garethr

Ignoring the animal rights issues, I really don't like cropped ears, especially on Dobermanns and Danes. As Pete said, those huge pointy ears sticking up in the air make the dog look like a permanently surprised clown. I suppose it might have had some purpose in preventing injury when Danes were fulfilling their original purpose, but they were probably cropped really short then.

Mercedes have a 7-speed auto now, but they can't use it on the big power AMG cars because it won't handle the torque, so maybe it's a good thing that the Toyota box is only 4-speed :-)

Ask the council (but don't give them your details until you find out what the answer is )

A sort of merle coloration in Danes is called "harlequin". http://www.6stardanes.com/colors.html (Don't know if it's real merle though. Chris, do you know if you can you breed harlequin to harlequin without producing deaf / blind white puppies?)

Only if you're buying the standard Toyota nuts from Mr T at 5 or 6 pounds each.. Aftermarket ones? About 25 quid a set off eBay. The thread is 12 x 1.5 IIRC.

Must be funny badgers round your way. The ones I've seen just seem to wander around minding their own business, eating earthworms, and all too often finishing up dead at the side of the road.

You certainly like "interesting" dogs, Chris. Many wolves in your part of Shropshire, are there? Although they apparently make good guardians of bird flocks as well.... http://www.anatoliandog.org/poultry.htm

Clingfilm?

http://www.mclarencars.com/cars/f1_customer-care.htm McLAREN F1 ROAD CAR - CUSTOMER CARE With a total of 72 road cars in 12 countries around the world, McLaren have established a three-tier system for providing service support for the McLaren F1. Primary support is provided by a local Authorised Service Centre, which carries out routine servicing. At the next level, McLaren will fly out a technician who is capable of undertaking more detailed work, either at an Authorised Service Centre, or at the customer’s premises. Finally, in the rare case that major repairs are required, the car is returned to McLaren. There are eight McLaren Authorised Service Centres around the world. Each one has technicians who have attended a dedicated training course at McLaren’s premises in the UK, and are fully qualified to service the F1. McLaren Customer Care headquarters in Woking, England, not only maintain the UK cars, but provide technical support and parts for all the F1s. McLaren Automotive has a continuing commitment to support the F1, and recently Customer Care have developed a multi-media service procedures and parts catalogue to improve the quality of information supplied to Authorised Service Centres and customers. Not that servicing the F1 was ever an afterthought. During the design stage, provision was made to carry out "remote diagnostics". Every F1 is supplied with a modem, which enables Customer Care to "talk" to any F1 anywhere in the world. Not only can the McLaren Automotive technicians read any logged errors in the ECUs, they can carry out a series of diagnostic procedures on items as varied as the air-conditioning system and the fuel gauge. This can save time and inconvenience for the customer, and is typical of McLaren’s application of technology to provide solutions. Frankly, that's the least I'd expect!

Haha! He's called that in our family as well Someone misheard his name years ago, and it stuck. Who does the servicing? There are Ferrari dealers all over the place, but there can't be many (any?) McLaren dealers. Perhaps they fly a technician to you in a private jet with a fitted workshop.

I don't know if this applies to other, later, models, but the workshop manual for the Lexus SC (Toyota Soarer) details gearbox diagnostics which start with unplugging the electrical connector to the gearbox. This means that the gears must be changed manually, and there is no kickdown. It might be worth finding out if there is anything similar for the IS, (but it's probably completely different for the later gearbox).

There are some up on TIF. They lost a gazebo in the storm . Hope the Supra guys didn't suffer too much damage.

Good luck finding a manual (unless you're in Australia -- about 5 for sale on their forum at the moment)

Always a bit tricky to measure the PCD of a 5-bolt wheel if you don't have a PCD gauge. How to calculate the PCD by measuring the distance between two adjacent holes http://www.western-towing.co.uk/acatalog/PCD_Calculation.html 5-hole Measure the distance between two adjacent holes (centre to centre) Divide the measurement by 0.5878

Aftermarket wheel nut on the left (you need these, I expect) Toyota wheel nut on the right (fits Toyota / Lexus original equipment wheels ONLY)

Oh well (keeping the Bristol theme), just about to leave an air conditioned office in Reading and climb into a black leather interior for the drive back down the M4 to Bristol...... Wonder how long I'll be standing next to the car with the air-con running before it's bearable

The Vectra IS faster than any number of high performance German cars ...... but only because it's not limited to 250 kph / 155 mph. Top Gear's "comedy" features are in danger of taking over the whole show. Still, according to Richard Hammond's column in the Mirror, he crocked himself in an incident on the test track, so that's something to look forward to. (Sorry Hamster, didn't mean it. Just a set up for comedic effect )

That's Canada

2.8m yen = c. 18K - 19K by the time you take it through the dock gates?

They didn't make it easy for him. I'd guess that there's a good reason that there aren't many Soarers in drift competitions and that one is a real monster.

...... with the plugs out or disconnected so that it doesn't start up

Love Boxers, but if the one my father had some years back is anything to go by, they act like puppies until they are about 3 years old. Rocky ate his way through the kitchen door once My dad always wanted one since he was in Palestine after the war with the Paras. The British forces used Boxers as guard dogs, and they weren't trained just to bark Took him 40 years, but he got one in the end.

When Britain was a superpower, using state of the art weaponry, and able to control an empire that covered a third of the planet, we couldn't pacify Afghanistan. The USSR tried when it was one of the two most powerful nations on earth, and failed. Why do the politicians think it will be any different this time?

All sorts of cat hybrids have been created, either accidentally or deliberately Bengal (domestic) cats originated as a hybrid between a domestic cat and a wild leopard cat (NOT a leopard ) http://www.lairweb.org.nz/tiger/hybrids.html http://www.messybeast.com/genetics/hybrid-cats.htm