Lady Elanore

Hopefully they can fix things, as I will require a car for around 7 weeks soon and won't be able to swap back into my car if they sort it during this timeframe I won't tell them that of course, just ring them up and explain that they need to open up around midnight and I can do the swap back at some point

My PHEV went in for a routine service and a software update to do with the battery and general energy use. Because of a DVLA web crash today, I couldn't get my driving licence code for a loan car, so the dealer dropped me off at home instead. It crashed (electronically) during the update and now the car won't start, apparently. The Dealer sounds a little worried and the car is staying with them overnight. Great! Luckily, I have a dinosnore ICE car that will get me about. Almost all my colleagues and friends who have EVs and PHEVs seem to have had a similar problem with their cars having an overnight stay in relation to software updates. The most recent of which was a friend with a Porsche Taycan (although he got a Panamera for a loan car).

I gave up on photobucket and moved to Flickr. I even pay for membership as I don't want the site to go full advertising or collapse. Photobucket just became a pain for my needs sadly

This just published in Autocar https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/hidden-skodas-unlocking-brands-secret-museum-room

Wow, there are some very nice cars there. Incredible how many different cars are there and that none of them are the BMW M135i

That's not necessarily an analogy that I can fully realise I seem to recall selling an F150 lightning and I think the rating on the bed was only roughly 1/2 ton! I remember thinking there were countless small Japanese pickups with significantly more load capacity than that. Mind you, they didn't have 380BHP and 450lb/ft of torxxx all going through a live axel. It was the main selling point as I seem to remember....oh, and that noise £20k got you a nearly new low mileage one in those days Sorry, exactly off-topic. Now where were we with men's bits?

It's only just over an inch longer, too! Mind you it only has 2 seats and is slightly lower, which isn't the best use of space, perhaps. But boy, the mini seriously needs to go on a diet. Can you "fat shame" a car?

My Jag, which is a pretty wide car, or so I thought, is 'only' 2042mm inc mirrors. It's not as wide as a Mini !!!!!!!!!!!!

The facilities that I described, have seemingly t'd off from the incoming feed to the water park. I certainly didn't see any tree trunk cables being laid during installation, so the cost of the installation wouldn't be that great, all things considered. The chargers themselves may be expensive, but apart from safety checks, they have virtually no moving parts and should be built to last a reasonable while, certainly I expect them to last longer than a petrol pump before needing maintenance. The 'fuel' itself has no transportation cost, is totally on demand (no storage fees) and the car parking at the water park has always been free. My take is a lot of people are seeing the whole EV thing as an opportunity to make easy money and as we are being asked to go electric to save the planet, being screwed financially by big companies to do so, appears to be extraordinarily cynical. Hopefully the next government will do something about it (Disclaimer: regardless who that government is)

I have a car that can easily get me to my destination for the walk without using dinosaur juice and with a couple of hours charge can easily get back again. Not using the evil petrol even once. Just because it has a 12kW battery doesn't make it none-EV if I choose that as its mode of drive. The infrastructure is pants and the prices are atrocious. Why have charge points if it is going to cost nearly 3 times the average cost of electricity in your house, and that's just the standard consumer rate, not the eco rates available through the night. I'll probably take my 575PS V8 to the water park as it has a huge tank and doesn't need a top-up to get there and back. It is also more fun to drive. I tried embracing partial electric travel, but the industry doesn't want me. Suits me, I'll stick to ICE more than happily. Shame they wasted a huge amount of money fitting all the unused charge points really

Mr May makes a good and balanced point or two

I went for a longish walk today and could have left the car to charge at the relatively plentiful charge points at the car park. If I wasn't to casually charge, it would be over 80p/kW!! Or sign up and save a few pence. That explains why most of the chargers are always empty. Dread to think how much it cost to install them all. The more time goes on, the more I am becoming anti-EVs. It's not any one individual EV, but the whole ethos around them. Overpriced, underserviced, too compromised, falling residuals (in free fall for some marques). Second-hand cars needing battery replacement and that will come one day, will write the cars off. I also hate the minimalist interiors and in many cases horrifically dull styling. At least make an effort, guys. I realise that some EVs are very stylish, the Taycan Cross is stunning, as is the Audi E Tron, but there are a little pricey when new!

Mate's Taycan with long range battery struggles to get much past 200 miles in the real world during winter. If he takes advantage of the 10-80% quick charge figures (beyond that is always slower as charging rates are seriously reduced as the battery gains charge) he wouldn't even get 200 miles. I simply can't begin to look at EVs until they have better range. I won't even be looking at PHEVs unless I get a deal of the century on one. £560 road tax for a vehicle that I can run on pure electric around town, isn't giving me any incentive to stick with PHEV either.

I do love an Alpine. Probably my favourite colour too

A little OT but I always set alarms and timers to the nearest 5 mins Occasionally I challenge myself and set an 'odd' number. Back on topic, my hybriddiddy has a screen control for the temp and the Jag has big knobs. Guess which I prefer (no smutt please...you know who you are! )

I like this article too. It's about cars should have some buttons etc, at least if you want a full 5 star NCAP rating EVs seem to be leading the move away from the more traditional button, knob and stalk controls that I love and expect, so hopefully this will at least check their ambitions. Is it just me, or does anyone else like to fiddle with their heater controls? https://www.autocar.co.uk/opinion/new-cars/finally-new-safety-rules-recognise-buttons-beat-touchscreens

I've not forgotten them, I just like V8,s V10s and V12s better

One day I will collect all my useless cables, adapter and such like... and put them in an enormous bin bag and sling them all.

I like the sound of this, although obviously not as much as I like the sound of a V8 (or V10, V12, Flat 6, straight 6.....) Disclaimer: there is no sound in the below article https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/british-firm-launches-shelf-hydrogen-fcev-powertrain

Ah, an absolute classic. Pin 8 was the annoying one I seem to recall, it did the voltage change that caused the telly to go widescreen or not Now I look at multi pin connectors and scream at them to get on with each other and do a ruddy handshake!!

Ooh, your telly has a lot of connection possibilities, however it does not appear to support 'ARC'. If I remember correctly, ARC came along with a spec called HDMI 1.4 and that would be around the time your telly was made by the sound of it. The good news is it has an optical link and it looks like the popular Toslink, so a Sonos soundbar or similar should work well. You might have to remember to turn the tv sound down separately otherwise you will have the soundbar and the telly both outputting sound simultaneously and that can lead to a degradation of the overall effect you are after. The Sonos systems sound great too. There are other great soundbars too of course, but I would look at the one I posted earlier as a base level to judge others by.

A fairly rough guide to the connection types If you are looking at Optical connectors, they are often referred to as"Toslink" and the connectors are really cheap. You should take care when plugging them up, as they are slightly more fragile than a traditional connector (but not too much). They also have a fairly obvious symmetry to them ensuring they plug up in the correct way, they aren't cylindrical like a 'normal' jack plug. HDMI is the connector that we use for things like BluRays/DVD players etc but many years ago some clever engineers figured that as the cable carries both video and audio, it can be used as an audio only cable. This is where "ARC" comes in. It stands for "Audio Return Channel" and carries not just bog-standard sound, but also things like Dolby Digital 5.1 and other stuff. The other stuff can include switching things on and off remotely and other clever things. In recent times the standard has become "eARC" (not relevant on a 15 year old telly as it won't have it), but this adds the latest digital sound encoding stuff like Dolby Atmos and audio sync things. An old telly may not even have "ARC" capability anyway, but it's interesting to know a little about these things, I think. In terms of connecting things in the future, Optical will probably die out eventually, as ARC/eARC over HDMI is superior. The irony is in Broadcasting Sound, Optical cable has become the norm over traditional copper cables Ah for the good old days when I understood more stuff

Take a photo of the back of the telly and show us the connectors. 'ARC' is super easy and often the recommended way to use soundbars. Plug goes into telly's 'ARC HDMI' and put the other end into the soundbar. You might need to go to the telly menu to make sure everything is good for switching stuff on and off simultaneously (ie one button puts telly and soundbar into standby together, but YouTube can give you confidence for this and you might have to check menu anyway for Digital optic to ensure the right formatting for the device and also make sure the telly sound is turned off as otherwise you will have the telly sound and the soundbar sound competing with each other and not necessarily quite in sync with each other (a technical glitch that this technology can throw up occasionally). Google 'best soundbars for speech' and you will get many recommendations of soundbars with speech enhancement circuitry. I bought a Roku Soundbar for travelling, as it is not only a small, but has all the apps you need for Netflix, Prime, Disney, Apple etc if you stream stuff. It also has a speech enhancement setting that works pretty well as I showed to my father. Not expensive by the general pricing of soundbars, either, especially as it's a streaming stick built into a soundbar (which is quite a neat idea to my thinking). https://www.amazon.co.uk/Roku-Streambar-HDR-Streaming-Player-Soundbar-Black/dp/B08JTTPHJ4 A review... https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/roku-streambar If you feel you have to go 'Optical' the baby Sonos soundbar is generally thoroughly recommended. It's also quite small and has good speech clarity. It's twice the price of the Roku, but it will sound better and is still relatively cheap for a soundbar. https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/sonos-ray It really is a simple process which eve r route you take, and should require plugging up one cable and possibly a very quick check of the telly menu to ensure everything runs smoothly. Google is a big help if you need a confidence booster to add a soundbar

Can't give advice on parking, but can recommend you go to Trenchers at Spanish City for great fish and chips in a unique building (beef dripping goodness too). Also, I can recommend Valerie's Tearoom, especially if you like a big 'afternoon tea'. They do one styled for ladies and one for gentlemen. The gentlemen one used to have things like horseradish in the sandwiches, as that is very manly

I would recommend a soundbar as many have a built-in speech enhancement facility. Mostly it's a presence lift in the frequency spectrum, but it works surprisingly well and my father who is a bit hard of hearing finds it useful. Also, many soundbars have phono inputs, 3.5mm inputs, optical inputs and can use a thing called "ARC". This is an HDMI connect that plugs to your telly and is labelled as such. Normally HDMI sockets are there for you to plug stuff into, but the HDMI ARC socket can also put out audio and connect to things like Soundbars and feed them the correct type of sound, stereo, 5.1, Dolby Atmos (if your telly is the newer type and has eARC HDMI). But it is the easiest way to connect the sound bar and it also means the telly should select the sound bar when you switch it on as well as everything going into standby at the same time with one remote. If you take a picture or two of the back of your telly, we can see what connectors it has available. ARC HDMI is a great way for full optimisation without you having to do much Have a Google for "Soundbars that are great for speech"