Will

Shocking! Seemed like Neighbours is something that would never go away. I haven’t watched it for about 15 years but still sad its going.

Which one has he got and what do you think of it? I’ve been thinking of getting a Fanatec wheel at some point in the future.

We exchanged contracts today! Things move forward but at a snails pace, we now have to wait three weeks (at least) to do a pre-completion inspection. I wouldn’t mind so much if there was some reason for it being three weeks away but it seems to just be when they can bother to schedule us in. They wanted to book it in for the end of March which co-insides with GDC and then I’m away on other business for a few weeks. All in all, if they can’t arrange the inspection earlier than they currently think, we won’t be moving in until the end of April.

There’s not going to be much to do for us given we’re buying a new build. Probably the main thing will be sorting out a few stupid design points in the main room. For a start, there is a radiator in the only place you can realistically mount a TV so we’ll have to get that moved. Secondly, they’ve put all of the TV points at what we think is the wrong side of the room where we’d rather have our dining area, so we’ll need to have those re-routed to the other side of the room. Other than that I don’t think we’ll do much other than getting furniture in there, I’ll be sure to post updates as we go about it though!

So nigh on two weeks later the solicitors have finally confirmed that we can go ahead and actually buy our place. They’ve said that they will send me contracts tomorrow but exactly what that means or when we’ll progress further I have no idea. I’m really pissed about how crap they’ve been but also trying to not let that put a downer on the super good thing of getting our own home. Hopefully not too long before we’ll actually be in. @Cube, how’s everything going with your place now?

The points for shortened races totally make sense, they should have done that years ago. I’m still convinced that had Hamilton been starting ahead of Verstappen in Spa last year they would not have done those two parade laps and awarded half points for it. The sprint race thing I’m a bit torn on. I’m glad they’re back and giving them more weight, but I still feel they could be much more interesting.

Happy to bring such a beautiful thing into your life. It still shows up for me, just it only works with the first thing I want to quote. When I try to do a second thing it just never appears in the reply box.

I usually just highlight the stuff I want to quote and the "quote this" thing appears - for some reason it doesn't work anymore and I'm too old to learn a new way of doing it. I also like it having the name/time properly added.

Totally agree that they need to get all of this debacle sorted out properly. Seems fairly obvious to me that they need a permanent stewarding team and a set of consistent rules for them to apply. I actually don’t really get how they’ve managed to make such a mess over it in recent years. As I understand it it’s only the first test that won’t have coverage (although I think they will be releasing footage at the end of each day), the second test will be shown as usual.

Yeah. Where we've been looking it seems you maybe get one decent place a week and it's usually gone within a day. The only reason we got our place was because we happened to be there hours after a sale had fallen through and we saw it before it went on the market. If we hadn't of got this place I'm sure we'd still be looking and having very little luck Sorry about the multiple posts, for some reason the forum won't let me quote multiple things in a single post right now.

That's very cool! One of the places we looked at had a really nice garden office. Really really wanted that place but the location would have been a pain.

That's really nice of them! Not too bad of a wait for the internet really. Our place is coming with Fiber pre-installed so I'm hoping it's just a case of making an account and it will start working immediately.

Looks really great! Definitely post up more pictures for us to see when you have more stuff in order!

Exactly the same thing happened with my sister. They got the work quoted for and offered less on the house by that amount. I think they ended up meeting halfway and sharing the costs of the required work. Depends how much your mom wants it but it definitely opens up room for negotiations.

After the end of last season, I've found it quite hard to must any enthusiasm for F1 over the break. However, new cars are being launched and honestly, I think these new cars look really awesome. A change in the rules like this usually shakes things up and I'm now starting to look forward to things getting started. As usual, here are the season details: Last there were some things I was looking forward to, not all of them came to pass but they were: Hamilton becoming the (statistically) outright greatest of all time. I’m not a fan but glad he’s the one doing it. Well, this one didn't work out. Were it not for people making up rules as they go along he would have though. As I said, I'm still pretty upset about the whole thing. The return of Alonso, my all time favourite driver. With the progress of Renault/Alpine I can see him winning a race this year. Definitely turned out to be a good return and had things played out a little differently he might have won something. The team won though and hopefully they continue the good progress in 2022. McLaren continuing their good form and Ricciardo maybe getting back on the top of the podium. This one happened! Hope this type of performance continues this year too. More random things happening due to the ongoing pandemic situation. Of course with the avoidance of any harm to people. I don't think much random did happen in the end? Schumacher in F1 and hopefully doing well. Kind of a decent start, hopefully he can progress more this year. Mazepan hopefully being gone soon. Not yet, unfortunately. More great stuff from Russell and the deserved promotion to Mercedes for 2022. He's there and ready to win! For 2022 I'm going to be looking out for a few things: Lots of winners! I can see Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull, Alpine all taking wins, others could too if we get some chaos. A new world champion. I'm hoping Red Bull can't really compete and the new rules see other teams move closer to the front. I'll mostly be supporting Russell but wouldn't mind any of the Ferrari or McLaren guys taking it. Albon being rubbish. No run away best car. This one might be more hope, but with a bit of luck these rules work and there isn't a Brawn style loophole discovered by somebody. How about you guys? Anything you're particularly looking forward to?

How’s the move-in going, @Cube? Hope it’s all smooth. For us, we’re just waiting on confirmation from the bank they’re OK with the cladding report, and for a few solicitor's checks to come through (both of which should be a formality) and we’ll be ready to exchange. The good part of buying a finished new build is that everything should be very quick from now on. With a bit of luck we’ll be in by the end of the month.

1. Would you be interested in taking part? Oh hell yes! I’ve managed to take part about twice in the last however many years due to the time difference but now I’m back in the UK I am totally up for this! 2. What day and time works best for you? Pretty much any day! As long as it’s somewhat regular I can make it work. Of the three choices given Thursday is probably easiest. 3. Do you want scores to be tracked? Yes. I’d still join in if they aren’t but having it mean something over a longer period of time makes it much more compelling for me, 4. Should Theme Nights be bought back? Sure thing. Always fun to add some constraints into events.

Really wish they’d have done this earlier and spread the releases over a period of time, still, a great price for such a big addition to the game. This will probably be my excuse to finally upgrade to the OLED Switch.

Congratulations @Cube!

Our mortgage has been issued following the bank's valuation so looks like it’s definitely happening. Hopefully, the legal side won’t be too bad as the solicitors have already done a few places in the building. Really looking forward to finally being in our own place again, just need to find a chunk of money to furnish the place.

I like the sound of having a negotiator! I’m going to try and have one in every aspect of life from now on.

Damn, that must be annoying - any reason for the delay? We got the first round of things signed today and paid our reservation fee. Looks like it’s really happening!

Heading over tomorrow to sign the documents and it will all be confirmed. They think if all goes well we should get the keys in four weeks' time!

It’s bought! Will be picking this guy up on Saturday, maybe before if everything goes through OK.

Test drove the BRZ today, it’s brilliant. A lot more fun than I was expecting and WAY more practical than I thought it would be. Tentatively made a reservation awaiting the results of my mortgage stuff going through.