Best broadband bundle.

[pwdrive]

No Col, mine's a Series 3 Lightweight, that other thing in the video is to tech for me, I'm still coming to terms with central locking on our car.

Lawrence.

[camallison]

The bill for drying out the hankies won't be coming your way, Col. It is Virgin who make me weep!

Colin

[pwdrive]

No Col, mine's a Series 3 Lightweight, that other thing in the video is to tech for me, I'm still coming to terms with central locking on our car.

Lawrence.

Here you go Col, said Landrover skidding out a sawn beam from the woodland, chief hillbilly in the driving seat.

Lawrence.

[AlanBeckett]

On the subject of needless complexity SWMO just got a new Car. It's a modified Berlingo - rear Ramp and that sort of thing. It is of course Automatic.
Now I know that French Cars can be a bit whimsical as we've had them before, but this is beyond the pale. It has two Displays, 4 Stalks on the Steering column and two Paddles. The Radio/CD Player/Bluetooth thingy has it's own set of Controls and Display. There's no Gear Selector as such, just a rotary Knob on the Dashboard. I was grateful to discover it has a conventional Handbrake. I decided my only hope was to RTFM. By Page 50 I'd lost the will to live and I still hadn't got to Driving.
Anyway, having got the measure of it, or so I thought, we decided on a local Test Drive. All went reasonably well initially until I had to stop to make some adjustments. So, I opened the Tailgate - lift up type - did some jiggery-pokery and got back in. On switching on the Display said 'Rear screen open'. Errrr. So, round the back to check. As far as I could tell everything was OK except I couldn't open the Tailgate. Next I tried all the usual things - Off, On, Lock, Unlock, etc, etc, none of which made one iota of difference. We'd just about decided that our only hope was to drive round to the Citroen Garage - SMBO was trapped in the back -when I decided I'd better have a last look at the Manual. On the Page after the Tailgate Instructions it tells you about the 'Rear Screen', which is a little top hinged Window at the top of the Tailgate, and indeed it was open - S**t. Although it doesn't say so in the Manual you apparently can't have the Screen and the Tailgate open at the same time. After that everything went pretty smoothly.

It was wonderful to get back into the Freelander this morning. Foot on Footbrake, Gear Lever in P, Turn Key to start up, select D, let off Handbrake and Drive.

Alan

[pwdrive]

Good to see a measured approach to the problem Alan.

Lawrence.

[AlanBeckett]

Lawrence,

I doubt whether I've scratched the surface of what it's possible to do. As mentioned above somewhere you can display and adjust all sorts of Parameters, but this generally requires a long sequence of presses on the right Buttons to get where you want to go followed by stepping through a Menu then Displaying or setting. Lots of information, provided it's not desperate, is apparently only displayed briefly. I'm glad it hasn't got a built-in SatNav. If they're going to be this complex it might as well come with a 24" LCD and QWERTY Keyboard.

Alan

[Retired]

Hi,

I remember when central locking came in with cars Lawrence and at the time it was very high tech but then again I can remember Ford 100E side valve engines and having to have con rods ground to accept shell bearings to replace the white metal bearings; how quickly things change and even more so these days. Kids seem to talk a different language to me because of all this modern technology; it sure doesn't teach the kids to spell when it comes to text messages? Some of the modern Land Rovers possibly Range Rovers I see remind me of WW2 pill boxes; they appear to have had a heavy weight on their roof squashing the windows?

Very decent of you Colin to waive the hankie drying bill after all Bron and I have recently mourned the loss of a lot of money whilst increasing Curry's profits for this financial quarter; at the moment I too am not jumping up and down with joy with Virgin (What an horrible name for a company Virgin is).

I decided not to brave the garage this afternoon because during dinner the wind has been trying to remove our bungalow roof and attack our remaining trees so the Lorch can wait and it will give my elbow a rest for a change. I did however decide to have a go with our new electronic kit and possibly set up the TV to play free movies and YouTube etc going the wireless route but reading the manual it looks like I need to contact Virgin for an IP address but possibly I can get around this with a bit of web browsing or watching another YouTube video on my computer covering the procedure. Contacting Virgin; now there's a good joke; no phone?

I checked my broadband speed yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to see it now showing 22.03 Mb/s. To make good use of this I downloaded the entire series of "As time goes by" being something like 22GB plus other movies so we have another long series to watch and more movies; I must have downloaded 30GB yesterday which says a great deal about Virgin Media because this was done very easily within a few hours; when Virgin Media is good which I admit it usually is its brilliant. I'm sure Bron and I have a larger selection of good viewing material than the rest of the channels put together? The TV is turned off because of sport as usual. Is it snowing yet up your way Colin because it's a lot cooler down here today than of late?

I bet no one bothers me today whilst I'm being lazy?

Well done Big Al, it's a good job I didn't write the Berlingo manual then or by page 50 you might have got the key in the ignition? Isn't it strange how we can all visit a garage and buy a new car; drive it straight on to the highway without any training when in fact it is a lethal weapon and all the modern attachments only add to the complications? Over 40 years ago I used to drive heavy goods vehicles during my holidays when I could drive on my normal car license in those days just filling in log sheets; One wagon I jumped into I believe was a Seddon 13/4 big mill wagon; as I set off I wondered what the small lever was for as I was getting used to the controls so as I drove along I threw this lever to see smoke being emitted from the rear tyres; well at least I found the hand brake? On one trip I had a chum with me and we visited Grimsby docks to scrounge some fresh cod which we were freely given at a ship unloading its catch. On the way out at the security there was a tiny island onto the road; now this Seddon was a real pig to drive having virtually zero steering lock and try as hard I could the wagon simply couldn't be made to go around this island; there was a policeman watching the maneuvers and he came up to the cab asking if I could drive this thing? It went straight over the island on the next attempt; what a load of rubbish that wagon was? All those years ago and still as vivid a memory as if it happened today whilst I can't many times remember what I did five minutes ago.

Sanity at last; thanks Lawrence now that is my idea of how to use a vehicle.

Kind regards, Col.

[pwdrive]

Alan, well your a better man than I Gunga Din, it seems that all new vehicles are getting very complex these days, I bet the Freelander felt like home when you got back in it.

Lawrence.

[camallison]

Snowing Col? No, it is a balmy 14C, but windy at the moment. Went for our usual Saturday fish & chip lunch on the coast and now about to sleep it off - snooze alert!

Colin

[AlanBeckett]

I bet the Freelander felt like home when you got back in it.

It certainly was.

Col's story reminds me of an ancient Leyland FG Horsebox belonging to a mate. I used to take it down the A38 complete with Horse, Son and SWMBO for Riding lessons. I knew the steering was a bit sloppy 'cause I had to put on a bit of Left Lock when going round cambered RH bands. I was also a bit alarmed at the amount of lean on the Body - it was very solid wood. After a few trips I decided we'd better have a look at what was connecting the Body to the Chassis. The answer was very little. I sawed up a job lot of Steel Angle and made Brackets which we attached. I've still got a couple 'cause I made too many. In time I got one of my own, FG that is. He rang me one Sunday morning and said 'Do you want some spares for your FG?' Well, why don't you have them? He said 'My FG is the spares!' He's been pottering up the M42 in the sunshine, complete with wife and two horses, when a 15 Ton Waggon had hit him up the back - Driver dozed off, so that was the end of it
By the way, they were all OK.

Alan