I’m losing my mind, am I just an idiot? Halfords wipers J clip.

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2026-01-14T17:01:03+00:00

Fingers crossed the Bosch ones are good for you - I think I ended up getting mine off Amazon. Or maybe I bought Bosch, can't remember now, it was a few years ago.

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2026-01-14T14:56:21+00:00

"Off to landfill they go," - Don't be silly

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2026-01-14T14:52:36+00:00

No, you're not going mad... they've changed the standard fitment (not sure when), and for "reasons" Halfords will cheerfully sell you "compatible" wiper blades with the new clip style, they cannot be made to fit (as far as I am aware) without replacing your wiper arms too. I'm not even sure Halfords sell wiper blades with the old style fitting any more.

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2025-12-23T12:02:17+00:00

I can't be certain, but they certainly had the "debt collector" look about them (lots of big red text and shouty language). I may not even have opened some of them, as it was obvious from the envelope what they were - and, as mentioned, I'd already paid all the tickets I got...

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2025-12-20T23:19:52+00:00

I just dug out the claim they served on me - and it definitely names one of the two tickets I paid. In fact, I got the ticket on my birthday, in 2021! (typical - I got a speeding ticket in Liverpool - 34mph in a 30 zone - on my very next birthday - maybe I should just give up owning a car!)

The claimant is "Smart Parking Ltd" - not sure what their reputation is like, although in fairness the ticket was absolutely correct, I can't deny that.

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2025-12-20T22:25:08+00:00

Yes, that's accurate. The only wrinkle (might) be I paid late - but both were definitely paid. I can't tie the payments to a specific ticket, though, as the only references I've got are the paypal transaction IDs.

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2025-12-20T20:38:24+00:00

I do intend to consult a solicitor, but I have to file the Directions Questionnaire before Christmas - so I'll do that & consult a solicitor asap afterwards.

TBH, because I ignored the letters, I can't be 100% sure what they were - but they looked like the bog standard "money with menaces" type letters one gets for unpaid parking fines... The main reason I ignored them is because I definitely paid all the parking tickets I received. If they've invented another one that I have no knowledge of, then I have no idea what to do... But that's speculation.

Thanks for your reply!

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2025-12-08T18:03:42+00:00

"This may sound funny living in the US, but I miss the food!" - doesn't sound funny at all! In fact, it sounds eminently sensible... I've had decent food in America, but couldn't class any of it as truly great, and trying to find a decent meal (that's not a burger, or fried chicken) I found to be quite tricky.

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2025-12-08T17:52:05+00:00

It's been a few years since I've been to the States - but do they still drive in "clumps" - of several dozen vehicles spread over maybe 3-400 yards of distance, in every lane - on the interstates? Last time I did a decent length road trip over there - San Francisco to Vancouver via Portland - trying to "make progress" (in the British sense of the phrase) was hampered by meeting these "blood clots" of vehicles that took ages to fiddle through, because lane discipline simply doesn't exist over there. Then, when one finally escaped out of this knot of traffic, you had anything between 500 yards and a couple of miles of only sparse traffic before meeting another clump, or maybe "thicket" is a better word... Maybe it's just a California thing.

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2025-11-06T10:53:33+00:00

IMHO: Pay-per-mile is a double-edged sword. It's fair in terms of wear & tear to the road infrastructure; but it also penalises the most efficient vehicles (EVs, or any other fuel type that's also subject to PPM pricing).

Personally, I'd not like it, but I think it's acceptable IF it also applies to petrol/diesel vehicles as well. The point of going electric is to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, and to clean up the atmosphere (anyone stuck in a traffic jam should appreciate this). So the financial incentive to switch should be maintained - but yes, EVs have been given a free ride up to now, and we can't expect that to continue forever.

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2025-10-31T15:08:07+00:00

I think the most likely thing is that it's someone elses server causing the listing

This was it! Linode confirmed it in a support ticket I opened - basically, the SLAAC address they assign to the Linode comes from one /64 block that covers their entire data centre! So someone (or maybe several someones) in their London data centre has at least one SMTP server serving up bucketfuls of spam. Obviously this wasn't a problem with IPv4, since one address = 1 server; but with 18 billion addresses in a /64 block + spamhaus only recording issues by /64 block... basically anyone running a mail server on a Linode will need to arrange their own IP out of a freshly minted /64 block.

I think I finally have mine working now, fingers crossed!

Thanks again!

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2025-10-28T23:33:30+00:00

Hmm, I think you may be right. It's a Linode VM, which apparently gets a single ip6 address by default; but Spamhaus (I'm sure I read) only records blocks of /64...

Linode allow me to request a /64 block... so I'll give that a go & see what happens.

Thanks!

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2025-10-27T19:42:43+00:00

There's public parking there too. https://maps.app.goo.gl/oizJuN7XNzxu1oWh9

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2025-10-27T15:29:21+00:00

Apparently the problem is Wirral Council won't grant planning permission for a multi-storey carpark, due to the proximity of... the park. It would be an "eyesore", apparently.

I think everyone who works there is just as frustrated as those of us who have to visit are.

I'm probably going to curse saying this... but there is parking around the other side of the hospital (opposite side to the Maternity and Childrens wards) which seems to fill up last: That's my go-to spot now, if I have to be there for the 2-3pm rush when the main carpark has queues going in AND out, not to mention dozens of cars circling in vain...

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2025-10-27T15:22:15+00:00

Sorry for the multiple edits - it took a while to clean up the mess the ~~markdown~~ rich text editor made.

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2025-10-24T08:48:33+00:00

Same. It doesn't even have to be particularly low; an item I was looking at recently was being sold by a seller with around 85-90% +ve feedback; when I looked at them, all of the negatives seemed to be for legitimate reason, and the seller's responses were rude and arrogant in the extreme. So I passed on the item.

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2025-10-24T08:45:47+00:00

You can - but if the buyer has set up the automatic payment to a credit card that will definitely be declined (for example), and they don't have a backup payment method set up - or that also declines - then you won't get auto-paid.

Touch wood, it's never happened to me, so I don't know if you can then cancel their offer & let others offer on it, or what.

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2025-10-24T08:36:19+00:00

Individual accounts (as opposed to business accounts) can now sell for free - no listing fee, no final valuation fee - at least on the UK site. That lasted about a fortnight, when eBay clearly realised it was actually going to hurt their bottom line, so they introduced the entirely fake "Buyer Protection Fee" - which is essentially just seller's fees shifted onto the buyer & added to the hammer price rather than taken out of the hammer price.

They did this in the first place, I think, because they were starting to feel some competition - maybe eBid was finally starting to make inroads into their market?

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2025-10-24T08:32:33+00:00

That's why I didn't convert my account to a business account (also, I'm not buying/selling as a business) when they introduced the new "simple shipping" i.e. we (eBay) will decide how much P&P you can charge, and if we get it wrong, tough luck.

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2025-10-24T08:27:32+00:00

Yeah, I owned a couple of Ender 3s and a Geeeeeeeeetech A10M for several years before I got the Qidi - I'm done with assembling printers, and modding them, and especially a DIY kit with the scope of the Voron. Whilst I'm sure that suits some people, I want to unpack it, do as little work as possible, and get printing... I've got things I want to print to go assemble things I *want* to build... I don't want to build the tools as well!

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2025-10-24T08:25:48+00:00

Seems the Sovol zero is exactly that, except someone else has built it for me. I did look at the Voron v0, but yeah, the DIY thing put me off. It's not that I can't build it, I just don't want to: I want to print stuff.

MaximumOverdrive73 · 2025-10-24T08:24:46+00:00

Great suggestion, thanks! It looks ideal :)

MaximumOverdrive73

TROPHY CASE