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Kimbers

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Posts posted by Kimbers

  2. Coronavirus

    in General Chat

    Posted

    I think a lot of price increases will be blamed on COVID and whilst some costs have increased due to restrictions and time frames, these will return to normal (hopefully) with the introduction of Vaccines. I suspect prices won't then be dropped and may even increase further as taxes are raised. Get used to paying more I think is what I am trying to say!

  6. Coronavirus

    in General Chat

    Posted

    16 hours ago, C8RKH said:

    Depends on what you are comparing.  A lot of public sector workers are low pay (cleaners, porters, etc.), but equally an awful lot are well paid and overpaid. Add in relatively good job security and a good benefits package  (sickness, holiday, pension etc) and life's not too bad eh?

    In the private sector, yup. A lot more on minimum wage with poorer benefits and no real job security.

     

    My whole family is an example of all of this!

    Wendy is a 16 year service nurse. She is band 6 so at Sister level and working as a specialist nurse. Bit like a Nursing practitioner she has her own patients who she responds to and see's regularly in the community. They all need specialist care. She earns £26,000 a year and has had a pay cut of 15% over the last 7 years, in real terms (5 years with no increase at all then 6% over 3 years). She just had her pension statement through to find out that 5 years ago they switched her to the "New scheme" which means she can no longer retire at 55 and has to work to 65. And even then her Pension is worth around £6000 a year. (on the old scheme it would have been closer to £12000)............PUBLIC SECTOR

    Laura is a Registrar doing her Consultants exams. She earns £1000 a day if she wants to do an overtime (locumb) shift in charge of A&E or as a senior doctor. She's been in 7 years. She is single and I have no idea what she earns but would guess its a lot more than me!..........PUBLIC SECTOR

    Joseph works at Burger King and has done for 3 years. Joe has Aspbergers and Burger King is his comfort zone. He's happy there and he's good, really good. Not only is he second only to the Manager in time there, but he works every hour he can get to help pay for his love of Motorbikes (He has an R3) and Gaming. Last week he had one day off which was cancelled as they had a member of staff injure themselves. He did 70-80 hours. he is on £8.20 an hour. He has also been offered a shift managers position twice only to see it taken away and given once to the Managers Girlfriend and the second time to the Regional Managers Wife.................PRIVATE SECTOR

    I work as a Fleet Manager. I buy and sell cars and vans on our fleet specialising in Peugeot, Kia, FIAT, Honda and Citroen. My basic is in the late £20's and I earn commission. For many years my salary has been in excess of £60k this year I am £20k down. the biggest difference here is my Pension. I pay in as much as my wife per month but my pension is only worth £240 a month at 67 years old! However I also work as a Blue Light Worker on the front line part time. Full time during lockdown. I only get a mileage rate and food expenses as it's primarily a voluntary role. However volunteer Firefighters and even St Johns Ambo all get paid or a retainer to volunteer Blue lights, I chose the only one that doesn't. I do 30-100 hours a month in this second role..........PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SECTOR

    I have explained this to show the disparity on both public and private sector. Is it fair that a nurse doing the job virtually of a doctor earns 4 times less than a doctor? Is it fair that my son works so hard and is so mistreated and yet I sit at home nice and warm and sell cars on the phone and earn 5-6 times more than he does for half the hours. You could argue that you need as much skill to sell a car as you do sell a burger or use a till! 

    The whole system is skew whiff! its arse about face where a 19 year old can earn £30k a year and get a company car by being a trainee cars salesman yet a Police Officer, Paramedic or Nurse earns £25k after 3 years experience!

    There needs to be a revaluation of roles and pay now. there really does.

     

  8. Crime Scene Investigation

    in General Chat

    Posted

    48 minutes ago, C8RKH said:

    Stop taking credit for others work, you're not a politician. It's time to tell him the truth, it's not your fault he was so shit faced on gin he didn't remember changing HIS OWN signature. You're too kind sometimes @Kimbers

    You shouldn't confuse older people mate, especially those who have alcohol induced dementia. Just agree with him and nod thoughtfully. We can get him put down later.

    • Love 1
    • Haha 1

  10. Crime Scene Investigation

    in General Chat

    Posted

    Well sink me Sir! It took you your merry time to find my jolly jape! I shall meet you at dawn sir! Toodle Pip and tally ho!

    For those who don't know what the bloody hell Gazza is talking about I may have adjusted his Signature on his posts a little bit about 2 weeks ago as a jape. He didn't notice and I forgot! But now I am giggling afresh.

    • Haha 2

  13. Coronavirus

    in General Chat

    Posted

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55081926

    Covid crisis could 'cut pay by £1,200 a year by 2025'

    Hahahaha. This made me laugh. I don't know about you guys but I mainly get paid commission, my basic is......basic. And I am £20,000 down this year on last. So even if I go back to my normal wages next year it will still take everyone else 16 and a half years to catch up with my losses! And thats a "Could cut pay", mines already down by that year to date.

    • Popular Post
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    Looking for a Ghost Writer for MJK

    in Lotus / Motoring / Cars Chat

    Posted

    Ok Peeps. So Dad has recently done some interviews and its made him realise how easy it is to jog his memory and get everything down. I am looking for a ghost writer who can do interviews with MJK and then make sense of all his stories and assist him with writing his book. There is so much to tell it would take a few weeks I would suspect and he also has lots of paperwork, memorabilia and pictures etc from the time which needs to be sorted for Photos of interesting items etc. 

    It needs to be someone who is also a big car fan as it helps pull those long ago stories out and helps with the understanding and someone who is willing to do it either for a % or publish it and make their % from that. 

    It's time to move this forward and Dad is on board! This can even be done over the phone or Computer media initially so lock down won't effect it initially.

    You guys have a lot of contacts. Any ideas?

     

    • Like 5

  16. Official: Government to ban new petrol and diesel car sales in 2030

    in Lotus / Motoring / Cars Chat

    Posted

    I have always been very Anti Conspiracy theory but.......

    Isn't it funny that we are all being told the new normal is working from home and not going out and then they announce this. Seems like a whole large % of the population will now have their arguments covered "Well you aren't meant to be out seeing customers anyway!". 

    It also means having to swipe an ID card whenever you fill up and I suspect they will introduce Mileage charges as a way to cover the loss in taxes so will have Tracking fitted....oh wait, if you have downloaded track and trace you already have it!

    I still don't believe the Conspiracy theorists but as time goes on I do get closer to where they are on the subject!

  17. Official: Government to ban new petrol and diesel car sales in 2030

    in Lotus / Motoring / Cars Chat

    Posted

    17 hours ago, Spinney said:

    I’m no fan of electric cars but in the interests of a bit of balance regarding available power sources:-


    Don’t shoot the messenger by the way!

    God I have so many queries and points after watching that. The primary one is "Well you have to charge when everyone isn't using their electricity" otherwise they won't have enough power is the implication here! And thats part of the problem. I want to fill up with fuel when I want, and I can with a petrol car, not when the National grid tell me they have enough power to do so! Can you imagine getting half way home and going to charge your car at a station with 2-3 million other people who want to get home and finding out there isn't enough power? Cause it will happen! 

    97% of the cars life will be stationary. He obviously doesn't include the millions of reps on the road 50% of time!!

  18. BBC - Again!

    in General Chat

    Posted

    Poor little loves. Getting all upset over appropriate wording for a song about 19th Century Irish Immigrants in the States and being locked up in a drunk tank.

    BBC Radio 1 will not play the original version of Fairytale of New York by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl this Christmas, because its audience may be offended by some of the lyrics.

    The station said young listeners were particularly sensitive to derogatory terms for gender and sexuality.

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    Official: Government to ban new petrol and diesel car sales in 2030

    in Lotus / Motoring / Cars Chat

    Posted

    My Post from Facebook today:

    As an Automotive Professional of 30 years there are many issues with this. I could mention the enviromental issues in that if we are all driving electric cars where will the electricity come from? The increase in requirement for power will go through the roof. Whilst I am talking about infrastructure don't expect this increase to come from renewables. Nuclear looks like the only reliable option? Sound good? Nope me either!! Next, You fill your cars up at a pump and it takes 1-2 minutes. Even on a booster charge an electric car will take 45 minutes for an 80% fill. So even if you change every fuel pump in the country for an electric charger you will have queues for the charging points all the way down every motorways and people waiting hours to charge.
    This will undoubtedly kill many businesses. Many Reps and salespeople do more than 3-500 miles in a single day. I know I can drive to Newcastle and back on a regular basis on less than a tank of fuel. A modern electric car has 250 miles max when its new (some have a lot less).....this is another point as they lose battery power over time.... That means a minimum of 2 electrical fills of 45 minutes if you can find a charging point. Adding an Hour and half to a working day and that will have to be paid for!
    Add in that currently an Electric car is way more expensive than a normal car, it lasts a lot less time (Currently 5-7 years before the battery packs are down to 60-80 miles, There are loads of articles and proof about this as the first batch of Electric production cars get to 5 years old) there isn't enough production of batteries and you can't get replacements when they are drained. Even if you could why would you spend £15000 on batteries to get a car worth £8000 back on the road? Then you have disposal issues as they can't be reconditioned or recycled so you will need massive toxic stores as over time the batteries start to degenerate and give out toxic elements. In past times a car could easily have a 20-30 year life span. I have owned several classic cars from the 70's & 80's. in future cars will be useless after 5-8 years depending on battery life, yet you will spend much more. A Renault Zoe (Small city car) costs about £26000, whereas a petrol Kia Picanto costs £10-12000.
    Lithium-Ion is a limited resource with current level of use expecting us to have around 200 years of resource. However with an increase of 50 times expected with the banning of Petrolium based engines this will last less time than our current stocks or oil. Plus, Lithium Salt mining is both damaging to the enviroment and uses a lot of water. It has already cleaned out whole lakes and deltas in areas where Water is in short supply.
    Next the Fuel Tax revenue of the UK is 2.3% of total GDP ($2.98Trillion). Yes I know it says 1.3% but its down by 1% due to lockdown and expected to go back up when COVID ends. So thats around £60 Billion in a normal year. Where do you think this will come from? Well according to research the Govt will mix in increases in Electricity charges as a tax and road user charges. Those who currently enjoy zero Road tax on electric cars won't get it and anyone with a company car....well forget it! Don't also forget that I mentioned above that there isn't the electrical infrastructure to enable all this, so investment will be made and.....guess who will pay!! Taxpayer.
    Lastly (and its not actually last as I could go on for hours) Think about heating your house. Not only will we be short on electricity because of a huge rise in demand but with Oil not being used in vast quantities, extracting Oil and refining it into its core components will be hugely more expensive. Not an issue you may think....what about the cost of your Heating Oil? Gas for your oven or heating? Your makeup, Rubber making for car tyres etc etc.
    What you are looking at here is the end of independence for members of the public. It will either be too expensive to run a car, or the Govt will then use shortages as an excuse to put people on expensive public transport (which isn't fit for purpose). Add in the fact that every time you plug your car in you need to swipe and ID badge to register who you are and the conspiracy theorists will go wild about state monitoring.
    So you can see. I'm a big fan!! Though I do wonder how many of the decision makers have stakes in electricity companies!!
    • Like 3

  22. Poll. First time Lotus owner V returning Customer

    in Lotus / Motoring / Cars Chat

    Posted

    17 hours ago, C8RKH said:

    Not at all @kimbers. I'm very proud of my little VX220. With the Supercharger she's an absolute scream (literally)!

    I really don't get the negativity towards the car. It is everything Lotus stands for - well built, safe, agile, lightweight, a dream to drive.  Compare that with the love for the Vauxhall Lotus Carlton which is basically a big huge heavy barge with a Lotus roundel on the front and quite literally nothing, apart maybe from some indicator or light switches in common with other Lotus cars.

    However, the badge snobbery keeps the VX220 alive with most owners driving their cars rather than polishing them and many of them now well over 100k miles and still going strong.  If you want the Lotus DNA you can get it at half the price of an Elise. Sadly though for some the "badge" is more important and they'll buy the Elise to go with their Audi or Beemer. ;)

     

    I am only joshing you :P

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