Pol(l)arity hilarity

[hirez]

[Poll #800681]

Comments

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

Coal-fired, A-Series-engined rusty Ebola tanker.

i reckon my rusty ebola tanker is perfectly sensible. a series engines are just fine - they last reasonably well...

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

to be fair, i'm not actually driving anything with an a-series ATM. but i think the same principle applies to the 2cv...

[hirez.livejournal.com]

You know, I don't recall ever seeing a smoke-emitting 2CV.

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

that is because all the exhaust is filtered through the lungs of the occupants. 2cv heating is design simplicity at it's purest.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

That explains the Disc Bleu and always-open windows.

[maluse.livejournal.com]

The trick is to overfill the engine oil and then they'll smoke splendidly at startup: great blue clouds wafting down the street... (The cunning engine breather removes the excess oil from the engine and puffs it into the air box where it congeals and dribbles down the carb throat while the car's parked.)

[quercus.livejournal.com]

The un-air-cooled engine runs so hot that any sort of oily soot emission gets burned into pure NOx.

But if you bung up the rockerbox oil returns with decades of crud so the oil can't get out, then you rock the thing from side to side, you can get it to send smoke signals in separate little puffs.

[kantti.livejournal.com]

Really, literally, something with an A-series engine. The second A-series engine, in fact, since the first one exploded. Which was annoying, since the accepted wisdom is that they're indestructible and certainly don't end up in a vaguely-engine-looking pile of twisted metal. I think I perhaps drove it too fast too often.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

A-Serieseses as fitted to Proper Minis and All-aggros were far from indestructible. (Although both 850s I owned remained oiltight, no matter how hard I strugged to break them.)

There's a certain miasma of cooking top end forever associated with a properly oil-burning example. You don't come across it anything like as often as one did in the 80s, mind.

Expiring Escort engine smells rather similar.

[kantti.livejournal.com]

My new one doesn't burn oil, it's great. The old one went through oil at the same rate as petrol.

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

constant ongoing oil change!
my hearse was a bit like that.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

There was a classic English motorcycle (Early Douglas? Something like that) with a 'total loss' oil system.

I had a Hillman Avenger with a 'dead loss' oil system. The council came round to complain about the damage to the road where I parked it.

Thankfully it was rear-ended and then stolen. I think I got 35 quid from the insurance. Horrible bloody shed that it was.

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

yes... i got threatened with eviction over the oil slick the hearse left.

[adamw]

Stereolab - now there's a band I've not heard in a while. Never did get into them...

[hirez.livejournal.com]

They're the second-loudest band I've viewed. Mark Stewart & the Maffia hold the not-really-coveted No. 1 spot.

[glitchdrei.livejournal.com]

I walk, then take a bus for five minutes (this is usually when I realise I'm running late) then walk the rest of the way.

[gwengothelf.livejournal.com]

I car pool with 2 other people. Normally we take the sensible car out of the available ones, but sometimes we have to take mine - which being a 15 year old volvo petrol estate is not the most economical car for commuting...

So I ticked both sensible and silly cars. Mostly sensible with the added 'holier than thou' bonus of it having 3 people in, but occasionally the guilt-ridden silly car on my oen :D

[jhaelan.livejournal.com]

Lucky enough to walk the whole ten minutes ;)

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

If there was a more eco-friendly way of getting to Stroud from the 'Nam at stupid-o-clock in the morning I'd consider it.

Staff questionnaires where I have met with the idea of a subsidised minibus have been met with snorts of derision.

Since the great levitating Mondeo incident of May, I have decided I *need* that much metal around me. This may pass. I'd be happy to take colleagues if they weren't all bitching, sniping children...

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. If anyone's looking for snidey I'm-greener-than-you LJ drama fodder, then they're going to be thankfully bored. In that I've been on my bike 'cos I've had no car, and now I have one again I'll stop on the bike because I like being outside while the weather's nice and it's doing me the power of good.

(Actually, I constructed an entire poll around the phrase 'Rusty coal-fired ebola tanker' and because 'Jenny Ondioline' was in my head again.)

You can bet I'll be back in a nice warm car as soon as it's the rainy season again or as soon as some near-miss with a scaffolding wagon gives me The Fear.

I'm not unfamiliar with that Birdlip-Slad run and you wouldn't get me to do it in anything sans a crumple-zone.

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

sans a crumple-zone.

other cars make a good crumple zone, or so i've found.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Ye-es. And a rigid safety-cell is lovely until you're bouncing around inside it like a pea in a bucket. Old Landies/Range-Rovers have interiors you can just hose the blood from, which is quite handy.

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

And a rigid safety-cell is lovely until you're bouncing around inside it like a pea in a bucket.

this is why i wear a seatbelt.

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

I swear at people in big Land Raper 4x4 kidwagons. A lot. And that's about the extent of my eco-warrirorness these days. New car is an emotional crutch; I like driving fast and going on adventures and not being nearly dead throughout that experience. Vicious rain makes my knuckles stand a clear inch off the back of my tightly gripping hands and it'll be a while before that dissipates.

I ought to get the pushbike out though, especially before the CE gig, but I really *do* have little motivation for exercises that take me from A-to-A again

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. I still get that queasy 'oh shit here we go' feeling when the internal camera footage from Rally Report goes 'Earth sky earth sky'.

It's all about that Personal Munting Point. Like Easter, it's a moveable feast.

[silverskull.livejournal.com]

Pah - no motorbike choice...

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Indeed not. And at least one spelling mistake. You just can't get the staff, can you?

[figg.livejournal.com]

I don't have a job, and I haven't listened to stereolab in aaages.

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

Not sure if it's sensible or silly, really. Environmentally it's sensible, as it's not too much of a guzzler, so keeping it going means that all of those metals and other materials are kept in use.