Mercurio

Nice. Not seen one in that colour before. What is name of colour?

Good episode tonight. Great speech from Mr Unimog's wife. Who could argue with that? Clever move by the officers to put the couple's application for their brownfield site before the other housing applications for the village on the agenda. Not impressed by the Rochdale committee chair stopping the debate on the community centre application because it was getting late and she wanted to go home. I had to do nine planning applications for a project last year. Plenty of fun and games along the way but all approved in the end.

Most bus services in urban areas outside London are operated on a commercial basis without direct subsidy, so reducing bus operating costs is the key to reducing (or being pragmatic) not increasing fares. Back in the 1980s this was done by introducing minibuses which were cheaper to operate and paying people less to drive them. The way to make this work is to get bus operating speeds up by reducing stopping times (for example by rolling out smartcards or mobile ticketing - much quicker than drivers taking cash and giving change) and giving buses priority at traffic signals and congestion hotspots. Many of us are car owners but also public transport users some of the time and making bus services faster and more reliable would make life better for everyone. Where local councils and bus operators are working together on this some impressive results have been achieved.

Showing my age, but I can beat that. When I first started using buses the child single fare in Greater Manchester was 2p. You could go all the way from Stockport to Bolton on the Trans-Lancs Express for that

Bus operators are reimbursed by their local authority for providing free concessionary travel for over 60s and disabled people, but at a much much lower rate per journey than the average adult fare. The principle behind this is that the operator is no better or worse off than they would be without the concessionary travel scheme. So this is a subsidy to the user and not to the operators, who if they are lucky get the same amount of money they would have got from the farebox. There are consultants who make a living out of doing all the number crunching for this. In most places reduced fares for children and students are commercial discounts offered by the operator. A few child concessionary travel schemes still exist in large urban areas.

I couldn't believe even FirstGroup would charge £10+ for a day ticket in Bath. That price is for Bristol and Bath area. Try this instead - 1 Day Off Peak for Bath Zones 1 to 3 £4.20 http://www.firstgroup.com/ukbus/bristol_bath/tickets/bath/firstday.php

My 07 vRS had an aux port in box under central armrest (known as "jumbo box"). This was included in a free option pack offer, but may have been an extra on earlier cars. If you could get hold of a jumbo box with aux I expect this could be retrofitted. Sorry, but can't offer any suggestions about USB.

OEM sat nav on an 06 plate would be Nexus

Ours is the other extreme, fewer spaces than cars most days. The early bird catches a space...

Hello Audrey! Congratulations on your purchase Wayne ...and on a epic thread, 200 posts and counting!

Definitely "Lufbra" when I was there (1982-86)

I had a meeting with a supplier at the end of a busy summer last year, parked my Superb outside their office and without realising, left the boot open. Sat with my contact and overheard someone in outer office saying "there's a BMW outside with the boot open" Eventually realised that they were talking about my car!

Have another look at the first pic you posted From the bit of your aerial I can see that is not covered in snow this looks the same as that fitted as standard to my 12 plate car I can confirm that screen on Columbus is more of a prodscreen than touchscreen, but the SD card slot is a great feature. I've got all my music on one 16Gb card, so no need to bother with cables or bluetooth (although playing music from phone via bluetooth connection works fine with Nexus 4 and with my old HTC Desire). Congratulations on your purchase and enjoy!

I've been trawling through the approved used site - looks like cars with heated windscreen are not easy to find, but not unheard of for specifications to omit full details of all options fitted to car, so always worth checking spec with dealer if you find a car you're interested in. Temperatures down to -12 in Norfolk tonight, so heated screen well worth having as far as I'm concerned! Good luck with your search

The 2.0TSI Elegance was my choice, but this was only introduced in early 2011, so if your budget is still £13k I don't think you'll find one at that price.

All this making me very happy that I went for a VAT free Superb 2.0TSI rather than waiting for the Octavia 3 vRS £3,980 on options to spec an Octy 3 Elegance to get what comes as standard on the Superb - ouch! But the auto dimming rear view mirror comes as standard, so that's all right then

A couple of inches of snow overnight in Norwich but left home at 7.20 to beat the peak traffic and no problems getting into work. Getting home a different story. Brief heavy snowfall early afternoon caused gridlock in city. Left work at 4.30, picked SWMBO up from her work (no buses running) and took just under two hours to complete 4 mile journey home. First time driving in snow with DSG. Much easier than my manual Octavia in stop-start traffic and no problem getting traction from a standing start, even going uphill.

With the S and I in red if its a 2.0 and not a 1.8

I moved from from an Octavia vRS (2.0TFSI) to a Superb Elegance (2.0TSI) in March 2012. The Superb is a big step up in refinement. I've found myself taking the car on trips where I'd previously gone by train because the Superb is just such a nice place to spend time. Its so much quieter inside than the Octavia. I've done some long driving days in both cars and the seats have been fine, but if I had to choose I'd say the Octavia seats were marginally better for overall comfort.

I don't have a pic showing the quad pipes clearly, but there are some pics of my car in these threads in the Superb forum http://www.briskoda....perb-20tsi-dsg/ - see post #28 http://www.briskoda....and-9000-miles/

As the owner of a Superb 2.0TSI I can confirm that Leon-y-k is right about the quad pipes

We had a few interesting moments, but overall it went really well with some great feedback from our client and customers. It was a real team effort and very satisfying to play a part in it. We were hoping the sport would make the headlines and not what we were doing. All those GB gold medals might have helped a bit!

While I'm on here I thought I'd do a quick winter update. I'm now up to 11,000 trouble free miles in just short of 10 months. With the cold weather here we are loving the heated seats - the one thing I missed from the Honda Accord SE Exec that came before the Octavia. I'm also happy that I specced the heated windscreen. The Superb doesn't suffer from the condensation on the inside of the windscreen on cold mornings that I had on the Octavia, but we've had a few frosty mornings recently and having a completely clear screen in seconds rather than minutes is great when I'm cutting it fine to make the London train.

Thanks for the update on the Octavia Neil. Good to know that it has served you well. I've seen your styling and car care thread and she is looking great. Also reminded me that the Superb is now badly in need of some similar TLC. It has been a mad year with little time for car cleaning, but after spending most of the summer in London I'm now back in Norfolk and looking for a new project, so no weekends to work for a while and no excuses left!

This is desperately sad, but to accuse the hospital management of corporate manslaughter based on what we know is way out of line