How fast does Darwin work?

Pip Luscher says...

I had maintenance payments of £100 a month to make for my eldest
daughter from just after my 19th birthday. Money was tight for me too
until I discovered that I could quite easily make way more than £100 a
month by buying and selling bikes and cars part-time to supplement my
full time income. I took in a lodger[1], who paid my mortgage for me and
my girlfriend of the time helped out with bills cos she spent most of
her life around my house. From being skint I went to being quite well
off by working bloody hard and playing the game to my advantage.

[1] One of my best mates

 

I think if you've got the wheeler-dealer ability then sure, you can do
this sort of thing. I really, *really* don't. I did once try a job in
sales and that pretty much confirmed it: I sucked big time.

 

Not in my experience.
All of my kids mates drive cars around 3-5 yrs old, far newer and
better than the equivalent vehicles I had at that age.

--
Dan L

Too much time to think, too little to do.


http://thebikeshed.spaces.live.com/
1996 Kawasaki ZR1100 Zephyr

BOTAFOT #140 (KotL 2005/6/7)
X-FOT#000
DIAABTCOD #26
BOMB#18 (slow)
OMF#11

 

<cough>

 

But ability is something you test for, experience just comes along with
age, and if we happen to be talking weekend warriors, not even then.
Time of owning a license, or time of owning a bike bear no relationship
to experience. Fwiw, I've had a car license for nigh on 20 years, and I
reckon anyone thats held a license morre than a year is better than me.
The reason? I drive a car about 3 times a year!

Well yes, that is a consideration, but see my point up there, the only
way you know if someone is any good is to test them.

Well I did de DAS, and while I have problems with what was quite a
rudimentary evaluation system, mine is not to argue whether it's
sufficient or not. Somebody else did that for me. The krauts take it a
whole lot more seriously, but then it costs 3 times the amount, and to
be fair, I don't know how much goes to the government.

Ok, so I think we can agree to differ on this one, but some points in
common, and nobody called anybody a ****. Which is either a good sign
or bad sign.

 

Both my kids are driving relatively old cars 1990 and 1993 but some of
their friends vehicles are only a few years old. So WTF that proves I
don't know.

 

I remortgaged just to take an extra 30 grand to piss away on bikes and
stuff. Not perhaps, in retrospect, the soundest financial decision I
could have made but on the other hand it was one hell of a laugh.

"Damn, I've lobbed a brand new Fireblade down the track. Oh well,
think I'll have a gixxer thou instead"

 

fewer.

 

hmm das. i did the old part one/part two test[1] and the first bike i got
after my test was a cbr600.

still not dead.

[1] this is like admitting that you took 'o' levels instead of gcse[2]
[2] i.e. "you what, grandad"?

 

No, taking a test on a 250 then getting an 1100 is like taking O levels.
What's a two-part test sonny? Like Araldite - only hard if you mix them up?

 

Muttermutter kids of today.
Took my test on a moped (real moped with pedals) at 16andabit and went
direct to a Dominator at 17. One test to rule them all.

 

Hmm, I did the old ride around the block a few times type of test (no
training required) and I took 'o' levels instead of gcse exams. I also
took my 11 plus rather than going to a comprehensive school so I
suppose becoming a grandad was inevitable.

 

I did all them, too.

But I'd have to get me skates on to do this by the time I'm your age.

 

Heh.

A series of crap lightweight bikes until I passed my test on a crap
MZ250. Then to a knackered GT500, GS400 twin, then a Yamaha XS650.

 

Actually the school I went to changed to being a comprehensive when I
was 15 (1) so I suppose I can claim to have been to both types. It
made no real difference because by the time I was 15 I knew that if I
was going to have a motorbike on my 17th birthday then I was going to
be leaving school at 16 so I could earn the money to pay for said
motorbike.

(1) The old fool who was headmaster when I started there aged 11
walked out in disgust before it went comprehensive, he could see the
end of the age of wearing a stupid hat and gown all day and he wanted
no part of it.

Possibly the highlight of my mis-spent school years was my mother
being summoned to the school to discuss my attitude and her then
spending over an hour discussing the fact that she was matron of the
school where the chief witness for the prosecution had been schooled.
I was found not guilty of all charges and restored to the school
cricket team. Result all round.

 

I took the 11 plus *and* passed and *still* ended up at a
comprehensive school.

It's now a "Specialist Sports College", which I imagine is newspeak
for having shit teachers.

 

Champ says...

Products of a Labour controlled education system then?

 

Ah. Mine was a Grammar School *and* a Comprehensive School, in the
*same* building. Ho hum. Good thinking, that.

One of five bilateral schools in the country. Started in 1975, but
doesn't look like it caught on.

The teachers from each original school hated each other more than the
pupils did, and that took some doing.

 

Same as mine. I loathed the place.

I reserved the real underachieving for uni though.