Engine Turners News

Source: Irish Independent ()

AS is generally the case these days, the half-time intermission at the Magners League clash between Munster and the Dragons was taken up by a game of underage rugby.

AS is generally the case these days, the half-time intermission at the Magners League clash between Munster and the Dragons was taken up by a game of underage rugby.

Little girls of varying sizes charged about, cannoning off each other in a frenzied game of follow the leader with miniature bodies littering the allotted area in no particular pattern.

It was not dissimilar to the main fare in a well-populated Musgrave Park as Munster eased to a seven-try victory over an under-strength and overwhelmed Dragons side in a match with a fair degree of entertainment but all the shape of a runny egg.

However, there were considerable positives for the home side. The most obvious was the victory and bonus point (secured after barely half an hour) that moved Munster into striking distance of Cardiff at the desirable end of the table and maintained the momentum Declan Kidney’s men have built up over the past weeks.

Munster’s coach will also be satisfied with the performances of his fringe players ahead of Friday’s showdown with Leinster.

Most impressive was Donnacha Ryan, who produced an all-round performance that suggested a higher calling for the young second row. The Premier County is becoming a productive breeding ground for Irish forwards with Alan Quinlan (prominent yet again), Denis Leamy and Trevor Hogan all internationals and, on this evidence, Ryan looks like another Tipp for the top.

Using his height and bulk to good effect at lineout and breakdown, the lock also revealed deceptive speed on the burst and had the hands and vision to pop up in backline moves and be a boon rather than a hindrance — as he showed for Brian Carney’s second-half try.

Running close for man of the match was flanker Niall Ronan. Although not the biggest backrow around, …

Source: Huffington Post ()

In his heart of hearts, Dad actually wants a real muscle car or truck to drive, depending on where he might live, to use right away or about five months from now. But unless he’s Ted Turner or Bill Gates, he’s unlikely to get one.

And I won’t leave Moms out either. I imagine a few would also like to explore that feeling of getting into a powerful, jacked-up vehicle and letting her rip. A few might even use the opportunity to mow down their husbands, re-living that whole “Thelma and Louise” ride. What a way to go.

A less pricey present for most any red-blooded male (and females too, judged on a case-by-case basis), is a customized set of the best high-speed vehicle movies ever made. If you can’t really be behind that wheel, then feel you are. Vroooooom.

The automobile and its various offshoots, those gas-guzzling, defining innovations of the twentieth century, are as integral to movies as they are to our daily routines. Since films are the magic mirror held up to our everyday lives, “with the dull bits left out” (Alfred Hitchcock), this only makes sense. And they are also what was coined in advertising “high-involvement” decisions- for the price tag, but also because what we drive makes a big statement about who we are as individuals: our stations in life, priorities, characters, and importantly, taste.

My own selection criteria for this piece: I have said “Best” in my title, which means that a film that does not stand as great on its own four wheels, won’t cut it. This takes me to the tricky area of the cult film. “Vanishing Point” (1971) with Barry Newman, “Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry” (1974) with Peter Fonda, and “Smokey and the Bandit” (1977) with Burt Reynolds, are undeniably fun to watch for us speed freaks, but none could be categorized as stand-alone great films in my playbook.

One heretofore elusive entry that’s coming out on DVD in time Christmas is “Two Lane Blacktop” (1971), a movie I somehow let speed away from me. Yes, …

Source: Daily Mail ()

Niece killed the royal seamstress aged 100 in battle over a will
By PAUL SIMS - More by this author »
Last updated at 22:14pm on 21st December 2007

Comments (11)

Murdered: Violet Durling, aged 100, died from smoke inhalation

A former dressmaker to the Queen was murdered by her greedy niece after a family battle over her fortune.

Susan Turner, 48, set fire to the home of 100-year-old Violet Durling after she failed in an attempt to have the old lady’s will changed.

Disguised in a hood and cape, the former traffic warden let herself in to the family shop - below Miss Durling’s flat - and started four separate fires.

Miss Durling, who could walk only with a zimmer frame, was trapped and choked to death as smoke engulfed her property.

She was found the next day, curled up on her kitchen floor.

Turner immediately fled the country and went on a six-month luxury tour of Europe with a boyfriend.

Yesterday the mother of two was found guilty of murder at the Old Bailey. She faces an automatic life sentence and was warned that the minimum tariff is likely to be at least 30 years when it is decided in February.

The court heard that the murder last February was the culmination of a bitter family feud.

Miss Durling, who had a large amount of money in cash and shares, had worked for royal courtier Sir Norman Hartnell after the Second World War and made dresses for the Queen and Queen Mother.

After she retired she inherited the family fortune, made through a car engine reconditioning firm, and its £500,000 premises in Plaistow, East London.

Manipulative: Turner claimed her aunt wanted to change her will making Turner the sole beneficiary

Turner, the daughter of a prostitute who was adopted by Miss Durling’s brother at the age of five, was her aunt’s “favourite” and was convinced she would be sole beneficiary of her will.

But when discovered she would have to share the fortune with her adoptive father’s natural son and daughter, …

Source: Easier (press release) ()

‘Ford’ your appreciation at Race Retro 2008

28 November 2007

Race Retro 2008, the international historic motorsport show, will pay tribute to the competition history of the Ford Motor Company and celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Ford Escort’s involvement in competitive motorsport. Held from 14th to 16th March at Stoneleigh Park, Coventry, the show will have displays of famous Ford rally cars as well as a tremendous display of the iconic Ford GT40.

From the World of rallying, Ford’s most successful discipline, the Escort Mark 1 and Mark 2 and the RS Cosworth will be on display and will be reunited with the former drivers and champions who drove them over the past 40 years. Names already confirmed include British Rally Legend Gwyndaf Evans, who spent 15 years rallying Fords and was also its chief test driver, Ford’s former Director of Motorsport Stuart Turner, Ford Rally Manager Tony Mason and the former Ford Rally driver and current Ford WRC team leader Malcolm Wilson.

The show will also display all the Ford motorsport cars from the Gatsonides Mark 1 Zephyr to the Gronholm WRC Focus as well as a showcase of amazing Flathead Fords with a Bonneville theme. The Ford classic car clubs will be out in force including the AVO, RS and Sporting Escort Owners Clubs as well as the GT40 Enthusiasts Club and the Old Skool Ford Club, all with displays of their favourite club cars.

Fords will also feature heavily in the live action demonstrations inside and outside of the halls as the Live Rally Stage features genuine works cars including the Escort Mark 1 and Mark 2, the RS Cosworth and the RS200. These vehicles will be showcased alongside a host of Group B rally cars from Rallying’s most dramatic period.

Other features include a replica Ace Café and Fire Engine Bar, informative celebrity autograph signings and photo opportunities. There is also the Bonhams Classic and Historic Motorsport Auction …

Source: The Wichita Eagle ()

Sedgwick County commissioners are expected to green-light the financing today for the Jabara campus and its newly named National Center for Aviation Training. As they move the process toward the issuing of revenue bonds and bidding of contracts and a 2010 opening, they likely will draw community fire over the price tag, which is up to $54 million from the initial estimate of $40 million.

That’s a sizable hike. The public ought to be able to trust in the cost estimates of major public building projects (and this surprise follows the arena budget’s resizing).

But there are sound reasons for the new price, and even better reasons to proceed with the project as quickly as possible. Local aircraft manufacturers are hiring now, and need to know that highly skilled workers will be there for them tomorrow and as the baby boomers retire. Since the Jabara project was conceived in 2004, the local economic boom and the spawning of Spirit AeroSystems and Hawker Beechcraft have only underscored the need.

Besides serving existing employers, a quality training center would become a recruiting tool for the Greater Wichita Economic Development Coalition. “I believe that a trained and capable work force is the strongest economic development tool any community can have,” Jeff Turner, chief executive of Spirit AeroSystems, told The Eagle editorial board on Tuesday.

County Manager Bill Buchanan acknowledged that he should have done a better job of watchdogging the cost estimate. But he said the increase will be absorbed in the 2008 budget, which reflects the 2006 property-tax increase for the Jabara campus and the jail expansion. The project budget also will benefit from the expanded involvement of Wichita State University, which will bring the equivalent of a $10 million bond issue to the facility; from local businesses, which are contributing $3 million; $4.5 million in federal and state grants; and from any additional state and federal funding. Ultimately, …

Source: Irish Independent ()

Stop what you’re doing and listen to me! Humility has gone out of fashion, hasn’t it? Whether you’re a politician, actor or the world’s greatest motoring writer, amid the ceaseless clamour of the modern media, you have to shout to be heard, preferably with your trousers round your ankles while spending till you puke on Bond Street.

Stop what you’re doing and listen to me! Humility has gone out of fashion, hasn’t it? Whether you’re a politician, actor or the world’s greatest motoring writer, amid the ceaseless clamour of the modern media, you have to shout to be heard, preferably with your trousers round your ankles while spending till you puke on Bond Street.

There is precious little humility in the car industry, either. Car designers
busy themselves building bigger, faster, more aggressive and flashier cars
than they did last week – either that or mining the diminishing returns of
gimmicky retro design. How refreshing, then, to come across a car, the
Renault Laguna, that simply goes about its business of offering quality
transportation discreetly, quietly, comfortably and for a reasonable sum.

At first glance you might wonder what all the fuss is about. At second
glance, your mind will start wandering to subjects such as internet banking
security or Alistair Darling’s eyebrows. Then, a while later, you’ll realise
there has been precisely no fuss made about this car in the media, and that
is my point. No one is going to make a noise about the Laguna. To a greater
extent even than its predecessors – which were themselves as unassuming as
doorstops – the Laguna 3 is an anti-head-turner.

Often, car companies go out of their way to jazz up their fleet offerings,
reasoning that private buyers won’t want to look like sales reps and neither
do sales reps. But Renault has made a commercial move in designing a
car with no memorable design features whatsoever, because it knows that
…

Source: El Paso Times ()

Second-place winners Lilian Mares, left, and Alex Mares worked with their savings coach Carmen Guerrero this summer. Lilian teaches at Elfida P. Chavez Elementary School, and her husband is a ranger for the New Mexico State Parks Division. The winners of GECU’S inaugural Savings Challenge contest say they’ve learned valuable lessons that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.Gloria Aguilar of Clint said she “learned not to use credit and how to save for everything.”"If I’m going to fix up my house or something, I need to save up and pay cash,” said Aguilar, who won $10,000 as one of two first-place entrants in the yearlong contest.Even though the contest ended in late November, Aguilar said she’s “going to continue to set goals like the way I was taught.”"As I meet those goals, I’ll set more goals and meet them,” she said.Aguilar said she would use her prize money to pay off more debt.During the contest, she paid off about $12,000 of debt and saved about $8,000, including retirement savings and setting up savings accounts for her three grandchildren.Aguilar lives with her grown daughter, Nikki, and her mother, Antonia Muñoz. “I’m very happy with the progress of my daughter,” Muñoz said. “Not seeing her charge with her credit cards makes me very happy. She always did that even if she had money. It worried me because of the interest she had to pay.”The Mares family of the Lower Valley was the other winning family and won a $10,000 prize as well. The other four participating families received $2,500 each.Alex and Lilian Mares, along with their 7-year-old daughter, Mikayla, learned to create a budget, figure out where that budget was “leaking” and set some goals.”And Advertisementtry to surpass” your goals, said Lilian, a kindergarten teacher at Elfida P. Chavez Elementary School.The contest was “tough,” Lilian said, but well worth the effort.The key is to implementing the concepts they learned for the rest of their lives, Alex and Lilian Mares say.The …

Source: Independent ()

Specifications

Would suit: Davide Brent
Price: £19,440 (for 2-litre
turbo petrol, as tested)
Performance: 137mpg, 0-60 in 9.2 secs
Combined fuel consumption: 31.7mpg
Further information:
0800 525 150

Stop what you’re doing and listen to me! Humility has gone out of fashion,
hasn’t it? Whether you’re a politician, actor or the world’s greatest
motoring writer, amid the ceaseless clamour of the modern media, you have to
shout to be heard, preferably with your trousers round your ankles while
spending till you puke on Bond Street.

There is precious little humility in the car industry, either. Car designers
busy themselves building bigger, faster, more aggressive and flashier cars
than they did last week – either that or mining the diminishing returns of
gimmicky retro design. How refreshing, then, to come across a car, the
Renault Laguna, that simply goes about its business of offering quality
transportation discreetly, quietly, comfortably and for a reasonable sum.

At first glance you might wonder what all the fuss is about. At second
glance, your mind will start wandering to subjects such as internet banking
security or Alistair Darling’s eyebrows. Then, a while later, you’ll realise
there has been precisely no fuss made about this car in the media, and that
is my point. No one is going to make a noise about the Laguna. To a greater
extent even than its predecessors – which were themselves as unassuming as
doorstops – the Laguna 3 is an anti-head-turner.

Often, car companies go out of their way to jazz up their fleet offerings,
reasoning that private buyers won’t want to look like sales reps and neither
do sales reps. But Renault has made a smart commercial move in designing a
car with no memorable design features whatsoever, because it knows
sales reps actually have little say in what appears on their company car
lists, and private …

Source: TheNewsTribune.com (subscription) ()

But Turner admits he began rethinking his place at the school while hearing and refuting attacks on his football coach.

The word Turner and university president Mark Emmert used was “fit” – maybe Turner was no longer the right fit for the job. And that was made official Tuesday with the announcement that Turner would leave effective Jan. 31 in what was called a mutual decision.

“I’m disappointed that I am not the fit that the university feels is necessary,” Turner said. “All along the way, I have tried my best – and I think my record sort of speaks for this – to do everything that I was asked to do: restore credibility, reconnect the athletics program with the mission of the university, run a good business, build morale and spirit, bring in people who can accomplish great things, win games.”

Turner was hired June 19, 2004 – five days after Emmert.

Since then, Washington has improved its image with the NCAA, enjoyed significant financial gains, won national titles in volleyball and rowing, and the men’s basketball team made two trips to the Sweet 16 while playing to near-capacity crowds.

However, the football team has remained mired at the bottom of the Pacific-10 Conference, and the difficulties of renovating Husky Stadium remain mostly unresolved.

As those issues have moved to the forefront, Emmert implied that the time had come for another athletic director to take the torch from Turner.

“He focused a lot of his attention on doing all of the things I asked him to do in those early years, especially around managing the integrity issues and the basic structure of the organization, and frankly some competency issues that had to be addressed,” Emmert said. “And he did that extremely well. And now we’re going to on from there.”

Emmert said he would begin by meeting with coaches, staff and the academic advisory …

Source: TheNewsTribune.com (subscription) ()

Hey! I know that picture. It’s “28 Days Later.” A wonderfully scary movie that revived the zombie genre. A cult fave for horror aficionados.

Well, yes. But in this particular case, no.

This particular case is “I Am Legend.” And in this particular case it’s an emptied-out New York City, not London, that’s ground zero for the raging contagion. And in this case it’s Will Smith, not Cillian Murphy, who’s trying to stay one step ahead of ravening packs of the undead. Helping him evade the monsters is his faithful German shepherd, Sam, who can sniff out a lurking ghoul at 100 paces.

Oh, one more thing: “Legend” is boring. “28 Days Later” is anything but.

“I Am Legend” is based on a Richard Matheson sci-fi classic from the ’50s that’s been made into movies twice already: as “The Last Man on Earth” in 1964 starring Vincent Price; and as “The Omega Man” in 1971 starring Charlton Heston.

Still, the similarities between “Legend” and “28 Days Later” are so striking it makes you wonder why the people who made it felt compelled to do so.

With memories of director Danny Boyle’s 2002 London-based chiller so fresh in their minds, horror fans are likely to view “Legend” as hopelessly derivative, if not downright unnecessary. After a mere five years it seems way too soon for a remake.

As to how it will be received by Will Smith fans who may be unfamiliar with Boyle’s picture or Matheson’s novel … Well, let’s just say that at the end of a preview screening of “Legend” earlier this week, packed to the walls with fans of the superstar, the reaction was decidedly muted. Or, perhaps a better way of putting it would be: ominously quiet.

People go to Smith movies expecting to feel uplifted and to bask in the warmth of his easy charm. …