----------- Kayle Garkut's Blog ----------- Allotment - Computing - Music & Misc.

I honestly feel that news coverage of this is being deliberately suppressed to minimise the support it can generate.

In a nutshell, Saturday 15th December 2007 - 10:00am is the chosen date and time by Transaction 2007 for peaceful fuel price protests at currently un-named refineries and/or storage depot's.

You can read more here.

If this is going to be anything like the last fuel protests in 2000 & 2005, then take my advice and fill up ASAP!

UPDATE 1: Transaction 2007 will be advising on locations and meeting places on their website (and forum) at midday on Thursday 13th December.

UPDATE 2: Here are a list of meeting places as described on the Transaction 2007 website:

Meeting Points

Stanlow Refinery:
All person(s) wishing to attend the Stanlow Demonstration are requested to meet at the following location:Chester Services - M56 at Junction 14 - Please make your way to the first car park on the left as you enter the service area. Be there around 09:30 for a briefing by the organiser.

Fawley Refinery:
All person(s) wishing to attend the Fawley (Southampton) Demonstration are requested to meet at the Hardley Industrial Estate SO45 3NQ situated off of the A326 Hardley Roundabout. Please park sensibly. You will be met by the organiser and briefed at 09:30, whereupon we will make our way to the staging area for 10:00.

Jarrow Refinery:
All person(s) wishing to attend the Jarrow Demonstration are requested to meet at the Jarrow Refinery entrance area. Please park sensibly. You will be met by the organiser and briefed at 09:30, whereupon we will make our way to the staging area for 10:00.

Purfleet Refinery:
All person(s) wishing to attend the Purfleet (Essex - Thurrock) Demonstration are requested to meet at Thurrock Services. Please park sensibly. You will be met by the organiser and briefed at 09:30, whereupon we will make our way to the staging area for 10:00.

Cardiff:
All person(s) wishing to attend the Cardiff (Texaco-Roath Docks) Demonstration are requested to meet at the entrance area of the Texaco refinery. Please park sensibly. You will be met by the organiser and briefed at 10:00, whereupon we will make our way to the staging area.

Immingham:
All person(s) wishing to attend the Immingham Demonstration are requested to meet at Ulceby Fork Truck Stop, Ulceby Road, Immingham North Linc. DN40 43JB. Please park sensibly. You will be met by the organiser and briefed at 09:30, whereupon we will make our way to the staging area.

Labels: Car, Misc, News

I had a spot of car trouble last weekend. The following is a recap of what happened and probably cannot be read that well as I am trying to recall what happened.

It all started (or didnt!) on Saturday where I spotted that my front tyre was pressed up against the kerb, so I started the car, reversed it about one foot and turned off the engine. All in all it took about 5 seconds to do. This was the only time the car was used all day.

So, Sunday came and we had a mad day of Christmas shopping planned. I jumped in the car, popped the key in the ignition, turned it and a 'vuvuvuvuvuvuvuvuv' sound comes from the engine :-(

Oh dear. I was gutted. A combination of emotions hit me all at once ranging from mild panic to anger followed by fear of repair costs and then sadness.

Knowing next to nothing about engines I started to think methodically about what the problem could be...

I knew there was plenty of fuel in the tank as I filled it all the way to the top on Friday.

The battery is good as it was only put in last winter.

I looked up the exhaust to see if anyone had been playing silly buggers - nothing.

I checked the dash board for engine management lights - nothing.

Just to be sure it was not the immobiliser I tried my spare key anyway to no avail.

Turning the key two clicks and listening near to the fuel tank I could hear the quiet buzzing of the petrol pump so that was fine.

I even tried putting the car in first gear and reverse and rocking it back and forth - don't ask why it seemed the right thing to try at the time.

I popped the bonnet and checked for any obvious leads that had come disconnected or any hoses that were leaking or split - I could'nt see any problem at all.

All the oil and water and fluid levels were also good.

I checked the airfilter casing and pipe for splits but it too was fine.

Had the timing belt snapped? To check this, Louise sat in the car, I removed the oil cap and watched the cam as Louise turned the key. Everything jumped up and down so that was also fine.

It was a very damp morning and realising that the sound was as if the engine was 'turning' but not 'firing' I made a guess that the HT leads and/or spark plugs needed to be dried off with moisture dispersing spray (WD40 or in my case TESCO's own brand for a fraction of the price :-) )

This is where the fun began. Have you looked at a modern engine lately? The last time I messed with an engine was about 11 years ago when I had a mk 2 Vauxhall Astra! The engine of my Vectra is totally different. There are no high tension leads, I could not even see the damn spark plugs nor a distributor! To top it, before I could even start to dig deeper, I had to locate a bloody size 25? star screw driver that I did not own!

A quick walk to my local Aldis and £5.99 later I had one, though it did not really help. I removed the engine cover to reveal what I know now is called the 'Coil pack'. Under this coil pack is where the spark plugs are. The coil pack is a solid unit and is held in place with 4 or 5 weird sized star bolt things that my uncle had a set of.

My uncle popped down to see if he could help and I'm very glad he did.

I sat in the drivers seat and turned the key to show him what was happening. Unoticed by me the engine actually tried to fire up once, so we switched places. My uncle jumped in the drivers seat, turned the key for a while and then suddenly, to my relief and total amazement it started!!!! A big puff of smoke escaped the exhaust and the engine was running.

In all this time there was no smell of fuel indicating to me that the damn thing was flooded.

Flooded!

Thats all it was. From the day before when I reversed it a bit. From what I understand, this is what happens: when you first start a car, loads of fuel gets pushed into the engine. If you shut the engine off too quickly after starting it, then not all the fuel has been ignited and it just sits in some chamber. This is where flooding occurs.

To fix the problem, my uncle pushed the accelerator all the way to the floor (which I thought would actually flood the engine more!), turned the key while slowly lifting the accelerator.

There. Problem solved. A HUGE, MASSIVE thank you to my uncle!

I hope this account will help someone in the future. Here are some keywords / keyphrases:

Vauxhall Vecta 1.8 16v
Will not start
Engine turning but not firing up

Labels: Car, Misc

I entered a Mii contest on the Wii and managed to get 9th level! :-)
The contest was to create to Mii based on King Arthur. Here are the pics:






(Click for bigger)

Labels: Photos, Wii

I stumbled across a great site that allows you to save any video from YouTube directly to your computer.

Formats that you convert to include: MPEG, AVI, MOV, MP4, 3GP.

Unfortunately, because the original video has already been converted/compressed to FLV format for YouTube viewing, the quality is not great. A small price to pay.

I was aware that there other methods of obtaining videos from YouTube but this is automated and makes it so much easier.

And the site?.......

http://www.tubefish.net/

Labels: Misc, Video

I can't work out how to embed it, but here is a link to a new video called Vuja De from The Orb:

http://trafficjpn.com/gallery/show/43

Please note: It opens up quite small but you can click on the top right of the box to make it a bit bigger.

Labels: Music, Video