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Being told how "lucky" I am to own my own home. And that same person taking offence when I suggested my "luck" was down to years of make-do-and-mend and taking on evening and weekend work in addition to a full-time job in order to pay the mortgage.

Through a glass (very) darkly ...

Having a lovely home cooked Sunday roast dinner with my wife (with a bottle of wine) to celebrate having paid off our mortgage this week, 6 years early. Plus having it seemed, finally sorted a rattle in my Seat Ateca that has been driving me mad for months 🙂

And with that.....

More than meets the eye ... PG [suggestive]

Ah. This is a subject very close to my heart. I had a similar experience 2-3 years ago. Hit what I thought was a pothole in the dark. Turned out when I doubled back and waited for daylight to arrive a very short time afterwards (after having swapped out the offending wheel for the spare), that it was a sunken manhole cover I'd hit. I parked up and took several pictures of the street location, GPS coordinates, road layout, offending manhole etc, plus the physical damage to 1 wrecked tyre, and mangled alloy wheel... I then tracked down the council responsible for that stretch of highway. Went on their Website and filled in an on-line vehicle damage claims form, detailing my incident and the indicated cost of repairs in the form of quotes. ( In my case 1 x knackered tyre, 1 x mangled Alloy, new wishbone, suspension alignment, and labour charges. What I received back from the council was a dismissive, (default) email quoting chapter & verse, the Highways act Section xyz and how they maintain their section of the public highway. I decided to dig my heels in out of principle and submitted a freedom of information request relating to when the offending manhole was last inspected AND for details of any other pothole claims made for that same manhole cover on that particular day.... Their 2nd response? Very different.. This time they pointed out that they would agree to pay my costs in this instance, but that this was in no way and admission of negligence on their part for the upkeep of the highway.... Now there's a thing... Sometimes perseverance and bloody mindedness does pay off. Just be prepared to dig your heels in. I hope this long, and maybe boring message helps someone else 😊

Squirrel watching the above

A little spoiler....

Count binface's bid for mayor

whatever about the discussion following the post with the video... that clown could see from plenty far away the engine indicating and turning the corner long before he was at the junction. he created that situation for online clout and point scoring. he, in this situation, is 100% the dingleberry. besides the point that im sure the "cyclists have priority" has a blue light services exception writen into the rule? "sorry your house burned down and your nan passed away, we got held up at a junction by a load of cyclist who had right of way over us" wouldnt really be acceptable to anyone would it?

It always angers me to see the difference between a service and an extended scope service! For the nearly £100 price difference you get the following…. Wheels removed and brakes checked - I mean this is one of the first things that should be done on any vehicle a mechanic will be driving even if it’s not in for a service… it takes all of 2 minutes (without having to remove the wheels) Check/adjust drive belts - I’d love to find a Skoda tech and ask to see their drive belt tension checking tool - and adjustable tensioners haven’t been on vag cars for the last 25 years almost. Check/replenish manual gear oil - seen as most cars are dsg this is fairly moot and even then will very likely be a cursory glance at the gearbox for any leaks and a box tick. Seen as gearbox oil doesn’t just disappear either, offering to replenish it is all well and good when you’ve got a leak that needs fixing. check of final drive oil - will most likely be exactly the same as above and not include the haldex coupling which is arguably more prone to failure check suspension system - again, a glance at the underside which should be part of even the most basic service and if you’re lucky (and hopeful) a little pull, push and wobble to check for worn out suspension parts. check heating/air con - I very much doubt this is a full air con check involving pressure/weight testing or such (as they charge extra for this is a separate ‘aircon service’) and checking the operation of the heating again is a very basic check that should be part of every service lubricate door mechanisms - a lovely spray of white grease that within a few weeks will be blasted completely in dirt, but it is a visual to the customer that ‘we have done stuff to your car’ when in reality it doesn’t do much bar make a mess (except the bonnet latch which is fair to grease) that’s my rant over…. In a nutshell the ‘extended scope’ is the bare minimum that should be done on any service and charging £100 on top for it is an absolute con. in my opinion - a service should include all checks no matter what level and an oil and filter change. After this the additional service parts required either through time/mileage/request/dirty should be charged accordingly. That way you know a full check has been done and you know exactly what parts have been changed on your car.

Ee, when I were t'lad ...

No, with the specific original file. I will post the link. I don't know if it is OK by the forum rules. If it isn't please tell me to delete it immediately. Update size is almost 10Gb MIB3OI_1969.txt

Usually the butt of a joke where there is a male and a female is 'on' the female (stereotypes of "the wife is always right" "leaving her for something better", "constant nagging/worrying" etc etc, so this one is quite refreshing 😛 )

We had the grandkids today, while my Son and his Wife were both at work. My youngest granddaughter is 21 months old. She has found the on/off switch for this demonic creature from hell (it might actually be extra terrestrial, coz as we all know, in space, no one can hear you quack): The orange button at the top activates it. It then rolls around the floor doing a little jingle. After the orange button has been pressed for the 6,476,829th time it gets a bit tedious. Some cretin/demon has sprinkled it with the never ending power supply dust. After the 7,132,846th activation I started to twitch, and I could feel brain cells melting and others throwing themselves off my inner ear bones. Shortly after, I developed an overwhelming desire to kill it 🔥 At one point, Nanny (Mrs Gaz) said not to put it on a kitchen worktop in case it fell into a bowl off water. Hmmm, methought..... drowning seems like a topical way to go..... I have my suspicions it might be hard to kill. As in like a T800 level of hard to kill 🔫 If you hate your kids, buy their kids one of these infernal little monsters. Don't let them leave it at yours though - save yourselves!!! 😱 Grandkids have just left. Me, I'm off to see what alcohol I've got in't cupboard 🥃 G

Being told I should wait until the clocks go forward before planting my tomato seeds as this would give the seedlings an extra hour of daylight.

I thought it would be useful to create this separate topic and collate information as now Infotainment Software Version 1969 is out in the wild I imagine user interest will increase. All credit to those who posted information in other threads - I hopefully have credited you all where necessary. Feel free to comment on your own experiences and observations. Despite saying I was going to wait for this update to come OTA, based on the principle of “If it ain’t broken….” I bit the bullet and applied the 1969 update manually this morning (I'm a sucker for an update). All went very smoothly and took around 20 minutes. Seems an obvious point but to put your car in ignition mode, which you need to do to apply the update, just press the Start Stop button on its own, without depressing the Clutch / Brake which you would do if you were starting the engine I also switched off the climate control before proceeding although I imagine the Update process would disable its functioning anyway. I followed a previous guide for version 1941 by @TheWanderer which was invaluable. I highly recommend watching the YouTube video in the instructions as you are updating as it is a useful reference of the stages your system is going through. I have copied and pasted his guide below but it’s not my work, full credit to @TheWanderer for this: Create a temporary folder on your PC or Tablet for example MIB3 UG. Then find the zip file and then right click on it or press and hold on it, so the menu appears and it should offer you the opportunity to Extract here or elsewhere, tell it to extract the files to MIB3 UG folder and let it get on with it. When it has finished, format a usb memory stick so it's completely empty, then go to the folder MIB3 UG open it and copy the 2 folders and other file directly onto the memory stick. When it has finished copying the files to the memory stick it should look something like this... THERE MUST BE NO OTHER FILES THAN THIS. Once your memory stick looks like this, remove it and take it to the car. Insert it into a USB port, press and hold the menu button for about 10 seconds and the update menu will appear. At this point it's vital that you have a full or very well charged car battery or a battery charger attached so that the car doesn't shutdown halfway through the process. Ignition needs to be ON, the Engine needs to be OFF (NOT RUNNING)! DO NOT START IT DURING THE PROCESS. Here's a video that shows you what to do, albeit in German, you'll get the English version! If you watch it carefully you'll get the gist of what to do. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES MUST THE PROCESS BE STOPPED ONCE IT HAS STARTED OTHERWISE YOU'LL MORE THAN LIKELY NEED A NEW INFOTAINMENT SYSTEM. Notes. After it has finished updating the system, give it a couple of minutes to ensure that all is well and like it shows on video press resume an wait for about 90s or so and the system will restart just, like in the video. DO NOT START THE CAR UNTIL THE SYSTEM HAS RESTARTED After the update the built-in manual is unlikely to be available for about 48hrs, it does come back! You will more than likely receive another OTA update, it's OK to accept it. Ultimately if you are at all worried about doing it, take it to a VW Independent or Skoda dealer and ask them to do it for you Once it has been updated, there should be no more random restarts or crashes on the infotainment system, the pop pop issue should be gone too.. https://youtu.be/4AsSbGd3caU

Spring is here

Travelling Africa with an EV ...

7825008-6bbd8c4de1c03dc60020bc43642ddf30.mp4

Any landing you can walk away from...

Spent a little time over the past couple of days watching the Post Office inquiry. Alan Bates there yesterday (what an eloquent man he is) and Lord Arbuthnot today and they’re going through correspondence they had with various PO officials, Government departments all of whom whitewashed over the issue, denied there were any problems with Horizon. And the blatant lies “we offered Mr Bates more training” which he denied, reference being made to meetings that never ever happened 😱 🤬🤬 outrageous how all those poor postmasters were, and indeed still are, being treated. There’s some heads at the top that need to roll but unlikely that’ll ever happen.

adult humour..

This speaks for itself, but it is rude!

I've been using web forums and predecessors since 1995. Nowhere is perfect but this is one of the tamest forums (forii?) around. You won't always get an answer to a query and you won't always get a gushingly friendly response to everything. I've not owned a Skoda for 10yr but still hang around here like a bad smell.

Welcome to Daventry; pothole city ... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-68666426 IMO an important topic amusingly presented.

I like the general borrax of the posts, but it still leaves me an overriding sadness that this stuff is happening and it's going to get more difficult to detect. Perhaps it already has. On a happier note

Seeing as it's late on Friday evening, here are some topless chicks to entertain ... PG [partial nudity]

Exploring ancient history ...

Which suggests the majority of cyclists are not human 😉