whiskychaser

As OP said, you leave that stuff for the track. There you are unlikely to be released into the path of an oncoming car.

Just in case you are not aware, it is only fair to point out that the colour scheme in the pic was 'inspired' by Starsky and Hutch The GXL was one of those dreadful colours which Ford came out with at the time. Think mushy peas with mint. There is a photo of me in front of it wearing wide lapels and flares. I did have it resprayed to a less offensive colour but sadly no photos have survived. In some respects, that may be as well

Had the MKIII 2 litre GXL. Probably the smoothest gearbox I have ever driven. You might have to import one from somewhere it doesn't rain. Also had the MKIV but was never tempted to change the colour scheme to the one I once saw at Earls Court. It is that long ago that they may not have had colour photographs then.

Well said. Trump has been appeased by Darroch's departure.

I only saw part of the programme so made it clear to which unanswered question I was referring. Unfortunately, you did not. I might have guessed that you were rushing and would realise later . Similarly, you might have realised that due to an interruption, it may well have been 40 minutes between my starting and finishing my reply Kind of you to explain the analogy . I am not sure it is wise to allow clients to dictate who you employ and who you don't.

^ I am not quoting and pasting as it is hard work and even harder on the eye. It didn't say 'edited' when I started writing my reply. So my response is to what you said first time round Hunt presented reasonable arguments. Boris promised jam tomorrow. Shades of MAGA. You mentioned that Boris didn't answer the question put to him. A reasonable person might have concluded that you were referring to whether Boris would resign or not. As I was responding to your statement, I don't feel the need to start a new thread. I find it amusing to compare Boris's stance on the EU with that on the US. We will see how that works out. As I have previously stated, we have one moron already. But at least he isn't our moron. I'd rather we didn't have our own. That said, I don't have much time for Hunt either

We must have watched different debates. In the one I watched, it was quite the reverse (Boris also refused to confirm he would resign if we didn't leave the EU on 31 October) BTW It was Sir Kim Darrach who was forced to resign, not Sir Alan Duncan. It would appear that Boris did what Trump told him to do and failed to support Darrach. That doesn't bode too well for the future https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-48941283/darroch-resignation-sir-alan-duncan-critical-of-boris-johnson

^ That sounds like Boris. Shame he didn't bat for our side with regard to our ambassador to the US. Instead what he did was 'throw him under a bus' (Foreign Office minister Sir Alan Duncan). Must be that Special Relationship at work again

I would suggest that it is more remarkable that you are reading the Independent

Just for fun, I dug out the gear ratio figures. Pretty sure they are correct: M5 3.6 535i 3.51 3.83 1st 2.08 2.20 2nd 1.35 1.40 3rd 1.0 1.0 4th 0.81 0.81 5th 3.91 3.64 Diff M5 3.8 6 speed top gear ratio is 0.83 and diff is 3.23

May not be up your street but this is a very good write up by a mate who swapped the 3.64 lsd in his 535i for a 3.91 open from a 735i auto. Even if you don't go that way it is still a good read. I actually get a mention but really I just held his coat http://www.bimmernut.com/forum/showthread.php/41386-Diff-Swap-Research-Swap-Procedure-and-Effect

Posted at the same time so missed this. Depending on what I find when I dig holes, this may be the way forward. Many thanks

I am not into drilling holes in the window frames to find out if it has steel support inside. But I do have a device which picks up metal or live wires (different beep) behind plaster etc. Of course, there are metal packers aka profiles round each pane of glass so I took that into account. It picked up metal in the doors and door frames just fine. But nothing on the four wide corner sections on the side opposite the house. Building regs say you need a minimum of 15cm of concrete as foundations. Building control would want tests holes dug anyway so I propose to get the shovel out and see what we have got. If it is less than that, we are going to need a cunning plan.

Pic below. It is 5m long by 3.4m wide. So not small

I spoke to the first salesman and expressed my concern about the extra weight. His response was that it would be fine as they fit extra batons underneath the roof. That isn't in their email so the increase in weight has now got to be more than ten fold. We left it that he would try to get his engineer to come and have a look. If he was not happy, all bets are off. I think they are already off. Thanks for the pics, themanstan. We don't have any brickwork pillars. Apart from the house side, we have dwarf walls about 50cm high. The other 150cms is double glazing. The installer says it will have support inside. I know it may do - I deliver both steel and aluminium to a double glazing manufacturer. But I can't tell just by looking at it and I don't believe the salesman can either. It is becoming very hard not to conclude that unless we get additional structural support, this is not going to happen.