Lady Elanore

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

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"

So, it turns out that if you remove fuse 15 the car is a little bit more throaty https://flic.kr/p/2pztgsg

Primacys, yes, that the evil little rubberbands. They sell these things as saving a fair bit of mpg saving over a standard tyre, but neglect to tell you that the tyre itself contributes relatively little to the cars overall mpg figure, hence a moderate saving in tyre derived mpg figures, is bugger all in overall mpg terms.

I should say, I worry that my 3008 PHEV won't ever wear it tyres out. They are bloody awful. The economy saving with these 'Eco' tyres is minimum, but the reduction in grip and enjoyment from them is immense 😞

My M4 did like to wear down its rear tyres a little, but I did a fair bit of motorway driving in it, so it helped to reduce the wear rate out overall. Plus the car had nearly 50/50 weight balance and that probably helped wear the tyres out at roughly the same rate, well obviously the rears went first). My M3 which was 4x4 was wearing its tyres out pretty slowly to be honest. That was a heavy car with a decent dollop of power/torque, so I assume it fed power around the 4 tyres relatively evenly in normal circumstances and it also had the 50/50 weight distribution thing to help. Come to think of it, I used to get through front tyres on cars like my old Strada 130TC Abarth well within 12,000 miles. Which, when you consider the car only had 130bhp and weighed about the same as a packet of Rich Tea biscuits, is interesting. When I look back, FWD cars seem to chew through tyres (at least the fronts) at the fastest rate, RWD was better overall and the 4x4s were probably the best. A lot of those cars had moderately performance related tyres too (P6 Pirelli's on the Strada) and at least 6 of my 4x4s were of a permanent type (Scooby's, proper Quattro etc), rather than a Haldex/FWD type, so that may well have helped??

A colleague of mine bought a Taycan as it was 2 years old and had suffered huge deprecation. As long as he keeps it for several years I'm sure he will be OK, although one day, a new battery (fitted) is going to cost him or someone, £50,000 according to Porsche. I think he is already beginning to wince at the insurance and reduced range in the cold weather. It is a lot of car for the money, the interior is stunning, but he might be caught in a bit of a trap now.

Harry's latest video is interesting. He mentions that the dealers don't want second-hand EVs as they interfere with them shifting and hitting their targets of selling new EVs. It's a video explaining why he has gone back to diesel, but it isn't a slagging off of EVs as a car (he embraces tech), but more the complications and issues of the whole EV scene. It's a little bit of an eye-opener.

The XJ has been a timeless masterpiece in design. Possibly the most beautifully proportioned and styled saloon of all time (imho of course)

Mmmmm Jaaaaag

Bit of a special episode this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rXTGHaHamM

I've hired the Canon 300mm F2.8 II from Calumet and it's a great deal. Pick the lens up on Friday and return it Monday morning, total cost including insurance that Calumet sort is around £60 (not hired for a couple of years so it may have gone up a little). Still great value for 2.5 days on a lens that cost around £6k when new

Is that the Sigma? I had an early Tamron version of that length (150-600mm), but sold it in the end as it was a bit too much for me. I don't do birds or wildlife. Bet you will have a lot of fun with it I feel moon photos (the lunar type) coming very shortly

I wanna be in the gang 😞

Not me, honest It feels funny really, we were once part of that 'cabal', but now we're so much on the outside looking in, it hits me every now and then, how isolated we are.

I see that two of the 11 partners are BMW and Audi, who probably know a lot about the batteries they use and probably don't need a passport at all. Makes me think they are trying to put a differentiator into worldwide Battery production and possibly have more say when none EU EVs are imported.

I was thinking that I may buy a (for sake of argument) Chinese car and it may have some sort of specification deviation from the norm, so if the EU are keeping tabs on cars build and quality of components, they may also have a minimum spec for those car's batteries and I could fall foul of their regs if I took a car abroad. Perhaps I'm jumping a couple of stages ahead of the Passport's intent, but I'm suspicious of things like this, as I can see it as a way for import duties etc, to go up on cars (probably from China) into the EU. The next step would be a surcharge to take your vehicle into the EU if it didn't meet EU regs. We might adopt a very subtly different spec on UK cars and then fall foul of EU requirements? I agree, I should have stated all that paranoia in the previous post.

This is interesting. It won't affect me as I've taken the step to stop working abroad (it's too much hassle wince 'B' day - not the toilet support system thingy), so it's likely that even if I go full electric one day, I would hire abroad anyway, or better still, hire a big V8 https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/electric-cars/battery-passports

We don't have any of that naff sunny weather here, it's good old British weather or nothing for us diehards.

I don't know why you don't move back to the UK with all that never-ending rubbish weather you get down there.

Found this in the Westmorland gazette Finally, two Panda 4x4s set out from Kathmandu to drive through the Himalayas to the Mount Everest advance base camp, sited at an altitude of 5,200 metres. This was the first time that a small off-road vehicle achieved this goal, a feat made all the more remarkable by the absence of any modification to the standard Panda 4x4, except minor engine control unit adaptations appropriate for the quality of local fuel.

The car might have had a mod to run on low quality fuel (I remember that being an issue) but I doubt they could do much else apart from beef up the underside and equip the car with sensible editions for an expedition. It's a very basic car I've driven the original and it is genuinely surprising off-road. There is no centre diff, so it's 4wd can only be engaged on truly loose surface, much like an old school off-roader. Brilliant (and light), little car.