I was going to make a comment about Politics

and in particular Labour getting panned in the Crewe by-elections....... but to be honest I can't be bothered.....no really .... I can't be bothered..... it's quite obvious that Labour are out as soon as the next general election is called.

You'll know it when it happens because petrol will be on a par with gold bullion in the FTSE100 and foolproof syphon tubes to assist transferring fuel from one car to another guaranteed to defeat any anti syphoning fuel tanks currently being fitted to today's cars...... will be flooding Ebay, along with self tapping and sealing drainage taps...... ideal for emptying your neighbours heating oil tank quickly and without being detected.... I jest of course (sort of).... but we are already getting people around here coming home and finding their heating oil tank empty.... and thinking about it considering 500 litres of fuel is worth just under £500, so a full tank would be £2500 !!! a pretty easy robbery really thinking about it, especially if you know your victims are out and it's a rural area.....

and I think it's going to get a whole lot worse with sweet crude hitting $135 a barrel and predicted to hit $200 a barrel....

Anyway enough doom and gloom it's bank holiday weekend !!!! woohoo !!! which is why it took me nearly 2 hours to drive 37 miles home from work today... I was cursing the caravans and grockles dutifully queueing up on the M4 to spend a couple of days in a dinky caravan as the rain bounced down like stair rods on their tin roofs.... "who's bloody idea was this then ???"

and to top it all off the littlest lad has a banging toothache and we haven't been able to get him an appointment at his dentist, they are saying July !! AND he is off to his Dad's tomorrow as are the other two hormonally gripped wannabe adults on the train for a few days, I really hope it doesn't play up too much for him because toothache is not funny..... BUT he has been told to cut down on sweets and to brush his teeth regularly.... does he listen ? you can't exactly say "told you so..." when his eyeballs outnumber his remaining teeth .......besides everybody knows that kids know better so it's pointless warning them anyway ;¬)

right off to chill out before bed, hope you have a good weekend :)

The Damage......

Was £542 to get it back on the road, kind of stings a bit considering the Pug 205 cost us the grand total of £300 on the road and has cost us very little in repairs to get it roadworthy..... but it's just a runabout and it's cheap to run at that.....

Alas the same can't be said about the Terrano... we can't really afford to get rid of it at the moment so it's a cost we have to absorb, but at £86 to fill up the tank and a tank lasts just under 500 miles..... it's an expensive hobby.....

it doesn't help having to run the kids back and forth into town in it for their ever expanding social life with the hoodies of Carmarthen when of course the Pug is being used by me, but we try to minimise its use, I'm seriously considering running it on chip oil, you can put 2500 litres through it a year without any tax liability, but I'm wondering if it will do any long term (expensive) engine damage to it, but with veg oil for sale at £0.86 per litre it's tempting, I will have to change the fuel filter after a couple of tankfuls at a 50/50 dilution because apparently it strips the dino-diesel varnish off the inside of the pipes and tank and clogs the filter but once the dino-varnish has been removed all is ok .......... apparently .... mind you with diesel over £5 a gallon now it's probably going to be cheaper to wreck your engine than use it ;¬)

The dreaded MOT time is upon us

That's the thing I like about the Peugeot 205, it's cheap to keep going, the Terrano on the other hand is about to cost me :-








£60 x 4 for four road tyres
£150 x 1 for centre exhaust
£50 x 1 for rear exhaust
(thank god it didn't need the front section with flexible cantilever @ £250 !!)
£25 tracking (after I had to raise the torsion bars to bring the Jeep up to it's proper ride height)

total £440 (so far)

I haven't told them (ATS) that they need to drop the rear prop shaft to install the exhaust in one piece AFTER they have bolted it together, because trying to do it with the prop shaft in place, unless of course you are born with the ability to dislocate your wrists and fingers and have a goodly selection of curly spanners it's impossible and of course had I told them this little tip, it would mean they would have had a damn good excuse to charge more labour wise..... (there is method in my madness !!).... you tend not to get away with it twice though

I originally asked Kwik fit to quote but after I stopped laughing at them and their ridiculous highway robbery I decided to go to ATS in Carmarthen..... I won't even bother telling you what Kwik fit quoted you won't believe me anyway ;¬)..... besides Kwik fit in Carmarthen have had experience of changing a Terrano exhaust (mine).... and probably know better (now) ;¬)

I've also had the MOT bloke ring me up and say one of the rear bump stops needs fixing, although I'm not entirely sure the bump stops are part of the MOT, so with the price of the MOT and the parts I can't see me getting much change out of £500.... AND on top of that it's road crippling road tax is due at the end of this month..... but that's the price you pay to be road legal and the owner of an evil gas guzzling planet destroying, Polar Bear offing not to mention Penguin slaughtering and small child murdering 4x4 eh ?

you really should visit the Alliance against urban 4x4's .... it's good for a laugh.... they are without any doubt completely barking mad, and seem to base their assumptions on data taken from American SUV's which are a completely different beast and about 4 litres bigger.... engine wise..... I know for a fact that my Terrano II has lower emissions than :-

Subaru Legacy
Skoda Superb
Vauxhall Vectra
Kia Magentis
BMW 5 Series
Volvo V70 (99 - 07)
Volvo S80
Volvo C70
Mercedes S Class
Vauxhall Meriva
Honda Legend
Peugeot 4007

but do we see an Alliance against urban Skoda's ? (maybe there should be ?) or the universally feared Alliance against Vauxhall Vectra's ? no we don't......they tell you that 4x4's are taller which ...Duhhhhh..... makes them narrower than most cars NOT WIDER and a lot of 4x4's are smaller than some saloons, they just give the impression of being bigger because they are taller.. and I have got to admit I have never had any trouble parking mine, and I've never EVER reversed over small children because I can't see out of the back....... all cars have a blind spot at the back, basically if you're not sure get out and look !!! .... I have however avoided many a motorway shunt because I can see 68% more than the average Vauxhall Vectra road user..... plus I'm emitting less CO2 to boot ;¬)

but what does all this bleating amount to eh ? The government have found a new green cash vending machine in the public comical tax department think tank..... and of course the evil CO2 gas clouds to jump on and squeeze more money out of us (ignoring the fact that energy cannot be created nor destroyed) .... and now we have all given up smoking and can't afford to drive anywhere because of the massive tax on fuel we've hit the bottle and just walk around town during our binge drinking weekends instead... something is coming soon..... Joe Public won't put up with this buffoonery for much longer.......

Right that's it, we are putting all the kids on Ebay the lot of em, they are too expensive to run