JetSet

By using 95 Ron you'll be losing somewhere in the region of 10-15 BHP. A remap to 95 RON would probably get you those horses back. Pete

Was that the winter of 1981/2 ? Strange thing happened here that winter...During the middle part of January 1982 I recorded 4 successive nights of temperatures below -18 and daytime temperatures were no better than -6. My attempts to keep the house warm were thwarted by (A). My ancient Potterton boiler and (. The oil in the tank waxing up. Pouring boiling water on the pipe leading to the boiler helped a bit but the house remained coolish. On the last night of the really cold temperatures, it was -18 when I went to bed (I kept a small weather station for many years). At around 4 in the morning I was woken by the sound of water hissing. Thinking I had a burst I shot out of bed to find out what was going on. I easily tracked the sound down to one of the cupboards in the hall....the one with the hot water tank in it . However, the sound was coming from the expansion tank which was at the top of the cupboard. When I looked in there I was amazed to find that the top of the tank had large lumps of ice in it...What I didn't know was that during the night a warm front had passed through and the outside temperature had shot up to 8 degrees and released the ball **** which must have been frozen into place by a layer of ice. Good job it thawed that night really as an empty expansion tank could have had dire consequences. Pete

I replaced the hot water hose in the bathroom a couple of years ago, I was in the bath when that went . There are 2 other sinks in the house, the one in the toilet had new taps fitted last year, believe it or not they didn't have braided hoses, just solid copper pipes and as they didn't fit the new taps I replaced the pipes with hoses. The sink in the main bathroom has also had the hot water hose replaced in 2016 as it had a slight leak. Anyway, you're right, the hoses are cheap enough and I bought 2 while in B & Q Pete

What a great start to 2017...not. So its 08:15 on New Years Day, I'm feeding the Cats and Caroline decides to do the dishes. After a few seconds I notice that there's a new noise, that of an uncontrolled flow of water . The hot tap has stopped running so I open the cupboard under the sink to be greeted by a fountain of hot water spraying about everywhere. I dash outside and turn off the water which of course stops the flood. After a couple of minutes examining the pipes I find the culprit, the braided hose connecting the pipe to the tap has failed catastrophically. I check the internet to see if B & Q is open and fortunately it opens at 10.00, so a quick trip to Chester and 40 minutes later I've got it fixed . I've not changed this particular hose before so I'm presuming it was fitted in 1986 when I had a new kitchen fitted, amazing its lasted so long. I'm also a bit baffled as to why a 2m hose was fitted when a 1m hose (the only ones B & Q sell) fitted with ease. No damage this time, all the water came up with a mop. Pete

That's how the HR works too Pete

Welcome along Pete

Very difficult to find a low road tax facelift. The only ones I know of were for the press to test out as the official launch date was April 1st 2006, thus higher road tax. Pete

I too got ticked off by the law for using my fog lights when it wasn't foggy. That was when I was a lad, would have been 1971 and I'd fitted them to my Sunbeam Stiletto. This is probably way out of date but he told me they could only be used in fog or falling snow. As far as modern cars go, I've had a couple with front fog lights, as Colin says part of having them on is so others can see you. We don't get real fogs around here so I can't say how good they are but in thick mists, say 150 yards visibility, they just throw up a lot of glare into your face. EDIT, there hasn't always been a lack of fog around here. I can remember my dad picking me up from youth club and the fog was so bad that after a few hundred yards, I had to get out and locate where the kerb was for my dad . Since I started driving in the 60's we've only had the odd mist and I'm pretty sure I've never driven in thick fog. Pete

She's gone home now, thank goodness . Christmas was fine until the family arrived and Caroline's daughters finished up having a fight !! The eldest daughter was already drunk and lost her temper when the younger daughter refused to go to the off licence for more booze. Eldest daughter is an alcoholic who's already been banned from driving twice. Neither Caroline, her youngest daughter or myself drink so we never have any liquor in the house and on the odd occasion that we get some in we have to hide it....sad really. Caroline is still struggling with anxiety and consequently lack of appetite. Her physical wounds are healing up really nicely though, the scars from her wounds have all but vanished. Pete

Well, the valve didn't stick....read on. I know you are far more experienced in plumbing than me but the water was cascading out from the toilet and the ball **** was sat at the bottom of the cistern allowing the water to be released from the valve, so basically the water was going out faster than it was coming in if that makes sense? Look, it's an old toilet, it was put in in 1969 when the house was modernised and is completely different to the one in our main bathroom that dates back to 2002. About 3 years ago Caroline dropped one of those plastic things that holds a blue block underneath the rim of the toilet. That got stuck somewhere beyond the U Bend and caused a similar flood although nowhere as severe when toilet paper got wrapped around. It got to the stage where everytime you flushed the loo you would have to stand by in case you had to lift the ball **** up The plumber had to take the toilet home with him to get this lump of plastic out, none of his tools he had with him would dislodge it, Pete

Jeez, what a day. I was woken up today at 7 by my granddaughter who yelled at me "The toilets flooded". She wasn't kidding, not only was the bathroom under water but so was the hall and the kitchen. It seems that she used the toilet then used kitchen roll, blocking the toilet and causing the cistern to stick open . Only just had the carpet fitted too, £900. O.K, I unblocked the toilet and got out our Bissell Carpet cleaner, fired it up and the drive belt snapped. Obviously not my day, so went off to Currys and came home with a new Bissell and £200 lighter. The kitchen has a tiled floor so that was easily cleaned and amazingly we managed to suck up the remainder of the flood with the Bissell. Too early to say if the carpets a write off, being new it was nice and clean and shouldn't start smelling, only time will tell. Roll on 2017! Pete

Of course it's been a bad year but I have a theory. The number of celebrities has rocketed over the last few years, at one time say 1940's/50's to be a celebrity you had to be an actor or a crooner but that all changed in the 60's when dozens if not hundreds of pop groups were formed and they all had 4 or 5 members. These people, like Lemmy, Bowie, Parfitt and other less well known stars like Paul Kantner (Jefferson Starship) were well, ahem getting on a bit. In what people call the golden age of Hollywood there were in reality very few really big stars, these days there are hundreds of them. TV also played a big part promoting news readers, presenters, even weathermen to superstar status. More recently, TV "talent" shows and stuff like Big Brother have seen another boost in celebrity numbers. Sportsmen too are now hero worshiped....so more celebrities equals more people passing away sadly. I once had the pleasure of having a long chat with a former Liverpool player who was in the same old peoples home as my mum. His name was Ray Lambert and he played for Liverpool in the 40's and 50's. He told me that to get to training from Flint he had to bike it to Shotton and then get the train to Liverpool and he was able to live a normal life. Times since then have changed and it looks to me like the country now has a celebrity obsession. I must admit though that I gasped an OMG this morning when I checked out the news on The BBC, I can just about remember Debbie Reynolds when she was at her peak. How devastating for her family and friends. Pete

Yes, I started leaving a decent gap many years ago. Saved me once from a major pileup that happened right in front of me (and behind me too). I managed to stop easily without standing on my brakes, the guy behind me stopped too, but he got hit by a tailgater. I don't know how the accident in front of me happened but there were 6 cars involved and it was on a humpback bridge. I wish someone could come up with a solution, like a buzzer when you're driving too close. I'm not sure that automatic deceleration won't actually cause more shunts? Pete

Seems that way, we also lost Richard Adams (Watership Down) and Liz Smith (Royle Family) in the last 48 hours. In the last week we also lost Mirus Yifter ("Yifter The Shifter") the double Olympic champion 5k and 10k from 1980, and Piers Sellers (British Astronaut) Talking about Richard Adams, I remember my Ex Wife reading Watership Down. She said I should read it so I asked what it was a about, its a story about Rabbits she replied. Being an Science Fiction fan I laughed but a few months later picked it up out of curiosity and it turned out to be the best book I've ever read, must have read it 10 times at least and it was the first book I bought for my kindle! Pete

Looks great, love the colour too Pete

HR White Zeds had a very limited production run which makes them very desirable and they look great too. Also, I think you had to order them in white, the ones that the dealers brought in were mainly grey, silver or black. Pete

Believe it or not I haven't opened mine . We decided to leave it until our entire family visits us tomorrow so we can all open our presents together Pete

I don't think anyone could accuse him of being a bad person, far from it, he just made some poor lifestyle choices. As you say, many celebrities will set up charities in their name, for example Bill Gates, others keep it quiet. I take my hat off to all of them . Pete

As above really. The entertainment industry is littered with actors and musicians who's lives have ended far too soon, from James Dean, Jimmi Hendrix through to Michael Jackson, David Bowie and Rick Parfitt. Kinda sad but not surprising. Pete

2007 I had a Zed, 2027 will probably still have the Zed, should just about be run in by then Pete

All the best to everyone Pete

Very sad news. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38427459 Pete

We all make mistakes, yes, overconfidence in one's ability, especially with young drivers. Then there's lack of concentration and increasingly distractions from things like Sat Navs, mobile phones, tablets, etc. The indestructible attitude shown by many monster 4x4's doesn't help either. In my case I made an almost catastrophic judgement a few weeks ago. I was turning right onto a road with massive speed bumps on it. I saw this car coming towards me and just presumed that the driver would slow down for the bumps and pulled out....these bumps are like 20mph max but not a bit of it, the driver didn't slow one iota and and I had to floor it to avoid being T-Boned . I've made plenty of mistakes in my time, going down a one way street the wrong way in Colorado with a Police car behind me was probably the most embarrassing Pete

Yes, he last visited the forum yesterday evening. Pete

Caroline is a careers advisor for Careers Wales and several of her colleagues have come from teaching. I don't know what teachers get paid these days but careers advisors are in the £30-32k bracket. It's a 9-5 Monday to Friday job without the pressure that teachers face these days. Of course, there are drawbacks, like having to deal with stroppy teenagers and their parents but at least you can come home an forget about the job . Pete