GreenGiant

.......AND? Wh'appen?!!!! (Please excuse my poor use of slang, I was unable to attend the last couple of 'StreetSpeak' Evening Classes, so missed the chapter on Modern Use of Abbreviations and Apostrophes)

Dunno, but the plane is going through next week as a Grade 3

Nah, I'm all over that. Chartered a private jet from some Saudi geezer to take us from Blackbushe.... Doh!

Somebody tell Alanis Morrisette - that's ironic.

That's it.

I have no idea what you just said.

Careful mate. The fact that you are taking it home, I believe, constitutes personal use, irrespective of your intention. You are supposed to consider any trip to and from your normal place of work as personal and any other journey as business-related (test drive, trip to auction, visiting CDX, road test etc.). Just saying. Sorry.. #justsaying

I thought I had a winner. Somebody must have sold this geezer a car somewhere...

But as he's in Devon, he'd be more likely to be Plymouth Brethren, wouldn't he? ..I'll get my coat.

Only one a week...

And maybe let us have the Chassis numbers if poss, as those plates will almost certainly be binned.

D'you know what? I probably wouldn't do the deal. There are so many ways this could bite you in the ar$e. If it's a scam, then you're (obvs) better off well away from it. If it is genuine (and my waters tell me otherwise - paying full retail, wanting finance on benefits, suddenly has the money!?) then what you are selling is clearly desirable enough for someone to want to buy it, unseen, from hundreds of miles away. Therefore, there's a good chance that there's another potential buyer, a lot nearer, with a retailable PX, wanting finance, who's gonna come back to you for servicing and will recommend you to their F&F. For me to even consider it, this person would need to be paying cash, provide proper ID and also needs to collect it from our premises. No brainer for me. I'd make a commercial decision to sit tight.

Bluddy'ell! I think they've all been in here this week!

Won't keep you long this time. Just thought of a name to give a certain breed of 'customer'; you know, the ones who come in for an oil change and then, the following day, want you to be responsible for the washer pump packing up. The ones who have just had an MOT and want to know why their CD player now doesn't work properly. The ones who bought a new rear wiper blade and now have a puncture, which obviously happened while it was in your care. Sinshas As in: "Sinsha replaced the rear exhaust box, the horn doesn't work. What did you do to it?" Or: "Sinsha fitted new rear brakes, the gearbox is whining in third. It wasn't doing it before you touched it" How depressing is it that there is a seemingly unlimited supply of unreasonable people that do not wish to take any responsibility for their own actions or misfortune? Or is it just us that gets them?

...or Hunter, at a push.

So. The best one...and worth the wait, I think you'll agree. About 15 years ago, I sold a car to an elderly couple. From the driving licence I saw, the woman's first names were Treasure Pearl. Pretty good eh? That's not the best bit. Turns out she had married a bloke with the surname.... Ireland. Mrs Treasure Ireland. I sh#t you not. PML for weeks.

I think I must have fallen asleep and woken up in 1993. Lionel Ritchie is smashing it at Glastonbury, Jurassic Park is the summer blockbuster at the Multiplex. And some newly-appointed, power-crazed Motor Manufacturer Exec, (straight out of UniBocconi, no doubt) comes out with this little gem: ‘Do things the way we want you to or you're out’ The recently appointed head of Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) for the Fiat Professional brand Domenico Gostoli is warning dealers if they don’t represent the brand correctly then they will lose the franchise. Gostoli said: “Dealers are either in or they’re out. We’re completely reshaping our dealer network, and this is across the world, not just in the UK. We need the dealer network to be a reflection of us and do things the way we do, not how they want to .Didn't all that 'We're in charge' nonsense disappear a while back when the economy was on it's arse and you couldn't give a new car away? Oh, but things are improving a bit now aren't they? Dealers are starting to scratch a living. And old habits die hard it seems, especially within the manufacturers' Ivory Towers. There's nothing like a little bit of motivation for your network to get them pushing forwards, is there? And this is Fiat we're talking about. Renowned for quality, durability and reliability... People in glass houses..., Signore Gostoli... I also learned (a looooong time ago) that you don't pee on people on the way up. 'Cos they're still there when you're on the way back down.

The silence is deafening....

Don't you just hate lateness? I taught my kids that it was better to be an hour early for something, than a minute late. So now I must go and lash myself with birch twigs.

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, We have a guest ranter this week; someone after my own heart with no fear of jabbing the eyes of those that upset her. As I was struggling to find anything to have a pop at this week, what with the sunshine, I was quite grateful for her timely diatribe to be honest. So, without further ado, let me introduce.... *Ta Daaaaa* ...Mrs Mini. And her post on the RAC cars thread (click on the blue headline) It's comforting to know that, in 30 years time, at least it won't be just me sitting in the corner, shouting at everyone.

It was once told to me that the skill in producing a good piece of writing is to be able to get the reader to visualise extra details over and above what you are writing and even embellish it with additional text or dialogue in their minds. So I'm not actually going to rant this week, I'm just going to copy and paste a headline from that wonderful motoring website SuperUnleaded.com and I'll let you add in the vitriol yourselves. This way, I don't pop an aneurism thinking about how many levels of wrong this is: High Rolling Travellers Have Their Supercars Seized

A little bit outspoken? Moi? Groucho Marx's quote about joining a club applies here, I think.

AhemPS or P.S. are both acceptable (see below under 'Usage'). p.s., however, is the accepted abbreviation for either particle size or pull switch, neither of which, I am sure you would agree, are particularly relevant in this instance. But I thank you all the same. GG PS: I am now wondering whether pi$$ poor grammar should be the subject of this week's rant? Dictionary DefinitionpostscriptNoun1 a note appended to a letter after the signature [syn: PS]2 textual matter that is added onto a publication; usually at the end [syn: addendum, supplement] Etymologypost- + scriptNounAn addendum to a letter, added after the author’s signature.Usage notesIn a letter, to indicate the beginning of a postscript one often uses the abbreviation PS followed by a colon.Translationsaddendum to a letterCatalan: PostdataDutch: postscriptum, nota beneFinnish: jälkikirjoitusGerman: PostskriptumSpanish: PosdataSlovene: pripisExtensive DefinitionA postscript (from post scriptum, a Latin expression meaning "after writing" and abbreviated P.S.) is a sentence, paragraph, or occasionally many paragraphs added, often hastily and incidentally, after the signature of a letter or (sometimes) the main body of an essay or book. In a book or essay, a more carefully-composed addition (e.g., for a second edition) is called an afterword. An afterword, not usually called a postscript, is written in response to critical remarks on the first edition. The word has, poetically, been used to refer to any sort of addendum to some main work, even if not attached to a main work, as in Søren Kierkegaard's book titled Concluding Unscientific Postscript.UsageThe Oxford English Dictionary lists PS both with and without full stops (PS/P.S.). A "P.S.S.", meaning a "Post-subscript", or "P.P.S.", meaning "Post-postscript" is sometimes used to allow the letter writer to add even more thoughts after the first postscript. To continue, a third postscript would be a P.P.P.S. and so on, although these additions are rarely used in practice and would probably be deemed as poor style.In popular culture"P.S. I Love You" is the title of at least three popular songs, one by Rosemary Clooney, one by The Beatles, and one by The All-American Rejects."P.S. I Love You: An Intimate Portrait of Peter Sellers" is the title of a book by Michael Sellers, the performer's son."P.S. I Love You" (2007) is a recent romance movie.Writing "P.S." was wildly popular in the 1770s and was in several of the letters Paul Revere delivered on his famous rides. Referencespostscript in Bengali: পোস্টস্ক্রিপ্টpostscript in Breton: Post-scriptumpostscript in Catalan: Postdatapostscript in Czech: Postskriptumpostscript in German: Postskriptumpostscript in Spanish: Postdata (lenguaje)postscript in French: Post-scriptumpostscript in Italian: Post scriptumpostscript in Hebrew: נ"בpostscript in Dutch: Post scriptumpostscript in Japanese: 追伸postscript in Norwegian: Postskriptumpostscript in Polish: Post scriptumpostscript in Portuguese: Post-Scriptumpostscript in Russian: Постскриптумpostscript in Simple English: Postscriptpostscript in Finnish: Jälkikirjoituspostscript in Swedish: Post scriptum

You're more than welcome. PS I'm sorry for putting this out front early on, but if we are gonna be buddies, it is could/would 'have' not 'of'. My pedantic OCD genes won't stand for it. I'll let the indiscriminate use of apostrophes go for now...

Curiouser and curiouser! It's good to see somebody else having a pop at the greedy, greedy boys and showing them for what they really are. Even I was getting fed up with listening to me... Maybe some of this might be asked of AT on the record by Colin Channon next week? Anyway, keep digging, Phil, I've got your back, mate.