clever stuff.

Oddly enough, so would I.

Do guitarists eat pizza then?

On or around Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:45:26 +0100, Amethyst Deceiver enlightened us thusly:

well, it's nice of you to say so. However, these days, I'm a bit leery of doing such bodgery for others. It's all fine until the ordure enters the aircon, and then you can suddnely find yourself being sued for the death of

3 kids because someone comes along and wants to know who put this 'ere seat in this vehicle?

If I do it on MY vehicle, well, I'm not likely to sue myself, am I? Still needs notifying to the insewerants, of course, even then.

Even the kids on scootery things 'round here (we call 'em Hell's Cherubs) are polite when you *talk* to 'em - they like razzing around as noisily as possible at 30mph, obviously, but, y'know, in person they're good kids, seem ter be. Proper bikers in the making. Style o' thing.

I unforget driving tractors all day on some farm for a bit o' zbarl, then driving the farmer's lardrover back after - the tractor was a lot less crude to drive...

That's why I didn't actually tell him who you were. I did tell him you were too far away from him geographically to be of assistance, too. (The driver's seat has sagged, which is giving him gyp, so he spent some time trying to source a Disco seat from the local dealers, couldn't get one and has got a Rover seat instead. He'll get it sorted.)

The message from Carl LHS Williams contains these words:

I stepped out in front of one a while ago and he pulled up in a cloud of rubber smoke and apologised.

I'd still rather they didn't do it on the pavements - Pip and a neighbour's daughter have both been hit by them, in the latter case requiring considerable stitching to the inside of her mouth and a month of soup.

On or around Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:34:09 +0100, John Williamson enlightened us thusly:

I've just got tomtom 7.4-summat to run on the Omnia. Biggest improvment is maps, it has all the roads, rather than just some of 'em. Will check its interpretation in the next few days: Route 66 has some oddities, like joining an A road from a minor road was mapped as "follow the road" not "turn right".

TomTom does that sort of thing too - if the main road has a left bend and there's a right hand turn off on the bend TomTom will say "Bear left in 300 yards"

Aren't motorised vehicles prohibited from pavements? And illegal to drive elsewhere in a public place without a licence, which are not issued for applicants

The message from "GbH" contains these words:

Yes. With exceptions for invalid carriages.

It appears that the data on what directions to read out when going from one part of the junction to another are stored as part of the map, and not figured out by the satnav on the fly (computers are poor at that kind of thing). I've had tomtom and one other satnav (can't remember which) on occasion tell me to turn one way while the map shows that I go the other, and that was on things like T-junctions or turn-offs on dual carriageways, having a voice tell you to turn right through the central reservation is a tad odd especially when the map indicates the road off to the left! (I think that was near Coventry).

The other classic is being told things like to turn right on a right-hand bend when there's no junction, you kind of wonder why you need to be told that, as failing to turn right would have ended up in a field.. I think that's on things like road name changes where there's a sort of pseudo-junction in the machine's mental maps.

Once or twice I've been caught out by a sudden "Give Way" sign when the satnav's not warned me that the junction is approaching, if you use it too much you can start to hand off some observation skills to it, and the map's not accurate enough for that. I also know my knowledge of places' location was fading as I always used satnav to get to them (didn't even know if some local places were north or south of me), so now I use it as little as I can.

Well, a motor scooter is hardly a valid carriage.

I've checked out Tomtom 6 (7 apparently won't run on the PDA I've got) & it seems to do what I want, and is suitably customisable, so I've been & gorn & bought a proper copy with full Europe maps. The friendliness & attitude of the support staff I spoke to had a great deal to do with this decision. $DEITY & Royal Mail permitting, it should be waiting for me when I get home from The Netherlands.

I did eventually find a map update for Navigon, on the German website, but it refused to sell me the product, as it didn't like the serial number of the software I was buying it for. Apparently, my PDA isn't on the HCL, so they don't want my money.

Ian Rawlings wrote in news:slrngg12mg.jhj.news06 @desktop.tarcus.org.uk:

I was aware of the risk of that so always used the same familiar route home when trying out new navigation software (Vodafone Maps, Nav4All and Google Maps on my old Blackberry) and each one gave some seriously dodgy directions at different points of the journey.

That, combined with the above, is why I dig out the road atlas first and check in there. I no longer have the Blackberry, but I'm perfectly happy using Google Maps on the iPhone in to occasionally check that the little blue dot (me) is heading in roughly the right direction. Thankfully though, with the new job, most trips are done on foot and maps aren't required.

John Williamson wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:

Try Nav4All. It's free and claims to work on most phones/PDA type things. There are no maps, just turn by turn directions. Worth a try at that price.

[satnav]

Bravo. I swear by OS maps, myself; you know where you are with those.

Remarkably sanguine of you, Guy; I would have been having a serious talk with somebody if my youngest had just been mown down on a footpath.

The message from snipped-for-privacy@spambin.fsnet.co.uk (Sn!pe) contains these words:

Oh, I did when it was Pip. I also asked the beat copper to have a word, which he did.

I had to dob someone to the CSOs today. If knew whose car it was I would've just gone and knocked on their door and asked 'em to fix their alarm which keeps going off at diverse moments, but since I can't find out whose it is I've had to ask the semidibbles.

I always use the satnav if I'm going somewhere new, or through a city though, I used to use maps but they're far more dangerous than satnavs when trying to navigate, you don't have to pay much attention to the satnav after all, I often follow my nose or the signs and let it catch up, it's very useful as a moving map that doesn't need pages turning or catching when it shoots off the passenger seat on a roundabout!

Nokia Maps is also really good at telling you where to go next, something I didn't find with tomtom or the others I tried, at the top of the screen is the next road you want, and at the bottom is the one you are on, so a quick glance can give you the info you need to figure out the signs if the satnav's being a bit unclear at a junction.

Interestingly enough, when I was still using paper maps I found the biggest improvement to my navigational abilities in strange cities was buying a car with an auto box! All my mile-eaters will be autos now, with manuals only for the fun cars. Great in traffic and surprisingly easier on the brain.