Munzy

£48 is a good shout based on my knowledge of BMW ownership over the years, however, Toyota… are parts cheaper? Probably… £28

Took the top off mine yesterday (Wiltshire)

Thought I’d ask just in case. Refreshing to hear a level-headed response from someone who has experienced it first hand 👍🏼 Have a great trip, I’ve travelled all over Spain but Andalucía for me is the most exciting region.

Any interest in bullfighting? I know a guy who works on a bull ranch just outside Sevilla, he can do a personal tour of the finca, see the bulls up close and have a tour of the farmhouse which doubles as a museum.

20 years ago. Every now and again I go back to a Windows machine for car diagnostics or some other reason and I cannot believe how slow and clunky it feels. I’ve never used virus protection on the two MacBooks I’ve had (one Pro and one Air) and never had an issue. Apple has nailed the backup and recovery thing too. My MacBook Air (10 years old) had a complete failure of the internal hard drive on Thursday. Ordered a new drive on Amazon (£45) which came the next day. Took the back off and removed the dead drive and slotted the new one in, formatted it, reinstalled the operating system and then it found my most recent backup of my old drive from our NAS and when I woke up this morning it was done. All my files back just as they were on Thursday as if nothing had happened. Would never go back to Windows.

Sounds great. Where are you staying? Let me know if you want any tips for restaurants or things to do. I spent a very happy few years in the quiet north east of the island. My son went to school there and my daughter was born there.

A bit of an adventure with the kids to Singapore, Bali and Lombok, and then a little later in the year a week in the Dordogne.

You misunderstood me; I meant what opportunities exist for us now we are outside the EU? It is a big world with lots of business to be done, you’re absolutely right… so where are all these new exciting trade deals bringing in the big bucks? They haven’t materialised because the EU is a far more valuable customer around the world than the UK would be on its own. And as for what’s so bad now… I employ a large team of tradespeople of all sorts. Labour prices are through the roof along with material costs. Additional tariffs, import costs and a lack of foreign labour has driven prices up. I agree with both of those opportunities in theory… so why hasn’t it happened? Because those in Government continue to line their pockets and look after their friends instead. The EU also placed a cap on bankers’ bonuses… that can be lifted too now… hooray for the working man! Trickle down economics is another thing I believe works in theory but doesn’t in practice.

What specific opportunities do you think are out there? What I never properly considered is that nobody is going to want to jeopardise a lucrative trade deal with their biggest customer (the EU) by signing a deal with the UK. If you were running a business you wouldn’t upset your biggest customer by supplying their rival unless their rival was worth more. Did anyone hear about the trade agreement signed with Florida last week? It’s not worth the paper it’s written on. It says, “This is not an agreement to transact and neither party is committed to buying anything!”. The fact that this tosh is being promoted by Kemi Badenoch just shows what little Brexit benefits there are to shout about. So again… what opportunities actually exist for us out of the EU? *I voted Leave and wish I hadn’t. @Lloyd90 is right, Brexit has been a shambles. What I’m confused by is the couple of mentions about the lies from the Remain camp… the Leave campaign was far more misleading. Where are the trade deals? Where is the £350m each week we have saved?

I’ve seen it Scully. It was worth a watch, quite thought provoking and something a bit different. I laughed out loud at Barbie’s final line!

The Excorcist is really unnerving, it terrified me as a kid when I saw it and still gives me the creeps now. The pea soup vomit and spinning heads are silly these days but it’s the less obvious bits that still get me. The weird start in the Middle East with the disorientating music, Arabic call to prayer and the flashes of dogs fighting in the desert. The split-second flashes of the devil with no context throughout the movie leaving you wondering if you had imagined it. The young priest’s mother in the asylum. The ice-cold bedroom and vulnerable little girl. And of course Tubular Bells - that and the Jaws theme are so powerful they get an instant reaction as soon as I hear them. Another I’ve just remembered which blew me away at the time was The Blair Witch Project. The internet had just become popular and they released this film with loads of fake “local news” websites which told the backstory of the Blair Witch legend. It was early days for search engines and so researching the Blair Witch inevitably landed you on a blog or community site which was completely fake but told of the rumours of witchcraft and the disappearance of some young people. The marketing was so innovative I remember going into the cinema thinking it actually was a true story. The way the movie was produced was again so different and visceral it felt like I was watching a snuff movie showing the actual final moments of the people in it. I remember being very scared watching it despite being in the middle of a packed cinema.

Don’t Look Now Rosemary’s Baby The Exorcist Straw Dogs (the original, not supernatural but very unnerving) The Wicker Man Kill List (brilliant!) Scream Seven (also not supernatural but great!)

Really enjoying it. That builder with the beard looks like he’ll be there until the end.

Not sure where you can buy it, I used to use it in Spain to descale tiles around a pool and then started using it on taps inside. It burns skin so you have to be careful but it works well. I think it’s the key ingredient in any of these limescale removers but diluted to a safe/less effective level.

The CilitBang spray works for me. Failing that a spray of slightly diluted hydrochloric acid will get it off in seconds, just rinse it off after and it shouldn’t cause any harm.

I’m in BC, Canada at the moment and have driven for eight hours north to south and seen not a single bit of smoke! The vast size of Canada is beyond belief. Speaking to locals they always have these fires and lose ~25m acres each year. It’s just part of the natural cycle of wood getting old, dying off, drying out, burning, sunlight reaching the floor, seedlings growing from the ashes ready to repeat in a few hundred years time.

It’s a strange one this. if you think of a cross section of the watch and consider the points where pressure of the caseback being screwed in might stop the watch all I can think of is: - Pressure forcing the hands onto the inside of the crystal (very unlikely) - Dial lifting off the plate (or plate loose) and catching the back of the hands (unlikely) - Movement slightly loose and coming into contact with the caseback when screwed in (possible) - O-ring being dislodged when caseback screwed in and fouling the movement (possible but easily noticed) Screw the caseback in and see where on the dial the hands stop - does it stop immediately or run for a while before stopping. Loosen caseback and let it run for fifteen minutes before screwing down again - does it stop in the same place?

Strange, obviously pressure on the movement somewhere is stopping it running. I take it the case o-ring isn’t being dislodged when tightening the back and fouling the movement? Check the mounting screws as suggested above. Don't drop the whole thing in an ultrasonic cleaner… please!

Ah interesting, I’ve seen numerous clips on TikTok over the last year and haven’t recognised where they have come from but looked interesting. Thanks, I’ll get on it now that Succession has finished!

Quite a few in Wiltshire. They are being used to capture evidence for police follow up. You won’t get a NIP through the post with them but you might get a letter from the local constabulary or even a knock at the door if your speed is high enough/you’re caught multiple times. A lot of parish councils are buying Auto Speed Watch devices and posting photos of speeding drivers, complete with calibrated speed and registration number, on social media. Some speeding round me is crazy - one idiot regularly hitting 95mph in a 30mph village at school pickup time.

It’s a little pricey but check out a device called Auto Speed Watch. It is essentially a tiny little black speed camera the size of a large box of cook’s matches which you can buy and mount on a pole. You’ll need the local authority’s Highways department to approve it if it’s going on public maintainable highway but nothing stopping you placing it on private land next to the road. Lots of parish councils around here are buying them and either passing the photos (which include calibrated speed, car registration and time stamp) to the police for follow-up or simply use the photos to name and shame on social media.

I had a very similar experience last week. A property development site of mine has three cheap TP Link Tapo cameras on (as mentioned by someone else as being dirt-cheap on Amazon). I have them set up to send me notifications when they detect a human between 6pm and 7am. Last week at 6:30pm I had a ping to say someone was in the yard and when I viewed the live footage on my phone I could see two people emptying a skip. Not recognising them and seeing all the trades vans gone I sounded an alarm on the camera which they looked at and ignored and then I called 999. Ordinarily I might not have but the site is full of expensive materials. Within four minutes I had four police cars with blues and twos in the yard! So, my advice is to get one of the cheap TP-Link Tapo C310 cameras. Brilliant kit and so simple to use. As an aside, the advice about not filming outside your property is incorrect, as is the need for a private individual to register with the ICO; that only applies to non-personal operators. You also cannot invade someone’s privacy without good reason (hence filming someone’s bedroom isn’t legal). However, if your camera extends beyond your boundary into a neighbours property, because (for example) the camera is covering your driveway and captures the house across the street, that’s ok. Common decency would say you would mask out their windows and door so it isn’t recorded (standard functionality on all camera systems) and you would be within the guidance of the ICO.

…I’ve just realised you bought from a specialist but booked it into a main dealer for the health check. Did you have any communication with the specialist at the point you rang the main dealer? If not, you’re still covered by the CRA and I would continue to go heavy on the rejection/refund. They might come back at you immediately and say they want a chance to repair it. It’s always best to go in strong and show you know what you are talking about and that you will escalate if you don’t get the outcome you want. I honestly wouldn’t lose sleep over it Andy, having gone through something almost identical a few months back the law is on your side.

I would assume you rang Volvo two weeks ago to organise the health check because of concerns you had? I would be sure to put in writing to the garage that you reported a suspected fault and detailed the car’s symptoms within one month of purchase (ie. two weeks ago) but that you could not be given an appointment until this week. It is not your fault that the garage was unable to fit you in, you reported the issue within one month. In these circumstances it is best to keep everything in writing and be succinct and blunt whilst avoiding rudeness. I would email the supplying garage and say something along the lines of: “WITHOUT PREJUDICE, SAVE AS TO COSTS Dear Mr X, I am dissatisfied with the quality of the Volvo XC90 (registration XXXX XXX) which I purchased from you on X March 2023. The vehicle has been supplied in a substandard condition and is not fit for purpose having been found to be faulty within one month of purchase. I reported the fault (XXX) to you on X but you were not able to examine the car until X at which point you confirmed the presence of significant faults with the vehicle. I am aware that a warranty was offered with the purchase, however, I am instead relying on the Consumer Rights Act (2015), which governs our transaction, to reject the vehicle and obtain a full refund. Failure to comply with your obligations as a registered motor trader under the Consumer Rights Act (2015) will leave me with no choice but to take legal action to resolve the matter to the same outcome.”

Hi Andy, sorry to hear this. Assuming you wish to reject the car and not get it fixed your rights are entirely governed by the Consumer Rights Act. Don’t be fobbed off by the presence of the warranty which I would urge you to ignore. The dates are very tight here and it will depend on when you reported the fault from the 15th March purchase date. Essentially within one month you can demand a full refund, there is no burden of proof on you to establish when the fault first appeared. I would guess that if the car has already been back for an inspection then you raised the issue within one month of purchase. After one month, but before six months from sale, the garage has the right to a single repair to remedy the issue. Everything you need to know is here: https://www.thecarexpert.co.uk/rejecting-a-car/ Good luck and as mentioned, ignore the warranty, garages will often push you towards that to protect their sale. The Consumer Rights Act trumps it!