Save cash on fuel

EDITED – See end of text for latest figures!

Since getting my old Audi A4 (1996 Saloon) I have covered over 6000 miles in under 3 months.

I drive over 100 miles a day – and that works out as an average of 76.1 miles a day including my none driving days!

That also works out at £8.04 a day on average…. and 659.8 miles per fill up.

So… I have the perfect chance to try several ways to save fuel.

I didn’t want to do anything over the top. I wanted to make slight changes to see what would happen. The type of changes you could do quite easily without altering your driving style so much.

Firstly I did a few journeys at my normal style. I’m no racer – I keep up with the traffic and drive as the traffic around me drives – so pretty average.

The table below shows a few statistics on my trips. I purchased the car with 113816 miles on the clock – so that is why the first line shows 0mpg – I hadn’t got anything to judge it against.

By the 27/08/09 I had covered 638 miles filling up with 57.63 litres – I had covered those 638 miles at 50.33mpg – a good starting point, as when I chose the car I was looking for 50mpg or more at the very least.

The next entry and I only got 47.03mpg! I knew why though. I was a bit heavier on the throttle and harder on the brakes. I even went around a track which gave the impact of driving the car like a “boy racer” – although that was only for 3 miles…. ONLY 3 miles like an idiot racer and it hammered my economy.

The following fill up gave me 55.66mph – and that was by far gentler driving… but nothing major!

I still drove at the same speeds on the roads as I had done on the previous tests, but this time I didn’t floor the throttle to get to those speeds, and I didn’t use harsh braking to slow down.

I simply put enough throttle down to get the car moving, then as it gathered speed I’d change up a gear – but a little earlier than usual. The time it took to get up to my usual top speeds was a little slower, but it was there that most of the fuel savings took place.

When it came to driving I simply left a bigger gap between me and the car ahead. If I saw the cars ahead start to slow I would come off of the throttle straight away instead of catching up and having to brake.

This way I wasn’t wasting fuel by braking and accelerating all the time – I was just using the throttle to keep me gently at my cruising speed – which was the same cruising speed I had used from the beginning of the test.

As you can see – between harsh driving and gentle driving I had a change in mpg of 8.63 mpg… or 299 miles per tank – at the time that was £6.84 per tank saved. For me that is over £350 a year… which  covers MoT & Tax.

The thing is, the journey to and from work is not taking any longer. Just driving calmly, pre-empting what other cars were doing, having a feather weight foot rather than a lead one… it all added up.

I use the iPhone App – Road Trip to measure all of this. Since using it I have taken a greater interest in my economy – I even have all my expenses set up on it so I can see the true daily cost of my car once insurance, fuel, tax, MoT, services etc are taken into account. Currently it costs £12.21 a day – which is less than half the price of a return train ticket for my work!

Annoyingly the M3 then had months of road works – and the reduced speed took the car out of an economic cruise, so I lost the high mileage economy for a while. Still, I managed to keep the average up over 50mpg.

Yellow: Price per Litre / White: MPG / Blue: Average

I am now trying to hone my driving style to reduce the fuel cost even more. I mentioned that I would simply come off of the throttle if I was catching up with traffic. If I caught up too fast (nothing dangerous)  then I was using the brake. This isn’t the best way to save fuel…. You see modern cars that are aiming at giving better economy are now using engine braking to help save fuel. One way you can do this with older cars is to come off of the throttle, put the clutch in so the revs drop off, then slowly let the clutch out again. The speed of the car will then try to spin the engine revs back up again, and as this happens the energy used to spin the engine up is lost in speed. I am finding I can slow down quite smoothly this way – and in fact don’t need to use the brake unless I am coming to a dead stop, or if there is an event that requires faster stopping.

I also don’t sit on the clutch at traffic lights or on hills. I go into neutral and put the hand brake on. It doesn’t seem like much, but it all adds up. Correctly servicing the car, keeping the tyres to the correct pressure (an important safety check in its own right) – it’s all important in the fight to save fuel bills – and none of it is difficult to achieve.

It’s all about being calm – and it is true to a point, driving faster doesn’t get you there any quicker – but driving there with a bit more thought will save a lot of money.

UPDATE!

Even though I spent some time stuck in traffic due to a huge problem on the M27, the results from clutch braking are showing through. I have just returned my best MPG to date at 56.18mpg – giving my daily running cost (including all bills etc) of just over 15 pence!). If I carried on driving hard, that would go up to £1.15!!! That’s a heck of a difference.

One person pointed out that this may wear the clutch out more… BUT… I am using less brakes and less fuel – which more than makes up for any additional clutch wear. Also. the clutch is gently slipping within a small speed & rev range, so the wear is much less than you would get when changing gear. So clutch wear is a mute point here.

Magicians can kiss my Enchanted Ring

Okay… before I rant I will say that there are some fantastic illusionists who use their own physical skills to do their illusions. Sleight of hand, close up illusions – all very good… but as for magic, that’s the stuff of King Arthur and Merlin, or Dungeons and Dragons.

I appreciate the skills of these illusionists almost to the same extent that I detest so called magicians and illusionists that rely on getting an audience to lie, tricks of the camera and other such bull to make their “tricks” work.

It stems back to me as a young lad being privileged enough to see Paul Daniels make an elephant “disappear” with his “magic”…. what a bunch of tosh.

The “trick” involved a big square tent with a pointy roof. The tent sides all drop down outwards so they lay flat on the ground. The roof of the tent is pulled off by a rope going up to a crane jib. In the top of the tent is a trapeze.

The idea is that the sides are down but the roof is on so the trapeze can’t be seen. Hidden in the roof is Debbie McGee. An elephant is walked into the tent. The tent sides are hoisted up, Paul says some “magic” words and then the tent sides drop and the roof cover is rapidly whipped off to reveal no elephant in the tent and just Debbie McGee sat on a trapeze.

To add credibility to the “magic” there are four Gurkha soldiers guarding the four corners of the tent. Their job is too act all shocked when the elephant vanishes… and have been told to lie, as they have to say the elephant hasn’t left the tent by any other means. This is where Daniels starts to get supposed audience participants to lie to the viewing public to help the so called illusion. I’m sorry, but if it takes making people lie to make the “magic” work, then it is nothing but a con at best. Not an illusion, not magic… a pure con.

What made me feel worse was even as a young kid I knew how honourable & honest the Gurkha soldiers are – I knew these brave soldiers would do anything for the Queen & Country…. and here they were being told by the dwarf like Daniels to lie for entertainment…

To add even more credibility to the farce they even had Johnny Morris there, walking around in the tent and jumping up and down proclaiming how the ground under the tent was absolutely solid. For all Johnny knew it was…

From my vantage point I watched the elephant getting walked into the tent. As the sides went up the rear tent panel opened like a pair of curtains (hidden from view, and ignored by the Gurkhas) and the elephant was lead out onto a platform. This was a lift platform that then dropped the elephant into a big old hole in the ground. As the platform retreated into the hole, the curtains were shut again. All of this happened very quickly as Daniels spun his cheesy magic to the camera…. and then! BANG… the tent sides drop, the roof is lifted and you are left with Debbie on the trapeze and no elephant – as the elephant is now hidden in a hole underneathe the back tent panel that has been dropped over the hole. See… I told you for all Johnny knew the ground directly under the tent was solid.

What the home audience see is the disappearance of an elephant, a confused Johnny Morris, four Gurkha chaps who have been told to lie, and several scattered spectators who also “didn’t see anything dodgy happen”. Home audiences are wowed and one small boy who saw it all for his own eyes is thoroughly disillusioned (see what I did there?).

Derren Brown is another to get people to lie for his act. The Lottery number trick was all done with split screen monitors (a bit like in movies where a thieves loop a video clip of a corridor to trick the guards). I won’t go into that here – but instead I’ll hand over to this YouTube clip (by Mutated Monty) that explains it. If one guy with a camera at home can do this, then Derren Brown would have no problem. Goes to show what a bunch of arse it all is. Well Done Mutated Monty.

So, unless you can pull a clever trick off WITHOUT getting people to lie to cover you, or relying on camera or computer trickery, then you don’t deserve to be called an illusionist – AT ALL. You are nothing more than a visual effects performer or con man.

Copperfield, Blaine, Daniels, Brown and all – you can all kiss my enchanted ring with your huge vanishing buildings and psychic mumbo jumbo – it’s all pathetic tat.

Now, street performers who can, by pure use of hand skills, make things happen before my eyes, then you people are the true illusionists. Lets not forget though – it’s all illusion and not magic…. magic is all Lord of the Rings.

What brought all of this up you may ask…. Simple… I just found out our works Christmas party has table “magicians”…. I am really hoping they are from the street performer side of the illusionist track, than the pathetic fakers side…

Spider, man!

As you may well know, spiders have never been my strong point.

Only 2 years ago I’d torch the buggers with a hairspray can and lighter, rather than go near it.

A year ago I managed to catch one in a glass and let it loose outside… It got to a point where I could catch it and let it go AS LONG as it didn’t move during the process… if it moved, the pint glass was turned rapidly upside down and the spider became bigger, flatter….deader.

I had to overcome this fear though – or else little Alex would fear spiders too… and that wouldn’t be a fair thing for me to pass on.

A year ago at my last job I encountered a weird spider outside of my office window… I observed, contacted the Natural History Museum and found out it was a very rare sight for a human to see. It was some kind of woodland night time spider. Big thing – bit like a garden spider, but in a leather jacket with a skull on the back. In fact this thing did have a skull like pattern on the back!

Anyway, this rare spider had young un’s…. One got into the office. It was tiny only 1mm across… and each day I decided to pick it up to try and out grow my fear. It got bigger (only about 1cm across) before it vanished… but it was a start for me.

Then a few weeks ago a reasonable sized house spider caught me off guard in the bathroom. The only thing I could do was scoop it up by hand… EEEP!

That was it though – Once I held it I realised the fear was on the way out. It was just a spider! It was a bit like getting into a cold swimming pool! The initial touch was chilling… but within moments it was walking over my hand and I was not too freaked!

Then a few weeks later I caught a slightly bigger one in a glass… took it outside… then tipped the glass onto my hand and let it run around a bit. Once more gaining confidence!

Then tonight…. I heard thumping on the kitchen ceiling as this brute walked across it. Too big for even me! I took a pint glass and card and caught it… took it outside… and just figured I’d do it… no time to think….

I figure I’m pretty well on my way to beating the fear! This thing was huge and had weight to it!!!

I even managed to keep it entertained whilst I called Chris on my mobile…. She answered from safe in the house… I asked her to bring my camera out and leave it on the doorstep so I could get some pictures!

More pictures HERE

Goodwood Breakfast Sub….

Yup… the Breakfast Club was more of a breakfast submarine due to the amount of rain it saw!

I haven’t seen such a storm in 3 years – the rain came down so hard it started going back up again, but people still turned up to see the souped up cars on show.

From rear engined V8 mini pick up trucks to blown Japanese racers (ricers) and HUGE American metal, the cars spanned several genres of tuning and modifying – even down to a nice replica GT40 which little Alex towered above!

One car stood out though… for pure garish and tastelessness!

Alex thought this PT was Poo!

I quite liked the PT Cruiser when it first came out – BUT it was one of those Marmite cars – love or hate… and even then those who liked it could easily hate it in another colour. It took a lot to have it look “just right” – and when it looked right, I liked it!

This example missed the mark though! I only hope they were trying to be ironic or comedic, because it couldn’t look worse if someone had decorated it in sea shells and glitter! Mind you, one persons trash is another persons treasure – so best of luck to them… I hope they achieved what they were aiming for…

One thing I noticed, and I don’t proclaim to know much about the scene, was the Germanic touch that some of the the America Hot Rod people had. Iron crosses featured subtly (and less subtly in places) on some of their vehicles, as did their love of heavy “Bovver Boots”, turned up jeans, bomber jackets and buzz cut hair styles.  I have a shaven head myself, so that in itself means nothing, but with the clothes and Germanic items, it all felt a bit, well…. Nick Griffin would have felt quite at ease.

It’s just what I picked up – I could be totally wrong, but that was my first impression. Admittedly the guy with the Skull headed Iron Eagle on his truck and an Adolf Smiley Face T-Shirt didn’t do much to alleviate this first impression, but hey – Horses for courses, and they were all very pleasant.

One more Breakfast Club this year – Decembers Christmas Breakfast Club – and already I’m looking forward to it!

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Scary Veg time

I have never carved a pumpkin before …

My Dad taught me that if I was going to do anything, then I should always do my best.

So… when Alex asked me to carve a Mini pumpkin I figured I’d do the best I could… Lets face it, it’s just veg, knife, picture…

I figured you might like a guide on how I went at it – You never know, it might help you!

First I tried to hand draw something Mini-like…

My awesome artistic talent shines like a lump of coal…

Not great….

The idea was to draw a Mini then shade out the areas I’d eventually cut from the scary veg!

So… onto Google and find a good Mini front view…

Make screen size to suit pumpkin… then trace…

Shade main features… cut out… remembering not to cut all the way around or the Mini will fall out!

Now… scoop out pumpkin.

When cutting the top remember to cut it like a wedge, and not straight down, or the lid will fall in!

I then pinned the template to the veg and traced the shape onto the pumpkin using a pin… like a giant dot to dot.

Cutting the smaller parts first whilst the pumpkin is still pretty rigid reduced potential breakage.

For fine details I just cut away the skin, but didn’t remove the flesh from under it. (like the tyre treads)

I also cut the skin around the edge where the main car was attached.

The MINI name at the top also helped hold the main car cut out in place and add to the shape.

Once lit you can see that the treads show up well – even though I only shaved the skin off there!

The end result is a very happy little Alex!

(…and a quite chuffed Dad! – Not bad for a first effort!)

Time Travel Hasn’t, isn’t and won’t happening…

Okay… hold tight…

Time travel hasn’t happened yet… isn’t happening now, and will not happen in the future.

We will not even meet aliens who have the technology. Not even Dr Who.

Remember the 70’s? Even the 80’s? The technology we had then was limited. No one even dreamed of owning a mobile phone… in fact if you go back a few more years, even the cutting edge scientists and sci-fi writers hadn’t even thought of the idea… and yet pretty much everyone has a mobile phone now… and access to the internet… which is another thing that 50 years ago could not even be thought about – It was beyond imagination!

Go back 100 years and no-one would believe we could video talk by a small hand held digital device to someone across the World… I’ve even Twittered to the International Space Station… Technology that was once not even imaginable is now common place.

What has this got to do with time travel?

Well, it has to do with rebels and kids with too much time on their hands if I am to cut to the chase.

Like previous technologies any new technology is generally very expensive and owned by a Government, Research laboratory, Institute etc… The technology is hugely expensive and prone to going wrong…. but over time the technology improves and more lower level groups get hold of it… and eventually a few well off “normal” folk get hold of it… and then we all have it… A bit like mobile phones and the internet.

The thing is, once it is common place (as all technology is eventually), it becomes a plaything for the idle and deviant.

The internet! A thing of knowledge, research and communication to start with…. but now it’s also a thing of silly videos, hacking, chat rooms, and pornography…

Time travel would eventually go the same way… It’ll start as a special project, it’ll develop into a more widely available technology… and eventually all the kids will be able to do it…. If they mix it with the internet I am not looking forward to receiving spam from the future

DEAR: L Blick – In the future everyone has a bigger penis.. YOU COULD HAVE ONE TOO!!! VIAGRA 3012! Don’t miss out!!! By the way… our King (your future King) has died and left you £129,432,345,322:00 and we need your credit card details & a DNA sample so we can send you the money….

With such a widely available technology there will be those who abuse it… hackers, kids with too much time on their hands, terrorists etc… and as such it wouldn’t be long before someone went back in time and left proof that time travel was possible. We would have been visited by now.

Even if it is/was discovered when (if) we finally meet extraterrestrial life, then the same rule applies. Sure, it may take 100 years to creep out of the secure Government facility, it may take 1000 years…. 10,000 years…. but it’ll still follow the same path and become common place and be a thing that can (and will) be abused.

Sure, manufacturers of your pocket “iTime™” transporter will build in infinite anti-paradoxical time protective features (∞APTP-f ©), but as with all things, some clever folk will hack and jail break these features eventually… and we are back at square one – ANYONE can travel back and mess with the past.

The thing is….. they haven’t….. and they won’t….. because it isn’t possible then, now or ever.

We’d know about it by now if it ever happened at sometime… but it hasn’t…. & that’s what I’m getting at.

It’s not a far fetched thing really. Back in WW2 there were top secret RADAR research programs going on… and now most people have at least one item developed from this system in their house. A once top secret thing that a few years prior wasn’t even a figment of someone’s imagination is now, less than 100 years later, a common place thing.

So there you go, Time travel hascannotwon’t happen…. and if you just skipped to this last line, that isn’t time travel, that’s just cheating!

Maserati leads the Italian Parade

Another Sunday, and another Goodwood Breakfast Club. This time it was the role of Maserati to lead the way – with many other Italian marques showing their well inked lines….. droooool!

Alex once more loved it! How could he not? It had Grandad and Cars…. what’s not to like for a little boy?

FOR PHOTO’S CLICK HERE

Alex shows his mad car skills

You know by now how mad on cars little Alex is… but now here’s a short video clip…

He wanted me to film him with his cars today – but it’s often tricky as he then becomes more interested in the camera than the cars!

All he knows is all he has learnt from magazines, TV or asked me about (or other people). I don’t want to force him into anything as I don’t want to put him off cars – but when he does ask questions I don’t “child” the answer down. He wanted to know what the wings and spoilers were, so I told him about the aerodynamic aids cars have. He knows about engine layouts too – and not era of car is a problem for him!

Something very sweet about the way he pronounces a lot of the car names too!

I’ve posted this before, but I like it so much I decided to share it again! It shows Alex at one of the Goodwood Breakfast club meetings. He doesn’t just look at the cars, he asks about them. Who am I to starve him of the answers! He knows his V8s from his straight 6’s, his dropheads and his tintops…. got to love him!

Goodwood Revival 2009 Sights and Sounds

Goodwood Revival 2009 was a bit special for me -  SEE HERE

I managed to grab a few movie clips whilst I was there. Hopefully you’ll enjoy them – but in all honesty, you really need to be there… so hopefully I’ll see you at the Goodwood Revival 2010…

I apologise…

‘Scuse me whilst I kiss the sky!!! I’m still a bit overly happy! I’m sorry!

Goodwood Revival 2009 will go down in my history books as the day I reverted to being 9 years old….

It’s always great – no two ways about it, the Revival is the greatest motorsport weekend there is. All the famous and not so famous race cars from the many years of track racing. Jaguars, Ferraris, Mercedes, Alvis, Ford, Chevy, Lotus, I could go on….and on… all battling in very heated full pace battles. Not replicas – these are the real deal… 50 to 60 years old and they are still adding to their history.

Why was this one different?

Well, by now you will know of my love for the XJ13 – the most beautiful car in the World – FACT (Okay, opinion, but it should be fact). This 60’s supercar managed 206mph under the guidance of the great Norman Dewis. It was the 13th model for Jaguar, hence the XJ13 tag… a mystical number… some see it as unlucky…it just adds to the tale.

It was going to be a Le Mans entry to crush the Ford GT40’s and Ferraris of the day, but just before it was ready the race rules changed and the XJ13 wasn’t allowed to race. It was the test bed for the Jaguar V12 powerplant that went on to get fitted in later Jaguars – notably the E-Type. In fact to launch the E-Type a photo shoot was called up with the XJ13 to add heritage to the new V12 E-type. On this outing one of the magnesium wheels “let go” and Norman had an almighty crash.

The car was all but written off – and luckily Norman survived!  Years later it was rebuilt and is now with the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust Centre.

Named the thirteen…a still born racer that almost killed its test driver… a beautiful, powerful car that can still hold its own… those GT40’s got away lightly… the XJ13 would have eaten them alive.

I first saw the XJ13 many years ago at Beauleau Motor Museum and fell in love with it. Since then, on odd occasions we bump into each other. I eventually came to know of the TWR replica (Click here to link!) – the most accurate and faithful of the few replicas out there. At £105,000 it isn’t cheap – but then it is an XJ13….

It always stops me in my tracks, and today it did once more. As I rounded the corner as we walked through the Revival event I saw the TWR XJ13 sat there…. The engineer in charge of the project (Trevor – the T from TWR) was there and we got chatting about “her”. It was the first time I had got a chance to talk about the 13 with people actually involved.

After a long chat with Trevor I went off and caught up with Chris and Alex, where we all then took in the sights, sounds and action of the Revival. We met old and new friends on our walk about, and generally had a good time of it all.

Toward the end of the day (and this blog entry) I met the XJ13 again…but until then….

Carnaby in Goodwood

Alex getting into the spirit

Glam Cabs!

Spitfires, Messershmitt, Mustangs and a Vulcan took to the air, vintage racers blitzed the track… (Alex loved the Mini racing – which really was a nail bitter)… and we loved it. Fairground rides, Rockers, Dad’s Army, Laurel and Hardy, Hippies and Mods – static car displays the lot – Brilliant.

Dad’s Army

The ME109

Mad Mini’s going Hell for Leather

Huey – UH-1 with M-60

A pair of Aces? Mustangs down Low

Laurel and Hardy

The Italian Job

We caught up with my Father in Law as well, which Alex had been on about all day (he loves his Grandad!). Always great to catch up with him – although on race days he is obviously under a lot of stress and pressure with his job! I never really expect to see much of him on those days – so if we do manage to meet up it is always an added treat.

When we went to head home I decided to head back to the 13 to see if I could possible sit in her..it..her… I know it was a big ask, and pretty unlikely, bearing in mind the cost and “DO NOT TOUCH” labels on it..her…it…

As I rounded the corner again I reverted to being a kid once more, as stood chatting with the Trevor (Mr TWR) and next to the 13 – was Norman Dewis…

I went to take a photo of the two of them and the camera started to misbehave. Norman suggested I was out of film…. I tried again to get a shot.

Thanks to the ice breaker I found myself talking to Norman Dewis… Trevor then suggested I bought the Norman Dewis book (a huge tome about his life and key role in developing the Jaguar cars from C types to XJ saloons, XK’s and XJ’s…. his racing against other giants like Moss and Fangio…).

I’ve wanted it for a while…. It isn’t a cheap book, but it was 30% off for the Revival.. but still not cheap…. so I said I’d buy it as my Christmas present… as long as I could have a seat in the 13, and if Norman wouldn’t mind signing the book…..

Needless to say I ended up sat in the cockpit of the 13, with a signed book and several photo’s of me with Norman, the XJ13 and Alex, me and the 13….

I look a little mad in these pictures… but I was trying hard not to look too much like a kid in a candy shop!

Behind my head… 450hp of V12 in a 1200kg chassis…. SWEEEEET!

It was all over far too soon for my liking. As we wandered away I then spotted a golf cart heading towards me. It stopped… I recognised the driver and went over to shake hands and say “hello”….. Murray Walker! Yes, Mr Voice of Formula One himself! Murray Walker shook the hand that 1 minute earlier Norman Dewis and shaken… I may never wash it again! Two Legends!

How can I better this? Well…. unless I can raise the finances, the next step would be a trip out in a 13… (or THE 13….*shudder!*)… Better still would be some wheel time in the 13…. but hey! I’m still counting my lucky stars that I even managed to sit in this, one of the greatest cars to have ever existed.

So all that is left now, is for me to scour the marketplace to see who wants to buy a kidney…. one careful owner… only £105,000……