Skillz and stuff

I've been busy practising for my first AAT skills test, and it's going pretty well. The only thing that's really giving me trouble is are the 'pay up or else' letters.

I've also signed up for Facebook, as my Auntie Kirsty (she hates that), post pics of her family in New Zealand on there. I've put a Facebook badge on the right. I've managed to get back in touch with many of the people I used to shout at work with at McDonald's. One of them even asked me to be their friend. Cool.

Skint

I'm short of cash. Not a good situation to be in, I'm sure you'll agree. eBay have suspended Mrs MnG's account for no good reason. She has an arrangement with a caricaturist to put his pictures on items, so she bunged a load on eBay, as her website hasn't got much exposure, as yet. Some of these caricatures are of footballers. Umbro, in their ultimate wisdom, have decided that a T-shirt with a caricature of a footballer on infringes their copyright in some way. So they moaned to eBay, and eBay removed the items.

This was a pain, but there's thousands of images (I've got the job of putting them on the website. Oh joy.). Then eBay removed items for infringing trademark, and suspended her for relisting removed items, or something. But the items in contention were put on at the same time as the Umbro ones, and aren't even Umbro!

So now Mrs MnG can't list the normal items (like T-shirts, bug and stuff that people send their own images to be put on), despite waiting the 7 days eBay insist on, and faxing identification through. So our income is seriously compromised. Earlier in the week I had to pass on some TR7 parts that I need on eBay, that were going for a good price.

And I can't weld, because a connector on my gas regulator is broke, and the company I ordered the replacement from sent the wrong one! Bah!

Some good news

Remember my post about fellow TR7 nut Ally's death? Well, her boyfriend Simon's taken over her Triton Green DHC KBA. As we speak it's in to have it's fuel tank replaced. Read his blog here.

In other news, I've been discharged from the shrink. My college course is going so well, that I've gone full time. At the moment I've more money than time, so for 7 hours extra a week, I get my AAT registration and my textbooks paid for. To make up my hours, I'm working my way through CLAiT certification, and doing payroll.

Some guy I know.

Some guy I know.
Originally uploaded by marknotgeorge.

This is the guy we made for the bonfire at Calke Abbey. Reminds me of someone.

Here be dragons

I survived, although things weren't as raucous as I imagined. We are all that bit older, you see. The plan was to go into Nottingham, but the pub by the station had a load of pool tables, so we got stuck. Jason, who works in the City and is a gadget junkie, showed us his new toy - an iPod Touch. I wanted to dislike it for being too clever, but it really is quite swish. It's something I have no use for, though.
Then we saw the dragons that were parading down St Peters St in Derby as part of the celebrations for the new Westfield Centre. They were impressive. Here's a video:


The chaps and chapesses pedalling them did quite well pedalling down a narrow, pedestrianised, crowded street.

I'm getting old.

The bus driver's younger than me. I'm off out drinking for my mate Paul's birthday. It's just about midday. I wonder how long I'll last.

Another one bites the dust

What is it with my course? I went to college yesterday, to find another guy had died. Very sad. On a brighter note, I learned about trade discounts, cash discounts and VAT. Apparently, if a cash discount (for prompt payment) is offered, it reduces the VAT payable. I always thought a cash discount was there to avoid all that VAT nonsense, ifyouknowwhatimean.

Today, I've been fiddling with the website for my wife's business. I've found out that the 'house font' (Tempus Sans ITC) is available on just under 60% of systems, so a quick tweak of the CSS file, means it's used all round the site. I've also installed a CSS buttons add-in, so no more fiddling with Photoshop. If you haven't got Tempus Sans, then the site will try Verdana, so it will look like it did before.

On the TR7 front, I've managed to secure a deal offered to members of the MIG welding forum for a big bottle of Coogar welding gas. At 1.5m tall and weighing 80kg, it should last a fair while. I just have to buy a new regulator and take my paperwork to my local Air Products distributor. I hope it will fit in the car...

Bad things come in twos

It was a shock to hear when I went to college on Monday that one of my fellow students had died over the weekend. Coupled with Ally's death, it's a bit disquieting. People younger than me aren't meant to die.

Other than that, I'm enjoying my course. I'm getting the hang of double entry, and the health & safety stuff I'm learning is a piece of cake after running the H&S circle at MaccyD's all those years ago. And with accounting, not only do I get the good job with the £££s at the end, but I see the £££s all the way through!

Something I really, really didn't want to know.

I watched the first part of Commando: on the Front Line yesterday (it may be 00:39 on Saturday according to the clock on my laptop, but as I've not gone to bed and got up again yet, it's still Friday night to me. So there). My brother-in-law's a Royal Marine (not to be confused with the United States Flower Arranging Marine Corps), and at the time he was an instructor, albeit recovering from a broken leg he got while on one of those 400-mile-yomps-whilst-carrying-a-rucksack-containing-a-Volkswagen-Beetle things that they do.

Here's a transcript of the textual conversation I had with my sister, shortly after the scene in which one of the instructors was seen giving a demonstration of how to shower.

Me: I'm glad that wasn't [brother-in-law] on the telly just now.

Sis: Why?

Me: I don't think I could cope with my brother in law giving how to shower lessons on national telly.

Sis: You'd b quite impressed his hung alot bigger that that!

Me: [After several minutes just staring at a black N73] That's nice dear.

Death of a friend.

I never got the chance to meet Ally, but I read her posts on the TR7 forum and her TR7 blog. She was only my kid sister's age, and will be sorely missed.

Bargain!

The one problem I've found with my Astra is nowhere to put my mobile. There's nowhere to put a stick on holder within reach of the driver, and the ones that clip on the vent rattle too much. That's why I was pleased to find a Brodit Proclip for 99p + postage on Fleabay (They're normally £20!). These are vehicle specific brackets that fix solidly to the dashboard with no screws, using sticky pads and/or jamming into the gaps between dash panels. Brodit also sell phone specific holders that fit to the proclip, but as Mrs MnG has a different phone to me, I'll fix a universal holder to it. It's in exactly the right position for the satnav on my n73. Lovely.

Oh, and I've also enrolled on my AAT Accounting course at Burton College. I start Monday. I'm a student again!

42 days

So, I've been busy and lazy in updating this blog, so here's a brief rundown:

• SSAFA won, and the planning permission for Headley Court went through, thanks to a concerted effort by ex-servicemen and others. Well done to all involved.
• I went on holiday to Ingoldmells for 2 weeks. The weather was crap, but we managed to find plenty of stuff to do.
• Whilst on holiday, I saw The Bourne Ultimatum. Awesome. Totally rocks.
• We also went to see the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight at RAF Coningsby. That was cool, seeing Spitfires, Hurricanes and the Lancaster alongside the Tornados and Typhoons. We also saw some classic cars in the car park for some reason, and there were quite a few Typhoons in the sky.
• We went to the Nottinghamshire Classic Car show at Thoresby Park. Lovely weather, and some very nice cars. Bought some wire wheels for the TR7 restoration in the autojumble.

That's all, folks.

NIMBY scum

Thanks to Dr Crippen for pointing this out. Apparently, the SSAFA want to modify a six-bedroom house near Headley Court, the world class rehabilitation centre in Surrey for injured service personnel, to allow families to stay near loved ones who have been injured serving their country. All they need to do is add a disabled ramp, but this requires planning permission due to the change of use of the house to a hostel.

Trouble is, NIMBY scum concerned local residents have objected, citing traffic, noise and (here's the real reason) property values. You can read the letters of representation on the Mole Valley District Council website, which you can get to via Dr Crippen's blog. I'd read them myself, but Tesco's had a half price offer on Ben & Jerry's, and I'm not tossing Cookie Dough ice cream on this lot.

In case you didn't know, my brother is in the Royal Navy who served off the coast of Kosovo, and my brother-in-law is a Royal Marine Sergeant who also served in Kosovo, as well as in Iraq. I may not support the war (I note the WMDs still haven't been found) but I support our boys (and girls) who are over there.


Oh, the 10 Downing St petition is here.

New car

well, I say new - it's 12 years old. A 1.6 Vauxhall Astra LS in grey. A cheap runabout in surprisingly good nick, which will do for our holidays and for daughter #1 to drive once she's passed her test.

Interestingly, a 56 plate Corsa pulled up behind me when I was taking daughter #4 to school, and it was the same size as my Astra. New cars are bloating.

Oh, by the way...

... my appointment with the shrink last Friday was one of those 'So you haven't killed yourself, then? See me in November.' ones. I took my letter from the consultant I saw privately (and can't afford to now), but he didn't want to know, and apparently Cognitive Behavioural Tereapy is not for me. I'm not going to get discharged - it took me long enough to get referred, and I'm not going to go through that again.

One down, one to go...

I've finally finished replacing the left door skin on my TR7! Last step was welding the top edges, adding a little sliver of metal where I accidentally cut the frame too much when removing the old skin. Next time, cut through the frame, not the skin...

I had a few problems with my welder spluttering and popping. I thought it might be due to my clumsiness or the 28 year old steel on the door frame. After I finished the door, I went back to practising on some sheet steel to get the right settings. Experimenting with the wire speed resulted in a couple of pretty perfect welds, with a nice buzzing sound and good penetration. I've got a picture on my phone, which I'll upload later (if I remember).

Trouble is, I think my cheapo auto-darkening helmet is taking too long to react. My eyes are sensitive at the best of times (I can get arc eye - or what feels like it - on a bright sunny day), so I think I'll look into getting a new helmet.

The Autism-MMR gravy train

There's an interesting link on NHS Blog Doctor's weekly BritMeds medical links post. An article by Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, explaining how measles RNA was apparently found in the guts of autistic children who, it is claimed, had contracted autism through the MMR vaccine. An investigation on the lab found that the tests were suspect due to DNA contamination. This investigation was withheld from the public for three years due to litigation in the UK. Lawyers acting on behalf of the children and their parents allowed the case to drag on, even when the scientific case against the autism-MMR link was overwhelming, prolonging the agony of the families and costing the taxpayer £15m in legal aid. Of this £15m, £8m went to solicitors, £1.7million to barristers and £4.3million was shared among expert witnesses. £800,000 went to Unigenetics, a company set up by Professor O'Leary who ran the lab referred to in the report. The families got nothing.

It seems to me that there is no good scientific link between MMR and autism. Those who say there is are preying on parents' need to find answers, and are only in it to make money. For what it's worth, both my little ones have had the MMR, and neither of them have autism.

NHS Blog Doctor: Shocking Psychiatry

I remember now. It was the Community Mental Health Team who kept blocking my GPs' (plural: I tried my GP when I lived with my parents, and few times when I moved in with my wife) referrals. Something about 'no change in presentation'.

Elderly care

In one of my earlier posts, I bemoaned the fact that my parents are having to sell my grandmother's home to pay for her nursing care. Today I read Dr Crippen's article about Liz Penny and her experiences looking after her demented mother. I'm feeling guilty now. Thinking about it, it's a bit greedy of me to expect the taxpayer to fund my grandmother's care when she's got all that money tied up in a house she's not living in. Or is it? Why shouldn't our welfare system provide decent care for our elderly, if that is what we so wish? The problem, of course, is funding. So many things to fund out the public purse, and we have to draw the line somewhere.

Dr Crippen points out that Pakistani families look after their elderly, why shouldn't we? Well, Pakistani families tend to be closer and larger, so there's more people to share the load, so to speak. Another thing is that the generation gap in the last couple of generations has increased, such that people are increasingly finding that their parents need help when they themselves are still looking after children. Ok, a lot of these things are to an extent self-inflicted. But calling people scroungers isn't helping. There may be lots of reasons why people can't look after elderly relatives themselves. Some of these reasons may be selfish, but there's no reason why we as a society can't build a framework for decent care for our elderly citizens. One that doesn't involve guilt-tripping, but also doesn't involve dumping the old dears in a home and forgetting about them.

And me? I think I've got to make an effort to see Grandma more often. It may be an excuse, but she's not the intelligent, witty, wise woman she was only a few years ago, which makes it harder.

It's time to meet the muppets

Some terrorists, yesterday.

Tom Reynolds says this:

I'm not scared of terrorism, no-one I work with is scared of terrorism. We
recognise that the chance of dying in a terrorist attack is much, much smaller
than the numerous other causes of death and injury that we face everyday. What
makes us more nervous is considering what the British government might do in
response to these pitiful attacks.

Too bloody right. I firmly believe that as long as there's a Briton with two fingers to wave at these losers, Britain as a whole has nothing to fear.

Now these are good...

Here's some amazing pictures of the London Underground, taken by Robert Stainforth.

Link

Better than nothing. Only just, though.

Next Friday, I have my once in a blue moon appointment with the Mental Health locum at my local Royal Infirmary. I've been going to this ever since I got stressed out with work and the fact that I couldn't get an expert opinion on whether or not I had Asperger's Syndrome about 18 months ago, and drove my car through my father-in-law's garage door.

This convinced my GP to try again, and she suggested I went on citalopram to help force a decision. Parallel to this, I went through my workplace's occupational health section (as I was having trouble with work), and got an appointment to see a psychiatrist.

Funnily enough, my private psychiatrist was the former consultant at the NHS. He agreed that my worries about AS were valid, and agreed to refer me to a colleague who was a specialist in these matters. She saw me twice, the second time for a formal diagnosis. The third time she saw me, she told me I didn't have AS, but that I had got some social issues. This was just what I needed, someone who knows about these things. Fairly soon after that, I came off the citalopram.

Unfortunately, because I've now left work and lost my private healthcare, I can't see my private consultant. All I can do is take his details to the NHS and hope that I can get the help I need though them. Chances are, though, that I'll get a 'Keep taking the pills, and we'll see you in a few months.'

Now this isn't a diatribe against the NHS, just a realisation that it's not perfect. Mental health issues aren't as glamourous or newsworthy as, say, breast cancer or infertility, except when 'some nutter' goes on the rampage. So it doesn't get the funding it needs, sometimes.

Dr Rant: Ding! Dong! The witch is dead!

Dr Rant: Ding! Dong! The witch is dead!

Somehow, I don't think Dr Rant is too upset about former Health Minister Patricia Hewitt's leaving.

Is that Mr MnG?

I don't seem to have a very telephone friendly voice. People assume I'm the wife. As you can imagine, this causes problems, from the guy at Domino's calling me madam, to people at call centres hanging up because they don't think I'm me (and not the Indian ones, either). I think I need a voice changer.

TR7 Progress

TR7 Progress
Originally uploaded by marknotgeorge.

Here's the LH door having the edges of the frame primed with zinc rich primer, in preparation for fitting a replacement door skin. This should, with sealant, stop the edges rusting again.

Shopping Rage

With thanks to Bill Sticker:

Bring the noise.

Top film. Top DVD. A tenner from Tesco - I think I was the first to buy it, seeing as it was still in the new titles drawer, and not on the shelves. But why the utterly pointless cardboard sleeve, which conveyed absolutely no new information than the plastic case? A complete waste.

Parts

I've just ordered some parts for my TR7 from Robsport. Apparently they're almost preternaturally fast, so we'll see...

EDIT: They can't take my Electron card, so I've had to wait until today (Monday) to use #1 stepdaughter's Solo card. Bummer

EDIT AGAIN (Tuesday 12th) : The bits (two handbrake dustcovers for the rear brakes) got here today.

Has it been that long?

I suppose so. A quick catch-up:

• I turned 35. Wahey. At least I managed to go out, get pissed and still catch my bus home. Which is more than my mate Paul did.
• Started dismantling the brakes on my TR7, so that I can fix the handbrake and take it outside to jetwash the underneath. Photos in my gallery.
• Karen's business has seemed to explode in the last week or so. I've been helping her by putting new products on the website.

Reading lots of blogs. It seems that the NHS ran at a surplus. Why? Surely the NHS should only just break even. From where I'm standing, I see £510m that's not treating patients. It'd be interesting to see what NHS Blog Doctor has to say.

Speaking of GPs, I agree that to see a doctor out of hours should incur a nominal charge, if only to stop the ingrown toenail brigade. Plumbers charge extra.

Sometimes, partying's too hard.

Sometimes, partying's too hard.
Originally uploaded by marknotgeorge.

Fri 18/05/2007 22:31 18052007015 My aunt, uncle and their 2 boys are emigrating to New Zealand soon. Last night was their leaving do. Emily's sleeping through the band.

New phone

I've got a new phone. A Nokia N73 on Orange. For £30 a month, I get unlimited texts and 100 mins of calls. Doesn't sound like much, but because I got it on my Dad's account, I'm in his Your Group, meaning I get free calls to Mum & Dad's mobiles. And with Magic Number, I can call Karen for free too!

Now to get Lifeblog working through Flickr...

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

For the sheer hell of it.

I've not posted for nearly a month, sorry. I quit work last Friday, and I must admit a few tears as I walked to the car. Tears of uncertainty, but they soon passed. Karen's business seems to be going well, and there are a couple of new ideas to try.

I've added to my website, too. Back in 2002 or thereabouts, me and Karen, and some friends, were involved in prosthetic makeup effects. We briefly formed a group called the MonsterMen, and attended the Carnival of Souls a few times. We had a website which I thought was long gone, until I found it on my hard drive while spring cleaning. It's a snapshot of how the website was in December 2002, and I simply uploaded it in its entirety. Some of the links may or may not work, but it's there if you're interested.

Here's the link.

Feeds

I read a number of blogs, which I acess via IE7's handy feeds list in the FavoUrites sidebar thingy. One of which is Random Acts of Reality. This morning, I was a bit confused. Tom seemed to be talking about timing and rotor arms. Until I realised that I had gone onto Martin Randle's TR7 16V rally car blog. I'm off to work in a few minutes to build 300 cars. I suppose I'd better wake up.

Another National Treasure

I don't want to Murray the kid, but I think he's going to be better than Schumacher. You just watch.

Sod the housing market.

According to this post on A World To Win, which I found on NHS Blog Doctor, public sector workers such as nurses, teachers and firefighters cannot afford to buy homes in seven out of ten towns in the UK. This comes as no surprise to me. Chez MnG would cost about 10-12 times my salary, such are the house prices in this part of Derby. A deposit on this place would cost more than the 1983 purchase price of my parents' house. Not being one for saving, I'm renting this place, which in itself takes most of my salary. Thank heavens for Tax Credit, but then I suspect that if housing costs hadn't been allowed to run away, there'd be no need for it.

To be honest, owning a house is not something I want to do. My grandmother, a Wren who worked on secret stuff, former history and French teacher, wife of a Marine, had to go into a home last year because, basically, to paraphrase You, Me and Dupree, the Grandma-ness has gone. The home's not a problem. It's owned by friends of the family, and Grandma's best friend, the mother of the owner's wife, is also a resident. The problem is the money grabbing authorities. Because Grandma owned her own home, bought and paid for, my mother is having to sell it to pay for her care. At full market value, mind. She can't rent it out, or sell it to my sister cheaply. Bah.

So bollocks to it. I'm not joining the home-owning bandwagon. I'm going to carry on renting, and play the system for all it's worth, by claiming all that I'm legally entitled to. It's how I can afford to go to college.

Bleurgh

I've had some sort of dreadful lurgy this weekend. Fever, aches, lethargy, stiff neck and a delicate stomach. I feel like shit.

I did it!

So, I've handed my notice in at work, even though I haven't sorted an AAT course out yet. I had planned to stay until summer shutdown in August, but I got to the point where I didn't want to go to work, which is different to the normal 'can't be arsed' feeling everyone gets. Everyone I've spoken to is supportive, so that's ok.

The cars (both ours and the car I got for my brother, which he pays me back for) will of course go back. Hopefully we'll get some money back by reclaiming our bank charges, so we can use that to buy a second car. Something that will be able to tow the TR7. With housing benefit and extra tax credit, we should be able to offset the loss of my salary. And I'll have no more crap hours, and more time with the family.
I suppose I'll have to start exercising more, or I'll turn in to the Goodyear blimp.

A National Treasure!

RF Potts have had their shop in Babington Lane, Derby, for as long as I can remember. If you want to connect a widget to a doobrey, chances are they'll have the lead to do it, or the connectors t omake the lead yourself. Prices are good, too. The only negative is that if they don't have something, it tends not to exist (even if you know it does).
They're open on Easter Monday (today) too! So after spending £1.95 on an F-connector-to-F-connector lead, my cable and my broadband are now working. Cool.

Some work on my TR7, and bodging the cable.

I've done some work on the left door of my TR7. Here's a pic, and there are a few more pics and more details on my TR7 blog.

I nearly didn't post this entry. My broadband's been playing up this weekend. I phoned Virgin Media, and after being told to unplug this and plug that back in, et cetera, that they'd book an engineer for Thursday morning. (My wife, who phoned up, was told at one point we'd never had broadband. Seeing as we were one of the broadband triallists for Derby, that's virgin on the ridiculous. Sorry.)

Anyway, once I'd got off the phone from VM, I tried unplugging the cable modem that was fitted when we upgraded to V+. This worked for a bit. Now, when they installed the V+ box, they split the cable using a quite large metal splitter, with the piece going to the cable modem (a small box with connections, blinkenlightzen and yet another power adapter to find a socket for) being only about 15cm long. This is what's failed, I think, as I've plugged the main cable from the wall into the modem. So we've got broadband, just no cable TV, at least until I can get to the shops later.

Test

This seems to work.
--
Posted via my mobile.

This is good.

I bought this the other day. It's funny as f*ck.

It's fun to charter an accountant.

I've has an epiphany. The other day I found out that I wouldn't get a payrise this year, as basically, I'm not too good at my job. I made too many little, but important mistakes.

Also, #1 stepdaughter has decided to quit studying sciences at sixth form, and get an accounting apprenticeship. She'll go to business college one day a week to study for her AAT qualifications , and work four days, and for this she'll get £100 a week (after a 3 month probation). After 3 years, and gaining AAT membership, she'll earn a cool £300+ a week. Not bad for a 20-year old. And she can then fast-track to full chartered status.

Now I can't get an apprenticeship, being too old, but I can go to college part time for my AAT qualifications. And darling wife's vinyl graphics business is doing very well indeed. So well, in fact that all being well, I could become a house husband, letting her devote more time to the business. I could study part time, and within 5 years have a job that suits me.

And be earning a packet.

I hate short changeovers

I've just finished nights, and next week I'm on days. I do two weeks of days where I get up at sixish and get home anywhere between 4pm & 6pm; followed by two weeks of nights, starting at 8:30pm and getting home around 5am. Except Friday nights, where I start and finish 2 hours earlier.
This means I have four different kinds of weekends:

1. days-days, which is a normal weekend
2. days-nights, which is almost an extra day (I try to get a bit of kip in on the Monday, but not always)
3. nights-nights, where being a family man, I have to turn my body clock around for a couple of days
4. nights-days, which is like losing half your weekend (especially this week, when the clocks go forward).

I embark on a week of nights by having a lateish night Sunday, getting up at about 8am-ish (when the kids go to school), hopefully getting a couple of hours kip in the afternoon, and then hammering my body clock into submission by working all night. It takes me a couple of days to get the swing of things, which means that by the end of Friday night (about 3-4am), I'm still wide awake. I can't sleep straight after work at the best of times. I can't usually get to sleep before 5ish, so I don't wake up again till half of Saturday's gone. Bah.
Then again, Easter weekend is a type 2 weekend, so I've almost got a 5 day weekend. Bargain.

SitePoint Blogs » Adobe CS2 and the Case of the Disappearing Thumbnails!

SitePoint Blogs » Adobe CS2 and the Case of the Disappearing Thumbnails!

This page tells you how to get Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop CS2 to display thumbnail icons in Windows Explorer. Useful stuff.

What is a classic car?

With cars from the early 80's coming up for 25 years old now, this is a question that keeps coming up. Cars from this era are the early consumer cars, with ECUs and ABS, comfortable, reliable, economical and kind of soulless, really. My daily driver, a 55 plate Toyota Corolla, ticks all of these boxes. It's a nice car to drive, but only inasmuch as it's effortless and doesn't detract from the purpose of the journey. The enjoyment comes when you get to B, not necessarily in the drive from A to B. Although a good song on the stereo helps.

Because of this, there is an arguement that early 80's cars aren't 'classic' cars. Here in the UK in the mid 90's, cars 25 years or older became exempt from road tax. This was frozen in 1997, when the current Labour government came to power, and now only cars built before 1973 (I think) are exempt. There is a call to restore this 25 year exemption, and herein lies the rub. In 2007, 25 year old cars tend to be in better condition than in years gone by. So there are more 25 year old common or garden consumer cars around, which many people would not consider classics. Having said that, the throwaway consumer society means that older consumer cars are being scrapped before they're truly worn out, as the cost of replacing expensive components is more than the value of the car.

There is an element of agism, in that an Austin 1100 is more likely to be considered a classic than a Metro, but both are small family cars. My TR7 wouldn't be considered a classic by some owners of earlier TRs. On this page of his 1941 Buick restoration, Matt laments the scarcity of '40s cars at American classics shows, being underwhelmed by 'ordinary' cars from the '50, '60s and '70s. But then his Buick wouldn't have been considered a classic in the '40s.

To me, 'classic' is a bit of a cliche. A better word would be 'cherished', in that a cherished car is a car used and maintained for the love of the car itself. Of course this definition includes chavved-up Corsas, so for older cars (say 25-30 years old) I'd favour the term 'historic'.

And tax exemption? For purely selfish reasons (my TR7 is 26 years old), I support the 25 year cutoff being restored, but maybe the cutoff date only changing every 5 years or so.

New boxes

We got a V+ box installed today. That went well, but the separate cable modem (needed because unlike the Samsung cable box, a V+ box has no modem built in) took me all morning to set up after being passed around ntl's Virgin Media's phone system, including an internal tech support section. Eventually I got through to a helpful chap who said "I see the problem. There you go, it should work now." And it did. The old Samsung box, which they moved upstairs because crazily enough it's cheaper to have a V+ box installed and the old box moved (£5 a month x 12 = £60) than to pay to have the old box taken away (£75), still doesn't work. Must ring Virgin tomorrow.

Stoneleigh

I went to the Triumph spares day at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire last Sunday. And I enjoyed the day immensely, despite being on my own (my mate Paul couldn't come on pain of pain, as it was his other half's parents' wedding anniversary. Wuss.). So apart not talking to anyone who wasn't taking money off me, I amused myself by looking at some fine cars (including a blue Dolomite that would be perfect for #1 daughter's first car if she didn't want something boring 2modern, safe and reliable") and buying a few bits for GOVerness's restoration (viz, a satin black aerosol for the quarterlight glass frames, some bits to hold welds together, a twisted wire cup thing to get rid of rust and paint and a set of nut splitters for the bolts on the bumper. Hehe.)

Oops

Seems I made a mistake. I tried to be flash and use Blogger's custom domain feature to set my blog as a subdomain on my website (http://www.marknotgeorge.co.uk if you're interested). But it didn't work and so my blog's been invisible till just a few minutes ago. And my "L" key seems to have a crumb or something stuck under it. So apoogies for any misspeings.

Bugger bugger bum

Been working on the TR7. I managed to get the left hand door off ok, after trying and failing to get the seat belt reel bolts out a few days ago. Then I started to investigate the rusty bits again. Poking my trusty screwdriver in the bottom of the rear wing, I caught my finger on a jagged edge.


Ouch. I'll have to have a tetanus jab now.

Ha Ha Ha Ha

Here's something funny:



Thanks to Tom Reynolds and Peter David for sharing this.

Bah!

After downloading various applets for my Nokia 3230, and wasting a couple of quid of phone credit, I've drawn a blank on finding a one-shot photo blogging solution for my phone. Ideally I want something I can email or preferably MMS to my Blogger account. But nothing as yet works with the new Blogger Beta API. Bah!

testing

This seems to work.

EDIT: No it doesn't. There should be a picture of #5 being a monster. Oh well.

Back to work...

After many months of procrastination, and after clearing the garage so I can get to the damn thing :oops:, work on the GOVerness has recommenced. I say work, but much of it was poking holes in either rust or filler :roll:. I did manage to get the LH rear foglight off, though. The rear bumper bolts are proving more stubborn, though, despite copious coatings of Ambersil Rust Flash:

Techno Techno

I've signed up to Technorati. Hopefully I'll find some readers, and some more interesting and relevant blogs to read.

Happy New Year.

Happy new year, all.