishment everything I own gets put through. Otherwise, it was simple enough to drive, pretty comfortable, and immensely spacious. It feels like driving a motorhome (or RV if you're American), but it still is nippy and maneouverable. Contrary to expectations it had less body roll than the Meriva and felt like it would turn on a sixpence. Unfortunately the test drive lasted about 2 minutes thanks to the aforementioned lack of diesel. I'm pondering whether to get a test drive in the newer vehicle.
Their offer for my car was even more laughable than Nissan's.
So the end result is that one car from my list isn't likely to get test driven at all (Fiesta), the top-of-the-list choice (Note) was impressive but I wish it was a bit bigger, the Meriva was too cheap despite the impressive flexibility, and the Berlingo is...intriguing. Boyfriend was getting ideas about being able to use it to go camping (which is certainly possible, you could throw anything into the back and it's barely any longer than a normal car. Unfortunately I can't seriously believe a Citroen/Peugeot is going to be able to compete with Japanese reliability.
Anyway, there's more cars to check out next weekend.
Feb. 21st, 2009 @ 06:21 pm
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| » Brum Brum |
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Hrm. Well, the car just had more brake problems, this time at the front. One of the calipers jammed up and Brother-of-Boyfriend, being a mechanic, was kind enough to unjam it and lend me his car in the process.
It's kind of like this:
It was an interesting drive, since it's a classic example of a high-mileage cruiser, aimed at company reps and the like. Still drove very well all the same, which gives me pause for thought...because now I'm thinking it might be time to let the car go.
The simple fact is that cars (certainly ones like mine) are pretty much designed with a life of about 10 years or 100,000 miles (which it's just passed) - after that alsorts of things start to wear out and go wrong, and given the pounding it received for the majority of its life, mostly on winding back roads and in conditions that ripped through tyres at a rate of knots, it's not really surprising that things are looking a bit iffy. The last six months have seen a variety of brake problems, and there's the occasional strange noise elsewhere too. It might be time to take the hint that it can't cope much longer.
So the question becomes what to go for next. On the whole, I generally just need a runabout, something small, reliable, economical, and preferably cheap. The only problem is the every so often, and this is quite a regular occurrence, my car gets used for something else. This is generally something that involves a lot of cargo. It can simply be clearing a load of garden waste and taking it to the tip, or it can be going camping and filling the back with all the associated clutter, or it can be moving pieces of furniture, or...well, you get the idea.
This means that ideally I could do with something flexible. That's where it gets all complicated. It has to be said that every car I've owned has been roughly the same estate-like shape, which is generally the most flexible. The problem is, do I go for a small car that can act like a mini MPV? Or do I go for a larger car with the same idea? Or do I just get an estate like I used to have? Or do I go for a real anti-style van-derived MPV? It's all rather complicated.
Currently under consideration:
Nissan Note
One of the two replacements for my existing car, I've driven one as a courtesy car and must admit that it was ludicrously spacious for a small car. Very flexible interior. Air vents rather crap though. Diesel engines rarer than hen's teeth. Based on my current car's 100,000 miles with very little in the way of problems, I would hope this is similarly reliable.
Ford Fiesta
A decent, simple little car, but not hugely spacious. Included because of the next vehicle:
Ford Fusion
Based on the Fiesta, it's a more flexible alternative aimed at my sort of needs. Unfortunately it's apparently not much more flexible or spacious than the Fiesta, which is a bit disappointing. And it looks a bit...frumpy. Appearance isn't a huge priority, but still. It's a bit old biddy. My Ford Sierra was a fairly reliable piece of kit, so hopefully this would be fairly reliable too.
Honda Jazz
Pretty much the original Tardis-mobile, hugely spacious...and hugely expensive for what it is. It also seems a touch...delicate...for my requirements. I need something tough, and whilst I'd expect it to never break down, I'd also feel almost like I was using a fine china cup on a building site.
Vauxhall Corsa
As with virtually all small cars, it's steadily got bigger and bigger and bigger with each generation. It might do the job. Bit chavvy though... Drove one in Scotland, it was very economical but very cramped.
Vauxhall Meriva
Don't like the egg shape, but it also might do the job. Also very flexible interior...but not likely to be as reliable as the Note.
Citroen Berlingo
Identical to the Peugeot Partner, it's basically a van with car pretentions. The new model, however, is more car than van. I'd rather not pay for a new one though. Ludicrously flexible, yet still economical with a diesel engine. Looks a bit oddball, but I kind of like that.
Renault Kangoo
Even more oddball, also highly flexible. This kinda scares me though:
Feb. 18th, 2009 @ 08:05 pm
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| » What is this, Stuart Little? |
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Found, on Friday morning, that an old Creme Egg wrapper had been dragged, by tiny paws, into a little hiding place underneath the monsterous contraption I usually use to lock my steering wheel in my car (at this point it was resting on the passenger seat). It had then been chewed into little tiny pieces and liberally scattered with what I like to call mouse-sourced hundreds-and-thousands.
Time for the traps again...this time inside the car.
Took this one rather further away to release it this time.
Sigh.
And then the car's front passsenger side brake decided to seize up, or something. Just what I need right now...
Feb. 14th, 2009 @ 08:23 pm
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| » Silicone Slapper Flashes Norks at Japanese |
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But first in the news...
The Giant Horsey. I do wonder who comes up with these ideas, I'm sure kids all around would be terrified of the thing. Either that or they'd coat at much as they could reach with graffiti. As it was I couldn't help but see the same image over and over in my head until finally I gave in to the urge to Photoshop (or GIMP as the case may be) the image:
Cool, huh?
Back to the Silicone Slapper... Now the Japanese are buying her. Square Enix are buying Eidos for, frankly, a fraction of its value when it was going strong. I guess that pretty much closes the book on that then. The phrase "so long, suckers" keeps drifting through my mind. Kinda glad I'm out of it now...and my new employer won a new contract today too.
Feb. 12th, 2009 @ 07:54 pm
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| » Snow! |
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Well, it's not really that exciting. Of course, since London got hit, the entire country is now considered to have ground to a halt. As for myself, well it only started snowing just as I got into work, and although it kept going all day it wasn't really that exciting until I got back to my car at the Park n Ride. Even at home out in the country it's not that bad. I'm more concerned about tomorrow - since the snow doesn't appear to be likely to melt, it'll be worse.
Ho hum.
Not at lot else going on. Pretty much sorted out using Truckee as my server, most stuff also backed up onto DVD or CD. Everything feels pretty defensive right now with economy in the mess it's in, so I guess I'm taking stock and figuring out what goes where.
Feb. 2nd, 2009 @ 06:39 pm
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| » Now we've got rid of Bush... |
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...can we get rid of this moron too?
I mean how could our ex- so-called Iron Chancellor, and now Our Glorious Leader, fail to see this coming? It was so bloody obvious, if you spend like there's no tomorrow, sooner or later the money runs out, the effect of all the spending causes inflation and sustains businesses that would normally fail, and eventually you end up with people suddenly finding that all their disposable income is a lot lower than before. Next step, people rein in their spending, and what do you know? Recession, and all the inflation effects linger on and those unsustainable companies all go to the wall, thus making it even worse. It's really not that complicated.
Jan. 23rd, 2009 @ 06:23 pm
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| » Banana Republic |
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Idiots.
Here is what I think will happen. What the banks need to do is repair the damage to their assets. Part of this should involve getting people to save - not spend like morons. That doesn't fix anything, it just perpetuates the mess we're in. The slight problem is that no bugger is going to put money in a savings account if they earn sod all interest on it.
So what'll happen now, I reckon, is that the Gubbermunt will basically back the banks via our taxes, and so the banks can now forget worrying about giving us decent savings rates, so wave goodbye to those. We'll probably not see those again for years thanks to these imbeciles. Instead we'll all effectively become forced savers via our taxes - and we'll still get sod all interest.
Mr Guvverment Persons - Get it into your skulls that there is no easy fix, it's a problem you shouldn't have allowed to happen in the first place. Forcing taxpayers to pick up the tab for people spending themselves into oblivion? I just don't believe it...
(Oh no, I'm Victor Meldrew!)
Jan. 19th, 2009 @ 07:53 pm
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| » Adjustments |
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Still adjusting to being back in work.
As I told my chiropractor, I'm happy to be earning some money again and I'm starting to enjoy the job but it feels like every second of free time is precious. I miss being able to mooch about and have no major time pressures, and now I'm suddenly back to where I was before all this happened - best summed up with the phrase "There aren't enough hours in the day."
Chiro itself was pretty much OK, she thinks I've made wonderful progress and in general my body is largely back to normal. The only thing she seems to be interested in sorting out at this point is my shoulders, which she regards as being too "forward" - which is probably about right, they tend to stand forward of where they should be, the result of me hunching up all the time when I was a kid. It probably makes them look bigger than they are.
As a result, I spent some time at the gym doing some back-of-the-shoulder work, as she requested. Also got back to bench presses, which were largely OK although I was only doing 40kg. Not much hunkage to speak of. In fact, pretty much none. The only vaguely hunky guy was the one who was bloody blind, since he made a huge fuss of not having one of those carabiner type things on the end of the cable machine he was using...despite the fact that it was sitting on the rack of handholds right in front of him. No sign of R. Think he's meeting someone off the 'Dar.
I'm noticing a certain pattern, I think. On Sundays I think I have less energy than other days. Given that each Sunday it's generally a morning workout, rather than evening, I think there may be a connection. I must research food or supplements that give one an energy boost before working out. Having said all that, I realised that the reason I had less oomph when doing cable tricep work (R's been getting somewhat amazed - "What are you eating??" - at the weight I've been getting up to on those, I think I hit 36kg last week) probably had a lot to do with use of triceps on the bench press. Sometimes it's hard to compare like-with-like from workout session to workout session.
Computer-wise, it's all go. For whatever reasons, while I was unemployed I stuck with using Dreamland as my main machine, even though my ex-employer P gave away a load of higher-spec machines, of which I snagged one (White Light). At the start of this year I began to realise I really needed a machine where stuff could be backed up. Something essentially like a server. In the end I decided to use Truckee, since it's got no other use now, and put a bunch of old hard drives in it. Unfortunately they weren't very big.
After a bit of thought I realised that if I used White Light as my main machine, I could remove a lot of the stuff from Dreamland and put in a smaller hard drive, thus freeing up the 500GB monster that I'd bought for Dreamland when I first got it. After much swapping of files, hard drives, desks, cables, network switches, printers, and everything else, I finally have White Light on the main desk with the printers, Dreamland and Flipside on the Ikea desk, and Truckee on the workbench. White Light is virtually silent in comparison to the others, being a fancy Dell. On top of that I now have a dual-monitor setup, which is rather handy.
In other news, the car had its MOT and they passed it but gave an advisory that the indicators were getting "too white." Apparently, in the depths of the various arcane stuff that an MOT test consists of, there is something about indicators being within a certain wavelength of "orange" where "orange" is some officially-designated hue (Guvverment Orange), probably settled on in the 1960s.
The end result was me getting a new set of indicator bulbs. The garage offered to do it for me, but given their mind-boggling mark-ups and labour charges, I said I was quite capable of changing them myself. The front ones were simple enough, after reading the manual on how to get the front lights to detach from the car. The rear ones were where the fun started.
Technically speaking, the process of changing the actual bulbs is easy. You open a panel, unhook the light holder, and change the bulb. The complex bit was when I noticed a strange little mound of fluff in the middle of one of the travel rugs I have in the boot (trunk for americans). On closer inspection I can see...oh, seriously, it can't be...mouse droppings.
After emptying the entire car (I even totally removed the back seat to look under it), I find that the travel rug has had one nice big hole gnawed in it, there's droppings under one of the seats, and an old plastic seat protector under the other seat has holes in it too.
I suppose I should admit that I'm not too tidy with my car. I've owned it from new and it is now 8 years old. It's got nearly 100,000 miles on the clock. It's been with me through thick and thin for all that time, and most of that involved driving on muddy back roads that covered it in mud and cowshit, and slowly but surely introduced scratches to the paintwork. I don't clean it often, because (or this certainly used to be the case) it just gets filthy again in the space of a day. As a result it hasn't been cleaned out inside in a long while. Boyfriend reckons this is only the second time I've cleaned it since we met, and that was 5 1/2 years back.
I've seen worse. I worked with someone way way back who gave me a lift once. The passenger footwell was full of empty bottles.
Anyway, I emptied everything. Threw out an empty packet of Minstrels (now with added mouse droppings). Threw out some old maps. Threw out one travel rug, washed the other. Washed the spare coat. Tidied up. Dusted. Vacuumed. No sign of any mouse now, but since I saw one just the other day by the TV, I'm guessing it got into the house. Still haven't caught it.
I never knew living in the country caused so much hassle!
Jan. 18th, 2009 @ 01:19 pm
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| » Memories of Music |
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As most people (in the UK anyway) are probably aware, Zavvi's been having some problems recently.
It took a while for it to twig, partly because Zavvi is a different name to Virgin Megastores (who they used to be) - but eventually I realised that this meant that the Virgin I used to frequent so very frequently back in Birmingham when I was at uni...well, it could vanish. Technically you could argue that it's already gone, since Zavvi now has their, frankly, hideous green logo over the shop entrance instead.
It's a bit deja-vu, I'm reminded of my entry about Kwik Save from way back.
Here is the store (I'm mildly surprised I could find it) that helped to feed my musical addiction back in the heady days of being a student. I would buy a couple of CDs every month, exploring all the music I never got the chance to hear back when I lived in a little Welsh market town in the middle of nowhere.
It's the store I wandered around, trying CDs at all the listening posts, on the day I stumbled upon the ambient delights of System 7, which became a major favourite. It holds memories of buying movie posters to decorate my tiddly and rather grotty university accomodations. I remember idly nosing at a book called Pollen (which I never read, but it does look intriguing now I come to revisit it). I remember queing to use my freshly-minted Switch card.
Of course, you can never go back. About 10 years later I took Boyfriend for a visit to the city I was a student in for 3 years. The shop was still there, but the layout had completely changed. I can't really imagine it with the Zavvi sign on it, and by the looks of things, it won't be long before it's gone.
Jan. 16th, 2009 @ 08:15 pm
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| » Whoops. |
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Well, what to say? Guess you guys shouldn't have based your entire business on that silicone slapper and closed all those studios and discontinued all those products you were "indifferent" about. The phrase "ain't payback a bitch" keeps drifting through my head. I suppose I shouldn't bear a grudge (I mean they did do their best to ensure our future) but after seeing several hundred people ultimately get thrown to the wolves in favour of that flogging-the-dead-horse franchise, I find myself pondering the existence of poetic justice.
In other news...
Well, let's see. After a week of work (and actual proper work at that) I'm getting into the swing of it and starting to get to know people more. The weather has been freezing, which has been a royal pain in the arse - the roads end up filthy with grit and whatnot, then it ends up spraying up from cars in front, then it gets all over the windscreen...and then the washers won't get it off, because they don't work...because they're frozen solid. One night I ended up washing the screens with a bucket of hot soapy water because it was the only way I was going to be able to see the next day.
Otherwise we went on a vultureshopping trip through the various shops closing downhaving sales today. Most of this consisted of getting clothes for work. Since I've been in a very informal environment for the last 12 years, i.e. hoodies, shorts, trainers, I've had to stock up on suit trousers, formal shirts and fancy ties. In addition to that I got a puffa type bodywarmer thing because I happen to fancy having one, plus I also got some more gym shorts.
Gym-wise, I'm doing a pretty good job, working out hard and eating...reasonably. Today wasn't so good though. We met up with the now city-dwelling R and ended up in Gourmet Burger. The chicken part of the burger was healthy. The camembert was not. And then he dragged us, kicking and screaming to Hotel Chocolat, where he forced us to buy some chocolate slabs*. It was dreadful. Other than that we're off for another gym session tomorrow, again in the city centre. The hunks are less plentiful (the place is smaller) but there's still some quality muscle to dribble over.
*May not be entirely true.
Jan. 10th, 2009 @ 10:28 pm
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