The dream is over.

Well, I say ‘dream’, but I mean unholy nightmare of having cars and bits strewn everywhere. And OK, I say over not in the sense of any sort of finality, more of a page-turning en route to The End. But it’s getting closer!

I have a pair of back lights and the rear bumper to take off (easy and may come in handy) and my work here is done. Then I just have to figure out how to lift it up high enough to get the trailer underneath and it goes to Smiths in Bloxham - have promised to take the kids down to see what a scrapyard looks like. I expect them to back out of coming, but you never know with young ladies on school holidays, especially when they know I will go via a favourite coffee shop of mine. (more…)

I am sorry to report that the joy of buying my first iMac has been washed away quicker than pavement art in a thunderstorm. Here’s the story so far:

The day after I ordered it, I received an email from euro.apple.com to say that Apple-refurbed 24″ 3.06 iMacs were in fact not available, and would I like to buy a new one, or leave my order open and wait to see what may or may not come up in due course. This is very similar to an old trick used by many car dealers: advertise the car everyone wants at a bargain price, and when they turn up to buy it, tell them it’s no longer available, but there is another in stock for immediate delivery at full retail. I really need the Mac as soon as possible, but no way am I going to fall for this old chestnut. (more…)

As a long-time Renault F1 fan, I was sad to read today of the death of Dino Toso, former aero chief at the French team, based not far from me in the Cotswolds. Dino was taken by the big C a few months short of his 40th birthday. (more…)

I have been thinking about switching from PC to Mac for over a year now. My Dell is well overdue an upgrade: I am using more and more NEF format DSLR pics, with the software to process them running constantly, so half a gig of RAM just don’t cut it. Painful work events of the last week have gotten me back on track regards full time freelancing, and as my own work is mostly for magazines and the web, the publishing industry standard seemed the obvious choice.

My PC has been getting increasingly annoying for some time. IE is a pretty rubbish browser, and the constant Microsoft updates and tracking software is a joke. Running resource-unfriendly antivirus software is a complete PITA, not to mention all those other extraneous programmes killing memory. What I wanted was a computer that would do all my imaging without breaking a sweat, work quietly, eliminate the dust-covered network of wires behind my desk and give me future-proofed peace of mind when and if I go self-employed. Enter the iMac. (more…)

A few weeks back, I won a 944 Turbo engine on eBay for my 1986 951. The motor was from a crashed Porsche (destroyed in the rear corner) and the car still had the wheels on it. My car has Fuchs which I want to keep when I sell the rest on, so I was on the lookout for Design 90s which I think look better on 944s anyway. I offered the guy good money for the rims but no go, he wanted to sell them separately.

I collected the motor and kept watching for wheels. Bid on a few sets, but the VW boys like them too much so they went for huge money. Anyway, eventually ‘my’ wheels were listed and I bought them. Went to get them today and turns out they were not the 6 and 8 x 16s I was expecting, they were the much rarer and hugely lucious 7.5 and 9 x 16s from the 928 GT instead. Result!

I am still looking for similar wheels for my Corrado, I think they look good on there.