NoFakie

Probably the only people who can comment on insurance companies are those who've had to make lots of claims. Maybe a rental car company or a taxi firm. With most people, the insurance company just gets money and remains untested or barely tested.

Wahey! Regular or diesel? What colour? Some of the more deluxe insurance comes with roadside cover, but you don't need it if you join JAF. JAF can get you discounts at certain places like onsens, and I think you might be able to use it if you're just a passenger in someone else's car, say if they have a flat battery.

Yeah, I heard that on the airwaves.

Here's Hakuba 47's park taken by someone on the lift. You can also see some of the backcountry in the distance. [media=''] [/media] Late season in Hakuba sees some bowly action as well in the park at Happo or Tsugaike, if you're originally a skate rat. There's an indoor skate park in Hakuba too, fwiw. (maybe turn your speakers down before clicking) [media=''] [/media] In recent years, there have three or four big name DJ events a season. The big one last season was Darren Emerson. Its hard for promoters in Japanese cities to fill a club on a weekday, so that's why they come. T

Bringing on Mikel was a bit of a negative move. They almost saw it out, but with Man U's attacking players, there's always the chance of them getting one goal. A miracle win for Newcastle means we'll probably have Pardew for at least three more months. Spurs were terrible and are only a point ahead of us. Liverpool and ManYoo are within three. A mad start to the season.

I can't say I'm completely up with events at Rangers or Newco or whoever they are now, but it sounds like the lovely Mike Ashley has got himself in there with not much money and a not very big loan and grabbed a good slice of their commercial revenue. Hope he loses interest in Newcastle and goes with them instead!

Its just about having a limit on how much data a month your smartphone can download and what happens when you reach your limit. Tethering is one way to use lots of data, so yeah, I guess that applies too. A 5GB data-only sim is only 1500 yen a month on Biglobe, so get one of them, whack it in an Ipad, and that's a lot of nice surfing and non-HD video viewing on the move right there for not very much money.

From the way he's playing, instead of fireworks in his bathroom, he could do with a rocket up his arse!

Standard procedure seems to be they limit you to 128Kbps for the rest of the month once you hit your limit. Even the cheap sims do it. For email and webpages without tons of graphics, you might not even notice.

Crap week with lots of rain but what a pearler today.

With a bit of simple browsing and email maybe a month! With HD content on Youtube, I dunno, maybe just an hour if its 1080p.

My eldest is in elementary and I don't think bukatsu are compulsory at that age in many schools. As with the uniforms and the rote learning for tests, I think it gets properly cranked up at JHS.

Are you suggesting I force my kid to do cross country?! I wish she paid that much attention to what I say It's all her choice. Day to day, its much less running about for us than the alpine skiing club would be, but there are more races and so more work at weekends. She gets to practice on the Olympic course, so the facilities are incredible. The club also has a strong record of producing champions. It being a minor sport helps, of course. As exercise goes, it burns more calories than anything else, even swimming, so it's good for her. She's a third year now, and they start doing

Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. Most of my daughter's classmates hardly ski. She only does a few days herself now, because she does cross country skiing and that is six days a week.

I use a goosperry case on my phone. It's silicon but pretty stiff with only a slight give for gripping the thing. Lots of different colours. Only about 1000 yen. In other news, my provider Umobile upped their capacity this week, so I now get 4-5Mbps! I've had to set Youtube to play HD only over wifi, because my kids can use all my 3GB in a few hours now. In other cheapo news, mineo, the company selling cheap plans on au's network have come out and said they can't support ios 8. It means that au Iphones are stuck on au with au prices. So if you want a new Iphone, get a docomo one. They

6km per kWh of electricity for the Leaf, overnight electricity is 12-13 yen a kWh, so 2 yen a km to drive. If you charge the car during the day, the electricity cost goes above 30 yen/kWh, so you're up to about 5 yen a kilometer, only just ahead of the most economical hybrids. In that case, the hybrids are only more expensive because the tax on fuel is higher than the tax on electricity. Electricity and especially daytime electricity is much cheaper in the States, which is why there is so much interest in Tesla and their electric cars. You'll also get way more juice out of solar panels in

I don't know if they are top talent, but Moyes lined up Herrera and Luke Shaw, who they signed after sacking him. From the bids in the summer after Moyes joined, it appears that his main target though was Fabregas.

First big test for ManYoo next week against Chelsea. 1am kickoff, but it's after Newcastle so I might still be up. Tottingham away for us, so we'll probably get shafted.

Less is more. Unless it's prices, in which case more is more!

The problem is not locals. Anyone travelling from the city on a ski trip with kids is shelling out a lot for transport (big cars that can carry kids cost more), accom (which charges for kids), very quickly grown-out-of gear (which kids need), onsens (which charge for kids), etc. etc. All of this happens thanks to the existence of the ski resort, who aren't allowed to charge for kids because that would hurt the "future of the sport". If your kid isn't really into it and can't get value from a day pass, buy single tickets. Granted that the ski resorts could offer more flexible pricing in tha

Liverpool are crap at defending set pieces, but I can think of a worse team than QPR at taking them!

A lot of the discounting is silly to be honest. Lets grab a bigger piece of the shrinking pie but make it worth less at the same time. It would make more sense to make the experience better, while specifically targeting discounts only at the price-sensitive people who do exist. Anyone with a newish car, 15000 yen Oakley goggles, an 80000 yen Norrona jacket, a 120,000 yen fat skis/Dukes combo can afford to pay for lift tickets, even if they don't want to.

Obertan has more league goals so far than Balotelli! Maybe that should read "goal".

It used to be that after 10 years, shaken went from every other year to yearly. That changed a few years ago (don't remember exactly when), and yes, now the only car-age difference is the 13-year tax increase (Bar Mitzvah present, if you will). But still, that tax increase is less than 10%, so doesn't in itself justify buying a new car. A bigger factor (for me, at least) would be mileage/燃費. A hybrid SUV or minivan would seem ideal to me for ski trips. My Hilux must have turned 10 years old in about 2003-4ish, so it must have been before then. For total cost of ownership, yea

It's still two years. The only change for older cars, which I learned from Metabo, is that the yearly car tax starts to go up. In terms of total cost of ownership, it makes very little difference. Its just a nuisance intended to make people think badly of their old car so they buy a new one. Shaken is just something you have to suck up. Again it's pitched as something that costs a fortune for old cars, but most of the cost is taxes and you pay the same ones when you buy a new car. The test itself isn't strict and you can often get through with very minimal maintenance if that is what you i