WDB
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Post by WDB on May 29, 2017 9:01:00 GMT
This advert was on the back cover of the Guardian Weekend magazine. I'm assuming whoever placed it was looking for the Telegraph's number and read along the wrong row. But it's quite fascinatingly awful. www.deagostini.com/uk/collections/build-jaguar-e-type/?For a start, it has one of those fill-in-and-send-off order forms - remember those from their last appearance in the 1980s? In tiny, pensioner-proof print, it explains that your first two parts will cost you £2 (SAVE £15.99), after which you get two more for £18, making four parts for £20. Then every four weeks, you pay £36 for four more. P&P is always FREE. Right at the very bottom, in even smaller type, we finally learn that the entire thing will require 100 such issues, and cost a total of £888. What it doesn't say even there is that the deliveries will be spread over almost two years, assuming the supplier remains solvent that long. Better still, by giving them just £1.50 more per issue, you can entitle yourself to an Exclusive Acrylic Display Case and a Commemorative (of what?) Jaguar E-type Presentation Plaquewith your final delivery. That's £150 for a plastic box and a slab of chipboard - if you're still alive. One for the fleeces in the other place, perhaps? |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2017 9:11:34 GMT
I remember these from the 1980s. It always cost many time more over the period that the actual cost of the kit. Surprisingly, DeAgostini are still in business.
Are the kits any good? (not that I would buy one over two years).
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WDB
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Post by WDB on May 29, 2017 9:29:29 GMT
Another thought occurred to me after posting, which is, what is the seller's cash flow model? If they're buying the kit complete, then getting money back over two years - with a chance that the customer will cancel or die before completion - I can only suppose their margin is huge. I suppose £80-200 might be a fair price for a detailed model of a car for those who like that kind of thing. But for that price I'd want it assembled, not in bits.
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Post by Alanović on May 30, 2017 8:37:45 GMT
Do they do an Alfasud? I'd like an Alfasud.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on May 30, 2017 10:57:40 GMT
I suppose you couldn't do a worse job of putting it together than the original maker did.
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Post by Alanović on May 30, 2017 11:08:32 GMT
There is that, yes.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on May 30, 2017 14:30:40 GMT
I may have been harsh on this. A little poke around turns up some satisfied customers, like this discussion here: www.mi6community.com/discussion/531/buyer-beware-true-cost-of-part-works-car-models-exposedPeople seem to think the models are good enough to justify the price, and that the part-work model is a way to appeal to buyers who wouldn't (or couldn't) cough up £600-£1,000 for all the bits in one box. My cup of tea? Still no. But this may just be a decent company making a high-quality, low-volume product that costs a lot to create and so has to sell at a high price. But I still think £150 is too much for a plastic case and a plaque. |
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Dec 8, 2023 14:46:06 GMT
I had a glimpse today of an alternative, fleecy future — and I didn’t like it.
I have an ancient The North Face jacket — yes, all right, a fleece — that I bought from the end-of-line rail at the outdoor shop I used to live near in about 2006. So old is it that Boy2 considers it ‘vintage’ and occasionally asks to borrow it. Betweentimes, I wear it for occasional winter gardening and car washing and, as today, to walk the 600m to and from the gym.
But today, as I was putting it back on to walk home, the zip puller broke off in my hand. No problem, just pinch the runner, zip it up and fix it later. Easy up, easy down … well, no, as it turned out. That puller turns out to be the release lever for a little ratchet device on the inner face of the zip. Without it, up is easy and down well-nigh impossible. But by now the thing was most of the way to my chin. MrsB1 tried and failed to work it out. The collar has next to no elasticity but I just managed a scratchy and uncomfortable exit over my head.
Without that, it would have been either the big scissors or a lifetime of pontificating on lawnmowers, oil changes and immigrants — or immigrants’ lawnmower oil changes — over the garden fence. As it is, I have to find someone who can fix the zip, or something else to wear to the leisure centre.
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Post by Humph on Dec 8, 2023 15:49:12 GMT
There will be a seamstress/tailor or similar near you who can save it. I’ve occasionally taken torn Barbours etc to one in our town and they do a great job for what seems like not much money.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Dec 8, 2023 17:03:07 GMT
Yes, there’s a capable repair and tailoring shop in town that I’ve used before. They repaired the failed stitching on my Barbour jacket and added reinforcement that a better-designed jacket would have got at the factory. They may simply have the right kind of zip puller to swap in for the broken one.
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Post by Alanović on Dec 8, 2023 17:07:01 GMT
My son has a thing about "vintage" clothing too, I went round some local charity shops with him recently and he was absolutely delighted with a heavy weight doom blue North Face branded fleece he found in one for a fiver. Lives and dies in the thing now. Looks indestructible, which is just as well knowing him.
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Post by Humph on Dec 8, 2023 17:28:44 GMT
Is “better designed” a euphemism for “larger” ?
😉
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Dec 8, 2023 17:33:52 GMT
Yes, but specifically in the top pockets. That’s what came undone. 😛
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Dec 8, 2023 18:25:13 GMT
600m to the gym and you walked ! Are you mad man ?
That's what your EV is for.
I'll bet there are members who live closer than you who do use their car.
Funny thing age. I loved a pint or glass of wine or two or three. That was most nights in my 30s, in my 40s I liked a drink at the weekend, Friday or Saturday evening. Now I'm in my 50s it's more birthdays, holidays, Christmas type drink.
The quality of the drink has gone up while the quantity has collapsed to almost not worth bothering to count.
Is this normal ?
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Dec 8, 2023 20:17:37 GMT
600m to the gym and you walked ! Are you mad man ? Sorry. Couldn’t find the key to the Range Rover. |
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