en
news & updates 2008
les nouvelles du site 2008
This page contains news of notable updates and changes to the site as they occurred in
2008.
Cette page contient les nouvelles et les changements majeurs sur ce site comme ils se
produisaient pendant 2008.
2008-12-22
I've just finished a big update, mostly revolving around a write-up of my unexpected road trip through France
and Spain. Reflexia never let me down throughout the 3,000-mile journey from Rouen to Madrid, and back to
England via Donostia and various other locations. An extensive account complete with some nice pictures can be
found on the Your Articles page (number YA22). For
those of you who may find it difficult to read in its existing format, I've prepared an alternative
PDF version that you
can view / print. If you head over to the Four On Film page, there is also a video of my R4 crossing the
magnificent Millau Viaduct, for which I have now set up a YouTube account, also now housing an additional copy
of the 40th anniversary movie from Arnhem. Other new photos have been added in the pets@play section, the
Mystery Cars and the People's Pics, the latter of which is now up to its 260th entry. A quick reminder that
the 2009 wall calendar is available from the Boutique, which recently saw an update from Cafépress permitting
increased localization and the display of prices in Australian dollars, Canadian dollars or UK pounds. This is
something I was asking them to do many years ago, and it means there's now less US-centric notices around the
site for holidays the rest of us don't celebrate, etc. As of yet, there's no Euro currency option but maybe
that will follow in the future. Note that the products featuring EU flag designs have received an extended
stay of execution, but I may replace them at some point, so if you really wanted to get your hands on any of
those items you'd best do it now before it's too late. Finally, it only remains for me to wish you compliments
of the season, if indeed you indulge in such things, and short of something miraculous occurring, like the
second coming of Christ in an R4, I'll be back in the new year.
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2008-10-29 I've been meaning to add various updates here for a long while. Firstly, there was the Kent run mentioned below, which was another success. I managed to attend myself for the second time, so for my photos see the Peoples Pics section (number PP255). Since then, I had further repairs done to my car at Derek's Renospeed garage, after which I set to work on tackling some of the rot. For more detailed info on all that, see the My Pics section in the Gallery (number MP37). Odd updates have been appearing around the site during recent months, with more set to follow soon in the Gallery and the Playroom. 
Things have been gradually changing in my own life and this month I finally set about my next big adventure,
by going to France and studying the language. This trip was only an initial two-week stay, but I'm hoping to
return there soon and live in France for a longer period of time. I also ended my full-time duties at the job
I've held since 2003, and now work only part-time from whatever location I happen to be in. My hope is to find
more time for various other things that have fallen by the wayside in recent years, of which this site is an
ever-present example and niggle in the back of my mind. I added a couple of snaps from my travels to the
Mystery Cars page (numbers MC189 to MC190). Many more shall surely follow if my full-time move to France goes
ahead. And before leaving France, I popped into a small newsagents to see if I could track down the latest
issue of the 4L Magazine, and whilst I didn't find that particular title, I was gobsmacked to see a bunch of
these sitting on the shelves (right). Click the image to see a larger version. A magazine named
'Mythique R4', with which a model Quatrelle is given away with each publication, was given prominence
inside the shop's entrance. This would never happen in Britain! This edition comes complete with a boxed
Renault 3 in the package, which is very special indeed. So, with this being issue number 10, I can't believe
I've already missed out on nine other Renault 4 models, with more set to come. I'd better return to France
soon, before it's too late!
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2008-04-13 News of the next Kent Run has reached me. It will be held on Sunday 25th May 2008. Meet at the services at Junction 8 of the M20 from 10am, leaving at 11am sharp! The destination is Belmont House near Faversham, where there will be a reduced entrance fee of £5.50 to view the house and gardens. For more info look at their website www.belmont-house.org. For more info on the run, contact Derek Flavell at Renospeed (see the R4 links page). A couple of other bits of news: Firstly, I added a few Renault 4 pics from Lisbon to the Mystery Cars page last month, following a short work trip in which I was reacquainted with my old R4 friend, Fernando Palma. See entries MC185 to MC187 for those. Additionally, a few more snaps of my own dear Reflexia are to be found on the My Pics page of the Gallery (MP35 to MP36), including some shot in the brief but heavy snow in Sussex earlier this month. |
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2008-03-02 There was a programme on the box in Britain the other night about island getaways. It featured a guy visiting Madagascar, already a mythical place in the minds of many Renault 4 enthusiasts due to the abundance of such cars that are believed to exist there. At one stage in the film, he jumped into an R4 for a ride to a remote village, and passed a pathetic and annoying comment about the car being 'dangerous', for no other reason than it not resembling the sort of rubbish he's probably used to seeing in his regular, smarmy travels. It is this sort of useless remark that has always plagued the Renault 4, in Britain at least, by altering people's perceptions about the vehicle and causing many to see it as some outmoded and unsafe car of yesteryear. It only serves to swell the sort of prejudice witnessed in other drivers whenever one is behind the wheel of an R4, whereby others will do anything they can to overtake, even though the person driving the 4 is going no slower than anything else on the road, and which over time makes owning and driving a Renault 4 more hazardous in having to account for everybody else's stupidity. The reporter's name was Toby, and I can't help being slightly biased in believing that all persons of such namesake are invariably middle class, live in Islington and have a son named Jake who they drive with their New Media Creative Consultant wife to the local opt-out school in a pretentiously oversized deRanged Rover. It's a whimsical and unsupported summary of the average Toby, but no more baseless than his original comments were about the R4. Meanwhile, I had my own island getaway last weekend, spending a few days in Sicily and spotting a few Renault 4s during the stay. You can find them at entries MC181 to MC184 in the Mystery Cars section of the Gallery. |
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2008-01-27 A belated happy new year to Renault 4 owners! As has not been unusual in recent times, I've not been making such frequent updates here, but eight years on from my first workings on creating this site and there's a real possibility I'll finally find time later this year to improve it. I don't know why I even bother saying that, because previous murmurings of this type have resulted in nothing happening. Anyway, one recent change that has been major work for me but will be of little note for most of you, lies in the various feedback forms around Renault 4-Play. As suggested in a previous update, a feature has been added to protect against the spamming that has been making daily examination of my email inbox such hell over recent years. Contrary to the original suggestion though, this is a standard CAPTCHA technology rather than a question and answer as proposed. The CAPTCHA technique is not my most favoured method of combating FormMail spam, not least because I myself sometimes have trouble seeing what the characters are, but it's the only practical way to fight the problem at present. If you fill out any of the forms on this site (for the advert submissions, guestbook entries, etc.) you'll now need to identify the CAPTCHA text, so apologies in advance if you find this awkward. You can refresh the page to get a new CAPTCHA image if you find the first example impossible to decipher. Setting this up has stolen my weekend, which could have been more enjoyably spent adding more interesting features to this site, but it will save me between ten and fifteen minutes of wasted energy every day hereon, in not having to filter through so much junk mail. Just one other quickie for the moment: see the Mystery Cars page (number MC179) for a colourful start to 2008! |
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