Just had to share this. I have just had to walk back from our local newsagents pushing my bike. Not because the bike is faulty but because I simply could not ride it for more than 30 yards at a time between fits of uncontrollable laughter..

My good friend and neighbour has been bending on this week about how he needs to reappraise his lifestyle. He feels that there is rather too much of him these days and that some exercise is urgent. He has also, like many of us, been giving some pause to whether all his car journeys are strictly necessary.

Well, this morning I spied him fetching his son's mountain bike out of the garage as I cycled past on my way to get the Sunday reading matter. "Hang on" says he ( think Brian Blessed levels of volume ) "I'll join you". So we pedal off chatting about how much diesel we are saving on this three quarter mile jaunt alone. The internal chuckling started as early as this because my friend, as previously mentioned, is currently largish and his son's bike is one of those with full suspension, resulting in him performing this sort of quaint up and down bobbing motion as we proceeded on our mission. Finally we reach the vicinity of the paper shop which faces the road we have cycled down forming a T-junction at the bottom of a hill. We, like any normal middle aged men, have by now begun to race a bit. I reach the kerb outside the shop marginally ahead, bunny hop the bike up onto the pavement and stop. Meanwhile, my neighbour attempts the same technique but confuses the suspension, flies over the handlebars and sort of body surfs straight through the open door of the shop and slithers on his ample belly a good ten feet or so down the the tinned goods aisle,roaring obscenities as he goes. He finally came to rest by the baked beans. The bike remains outside with a now rather rearranged front wheel.

;-))))

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Hi Folks
Just back from hol's to find my parents new meriva rolled away with h/brake on & demolished a garage wall & severly damaged the rear of the car! Now I said why wasn't it in Park as its an Auto & they have told me it doesn't have Park. I haven't had a chance to do any research yet but do these new auto's rely on just the hand brake or should it have a locking solonoid in the auto box?
When they found the car it still had its handbrake on but had obviously built up some speed whilst rolling back. I am aware of vauxalls publicity over handbrakes but does it apply to meriva's
many thanks
Doc Read more

Been trawling the classifieds on e-bay today - some excellent misuse of language:-


A white Supertouring Vectra.

"I deserve the right to end this auction at any time due to the fact it is advertised elsewhere" Read more

Took a visit to the local Audi dealer today to see the new cabrio. No idea what it drives like, but it looks quite smart, very quick roof (but only on the top two models), has plenty of room for two adults in the back seats and has a good sized boot, roof up or down, alloys on Sport model are pleasing to the eye.

Downside - the price.

Three models - standard, sport and S-line. Standard has a semi auto roof, which I think means you have to unclip it at the front before it opens electrically.

Other two models have fully auto roofs and for me that would be a must.

The spec across the range is very basic and you need to tick a lot of options to get many features which I have come accustomed to on my A3.

I priced a sport with a spec as close to to my A3 Sportback SE and it came in at £28,000 - this only had a 140PS diesel, no 170PS yet so this model will be even more - touching £30,000 and this without the expensive options such as leather, sat nav etc etc.

A well specced 2.0TFSi in the showroom was over £35,000 and this wasn't a full spec.

At this price I don't expect to see many.


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Parkers have a useful "find the VED cost" search engine on their site. Useful if you're thinking of trying to save and don't want to find you haven't.

tinyurl.com/5snmn3

tinyurl.com/6pftx5

{link corrected. One too many forward slashes after the http bit} Read more