Time keeps marching on.

Lets get straight to the highlights and I'll work back to them in my usual tangled way.  Found some recaros on the cheap, we've had a referral from someone looking at dogging sites, I've broken the roof, lost some recaros, wifey crashed her Escort cabbie, Scumrun been on Radio 1 and my reading stats have soared :)

Right, well thats a snapshot of the last week so let's enter my world gently and gracefully.

I have been looking for a cheap set of sport seats for the car since day 1.  I don't want to spend over the odds on new ones as they've only got to caress my own and Gruffs cheeks for 4 days or so.  Every day I have a quick look on eBay and hunt for a MK5,6 or 7 set of Escort seats to come up as I dont want to have to muck about with runners and subframe modifications if I dont have to.  One small (!) issue is that we can't go down the "proper" bucket seat route as I don't think my co-driver will be able to fit comfortably.  Thats not a dig mate, but you are a little larger than the average brown bear.

Anyway, I finally found some local ones in Gosport - 15 mins down the road, should be 25 but I've been practicing my racing lines ;)  Also whilst I'm in entertaining myself mode, I zeroed the clock when I filled up last and in 3/4 of a tank I have achieved only 78 miles.  Thats quite bad but reflects on A) it shifts and B) how much Gruff moans when I hoof it.  It has been idling stationary for a fair few hours which contributes to consumption, but I get the feeling our fuel budget may need to be increased.  That to one side, I found some seats on eBay starting at £50 from an RS2000 so I stuck in a bid of £50.  The price stayed static until 4 hours to the end then went up.  I increased to 55, it went to 57.  I'm quite competitive at times so set myself a budget of £75 and not a penny more.  With 2 hours to go the price went to £77. 

Well, I'm not going to lose out on a mint pair of seats for a couple of quid so I upped my bid to £85 (remember my budget of £75???).  All going well until 30 mins or so to the end.  I told the wifey that I had bid on a pair of seats and that my max budget was £75 and she was HORRIFIED.  Best not to mention I was up to 85 by that point.  Outbid again, I put £95 in the box and hit the confirm bid.  Ooooooh, they're gonna be mine.  They're gonna be mine.....  10 minutes to go, I was outbid yet again, and again, and again.  Eventually the seats went for £112 which is about right and still a bargain but as I hadn't actually told Gruff he was going to be paying half if I won.  So seats found, seats lost. 

If you know of anyone with a decent set of seats for a MK5, 6 or 7 Escort that wont need them for the weekend of the royal wedding, let us know and we'll borrow them and return them (probably covered in potnoodle stains and definately smelling smokey).

For those of you that read the last section of Blog (not Gruff's one, the one with piccy's), you may have spotted in there the words "Portsdown Hill" and "Dogging".  Well, one of the many features on blogger (this site) is that it tells the person who wrote the blog all sorts of useful things, such as how many readers in a day, who's referred them, browser type and most interestingly, what words were typed into a search engine to discover the blog before clicking the link taking them to my page.  I love the feature as I can see what sort of "keywords" are used that refer people to this blog.  Usually things like floppy and scumrun are quite high up.  I was amused to the point of tears and snot when I glanced at the following used in google images "Dogging, Portsmouth, Portsdown Hill".  All in one search.  This chap (I assume it was a male) has been hunting for images to pet his one-eyed trouser gopher over, and then visited my blog.  I feel a little bit dirty. (. )( .)  If you are that guy, the comments box is anonymous, please let us know if you went on to another site or if you did the deed looking at my car?!?!?!?!?

I think I've now found the main leak which is causing the interior to be all squelchy and smell of wet dog.  The roof has been a bit of a git to shut recently and as I'm lazy, I still use the electric option.  As it was raising the other day, it stayed level with the rear quarter glass on the drivers side but was still an inch or so away from the passenger side which would imply it is twisted and not forming a water tight seal.  I did what all man hunter gatherer types do and gave it a gentile whack.  The desired result of making it sit flush has been achieved so hopefully it'll stay dry.  In the process of using a little force, there may have been a bit of a cracking noise.  Sounded like a little rod or similarly important bit of kit snapping.  I havent taken the roof down since but hope it all still works.  Lets see if Gruff does read the blog as I havent told him yet :)

A couple of weeks ago you may be aware that BBC Radio 1 mentioned Scumrun apparantly.  I wasn't listening but one of my customers told me about it.  Since then the stats on this blog have been growing and growing.  With that many new readers I feel the need to once again mention start at the August tab in the 2010 section to the right and work your way forwards.  Enjoy the build up as the car is getting to completion.  I have found an interesting new chunk of car that I'm hoping to get fitted a month before we go.  It'll make us a little more competitive on any track event and will amuse the thunderbird police as we go through the Euro Rally.

In terms of the comment box provided, feel free to add comments in there.  You can do it completely annonymously, or add your name if you wish.  Alternatively, if you wish to contact either Savage or Gruff, please email us at floppythrottle@live.co.uk

And finally:  Wifelet stacked her car.  I received a phone call from Mrs Savages work place yesterday afternoon which is always a worrying thing.  The second worrying thing is that it was the wifes immediate boss on the other end and the first words were "I've got her with me, she's ok".  Turns out Mrs Savage had asked her boss to phone me as she was convinced I was going to go nuts about the car. 

The description I got of the car is, a little scratch, with a small dent, maybe a big scratch, to big dent, paintwork down to the metal, rear light cluster smashed with dirty great scrape from cluster to where the wing mirror "used to be".  So we went from small scratch to full length of car, no mirror or back light.  What caused this you may ask?  A major pile up?  someone swung wildly round a corner?  She swerved to avoid a kitten in the road?  No.  She backed out of her parking space at work into a skip.  A skip thats been there for a month.  A skip thats parked a good few feet to her right.  All she had to do was drive in a straight line backwards.  And once contact made, stop.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.  Glad she's safe but now I've got to craft some magic with filler and a paint colour that only Henry Ford himself can source!!

The Blog Hero has to go to the Gopher man for making me chuckle:

Savage

Completely forgot - please check out the blog showing top right of the MX5.  The guy is called Joe, lives in Guildford and is also entering a convertible into the Scumrun.  We're probably gonna buddy up with him (If we can keep up anyway).