Recognising the contributions of Marc "GiveMeABreak"

[Jay-Bruce]

I'm not often logged into this forum, but I often swing round here "lurking" thanks to google, and in my "lurking" mode, I've noticed Marc is active in most, if not all of the threads on this forum that I've read. So I decided to started this simple thread to say THANK YOU to Marc / GiveMeABreak for his efforts, as despite his lazy sounding moniker, he's an extremely helpful member on here, who actively contributes to most threads with information that mere mortals such as my-pleb-self don't have access to. So yeah, cheers mate.

[Clogzz]

How is he ?

[Steve Walsh]

A wealth of information. Top member. Thanx marc

[NewcastleFalcon]

I have dug out one of my own comments on Marc's contributions on the occasion of him bludgeoning through the 2000 likes barrier some time ago. Most viewers/question askers on the Forum will have benefited from a contribution by "Give me a break", and if there were the Car Forum Oscars Marc would be up for an Outstanding contribution award.

Well done Marc, I've just put you on 2003 (likes) for an old post of yours in the spoiler for top quality advice and assistance on a daily basis on the FCF. Hopefully it may make sense of this tribute to other viewers! Just a little quote in your own words from the post in the spoiler which reflects your commitment....

Spoiler: show

Ok, so in true FCF assistance mode and as I promised Paul that I would get a picture of the reversing lights (I didn't forget - really) and as Pete asked, I trapsed out tonight in the freezing wet and windy weather, barefoot and in loin cloth to get these pics.

Click on the images to get a larger, clearer view

Here's the Golden Hornet showing them from a distance

Here's a close up

...and here is a picture of the light shining on the Silver Hornet to give some idea of light.

These were the ones:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-x-H21W-R43 ... 7675.l2557

....I traipsed out tonight in the freezing wet and windy weather, barefoot and in loin cloth to get these pics.

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

There is absolutely no doubt about the effort, time and expertise Marc brings to the FCF and I am certain every member appreciates it hugely. Let's not forget the endless patience he regularly exhibits when the member in focus doesn't quite understand!!

Also let's not forget the contribution made by all the admins in their various roles which keeps this as the very best place to be on the internet! Well done all of you, thoroughly appreciated by everyone else.

[Paul-R]

This is a difficult one to comment on as there are so many people working behind the scenes to make the forum the success it is and one would not wish to forget any of them but, yes, Marc takes an inordinate amount of his own life to help out. Let's face it, every question takes at least some time to compose a reply. Well done Marc!

[GiveMeABreak]

I am totally embarrassed now Mr Jay-Bruce! As Paul mentions above, it is very much a team effort, but I appreciate the sentiment, so thanks to those who have commented above and elsewhere on the forum.

How ironic - I've been taking a bit of a back seat this last week, on account of dealing with the digital switchover that BT will soon be forcing on us.

First I knew was when an unsolicited so called 'Smart' Hub 2 winged it's way to our address (the third one in as many years). On investigation it seems they are getting ready to move us off the copper wire and onto Digital Voice, and it seems that they 'sniff' for a Smart Hub 2 at your address. If they can't find one they send one out, otherwise they can't proceed and seeing as each one of these hubs they have sent is residing boxed up in the attic, no wonder.

There's a very good reason I don't use BT Hubs - they are useless, but unless you use a separate voice provider, you have no choice but to use their SH2 hubs as these are the only hubs BT will allow for Digital Voice. I prefer my own hubs, so I have been working out a way to use the Smart Hub 2 as a dumb router - which will hopefully just handle the digital voice and pass all internet traffic straight through to my main router, which will then handle the DHCP addressing around the house and link to my other router.

So it's taken 5 attempts and a lot of swearing to finally get it working today. Now I just need to wait until they switch over before I can try the phones.

So apologies I've not been on much the last week and now there's a good few hundred posts to catch up on.....

[KennyW]

Marc
The smart hub probably does not approve of swearing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Johnno]

Completely agree. We often forget on fora like these to say "thank you" to those who go that extra distance. I've certainly benefited from it over the years of owning Citroens and Marc has always beeen at the forefront as a reliable and consistent contributor. Thanks are due to all those who take the time to help those of us less endowed with knowledge to keep these - sometimes infuriating - vehicles on the road. And on that note, I'm about to put up another post requesting advice, so had better get typing!

[Jay-Bruce]

@givemeabreak - sorry, didn't mean to embarass you, but it's nice to see others chiming in with the appreciation. RE the BT thing, it's pretty easy to set up the digital voice, basically you get adapters which you plug the phone cable into that become wifi modules, pair them to the hub using the WPS button, PM me if you need some help.

[GiveMeABreak]

^ No worries ^ It was a thoughtful gesture.

I've got my three routers setup as I want them now - all linked up and talking. Just waiting for the switchover date, then I can test the setup using my phones. The phone setup is the easy part I just need to check all the NATing and port forwarding is working, which is seems to be.

We'll be plugging the large amplified phone into the back of the SH2 directly and I'll probably get an adapter for the other base station that supports all the other cordless phones we have dotted about. I can't test the phones out until they actually switch us over as they don't currently work with the SH2.

I may then get one of the new Digital Voice handsets and an adapter whilst they are offering them as a backup.

[jml]

Only just seen this post and I totally, completely agree with all that has been said.

I have always found Marc extremely helpful and I find it astonishing quite how one man can know so much and be so free and helpful with his wisdom.

Of course, as others have said, there are many who help keep this forum running smoothly and my thanks go to them as well, however the supreme award must go to Marc.

Thanks so much Marc

Cheers

Julian

Ps Just noticed I’ve not donated for a while and I’d like to again but I can’t remember how I did it. Can anyone enlighten me please.

[xantia_v6]

Ps Just noticed I’ve not donated for a while and I’d like to again but I can’t remember how I did it. Can anyone enlighten me please.

There is a button at the left hand end of the banner at the top of the page, or you can click donate

[jml]

Ps Just noticed I’ve not donated for a while and I’d like to again but I can’t remember how I did it. Can anyone enlighten me please.

There is a button at the left hand end of the banner at the top of the page, or you can click donate

Thanks - all done now

[Jay-Bruce]

Ps Just noticed I’ve not donated for a while and I’d like to again but I can’t remember how I did it. Can anyone enlighten me please.

There is a button at the left hand end of the banner at the top of the page, or you can click donate

You might even get me to dig out my debit card; once the X7 stops eating money... voraciously!

...a few months ago it had 2x front wheel bearing's 2x driveshafts, x bottom and top ball joints, 2x drop links, front discs and pads, ATF change, and a £700 mates rates labour bill as I was away with work at the time. This month it's had 7x spheres, engine service, back wheel bearings to go on to it, new rear firmness regulator on order, along with most of the associated pipework & hoses. I'm doing the work this time, but it's still a grand in bits alone. I'm currently investigating options for the dreaded 5270VW pump to rear firmness regulator pipeBy the time all that's done, it's going to need its winter tyres replaced, it's summer ones were scrubbed to ~3mm when I fitted it's winter boots, so they went on gumtree, but thanks to it's swankly 19" Adriatics, this means I'm going to be looking at another ~£550 for a set of Uniroyals or ~£800 for Michelins.

Actually, can we put a donate button on the banner to fund my X7?

I'll even make a campaign video for it.

The naration would be something along the lines of:

[In Sir David Attenborough's voice] Somewhere in the semi-rural wilds of North East Scotland, subjected to nine month long winters, where temperatures, adjusted for wind chill, rarely make it into double digits, compounding the corrosiveness of salty North Sea air, and also caught in the crossfire of a territorial war between humans and seagulls, a rare, endangered, a citroen C5, X7, of the rarest, V6 HDI, Exclusive, variety. This specimen, a tourer, is having to make do with the meagre pickings of Shell FuelSave now that, as a consequence of a turf war far far away, V-Power is beyond it's usual ridiculously expensive pricepoint, having soared into the stratospheric realms above the two-pounds-per-litre threshold...

As spring sets in, and the air gradually gets warmer, while the local ecosystem comes out of winter's slumbersome hibernation, the X7 cannot really enjoy the new season's pretty vistas, and it is still recovering from some severe mechanical surgeries, and now it finds itself facing another looming technical issue. You see, as the temperature rises, the suitability of its current tyres reduces. With each passing, milder day, the X7's tyres grow ever more inappropriate, for as fortuitous as these Continental Winter Contact's were in the darks of their native winter, thanks to climate change, they have for some time now, been pining to migrate for the summer to the safer cool dark and dry climate of "the workshop". These tyres, once a symbiotic partner to the svelte X7's sophisitcated, highly evolved hydropneumatic suspension... A partnership that once gave a supple, smooth yet sporty ride, no matter the weather, now find themselves at loggerheads with each other, the tyres noisy and uncooperative, utterly frustrating the suspension. The suspension retaliating by making a mockery of these winter specialists, sadly caught out of season, allowing undsirabel handling characteristics to infiltrate it's impeccaple road manners, in such a way that all eyes and blame will fall squarely on the Contis.

Somewhere else in the country, sitting forlorne on a shelf in a wholesale tyre stockist, whose climate is undoubtedly similar to that of "the workshop", in that it is almost certainly dry, dark and cool; lies a lonely set of Uniroyal Rainsport 5s, dreaming of a summer daliance with a beast such as our Scottish X7. As their name suggests, these are almost evolved for the Scottish "summer", where the rain can get up to as warm as 9° centigrade, but blisteringly hot asphalt, a feature of summer common in other parts of the world, but one that would irreply tarnish the Rainsport's gentle, soft, rubber compond tread blocks, drasticlally reducing their exquisite, exciting, but fleeting, life, is rare if not unheard of.

These two creatures, the Unsullied Uniroyals, and the eXperienced X7 would make a perfect pairing, were it not for the injust malevolance of The Bank Manager, whoses actions smite the best intentions of the X7 reservation's park ranger, by stymieing nearly all online purchase attempts, mocking the ranger with a little britain sketch. "You're trying to buy some uniroyals for your X7 reservation, COMPUTER SAYS NO." For a mere £5 per month, you can help overturn The Bank Manager's cruel tyranny that seperates these two should_be-summer-soulmates, AND also provide the photosensitive Contis shelter from the Scottish so-called-summer-sun, a rare sighting who incites irritation between our maginificent X7 and the out-of-season Continental-Winter-Contacts. Not only would your donation support a summer of spirited driving for the beleagured X7 and it's Uniroyals, it would provide much needed sanctuary and hibernation to the Continentals, to ensure that they would grace our roads for at least another winter.