Bell's Banter 2021

[justracing]

Originally Posted by delta

Alan Morgan and myself went to the RAC awards last night in Pall Mall.We "Historic FF2000 " had been short listed to receive an award for best series 2021.

Since retiring a couple of years back I've had the time to follow my motorsport passion and the FF2000 racing has been superb with the HSCC, good grids competitive close racing and thoroughly entertaining. Well done you guys but I'm none too sure about the Bond nomination

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by delta

Alan Morgan and myself went to the RAC awards last night in Pall Mall.We "Historic FF2000 " had been short listed to receive an award for best series 2021. Well, we did not win but Alan tells me he has had Pinewood Studios on the phone as they are still looking for a new James Bond Actor.

Attachment 72369

Excellent and well deserved recognition.

[Gerard C]

Son of a gun, James Bond, Alan and Iain, you both look great! Hollywood smile! Cant believe you dropped your spanners for a while…

[bauble]

Originally Posted by Gerard C

Son of a gun, James Bond, Alan and Iain, you both look great! Hollywood smile! Cant believe you dropped your spanners for a while…

Hard to believe they cycled there!

[Lancsbreaker]

"Do I expect you to talk, messrs Rowley and Morgan? No I expect you to ......
DRIVE ! "

[Gerard C]

Originally Posted by bauble

Hard to believe they cycled there!

There's a link between what you call bow tie which is said butterfly knot here (noeud papillon), they hold Aston and bicylce wheels. Honest, our Bond boys look Q like cute!

[GORDON STREETER]

I notice that that the picture is not showing any hands ! Just like my wedding pictures where the photographer asked me to hold Sue's hand in a close up two days after taking my motocross bike engine to pieces

[Gerard C]

Seems official photographers cant appreciate black nail polish! Is it your case Bob?

[E.B]

Originally Posted by GORDON STREETER

I notice that that the picture is not showing any hands ! Just like my wedding pictures where the photographer asked me to hold Sue's hand in a close up two days after taking my motocross bike engine to pieces

Gordon, im surprised you let Sue take your motocross engine to pieces. No end to the good lady's skills!

Alan and Iain, great stuff to get the nomination and well deserved.

[Lancsbreaker]

Sad news about Sir Frank Williams' demise.....

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by E.B

Gordon, im surprised you let Sue take your motocross engine to pieces. No end to the good lady's skills!

Funny thing is that it never went properly after she took it to bits, perhaps its
because she only used a pair of mole grips !

[delta]

Just for Gordon. Note Middle finger very bent. This was due to me putting into generator cooling fan around two in the morning. When I was building the Modsports GT6 I did not have electric in the lock up. I would put the generator in garage next door but that night it vibrated around as as i fumbled for the on/off switch I then stuck the finger in the fan. Top of finger hanging off I drove to hospital and had it stuck back on.Not so happy days as I remember thinking "I am not too sure on this motor racing idea ". Still good story now some 50 years later.

[terence]

Not so good for rude gestures is it.

[Gerard C]

Originally Posted by terence

Not so good for rude gestures is it.

He's been lucky not to go out for a pee…

[Mike Harte]

I hope that I am not the only one who has been struck sometimes about the thinking that goes behind companies' adverts, and whether the execs in charge ever consider what message they may be promoting?

Honda are currently running ads on the radio for their cars with the final tag-line "The power of dreams". It immediately occurred to me how crass that message is, especially for the thousands of their loyal workers who have only recently been given the boot when they decided to close their plant, one of the most productive that they had, in Swindon.

How about all those employees whose dreams were smashed? As well as all the other workers who provided goods and services for the plant, and all the workers who provided goods and services to them and so on?

[John Elwin]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

I hope that I am not the only one who has been struck sometimes about the thinking that goes behind companies' adverts, and whether the execs in charge ever consider what message they may be promoting?

Honda are currently running ads on the radio for their cars with the final tag-line "The power of dreams". It immediately occurred to me how crass that message is, especially for the thousands of their loyal workers who have only recently been given the boot when they decided to close their plant, one of the most productive that they had, in Swindon.

How about all those employees whose dreams were smashed? As well as all the other workers who provided goods and services for the plant, and all the workers who provided goods and services to them and so on?

I would think Honda might have been dreaming about actually selling some cars! Bit of a rare site these days, certainly in this part of the world.

[grantp]

Originally Posted by John Elwin

I would think Honda might have been dreaming about actually selling some cars! Bit of a rare site these days, certainly in this part of the world.

I think that was the problem John.

With Swindon producing mostly European spec cars, that were of dubious design appeal for the market, plus the R-Types which have been legislated out of the market by emissions regulations, there was little point in having the plant open. I seem to recall that Honda have even pulled back on some operations in China pending expansion of Electric manufacturing.

With so much aggregation going via mergers and partnerships consumer choices will soon be greatly restricted once again. That probably won't matter that much to the coming generations.

Why?

Well, in parallel tale ow woe, our microwave packed up at the weekend. I suspect a dodgy microswitch as the final nail but the touch-control panel has been failing for some months. It's no more than 2 years old. The previous one lasted about 18 months. Same model. "Sharp" (by branding at least) and they used to be rather good.

Looking at possible replacements in the cheap end of the market there are several well-known brand names attached to what appear to be the same products, some with almost no differences in design, some with minor differences some looking quite different with dials and stuff but I rather suspect that all of them have the same component supplier(s) so will likely suffer the same failings. So, in effect, one will end up changing anything one buys every year or two - in reality renting the facility rather than owning it.

It's much the same for cars these days and for new vehicles, manufacturers seem keen to encourage such a market transition.

My guess is that eventually "the deal" will be more important than the vehicle and its specifications. Not much volume market space left for interesting outliers like Honda. They may need to amalgamate with others.

We should know in the next few years.

[John Elwin]

Originally Posted by grantp

I think that was the problem John.

With Swindon producing mostly European spec cars, that were of dubious design appeal for the market, plus the R-Types which have been legislated out of the market by emissions regulations, there was little point in having the plant open. I seem to recall that Honda have even pulled back on some operations in China pending expansion of Electric manufacturing.

With so much aggregation going via mergers and partnerships consumer choices will soon be greatly restricted once again. That probably won't matter that much to the coming generations.

Why?

Well, in parallel tale ow woe, our microwave packed up at the weekend. I suspect a dodgy microswitch as the final nail but the touch-control panel has been failing for some months. It's no more than 2 years old. The previous one lasted about 18 months. Same model. "Sharp" (by branding at least) and they used to be rather good.

Looking at possible replacements in the cheap end of the market there are several well-known brand names attached to what appear to be the same products, some with almost no differences in design, some with minor differences some looking quite different with dials and stuff but I rather suspect that all of them have the same component supplier(s) so will likely suffer the same failings. So, in effect, one will end up changing anything one buys every year or two - in reality renting the facility rather than owning it.

It's much the same for cars these days and for new vehicles, manufacturers seem keen to encourage such a market transition.

My guess is that eventually "the deal" will be more important than the vehicle and its specifications. Not much volume market space left for interesting outliers like Honda. They may need to amalgamate with others.

We should know in the next few years.

Re your microwave problem, I don't know how widespread they are but in a couple of places locally we have shops called 'The Repair Cafe'. I think in the main they are staffed by retired or unemployed people who have a skill & you take your broken microwave, TV, whatever to be fixed whilst you have a coffee.

My partner's father is the go-to man in the family for fixing things but occasionally even he is defeated so goes off to The Repair Cafe. He is fascinated to see how things work & could happily sit there all day watching & learning. He will be 91 next week...

[grantp]

Originally Posted by John Elwin

Re your microwave problem, I don't know how widespread they are but in a couple of places locally we have shops called 'The Repair Cafe'. I think in the main they are staffed by retired or unemployed people who have a skill & you take your broken microwave, TV, whatever to be fixed whilst you have a coffee.

My partner's father is the go-to man in the family for fixing things but occasionally even he is defeated so goes off to The Repair Cafe. He is fascinated to see how things work & could happily sit there all day watching & learning. He will be 91 next week...

Not sure we have any such thing around here. If we did there would probably be a TV program based on it!

The thing is the first one, after a few small and annoying feature drop-offs related to the touchpanel, blew the main component with a loud bang and a little smoke and tripped the entire ring main on the consumer unit. Not sure it would be possible to get the parts for that.

The second one has been repeating trick with the touch panel and then just stopped working. I suspected one of the 3 microswitches on the door as I could sort of get it to power up the fan and the interior light by playing with the lower door switch. Seemed odd to be able to do that.

When, with the cover off, I activated the middle door activated switch by itself it blew the fuse on the mains-in control board.

I think I could get a fuse ... not sure any other parts are available for £60 microwaves. And in any case, as the touch control panels seem to start to fail after about 6 months would there be any point in fitting a new one?

I like the idea of a local fix-it cafe though. So I'll investigate, if only out of interest.

Online reviews seem to suggest that at least 10% of reviewers have had the same experiences. It may be more as few people would bother to return to add a review after a year or so of use.

Might try a local auction house to see if I can get a job lot and make one good one from them with a few spare parts on the side!

[Gerard C]

Originally Posted by grantp

Not sure we have any such thing around here. If we did there would probably be a TV program based on it!/
I like the idea of a local fix-it cafe though. So I'll investigate, if only out of interest.
Might try a local auction house to see if I can get a job lot and make one good one from them with a few spare parts on the side!

Brilliant idea that fix-it cafe. We have so few here, mainly run by retired or re-tired men. Find the part for your microwave will be the same quest we know with classic cars, if a part is prone to go on hundreds of cars/microwaves its either someone makes it or you wont find a proper one.



John, its a good kick to "notre société d'ultra consommation qui ne repare pas"! Dont throw it, fix it!

[Gerard C]

Not worth for the dedicated thread imo, but…
Le Tour Auto, rallye by Peter Auto, will start on 25 Ap at Paris finishing at Andorre la Vieille 30 Ap. Tracks are Bugatti, Val de Vienne and Nogaro.
Et voila.

[grantp]

Originally Posted by Gerard C

Brilliant idea that fix-it cafe. We have so few here, mainly run by retired or re-tired men. Find the part for your microwave will be the same quest we know with classic cars, if a part is prone to go on hundreds of cars/microwaves its either someone makes it or you wont find a proper one.
!

The manufacturers have zero interest in making already produced product "fixable" beyond whatever warranty they offer. Even that assumes that a total replacement of the item would be significantly more costly to the profit line than making and carrying stock of spare parts. Most likely it would not.

[Gerard C]

Le Salon Retromobile se tiendra du 2 au 6 Fevrier, porte de Versailles a Paris. Billet acheté sur le site €20, sur place € 24. Nocturnes till 10 PM, mercredi 2 et vendredi 4. Je trouvais que l'entree a € 15 était chère, donc a 24 e sera sans moi. Et voila, c'est fait aussi.

[E.B]

Nothing to do with historic racing, but some news that will no doubt excite a certain Frenchman here..... a Peugeot has won at Bathurst today and it did so from Pole.
Not the main Supercars race obviously, that is not until Sunday, but it has won the first of the TCR support races.
Fortunately normality has now resumed as the Historic Touring Car Masters are now on track for one of their races.

[zefarelly]

A Pug in the Bath(urst) who'd have thunk it

need to try and work out how to watch over here, we used to get v8 supercars on TV all the time but it disappeared a few years back along with motors TV.