Month: March 2011

The experts on nuclear dangers are crawling out of the woodwork.

liligans So you think you're cultured?, Society, T.V, totally absurd, What Pisses me off

As if reports about the potential threat of a nuclear meltdown in Japan aren’t enough to drive me to despair, enter The Experts.

Every news bulletin unearths its own expert on the situation at Fukushima. He is usually from some obscure university such as the School of Miscellaneous Panic Studies in Antarctica. The interviewer asks him for his considered opinion based on his considerable knowledge of nuclear power only to hear:- “Well, it’s too soon to tell.”

The desperate interviewer prods Dr Mumbles for an atom of information, a sound byte perhaps? but no, the expert pleads ambivalence. “We don’t have enough information as yet,” he explains. “I would be loathe to predict the outcome of this situation.”

“But the situation looks pretty grim, doesn’t it, Dr Mumbles?” prods the interviewer.

“Well, yes… and no, although it’s too soon to tell,” Dr Mumbles responds. “It all depends on…”

“Thank you, Dr Mumbles,” interrupts the interviewer before going back to shots of the steaming nuclear reactor.

“That was Dr Mortimer Mumbles from the University of Antarctica expressing concern over the extremely grim situation at Fukushima.”

What was all that about? I ask myself. They could have interviewed me, and I would have said “Dunno, but it ain’t lookin’ good.” But I wasn’t asked because I don’t have the cachet, the info, the insight, the expertise. My dunno would lack credibility, I guess. However, it is comforting to know that I’m not alone.

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Why we were wrong in buying the latest Series 5 BMW

liligans So you think you're cultured?

In June of last year we decided to replace our nine year old Series 5 BMW. It had been an excellent car and so we were confident that the 2010 release of the Series 5 would be as good if not better than what we had.

Mistake No I.
We made an assumption because of BMW’s elite reputation. The new model was released in June and in fact we bought it from the showroom before we could test drive it. Quite honestly, had we test driven it we would not have bought it. Our mistake.

Mistake No2.
We had test driven a Lexus and were very impressed by its performance. I have personal experience with a Lexus and love it and yet we thought that we should stick to BMW since it had given my husband many years of happy driving.

So there you are. It was all on the toss of a coin really. From the minute we began to drive the BMW, the Professional Navigation System got on our nerves. Please refer to a post of mine in December 2010 which explains what was annoying about it.

The car was noisy and bumped a lot in the streets of Melbourne. BMW told us that the streets of Melbourne with the tram lines are responsible for this problem. The passenger seat headrest was uncomfortable and when we returned to BMW they told us that unfortunately nothing could be done about it.

What really decided things for us is our recent trip to Sydney from Melbourne and back again. The BMW was easy to drive. It has power and we can’t fault that.

But I had to place a travel cushion behind my head so that the headrest would not annoy me. I never had this problem in the previous BMW. The Navigation System informed us that we off the highway when we obviously were on it. Plainly, the maps were out of date.

Anyhow, when we arrived back home after doing 2000kms, we finally concluded that we had been wrong to buy this latest model BMW. We could not tolerate the stupid navigation system that informs you of the latitude, altitude and longitude but does not tell you which suburb you are in.

And yes, we had complained to BMW about the headrest, the navigation and the bumpiness. We even wrote to BMW Australia.

Conclusion:-

We traded in this nine months old car and bought a Lexus GS 300. Life’s too short to have to persist with a poor decision. The Lexus has a great and informative navigation system, the headrest is perfect and I even have a lumbar support for me in the passenger seat.

And guess what? For some mysterious reason the streets of Melbourne have become less bumpy and noisy. Amazing…