Most goods hold their value a whole lot better than cars…

Posted on December 19th, 2004 in Opinion by Julian Edgar

It seems to be a recurring
theme in my life. I get besotted with a product – normally one much more
expensive than I can afford at the time – and I hanker after it year after year.

And, eventually, I often
end up buying it.

Many, many years ago it was
a Canon Typestar 5 mini word processor – I saw one being used by a lecturer when
I was a student teacher and I decided on the spot that I just had to have one.
The fact that I ended up buying the Brother equivalent was of no consequence.

A similar situation
happened with a Bose Wave Radio – I saw one at a hi-fi show demo and decided
that one day I would own one. It took about ten years but in the end I did buy
it – and, like the other products that have entered this subconscious hedonistic
buyers’ paradise, it has been a purchase made without longstanding regret. After
all, I’ve had just the same thoughts about other consumer goods that have often
ended up (finally) entering my life.

Of course, being realistic,
the Cessna Citation hasn’t yet appeared on my (imaginary) personal runway, and
the Zodiac inflatable with the 4-stroke Honda outboard is still resident in the
shop and not my garage.

Which reader emails to run in AutoSpeed…

Posted on December 5th, 2004 in Opinion by Julian Edgar

In recent months there’s
been a change in our editorial policy of running letters from readers.

Over the last couple of
years we’ve tended to select just enough to fill about 1000 words. But after
thinking about it, we’ve now decided to run as many as possible.

That has two advantages:
you – the reader – are much more likely to have your right of reply – or right
of comment – published to the same audience who can access the other articles.
And secondly, by looking at the number of letters that we publish on different
topics, it’s clearer which articles are getting the greatest response. So if we
make a mistake, and one reader notices it, we’ll publish the one email. But if
four readers pick it out and write to us about it, we’ll publish all four
emails.

Reader democracy in action,
if you like.

But while we may have the
very best of intentions in publishing as many reader emails as possible,
there’re still plenty that are simply impossible to put on-line. Take one that
we received just today. With obvious omissions of detail, here it is: