Ekona

How does it work though? Are there significantly less mongs on the road now? Nope. They don't care about points or bans or whatever, they just carry on without a licence if necessary. They would care significantly more if they couldn't afford to own a car though, even a £1K shed would be out of reach if you'd just been fined that for driving like a knob. The current system isn't fair to rich and poor alike anyway, as the rich guys just buy expensive lawyers who get them off.

Moi? Never! Okay, so I possibly strayed a fraction over, but you'd be surprised at the limit of that road and just how short geared the 911 is.

Oh, and I've just been informed that there's another 12v socket in the footwell of the car I could be using

Genuinely I've never, ever had an issue with mountain driving before, or any kind of driving at height. I've blasted round the IoM course plenty of times on multiple trips with no issues, and have done other stuff like Wales and Scotland with zero problems. I've only ever felt od about heights maybe 10 times in my entire life, and they were so brief that it was never a problem worth even considering. Getting very close to beer o'clock now, bloody restaurants don't open until 8-8:30 everywhere in Spain and I'm starving!

Right, change of plan sorted I've checked the route for tomorrow and I think it should still be okay, only one hairy looking bit but the rest seems good so I may just keep that as-is. If not, then I've already seen a couple of beaches nearby I can head to. I've cancelled my hotel in Bordeux and moved it waaaay up to Caen. Sadly I'm a day too late for the anniversary, however this means I can take in the Normandy beaches again. I've been there before and it was incredibly powerful, so going back seems a good idea. It also puts me closer to Calais for the crossing, and avoids the Pyranees, so win/win.

http://www.350z-uk.c...can-rebuild-him Always someone out who has suffered as well. In this case, me! My advice: Go and see a different doctor. Start again, as I know that I'm a completely different person now I can actually move and live normally. It's been almost exactly a year to the day ago since I had my op, and I actually wrote an email to my surgeon last week thanking him and his team for his efforts, as I can now enjoy my life. The thread explains it all I think, but all I know for sure is that surgery fixed my completely and I would push like crazy to get it done again. Rather that than have to suffer.

Day 8 Oh noes, car failure! Not a great start to the day, that. Launch control I clearly didn't secure the GP mount enough, as you can see the camera dip down when I transition from throttle to brakes I went to Portugal today, seemed a nice enough country from the 30 mins or so I spent there. Very different landscape to Spain, different fauna growing beside the road, different road surface, even the villages looked more rural. I'd like to see more, I think. And then I hit disaster. Proper, full blown, sod all I can do about it disaster. I do have a video of my thoughts on this, and I was going to upload it, but if I'm honest it's a tad too personal and I'm not comfortable sharing my feelings in video format, so text will have to suffice. Sorry 'bout that. Basically, in the past I've had a minor brush with acrophobia. Nothing extreme, mostly when at work and I'm climbing a vertical ladder or multi-level scaffold and I get this odd feeling like my ankles want to lock up. They don't, and I push through and I'm fine. A couple of days back when on the mountain stuff in Spain I had a very similar feeling, but ignored it and carried on. I thought it was just one of those things. It wasn't. I was climbing a mountain today, only 1850 above sea level but it was in a quarry so very steep sides. Bit of snow still on top, even when the valley below is 30 deg c, but the roads were perfectly dry. Suddenly I had a very acute awareness of the height of the mountain and how far the car could fall if I got it wrong, and my ankles suddenly went very tight. Almost to the point where I had to stop driving, kind of tight. It's hard to explain if you've never suffered, but it was a horrible feeling and I descended the mountain slower than any car has ever possibly done so before. I was glad to get held up behind a Citroen Xsara, just to slow the pace and give me something to follow. Normally I reckon you could take the corners happily at 70mph in a normal car: I was struggling to get to 50mph. I have no idea what to do now. I've still got two days of driving left, and the routes were planned for mountain stuff. I'm clearly going to have to take them out now if they're too high (will check this evening), but I don't know how else to fill my time. Car failure I can deal with, nowt I can do about that, but myself failure? I feel a total f*cking failure. Proper. Sorry, not the cheery update you were probably expecting, but it's the truth. I'm determined to enjoy the rest of my trip though, just means I'll need to stay nearer the beach with bikini wearing ladeez than watching snow on a mountain!

So instead of educating drivers, the solution is to punish them. Yup, what a cracking idea that is. Anyone who sees this as anything other than a spurious attempt at winning popularity via headlines is kidding themselves. For starters, this is as bad as s.59 currently is. Now all they will have to do is have the policeman's opinion that you were tailgating/MLM'ing/pushing in and that's enough for the 3pts. Having seen what an utter mess they made of wording the mobile phone law (look up the definition of 'using' and exactly what constitutes a mobile phone, it's horrendous), you can guarantee that this will be no better and it will either penalise 99% of drivers or be utterly useless. If I get caught speeding by a copper, then I'll expect to see evidence shown to me at the roadside and that's a pretty good indicator that I've done wrong and I'll cough up. Now what happens if I'm in an unfamiliar area with road junctions that are horrendous (let's use a city, like London or Leeds), and due to terrible signage and/or lane markings I get into the wrong lane at a roundabout. I pop my indicator on, calmly wait for someone to let me in, and then BOOM I'm done for 3pts and a fine. Policemen will still have to stop you, pull you over, give you the lecture, and issue the FPN. At the moment they need to stop you, pull you over, give you the lecture, and give you the 7 day wonder as well as telling you that you'll be taken to court for careless driving. Aside from the court stuff, there is zero difference in effort for them, so will they bother? Will they heck. Utterly, utterly pointless, and the only thing it does do is leave the system open for abuse by the very small minority of trafpol who seem to think that they're the second coming. How about, and this is a crazy idea, we do away with the points and make the fines significantly bigger and on the spot? Like they do in France. MLM'ing, £750 fine, straight to the cashpoint with you sir. That would make the difference, and fill coffers back up pretty quickly too. Or my real opinion on what they should do: Use the existing road signage network properly. Attach an ANPR camera to it, get it to work out if people are MLM or tailgating, then flash up their numberplate and the words "MY12 ABC - MOVE OVER, YOU ARE THE REASON THAT TRAFFIC IS NOT FLOWING". Embarass them, and it will cost precious little. Makes people think too, and education is what is needed here not easier ways to get 3pts.

I call BS on this one. Sorry, but no-one is going to pay £8K for the insurance on a car worth about half that. She's having you on mate. I can believe that a 21 year old could be quoted £8K on a MY56 Astra 1.6 living in Manchester, but no-one would pay that.

Day 7 Wow, one week already. Doesn't feel like it, although I already can't remember where I stayed Saturday night! Today was only ever about getting from A to Z, from Algeciras to Zamora (see what I did there?!). There were never any nice roads planned, so no video was taken as motorways are dull and I didn't really have anything to say. Okay, so I did make a little one but I'll save that for another time when I get home. Today was all about the chillaxing. The long cruise up in the sunshine which peaked at 28.5 deg c, and since the roads were clear I actually had time for a quick picnic stop which involved a pack of pretzels, a can of Red Bull and a read of the latest Total 911 mag on a picnic bench in a rest stop. Classy, I know, but it was relaxing all the same and the sun was perfect. On the downside, it did mean that I had time for photos. Not always a bad thing, unless you suddenly decide to try and be arty and do a 'thoughtful' shot of you and the car, which in reality just came out very badly as I had to wedge the camera on another bench because I forgot to pack my tripod, and run like buggery to get the pose in before the timer went off. The end result looks like this: It's kinda got all the right bits in (nice car, good looking bloke looking adoringly at the car, some greenery and some sunshine), but it looks utterly horrendous in the finish. Still, never let it be said that I don't mind a laugh at my expense So onto the hotel. I'll be frank: It's stunning. 5 stars and worth every single one of them, probably helped by having their own winery here. I'm one of only two guests here (recession is still hitting hard in Spain) so I'm being waited on hand and foot. They've taken my bags, offered to park my car for me (which I declined), just basically stopping short of sucking me off. Which I don't mind, as he had tiny lips anyway. I'm just going to stick the photos up and you can see for yourself how good this place is. Some taken on the D90, some on the JesusPhone5. The exterior: My room: Every time you order a drink you get this medley of funny colour crisps and olives: And in the restaurant: Starter of asparagus mousse and smoked sturgeon Main of oxtail in rich local red wine gravy on a bed of potato and white chocolate foam with some pink flowers and a pink foam on top Dessert of crepe with crushed oranges, cointreau and chocolate ice cream All food was as good as it looks, and is possibly the best meal I've ever had in my life. I'm not a fancy eater by any means, and have never had sturgeon or oxtail before so was a little unsure of eating them, but they were astounding. Am now back up in the room chilling out, may treat myself to a bath in a bit (ooh, get me!) and then a good night sleep. I'm going to get up a bit earlier tomorrow and grab some pics of the car parked up around the hotel, it's too good a location to waste. More mountains are planned tomorrow on the driving front, but I've just discovered that at my next stop there's the only continous Roman wall in the world around the town, Lugo, so may get over there a bit earlier and explore. One last pic, just for Rich and Dave. Spotted this and knew you guys would appreciate it

I would try them in a car first, or at least mock up your seats with some cardboard to account for the side bits. I suspect you're going to massively lose vision when looking left and right, and especially the life saver look. Not good.

So why seats with side restraints? Is it going in a track car, 'cos I wouldn't want those on a road car.

If negligence is proved, yes. Exactly the same as over here, but in that case it's your insurer who coughs up.

I've jump started all my cars at some point, Porker included. Realistically as long as you don't connect the leads the wrong way there's very little chance of damaging anything.

Frick! Everyone okay?

What if some random drops fluids and you have no idea who it was? Or you end up in a multi-vehicle accident with UK & euro drivers, with no clear person to blame? Or you drop fluids and a biker comes off and is crippled for life, and you have to pay the £250K bill? Either way, you're coming out of it many thousands out of pocket. Not worth the risk anymore, regardless of how careful you are personally.

Head gasket was my first thought, could be any number of things though. Cracked rad, dodgy water pump, loose hose... Take it a normal garage, one you can trust, it's only a Mini and doesn't need particularly specialist knowledge to service. No offence

You can't. It's physics, innit.

Oh bugger

Either of those do you?

I'd be astounded if they didn't. I'm 9.9% sure they'll fit, I've yet to see a seat that doesn't as the stock ones are huge. Interesting choice, any reason you're going for ones with side head restraint?

He wasn't too impressed no, he was the only one that was sitting still so there was a queue of people lining up taking pics of him basically And as promised, yesterday's video.

Trust me, that was by far and away the most expensive one so far, about 3x as much as all the other ones! Just for note, I'm staying here tonight and it's only costing me 50EU including breakfast.

Cheers dude, I hope it's entertaining enough to read, I'm missing quite a lot out but there's just so much footage and pics here and the laptop and interweb is too slow for me to get too much up each evening. I'm off to a place called Zamora tomorrow, pretty much direct for here. Hopefully I'll get there by mid afternoon. I did, no choice sadly due to the time constraints. Besides, if I did everything in the one trip I'd have no need to come back again would I?

Day 6 Wow. Did I make the correct decision last night to forego driving roads in lieu of visiting Gibraltar or what! Had a good run down, barely any traffic and I didn't bother setting up the GoPro nor TomTom either, so the cabin seemed very spartan and more natural. Eventually managed to get into Gib at about 2pm, weather was stunning. I've a short vid of that (well, me driving the whole of Gib pretty much) for later, so I won't say too much. And finally, the furthest south in Europe I've ever been myself, and I'm pretty sure my 911 has ever been either: That's the Europa Point lighthouse behind me, which is the only UK lighthouse not on the mainland. Sadly the hoarding means you can't see Africa in that photo, but I can guarantee that it was as clear as day to see. Very epic sight. So now I'm pretty much halfway, and as I've yet to clean the car you can see the full horror that is the body count on the numberplate: That's going to take some shifting to get it off the bumper and bonnet, I can tell you. I'm not too worried really as there's a seriously thick coat of wax protecting the paint, and even if it does ruin it which is possible in this heat, I've budgeted for a front end respray this year anyway. I then popped into the nature reserve which is waaaaay up on top of the rock, and the roads you need to use are barely big enough for two vehicles and incredibly steep, far steeper than a sports car should be climbing. The 911 was okay, although I was a little concerned at the stress I was putting on the PDK 'box so left it in 1st gear and used the revs to get me up rather than the torque in a higher gear. Probably not an issue, but a bad place to find one out. Could've done with an LSD on one very sharp corner too! Why was I in the nature reserve? Why, looking for these guys of course: Monkeys! Real Gib monkeys! Actually, they're apes, but it's more fun to shout "MONKEY!" at them in a PG Tips-stylee than just say ape normally, Had a wander around the caves there too, but I was running short of time so didn't see the war tunnels or other cool bits. Next time. The hotel I'm at tonight is stunning, old Victorian style and I've just had a mahoosive buffet dinner, t'was very much appreciated and I'm now sat in the room with dos grande beers por favor writing this. Going to get an early night I think and leave earlier tomorrow, no fun drive was planned any way but the hotel is a fricking expensive one that I splashed out on, and I want to get my money's worth