John Carlin Music
Music, Life, Whatevers on my Mind….
Car Auctions, Are they Worth it?
Posted on September 30th, 2011
Recently my son passed his test and I’d promised him a car of his own. I’d looked through the local paper and the cars there were either over priced or on their last legs. I’ve always
been wary when someone wants to sell a car with only a month or two to go before its next MOT – usually it means that the vehicle has major faults that would cost a fortune to
put right. In the end I spoke to some friends who suggested one of the local car auctions. I wasn’t aware that in many places there are regular auctions of used cars, often ex-fleet
vehicles. Last Saturday we got up bright and early and set off for the auction site, which was just outside town. My friends had told me to go early because it was best to try and
get a look at the cars before they went up for sale, they didn’t tell me how difficult that would be.
I don’t know whether you’ve ever been to a car auction but the vehicles are so close together that it’s really hard to get a proper look at them. I spoke to one of the officials in
charge and he said that most people bid on what they wanted and then paid a mechanic to inspect the vehicle. Apparently you get 24 hours to inspect the item and get it checked
over before you have to pay the full cost. I asked him how much that might set me back and he said it depended on who I used but I could expect to pay at least the equivalent of
an MOT test. I decided that my son and I needed to go and think about this, because the extra cost of inspection would impact on what we had to spend on the vehicle. As we were
leaving the official suggested that I try looking online for UK car brokers as they often had some great deals on used cars. We managed to get quite a decent runabout for my son,
and it was slightly under budget.
Posted in Ramblings
First Time Watching Britain’s Got Talent
Posted on May 16th, 2011
I watched Britain’s Got Talent for the first time the other night and actually quite enjoyed it. It felt very contrived – you can tell how good an act is going to be depending on the music before they start and whether they have a sad past – but there are still some funny acts.
I’ve heard people talk about how much they miss Simon Cowell and I can sort of see why. The Hoff may be quite entertaining but I don’t think he has much to add when it comes to talent – after all he was made famous for acting in a show that was notorious for having very bad acting. On the other hand, he does come up with some funny comments every now and again and at least he doesn’t take himself too seriously.
My favourite act of the night was when a boy made a portrait of Michal McIntyre out of marmite and toast. When it started I was cringing, but by the end I realised the boy really did have some talent – although probably not in the conventional art sense of the word! It’ll be interesting to see what he does next – apparently he uses differe