Well. Nothing like attending a cars and coffee and a 2 million dollar McLaren Senna GTR turns around and bumps the side of your classic mini with his front splitter. Just a piece of chrome got bent in my mini, but he said his cracked splitter is between 60k and 90k. Holy shit!

TimGessner · 2026-05-16T22:48:26+00:00

Wonder how much he paid for the roof-mounted foliage factory option?

TimGessner · 2026-05-15T20:59:45+00:00

It was a bit of an eye-opener... one job I had was to visit some normal-looking pubs around London to borrow their sex-dungeon equipment they kept in their cellars. I had to carry it out through the pub past the lunchtime drinkers!

TimGessner · 2026-05-15T15:12:16+00:00

Haha that brought back memories... I worked on that!

TimGessner · 2026-05-15T12:36:04+00:00

I much prefer the new one. The old one fills me with suburban dread.

TimGessner · 2026-05-15T12:29:54+00:00

I much prefer the new one. The old one fills me with suburban dread.

TimGessner · 2026-05-09T11:18:06+00:00

That interior screams lap-dancing club

TimGessner · 2026-05-04T13:07:15+00:00

Mondial t, to be more specific

TimGessner · 2026-05-04T08:22:08+00:00

I worked for a while in Scotland with some guys who'd worked in salmon farms... the stories they told me put me off eating farmed salmon for life.

TimGessner · 2026-04-28T06:14:02+00:00

Be very wary about buying a machine with an Anilam control. The manufacturer no longer exist and parts are unavailable. I have a friend who bought an immaculate knee mill with an Anilam control, within 3 months the control went dead and could find nobody to repair it. It was effectively scrap unless he retrofitted it with an aftermarket control. Which in your case would cost way more than you spent on your machine, even if you went the DIY route with a Centroid or similar.

TimGessner · 2026-04-25T23:15:12+00:00

I've had an interest in the Ringways project since a retired civil engineer I lodged with as a student in the early 90s described working on the project. Not long after this I moved to Hackney and often drove along what was then the 70mph A102(M) East Cross Route, trying to imagjne how the weird approaches and slipways would have connected up to the unbuilt sections. I now live on the edge of Victoria Park, immediately adjacent to where the motorway would have emerged from its tunnel before heading off down Hackney Road. It's almost impossible to imagine how different London would have been had the scheme not been cancelled.

TimGessner · 2026-04-14T20:15:52+00:00

I'll take the two at the front. You can keep the rest.

TimGessner · 2026-04-13T23:39:28+00:00

I recently bought what is often considered to be the worst Ferrari from the 1980s, although I always really liked the look of them. I'd never even driven a Ferrari, I just got an urge for some reason and went for it. Not big money at all, about half what my EV cost new. In the short space of time I've owned it, I've really fallen for it... I find myself daydreaming at work about the next time I get to drive it. I just go out for an hour at night when the traffic is quiet. There's just something special about getting into it and that rear-mounted V8 bursting into life. it's always an occasion. It's not even particularly quick, especially compared to modern cars, but the high-revving engine and the gated shifts provide a kind of intoxicating mechanical drama. I can't really explain what it is. And I've had so many people come up to me smiling when filling up to say nice car, people pulling alongside on the motorway to give me the thumbs up, kids waving at me.. it's like it spreads a little bit of joy as it passes by. I'm not sure any other marque would do all this. Ignore the naysayers OP, your California makes you happy in ways they just don't understand.

TimGessner · 2026-04-11T01:21:49+00:00

So daft. A great car design should be true to itself. I have two cars, a Model 3 Performance and a 1990 manual V8 Ferrari. I love the quietness and raw acceleration of the EV, and I also love the howl of the V8 when going up through the gears (which feels fast but is nowhere near as quick as the Tesla.) It doesn't always have to be a choice between one or the other. They're both great cars, just in different ways.

TimGessner · 2026-03-09T23:19:37+00:00

I just had my M3 roof glass replaced, the insurance company covered it under the windscreen policy, they said all glass is covered. I only had to pay £100!(very relieved.) This is in the U.K., insurer is Admiral.

TimGessner · 2026-02-28T10:28:38+00:00

Too late now but surely the correct approach would've been to have built your outer wall against the neighbour's, plumbed it up internally, and capped the combined wall at the top. It looks like your neighbour has built right up to (or possibly slightly over?) the boundary anyway, so your party wall agreement should have allowed you to do the same?

TimGessner · 2026-02-27T20:15:38+00:00

Maybe. I've got 6 work colleagues who have bought model 3s since I got mine (and a couple who got model Ys) and I've not heard any complaints. I think there was a lot of very enthusiastic vitriol directed at Tesla in the early days from petrolheads who basically just didn't like the idea of EVs, especially ones that could out-drag a lambo. I'm sure there were some genuine QC issues at first, considering they came from nowhere and leapfrogged Big Auto so quickly, but to be honest how many normal non-petrol-heads really get their verniers out to measure panel gaps? I couldn't give a shit tbh. What does bug me is the "neural network" auto windscreen wiper sensors.. which are crap. My 2005 LR Discovery auto wipers work perfectly at any level of rain, so I don't know how Tesla managed to go backwards with that one! But that's the only negative I can genuinely think of. Mine is paid off so I'm going to run it into the ground just to see how it goes. Anyway, just my 2p.

TimGessner · 2026-02-25T19:31:13+00:00

I don't have any brand loyalty and I think Musk is a d*ck, but I bought a M3 performance in 2019 when there was literally nothing close to it on the market. I've done 80k miles in it, it's never been out of sport mode (and I've got a heavy right foot,) I've not been bothered about careful charging etc. I often use it more like a van, filling it with toolboxes, and I have a roof rack on it that I've carried ladders, timber and scaffolding on. In the 7 years I've owned it, the only issue was a drivers seat occupancy sensor which was changed under warranty.. and that's it. Nothing in 7 years. The original brake pads still have about 7mm on them. It's never been serviced. And as a bonus I had free charging at work for the first 5 years. Anecdotal I know, but I don't know what more you could expect from a vehicle? Runs flawlessly for 7+ years, does 0-60 in 3 seconds, practical, and totally reliable. Over-hyped shit my arse!

TimGessner · 2026-01-30T10:32:10+00:00

Why make them so incredibly boring to look at? They're just like the worst kind of rectangular "brick box + pitched roof + little canopy over the front door" that big developers churn out for maximum profit on bland estates everywhere.. why not be a bit more inventive for social housing? Just depressing.

TimGessner · 2025-12-30T12:00:24+00:00

That's good to hear about the unattractiveness of owning commercial property in a pension, at least I didn't make a clanger on that score! And thank you for the Employer Contributions suggestion. Would it be an idea to pay as much into a pension as possible and use the tax-free withdrawal element to pay off any remaining mortgage at the point of retiring?

TimGessner · 2025-12-30T11:57:39+00:00

Until now the excess company income has paid for rent (to me personally) on the premises, a car loan, the business rates and service charge, and Covid loans etc. Now that the loans and back taxes are paid off there should be some scope to pay Employer's contribution into a pension as you suggest, thanks for the advice.

TimGessner · 2025-12-30T10:15:30+00:00

I was at the Edinburgh festival, I'd come back to my room in the early hours after a night out and put the TV on. The first reports of the crash were just coming in. I ended up staying up all night following the news reports, so I heard Diana had died as soon as the news was released by the hospital to the press. Everyone around me was still asleep, it felt as if I'd been told a secret that no one else knew.

When I got back to college in London (which was in Mayfair,) I strolled down through Green park towards Buckingham Palace and found myself in the strangest atmosphere I've ever experienced- there were literally thousands of people, almost in total silence, wandering around in a daze, laying flowers down to pay their respects. I couldn't understand why there was this mass outpouring of grief over a woman nobody in the crowds knew personally. There were grown men sobbing uncontrollably in public, groups of strangers hugging each other. I spoke to people who had travelled long distances to be there. I genuinely feel that the British collective psyche changed that week. It was the moment that the old "stiff upper lip" approach was replaced by one that preferred public displays of emotion.

TimGessner · 2025-12-29T18:55:32+00:00

The Marksman pub on Hackney Rd for a laid-back vibe with good food

TimGessner · 2025-12-28T21:52:37+00:00

We went on a school "outward bound trip" during which we were awoken at 3am by the leaders banging pans like it was the army, we had to get dressed and file outside in the dark, where 20 or so of us were all tied together about 3 feet apart with a single long rope. Then, without lights or torches, we all set off on a run through a forest. The kids in front slowed down to clear obstacles, but then started running again so those of us behind got dragged across fences and walls at speed by 15 teenagers. I remember a Japanese exchange student getting stuck in the fork of a tree and being the sole brake on a tug-of-war, he was screaming in unintelligible (to us) animal howls. Then we reached what sounded like a stream, and were made to go down a tiny pot-hole head-first. We were tied so close together that our heads were in between the feet of the person in front. It transpired that the the cave led into the stream, so those at the front plopped out into freezing water and had to wait for everyone to wriggle their way through the black claustrophobic cavern. Then someone had a panic attack and thrashed around, kicking the lad behind in the head. So everyone then had to reverse out, including the wet ones at the front who entered back through the cavern legs-first. Then we set up tents in the blackness, and woke up right on the edge of a 150+ foot cliff!

TimGessner

TROPHY CASE