My tiny car.

After the post about driving, I thought I should give a bit more information on my "mighty steed". I drive a Daihatsu Charade, which is a "city car". For the Americans amongst you, that's a car that will fit into the load bay of Ford F series truck. It's small. City car is the grade below "supermini" which is smaller than "mini". There aren't many cars smaller, the Smart car and the Fiat Cinquicento are, but not many others.
When I bought it, well, started paying for it, I hadn't passed my test yet and needed a cheap, efficient little car that would be easy to drive. The Charade fulfills these criteria brilliantly. Four six foot adults will fit in relatively comfortably and the car will do the ton (100 mph) four up, it just takes a while to get there.
Contrary to many, many reviews, it is fun to drive but lacks space and pace. It's got a three cylinder one litre engine that will go 0-60 in about 13 seconds, so it's not going to give you whiplash when you put your foot down but it's a fun little go-cart to drive. For reference for the Americans, it does about 60 miles to the gallon, a gallon over here costs about £4.50, or 96.9 pence per litre, which at the current rate of 1.88 Dollars to the pound, gives a cost of $8.45 per gallon. Fortunately it's band B for road tax (compulsory tax in the UK) which is only £40 per year.
The boot space is tiny (especially mine, which has an amplifier and twin 6x9 speakers) but you can fit six months worth of your life into the back of it. This I know because I've had to do it on numerous occasions, and will again in about a month.
I would like a bigger car, maybe a Volvo XC70, a Mitsubishi L200 Animal or a 4x4 of some kind, but until I get more of the car paid off I'll be sticking with the Charade. It's a reliable little run-around, it's a Daihatsu so should be running when my niece is learning to drive.
Just thought I'd clear up some of the comments I might make about the car.

If you would like to feature on this page...

I use those three dots quite a bit don't I?
Anyway, if you would like a blog/link what ever "featured" on here, just add a comment/send me an e-mither (Mark and Lard, gone but not forgotten) or find me in the street and shout at me.
The links on the right will be increased as time goes on. If I can ever get back onto the photo pages or my home page I'll add that. Possibly. Oh, speaking of photo pages, sorry Jon, probably not worth people joining Ringo, I've added the piccies to Flickr and Photobucket so I'll put links up to them on the side bar soon. For now, have a look here for Flickr or here for photobucket although I need to add more photos to both and better descriptions for photobucket. I think I'll be using Flickr more, unless I hear from you guys that you'd rather I use t'other, or a different one.
Well, it's 0155 L, 0055 Z so I think I'll sign off t'interweb for now. Sleep well, don't let the bed bugs paralyze.
Jim.

The Beep test...

Okay, I knew I was unfit. I know I AM unfit, but less so now. I thought I was worse than I am. Somewhere in there is a sentence. The beep test (multi stage fitness test or shuttle run test, call it what you will, I call it EVIL) is a method of gauging aerobic fitness. I was correct that it uses points 20 m apart, although I've heard that certain police forces use 15 m for their spacing. I was incorrect in the first instance that the initial speed is 8 or 8.5 kph (5 mph). The initial increase is 1 or 0.5 kph respectively and from then on the increase is 0.5 kph per minute. See here for more information. This means that I've got further to go, but it also means that I can aim better for the target.
On the plus side, my weight is coming down, recently by about 1.5 kg per week (about 3 lb), which I'm going to try and continue for another 6 weeks or more. I read that varying meal times and types helps the body burn fat better, no worries, I'm on shifts so things are ready mixed, time wise. Would rather have passed the selection first time through though.
Today at work we had some pilots in from a visiting squadron and I was briefing them on the weather conditions where they wanted to fly. I was giving them the best information I could, but all the time I was thinking "Gits. I'd give my right nad to be doing your job." Don't get me wrong, I love this job, but they fly multi million pound jets at low level at almost the speed of sound, more if they feel like it. I was talking to a mate up north and he messed up his RAF selection for aircrew in much the same way that I did. We were wondering what life would have been like, had we not fluffed so much of the selection and made it as air crew.
Maybe in another world.
Ah well, it's like I said to the pseudo-Buddhist on Cheltenham high street when he asked me if I was interested in "his" way (they were actually selling books on self awareness), "I've got a path, I follow my feet, do the job in front of me and then move on." This is the job in front of me, and this is what needs to be done. Now if I can just stop the top from rubbing when I'm running, suggestions to the usual address.

Learning to drive all over again

After doing some skid pan training in the south led me to try and join the institute of advanced motoring and get some training as a better driver. So I joined via the "skill for life" package, mainly as I got a £10 discount for being under 25. Tried to get training started while I was down in Exeter but time was against me so I started my training two weeks ago. Had my second drive yesterday. The observer I'm with reckons I won't need too many sessions, but I've only got 5 weeks left here before I head north. There's a group up in Lossie but I'd like to get it sorted before I go up. Doubt I'll do it in time though.
So, what does advanced driving require over and above the normal "L test" driving that everyone does. Assuming here that everyone drives well enough to pass their test if they re-took it today. There is a system of car control consisting of five processes, Information, Position, Speed, Gear, Acceleration. They say that the helpful phrase "IPSGA" will help to remember this. How IPSGA is easy to remember I'm not sure. What this means is you receive and give information as needed, looking as far ahead and behind as possible and signaling if needed; getting into the correct position for the hazard (anything except a clear open straight road), getting to the correct speed for the hazard, putting the car into the correct gear for the speed before the hazard and then using the accelerator to maintain the same speed through the hazard. And then it goes on. Things like looking under cars for feet, moving across the road more to accommodate other drivers and cyclists. Makes driving more intense and more involving, but needs more concentration.
Unfortunately, well, understandably, speeding is NOT tolerated. At all. 5 mph over the limit is a fail. Now, I'm not too bad at most speed limits (honest) especially 30 mph ones but this is an absolute rule. Coming up to a 30 limit from a national, you hit 30 at the sign, but not too far in front as that's bad form. Going the other way you are still at 30 when you pass the national limit sign. Then you hoof it to get to the safe speed for the conditions (car, road, weather and other traffic) up to the limit as fast as reasonable. So staying in third until you hit 60 then straight into fifth gear. On motorways you do 70, or less if the conditions warrant it, which sucks. I know the limit is 70, but I believe that it should be higher, dependent on the conditions, so weather variable limits effectively.
Well, apart from hitting the gym yesterday, that's been it this week. Work was good, correctly forecast the storms (in general terms), but I did miss a fog warning, which was a bit of a mess up on my part.

it's a bit warm

Okay, 30 C isn't that hot for some of the people that might be reading this, but for the north of England it's hot. The hottest July day where I am on record is 31.1 C, yesterday we got to 30.6 C. The overall hottest day on record here is 33.5 and it's already 30 C at 1500 L. Tomorrow should be hotter still.
Of course, providing that I pass OASC and get fully into the MMU, I should be going to places where 30 C will feel cool by comparison, but more on that later.
After tomorrow's night shift I'll be going to the gym to try the RAF fitness test again. No actual importance to this one, except that if I can do better (I should) it'll make the guys at head office happier about giving me the chance to continue. I don't want to think too much about the alternative to tell you the truth.
Hell, I REALLY want to do well at this job. It's only a small part of the machine but what a machine!
If anyone wants to try the RAFFT for themselves, it's 8.3 on the beep test (running between two points 20 m apart to a timed beep that starts at 3 mph and increases by 0.5 mph each minute ), then in one minute do 13 press-ups with a perfectly flat body (no arse in the air) down to a fists height above the surface, then in another minute do 31 sit-ups with knees bent at 90 deg and someone leaning on your feet, rising to have your elbows over your knees. Now to be honest, I should be able to do this easily, the standards (given here for a male over 25) aren't very high, it's just more than I can do, or could, not sure what I can do at the moment. Couple of days and I'll know though...
Wish me luck, I may yet need it.
Oh and just to wish Jon and Pippa both luck in finding work, one in Australia and one in France.