coldel

Well try it and prove yourself right mate, in fact I will buy you your first pack of nappies

Going on the registration date on the V5C, what was going on when your car was 'born' ? My Four was born February 1995, Celine Dion was at number 1 with Think Twice and Barings Bank went under with debts of $1bn+

Me, Darren B and Ebized all went to Goodwood a few years back, parked up, some guy walked past our three Zeds and said he would love to get one but didnt think he could afford one as good as ours as he only had £12k to play with. To be fair Daz's supercharged 350 and Colins 370 maybe not but sure could have had mine for £12k! Colin as ever the perfect forum enthusiast had forum cards to hand to him with the website address on!

...spacers

Took the opportunity in the sun to pick and install my new front speakers, Pioneer 2013i's, not much choice really as the fronts are 20cm in diameter which is a pretty rare size. Anyway, they are 80w RMS which fits great with my head units 50w output. Door cards came off easily enough, unbolted the speakers and had to contend with some serious amounts of black goo which acts as adhesive/sound deadening, anyway after some gentle persuasion out popped the old ones in not bad nick for 21 years old! The Pioneers were not a direct fit, but a bit of a squeeze and managed to get them in behind the grills. Annoyingly the grills are attached to the door card so it all has to come off rather than something nice and easy like unscrewing them...still... Sounds fantastic, JVC double din head unit, Alpine bass speaker and now these, perfect for me

I guess peoples priorities and what they deem exciting change, there was a time as a ten year old I am sure you thought cars were stupid and that Pokemon was the real deal, and I am sure when you hit 90 just making it to the toilet before you wee yourself will be deemed a very exciting achievement its all a matter of perspective and not everyone will come from the same angle as you

Of course there are people with kids that are rude and refuse to cooperate, and rightly so you would get annoyed. There are plenty of adults who behave the same way who don't have kids, in fact many more of them than those with kids in venues, you have to deal with them all equally. Would you ask some who talks overly loud to leave the bar or talk quieter. Would you ask people to go sit back down if they push in at the bar. My point is live the parents shoes, next time you see the situation check out the parent closely, yes they could just be ignorant and rude but its not always that, in most cases its that they are hugely stressed, really do not want their child to be causing all that fuss and would give the world for their child to sit and be quiet but just need a little understanding...I don't think for other people that is an unreasonable ask in the first instance. Remember, that screaming kid could grown up to a be doctor that one day saves your life on an operating table...give them a little slack

Happy to discuss. Actually I had that exact issue with parents before I stepped into their shoes. We have a babysitter, we use occasionally if we want to say go watch a movie at the cinema, a quick drink beforehand, ticket prices, babysitter cost and you are looking at a £100 night out to watch a film. Yes I understand I took on that cost when having a child, but you can excuse people for not defaulting to them as much as non child owning adults would like. Actually parents who are perceived as 'ignoring' their kids that run around are generally all over it but because they are not doing the same thing i.e. chasing after them or shouting at them to behave doesn't mean they do not care or are not being considerate to other people in the venue. What do you think will happen if you tell a 5 year old not to do something, or if you got up and ran after them, it will only exacerbate the situation and become a bigger 'game' to a 5 year old. Parents also naturally understand how and when their child genuinely needs attention vs unnecessarily demanding attention, often you will see a parent almost ignoring a child but this is deliberate and its part of the long game i.e. if you run to their aid every time they cry out it only gets worse. Most adults without experience of their own children will not understand the psychology or day to day learning that goes on, perception is everything and unfortunately it leads to lots of assumptions that are quite untrue. I agree in Richmond, hardly anywhere for adult only, but they are there. I do not spend all my time with my kid, I have plenty of time where I go off and do my own thing childless, and there are plenty of places because I have deliberately looked. I could name 5 or 6 bars in Richmond which are my adult places. That then brings its own social issues, as much as some people don't like kids running around being noisy equally I don't like adults who talk loudly, slurp when they drink, push in at the bar, are rude, smell bad and clearly don't shower, etc. and all behaviours much worse than the odd kid making a noise. I guess the upshot is if you don't like kids, you will spot the times when they annoy you and ignore things which clearly would annoy other people but have no effect on you.

I think SW London thing is the other way around, it has great schools, lots of green areas and is easy access into London for commutes so attracts that type of person. In terms of social stigma, it also goes the other way around, I find it interesting how people treat me when I am with my 4 year old. Its so polarising. I have had comments when I am sat on the train to 'control your child' - like he is some sort of robot with a controller attached to him you ***king moron, I haven't actually switched him into 'loud mode' on purpose. I have also had people who quietly lean over and whisper 'I totally understand' when he has the occasional strop and suddenly all the pressure just goes away and I could honestly hug that complete stranger. Funny as well, when my wife was pregnant people couldn't have been more helpful on public transport, the second that kid is out and in a pushchair she was tutted at, commented at, told to do this and do that - disgusting behaviour if I am quite frank. Sorry, it turned into a bit of a rant...back to my Little Book Of Calm...

Sorry to sound serious after some riotous posts but I think its worth mentioning like I did on the other thread, the idea that 'oh we will hit around 35 and have a kid then' will just happen, we were in that boat and took a fair bit of time for little 'un to announce himself on the coloured wee stick and for a while genuinely thought it wouldn't happen. Also have a few friends who are having children later in life and having similar issues...

...so a baby born here to foreign parents is suddenly British and entitled to anything they want because they are not an immigrant. I would wager a full british pound that many of us if you go back 10 generations probably are immigrants at heart - its not like we all genuinely started here. My grandparents on my mothers side are Irish.

Just found this pic of mine...looks like the new owner did a few bits to it!

I did see C5UPE on a swap site last year somewhere...

Its completely up to you if you want kids or not, I have a 4 year old and would not hold it against anyone who has decided not to have kids. Problem is that you get people saying 'time for a kid isnt it' then once you have one they say 'time for another they need a brother or sister' - we are stopping at one and we are happy at that to put our efforts into our one happy little lad. Your list above GZ, I don't like any of that either, but I wouldn't have let that stop me having a child when I finally felt ready. I am sure there are many jobs on our cars we hate and despise but didn't stop us buying the thing and keeping it

Couldn't agree more Adrian. Lots of myths around terrorism and the idea we can shut up shop and all will suddenly become so difficult for terror cells is one of those. Another interesting myth is that Islam is a radical religion - in Europe something in the region of less than 5% of all terror acts are committed because of Islamic motivations, most are by natives committing terror for other reasons.

Line, draw, under. I think when Irn Bru said 'lazy romanians' he meant romanians that are lazy, not that all romanians are lazy which clearly they are not.

A few thoughts... I think immigration comes in two guises, one local one national. Local you could argue down to industry locality as well as geography is where immigrants are (and I don't mean this personally) coming in highly skilled in what they do with a very high work ethic, that's not to say native workers are lazy, just that they have a different view on what hours/days they should be working. If you are personally affected by this you would typically say immigration is a bad thing as Irn Bru is saying above. There is then the national view, that you take a wide lens to the economy and its been proven time and again that 'registered' migrants when aggregating their tax contributions, spend etc contribute much more than they take from the economy. What we don't know is what the black market looks like, those unregistered, not paying tax and not re-investing money back into the economy. That said, there are many natives doing exactly the same thing, even though they are registered here in the UK are hiding and shirking their contributions to HMRC. On the issue of terrorism, I think this is completely unrelated, if someone wants to blow something up in another country it will happen and being in and out of the EU even with tougher border restrictions will make no difference.

I hope your right, I've been up for pretty much the last 24hrs with no sleep due to work.....Than my wife is pointing out to me we better get use to it soon because a new born baby is pretty much 24/7 job 365 days a year, with no sleep/brakes . Again can only talk from personal experience but if you decide it will take up your life, it will. There are only two people that can make things happen for you and that's you and your other half. I wont lie to you the first few months I learned a new meaning of the words 'lack of sleep' but the pay back of this little life watching you and holding you offsets that by some margin. It also does improve markedly they develop so quickly in the first year. All I can say is do not try to create yourself as parents based on what the media, parenting magazines and stereotypes would portray the perfect parent as - do what you guys feel comfortable doing and ignore anyone that says you are doing it wrong.

Interesting how there is a view that kids somehow stop your life and doing what you want to do. I admit I was quite lucky in that I had Alfie when I was 37, so before that I had lived in other countries, traveled extensively, tried a number of different vocations, done the partying thing, did Uni etc etc. So do I pine so much for lots of materialistic things and lots of time to myself now I have Alfie, not really. With a child you have to invest a bit more time in planning, but we are still fulfilling lots of life goals, me and the missus were in Berlin on our own a couple of weekends back enjoying late night jazz bars and the like for instance. Is Alfie growing up a happy child despite his parents wanting to do their own thing as well? I think anyone that met him at a car meet last year would say he is a pretty fun and rounded little chap especially the ladies who got their bums smacked in the car park On the 'no rush' thing, just from personal experience I wouldn't take it for granted that kids just happen when you decide. Took us nearly 3 years due to age related issues and its more common than you might think.

And where are the comments from the female zed members, they should be all over this... (awaits stereotyping flaming)

Sounds a bit daft, but works for us (the wife and I), is that we found we ended up wanting to do more of what we wanted because we felt the other was not giving me space to do it and we both became quite selfish. It was a self perpetuating problem and we wasn't addressing it. Now, we sit down every few months and draw up a list of non-negotiables, these are the things that personally we need to have. The idea is not only that we identify whats important for me to be happy, but also how she can support me, and vice versa. Not saying we are perfect and we are not by any stretch, but it took us about 7 years to work that out and had some rough patches before that, now we are much more aware of how each others actions affects the other - washing the car doesn't seem like such a stupid thing to her anymore when she sees how happy I am once its done

I think have an adult conversation, if she really is as you say in that there is all take and no give then that should come out clear as day for either or both of you and you then have to decide between you what to do next.

Its worth a shot, but how about living her shoes for a week, see how it feels for you. Could be that you are driving her nuts with just a few habits that have worn her down and she is struggling with it. Small things become bigger issues over time, I think after about 4 years these sorts of things can be causing big problems when in fact they could be solved easily and quickly if you both understand and compromise. I guess what I am trying to say, is live in each others shoes for a while and see what comes up, talk through what issues drive you nuts and cause complaints, how about remembering when you had good times what it was that made them good, often 'life' can get in the way of these things and you convince yourself you have no time to do them again, this is very stressful. I would certainly just make absolutely sure before you end it, if anything work out what has happened and be better prepared for similar eventualities in future.

OK, sorry your post (coupled with the Astra story) made it sound like you were OK with excessive speed - I have been shouted down on here before but I generally don't go with the view that its safe to hugely speed on public roads "when its clear" or "there are never any other cars on this stretch of road at this time of day" or "I could see for way down the road it was clear" and so on and so forth. Yes I am the boring speed nazi or whatever else people slying reference me as, but I don't care

Convert, I can't believe you are talking about doing *fairly high speed on public roads and that its ok racing your mate if you trust them then end with drive safe neither of which those statements are, and you are a driving instructor? Edit, speed ref removed