Steve King

When my eldest cat was younger (he's now 17½) I used to be able to get him to take tablet by himself. It was simply a case of feeding him about 5 Catlove treats and then just holding out the pill and making a few encouraging noises. Nowadays it's a case of trap cat between legs, force jaw open, shove pill down as far as you can, grab ball of previously prepared raw mince and quickly shove down throat, retire and apply plasters as required! Our younger cat around 7 ish (not entirely sure as he is a stray moggy that adopted us a while back) suffers with weepy eyes. It's heartbreaking to have to put the drops in Sam's eyes as he always looks so upset, and betrayed afterwards, however he soon returns to normal as soon as there is a possibility of a drink from a running tap (totally daft about water!) or a nice new packet of dried cat food (he is not at all impressed with most tinned stuff!) Funniest thing though was when our oldest cat got sick the other day. Cat lovers will know the "huc, huc, huc", sound that an impendingly ill cat makes. At this point wherever possible we try to chase the offending cat into the bath so the vomit can be flushed down the plughole with the shower attachment (nice ). Well anyway, cat dived beneath bed, was chased down passage into bathroom and NOTHING . We couldn't find cat puke anywhere. Later however my wife Cathy has to go out and picked up her shoes.... !!

You can usually see the outer cable of the bonnet release through the grille, give it a quick yank and you're in. Just goes to show how (in)secure Defender bonnets are!

A couple of weeks ago whilst on holiday I had a minor mishap and tore the calf muscle in my right leg. It was a bit painful for a couple of days but healed up pretty quickly. On Monday I had to visit our office in Morley, Leeds and on the way back I managed to hurt the same flamin' leg whilst changing trains in Leeds. Anyway, the next morning my leg was a bit tender and painful so I got out my trusty "Leki" walking pole. The pole looks a bit like a ski pole and the top section is painted but the rest is plain aluminium. I hobbled to the bus stop and a guy asked me which bus I was waiting for. A couple of minutes later he told me my bus was coming along. After I had got onboard the same guy hopped on and told the driver to make sure that I got off at the right stop as I was blind!! Ahh bless!! I didn't have the heart to explain to the Good Samaritan that he had got hold of the wrong end of the stick so to speak!! The worst part was not being able to look out of the window for fear of being called a cheat! B) B) B)

You forgot Remove note reading "Oh No! Not Again!" and disgard.

First I bought a pair of the little blanking grommet thingys that fit the front of a Defender chassis for a quid. Next up was a pair of ***k off 3 way speakers that after haggling I got for £8. I bought some "R" clips for the adjustable tow bar for £1. Finally I got a chequer plate rear wiper motor cover from QT for £15 (which seeing that the replacement plastic part cost an outrageous £20 is damn good). Pretty pleased as the standard item is cr@p and got totally bu%%ered after an unfortunate encounter with a reel of wire cable that was not properly secured. After leaving the Sortout I drove a couple of lanes nearby, first one was a disaster as it ended up as a bridleway with a motorbike sized BOAT off to the side, after a 15 point turn, I retraced the route and found a slightly overgrown lane that went for a couple of miles or so. I then headed toward Newbury and was puzzled as every car coming the other way was flashing me. Was I on fire, leaking fuel, water or was there a dead animal hanging off the bumper??? I stopped the oncoming car and the driver told me that there was an accident up ahead and the road was closed. Fi, where were you?? I looked out for you honest!!

In the garden of the flats where I live is a large beech tree and it is listed as one of the great trees of London. Unfortunately the tree's roots have become infested with Meripilus Giganteus (Giant Polypore)fungus and this damages the stability of the tree and leaves it susceptible to falling in strong winds. The council have therefore obtained permission to chop the tree down. I was intrigued to see a notice next to the tree inviting the public to come and pay homage to the tree on Sunday between 14.00 and 20.00. How exactly do you pay homage to a tree? What is the dress code? Any ideas anyone? Jeez! I'm sorry the tree has got to come down but perhaps this is taking things a little too far.... Perhaps I should attend the tree homage and pass a hat around for donations to the recent earthquake victims?

and I thought the Land Rover branded valve caps (complete with matching key ring) I recently squandered 5 Euros on in Kefalonia was bling!!

Well, I was trying to think of a name for my Defender and remembered that I had briefly aquired the nickname of Rambo due to my unique style of (intentional!!) wall demolition whilst working in the middle east. I thought Rambo was probably more suited to a military vehicle and thought of the Alex Harvey song... (showing my age here!)

There was a device called the Bi-Fi which supposedly allowed you to use the rear screen heating element as an aerial. I know a couple of people who tried this and the results were not impressive!

Who knows what is going on? It may be best to wait a while as the mods resolve things... There are some different Mods on the other site: would Exmoor Beast, David Lovejoy, MOG and Les Henson etc care to comment of the current state of affairs???? The current position is just plain daft.......!!!!!!!

Trevor, please consider the history of recent events: i.e, announcement of of impending closure of LRE, invitaion to e-mail regarding "news". e-mail reply inviting us to log in to LRA. Once LRA is up and running (and then falls over) do you you or do you not think we are entitled to think "WTF" and assorted conspiracy type thoughts? Are you surprised that people question your motives??? It would be better not to divide and rule.... I will not post on the (ex?) LRE forum any more.

Quite agree - two forums just causes unnecessary confusion. It is great to get all the LRE archive back, but please let it remain archive. Lets's copy the stuff over here and move on and whilst we are about it let's find a new host if we have processor probs. Disabling posting on the (ex?) LRE site is a sound idea.

That gave me a chuckle, but I've never had a problem using a small hand held vac on the keyboard myself. Someone at work was trying to clean a keyboard with a spray and dustfree cloths the other day. They managed to drop the keyboard on the floor. There was a small crash and clatter. I looked around an saw loose keys all over the floor. In one of those rare moments when I can think up an immediate witty remark I said "Any one for Scrabble?" All I got in reply was a word that is not in the official Scrabble dictionary.

I just tried a google as pges are cached there long after the orginal website has closed or deleted the pages. Only partial success I'm afraid. It came up with: Email Name Nigel B Title Cat Waxoiler Extraordinaire Total Posts 1466 Homepage Occupation Trainee Idiot - ie waxoiling my poor cat-see thread Hobbies Hitting things with Hammers and Muttering Location Surrey W Sussex Border Bio http://www.lrenthusiastforum.com/ubbthread...ew=&sb=&o=&vc=1 ICQ Number Registered on 01/06/03 07:49 PM

Well if they want feedback they can have it, no problem! I sent them this:- Regarding the original message from the administator (sic) on the closed LRE forum. "This closure is purely a commercial decision." Obviously nothing to do with most people migrating to LRA then! Please inform Mr Green that I will never buy another copy of LRE again.... (not that I bought it very often in the first place!) Steve King

A bit of road under my Defender without an oil slick

Jules are you still around? Just lost all the numbers off my mobile when my sim card crashed... Hoping to get to Edale at the end of August or beginning of September for a walk or two. If you're free you are welcome to join us and this time I promise we'll drive a green lane or two!! Steve

It's a shame in a way that we had to move away from the old forum, but in the end I'm sure there was no choice. The management at the old place were responsible for causing conflict between mods and administration. Well done everyone for creating a new and work friendly place for us! Let's hope we can all be happier here!

Count me in when you need a donation. As has been said the amount anyone gives is up to them and should be confidential. It might be an idea to post how much is needed and keep us updated as to the balance (a bit like the local church roof fund! )