Ekona

Thank you Sarnie That Germany game was bloody awful to watch, so incredibly dull. Hopefully Spain put on more of a show today.

I love the Canary Isles, used to live on GC 10 years ago I quite fancy a trip to the south Americas at some point, the other half isn't as keen though sadly.

Toboggan, brilliant! Not heard that one yet I've already decided that I'm going to take up a martial art when I'm better, always wanted to become a ninja of sorts so that's a personal goal for me

Some of you may be aware I've had some on-going back problems over the recent years, and having finally had enough of the pain I went under the knife on Thursday afternoon to try and get it sorted permanently. Basically, what I had was is what is normally referred to as a slipped disc, although such a thing is impossible medically speaking. What actually happened is that part of my L5/S1 disc has prolapsed over the years and started putting pressure on my nerves around the spinal cord, causing significant muscle control problems (my left calf is 6cms smaller than my right) along with a fair bit of pain, as I'm sure you can imagine. It almost stopped me walking down the aisle at my wedding at Christmas, hence my desire to get it sorted for good. I went privately so I could pick my own date to make it easy for work reasons, and as I said the op was on Thursday. Surgeon went in, removed some bone, pulled the muscle to one side then cut out the dead pieces of disc pressing on the nerve. Should've been a 1 hr op, took him twice as long as it was much worse that he thought in the end. Woke up 6pm and instantly had more movement in my leg than I've had for years: I very nearly cried with happiness. The last couple of days have been a bit tougher than I would've liked though. I stopped overnight Thursday, so Friday was spent taking painkillers and trying to walk to the bathroom, a task I failed as I fainted into the nurse's arms. Finally cracked it and came home yesterday evening, so today has been my first full day at home. Woke up in a lot of pain this morning, very uncomfortable to lay either on my back or on my side, so wasn't very happy at all. Have taken some tramadol now though, fabulous stuff! It's a very long recovery period now: 6 weeks before I see the consultant again, at least 2 months before I can drive and a further month before I can consider going back to work. That's a long time to be spent laying flat on my back, I'm already bored of these four walls! Still, plenty of time to lecture folks on here about tyres and stuff I guess I apologise in advance if I'm more miserable in the coming weeks, am going to try and use this place as my go-to forum for when I need some cheering up though, you lot get me in stitches more often than anywhere else anyway

South Americans have to play in Europe though if they want to earn good money, it's just not available to them over there. If top money was offered in salary and endorsements, many Europeans would probably swap continents. Our strength in depth at the moment is rubbish, but it hasn't been for the last 10 years: It's been pretty good, our tactics have just been awful. This time we've got average players all over the pitch, but with a tactically astute manager. We may do okay, but it won't be pretty. Our league is so fast and furious to watch, I don't know why the national side has to slow everything down so much. I'm looking more forward to any of the Spanish or German games than I am the England games, put it that way.

Would it be any different to when Greece won in 2004? The country was delighted obviously, but it was a one-off and football as a whole considers that side to have played the worst football ever at international level and to have won a trophy. On the other hand, Brazil never win everything but they're still heralded correctly as footballing geniuses. They also happen to win a hell of a lot anyway, so clearly beautiful football goes hand in hand with winning. That's why it's so important to push the benefits of playing attractive football over grinding out 1-0 wins all the time IMHO.

I've got money on Holland and Germany, hoping ze Germans do it though. They play some great football with a young team, we could learn a lot from their attitude.

Match whatever you're running on the rears, don't mix tyres. Best way to stay ditch-free.

Never buy a helmet without trying it on first. I know what size I am, but different styles don't fit me the same so instead of a GP5 at £600, I got a Sparco Formula for £300 less and it's perfect for me. Demon Tweeks in Wrexham or GPRW in Silverstone keep plenty in stock for you to try on.

Threads like this make me realise how normal I am

If I were a Mod still, I'd have deleted all four posts just because none of them have been in the correct section

Very possible. Bit of a ballache but certainly doable.

Lol so not proper VIP at all then! Just like those rubbish 'gold' ticket things they have at festivals where the only bonus is getting to actually stand in an area next to the stage, rather than miles back. Standing ticket will still put you in with all the sweaty bunch getting squashed, you'll just have access to one of the meeting rooms at the back that will have a bar and a DJ in it I would expect.

The UK is never getting 4G on the same frequency as the US, so the 4G iPads will never be able to make use of that speed over here. IIRC they're still arguing over exactly what frequency they are going to use, so it still hasn't even been decided which networks will be offering 4G. We're so backwards over here sometimes, it hurts.

Why scrimp on the only thing keeping you in contact with the road, especially when people have told you the solution. Sometimes a bargain (which I'm assuming the wheels and tyres were) doesn't always stay a bargain

I know, would've made a great shot

All new names added to the original list

Yeah Stew

And I thought the original 19" wheels you had on there were bad.

2 is a much bigger jump to the 1 than the 3 is to the 2. I use a non-3G iPad 2 with 16GB, so the baby of the range but it suits me perfectly as I don't need 3G (in an emergency I'd use my iPhone) and I only store apps on the iPad so don't need a huge amount of storage. What you want to use it for will depend on what spec you need.

The bloke is an utter c*nt. All he does is state the fecking obvious to retards who can't figure anything out for themselves, and he tries to make himself sound so clever with it. And yes, you're damn right I'm bitter and twisted that he's managed to make a fortune from it!

Pretty sure myself and Colin both have legal experience, unless I'm getting Colin mixed up with someone completely different. I chose not to pursue a career in law, but certainly my time studying law at A Level wasn't entirely wasted albeit it was a while ago! I'm not saying that I'm a super huge expert, but I do have a rough clue what I'm talking about on this. I can't see the link between s13 of SOGA and what happened here? The description of the service supplied was accurate, tyres were changed and fitted, albeit incorrectly. It would more fall under s14 if anything, unless that's what you meant and it was merely a typo. Again though, the OP is going to have a tough time proving that the garage were the last ones to touch the tyres & wheels unless he literally drove straight out of their place and into the Autodrome. If they admit their mistake in writing (and more fool them if they do), then it's a completely different story. If anything (and we're all assuming the tyre was the cause of this crash, it could well be driver error and the tyre delaminated during the slide, not after) the claim would be against the garage and then via Vredestein themselves for supplying a tyre not fit for purpose, however you then need it sent away for expensive tests to prove this. Running it on track won't help your cause as they'll just say that it's a road tyre, not a track one, and no warranty under that usage is implied. Good call about the MOT mind, although that in itself isn't illegal (for example, a garage is fully allowed to fit a decat pipe to a car, it's up to the driver to ensure that the car will pass an MOT unless the original contract specifies otherwise). @Ricey: Would I go back and complain? As I've said, yes I would, but on the basis that a bit of complaining may get me something. Certainly any legal attempt at redress isn't going to work here due to the circumstances. Yes, I'd be pi**ed at the garage for not fitting the tyres correctly, but I'd accept fault as the driver and move on as the OP originally started to do before all this tyre stuff came out. Other than name and shame and try to get some karma back that way, this is a dead end and the OP would be better putting his efforts and money into getting the car sorted. If nothing else, this is a great example of why I won't do a TD in the 911 without track insurance. Haydn, RP and Ricey, I'm really not trying to pick at you guys, I sincerely mean that despite how this post comes across. You're all just trying to help the OP, as we all are on here, and tbh this is one of the better threads I've seen of late in terms of members trying to help one another. I simply just disagree with your points, certainly not your goals behind them.

Anyone got a link to this video? I'm clearly being a dullard and missing the obvious

If you're going to take this legally, then you're going to need a letter from Nissan and Vredestein stating that the car would be dangerous to drive if the tyres & wheels were mixed up like that. If not the manufacturers, then some very good specialists in the field. A complaint letter might work and you might get a goodwill gesture, but it's very unlikely as well given that you could've removed the wheels yourself between leaving the garage and going out on track, or they could've been switched around after the accident, or any time inbetween. No-one is saying that's what happened, but on the balance of probabilities that could well be the case. For me, it's a non-starter as you should always check the condition of the car before setting off on any journey, never mind on track. I'm not saying I'm perfect in that regard, and I might well have missed that as well, but that's what the garage will say in court and then you're stuffed. Sadly I think you can only write this off to experience, and it will just have to serve as a warning to others to check the little things like this when leaving a garage. I'm not trying to get at you here mate, far from it, but any legal challenge is going to be a costly nightmare to follow through with at this stage and I can't see it being very winnable unless you can get an extremely good (read: expensive) solicitor. And people still think I'm bonkers for banging on about how important tyres are on cars. The sizes here weren't even that far out, but you can bet your ass they contributed to this.

'Course you can, you big girl!