50+ and proud of it.

The roadie performed faultlessly last week when we drove down to and toured Brittany. I was surprised at the amount of attention it got from the locals - many of them doing the usual peering inside with their hands shielding their eyes from the reflection in the glass and then going around the back to see what the make was. We even got the classic "peer-and-shrug" from one them: (peer) "Qu'est-ce que c'est alors?" (shrug) "Je ne sais pas..." We stopped in a gite on a farm and the owner (whose first language was Breton and spoke pidgin French ) asked to look at the engine. "What did he say?" asked my wife. "Dunno, something about a suitcase, I think." I don't speak French that well. I can order a beer and a meal, but that's about it. I was wondering how to sum up a roadie to a local in one word if asked. I eventually worked it out - "inattendu" Unexpectedly changing gear. Unexpectedly not accelerating when it re

"I know," I said, "let's go on holiday to France and let's go in the Brabus". Sounds like a good idea, after all the smart Roadster will be doing about 50mpg and the holiday is only in Brittany. Last Friday, I checked the "how far to go to next service" button. Ah, 800 miles. Um, let's ring up the Merc dealer and get it serviced. And here's the point of this entry. "No problem sir, we can do it tomorrow, we'll knock 20% off the price of the service, 10% off the cost of parts because it's over 3 years old, we'll wash it too 'cos that's what Mercedes dealers do". And to top it all, I got a very nice Parker pen at the end of it. "So how much did that all cost?", asked the wife when I got home. "Err, £150, but they checked the car over as well as changing the oil and filter." "How much was the oil?" "Ah, £30, but it is expensive-fully-synthetic-stuff", "...and the filt

Today is "A" Level results day. The time is 07:15. In the old days you had to wait for a letter to arrive in the post. Not any more. My daughter has just checked the UCAS web-site and has found that Brighton Uni has accepted her. Pleased? Damn right I am. So why was she crying? No idea - me neither. That's the sort of thing her mother would do, it must be hereditary... "Bye-bye Lassie" 1 . 1 Only members of the family will get this one.

400 miles in torrential rain over the weekend. My smart Roadster doesn't leak. That's it.

So there you have it. I can say with complete certainty that Bluetooth works on XP and not on W2K. Ok, to be a bit more precise - you can connect to a phone using BT on W2K but you can't use the phone as a modem to connect to the Internet. It just don't work, I've spent the last fortnight trying. You can however use a USB cable to connect no probs, BT forget it. To use BT with XP, install the drivers from the CD supplied with the dongle, do not under any circumstances use the crap Microsoft stack - it don't work - unfortunately, these get installed by the add h/w wizard when you plug in the dongle! You must then uninstall the M$ driver from the Device Manager. BTW: You get a 10Mb connection with USB & a 1Mb connection using BT, hey ho. Use the cable... Why am doing this? Why indeed. My wife is currently on hols with the youngest son where there's no phone line and she wants to use the net to find local attractions etc. So I get it working and what happens? S