THEGAYUK

Day: 21 September 2018

  • CAR REVIEW | Honda Civic DTEC Saloon

    CAR REVIEW | Honda Civic DTEC Saloon

    ★★★★☆ | Honda Civic 1.6i-DTEC SR

    What Have We Got?

    Hot on the heels of our Honda Civic 1.6 i-DTEC hatchback review, we get the newly launched Civic 1.6 i-DTEC saloon. In showrooms burgeoning with SUV’s and dwindling choices of saloons, Honda comes right at you with a new offering in a market that is almost forgotten and a free for all for those who want a 3 box booted vehicle. 

     If you miss the Accord and wished for its return then your dreams have come true. In the real world, it fits nicely where the old Accord would have fitted if not in the Passat segment of car anymore where it once was. 

    Driving

    Here is where the main differences are. Despite all the performance figures looking the same for the diesel engines, the saloon puts its power down in a totally different way making for a more relaxed driving experience. Whereas I had moaned about the speed in which the engine revved to its redline in the hatchback, in the saloon, it seems more leisurely and I like it. It makes for a much more relaxed cruiser.

    Some would moan about this-this because it feels so markedly different. And then you factor in a softer ride. Very soft in comparison to the hatchback. Again something I wished the hatchback was before you press the sports button. 

    Inside

    There is very little to differentiate between the new saloon and hatchback. If I have to be really picky it is what is, or isn’t there under the rear parcel shelf. Again trim and paint appear to be missing leaving exposed speaker wires and unpainted metalwork. 

    As is standard with the hatchback, there is an abundance of black and all controls are identical.

    Living With It

    As I’ve said, the engine and soft ride bring a whole new experience to the Civic saloon that is very different in character to the hatchback.  

    It’s also an attractive looking car. It also cuts through the air better than the hatchback by giving you 3mpg more for no more than 130mm in length. Admittedly these are Honda’s unrealistic combined figures of 83+ miles to the gallon.

    And let’s not forget the boot capacity. From 478 litres, the saloon has an easy to access 519 and that’s before you fold down the 50/50 rear seats. It makes the saloon a very attractive alternative to the hatchback and other hatchbacks. Its size credentials making a case for its space in the showroom

    The Verdict

    Once again Honda presents you with a car that no one can dislike though many might choose to ignore because of that booted rear end. And that in itself is a shame because this really is a delightful car and one that needs to be looked at if you are in the market for a relaxing drive with no dramas and that drama includes wondering if that flat-packed chest of draws will fit the boot. It will. 

    Love

    Looks

    Boot space

    Build quality

    Loathe

    Lack of trim under the rear parcel shelf

    Unrealistic fuel figures

    Heating controls

    The Lowdown

    Car –  Honda Civic 1.6i-DTEC SR

    Price – £ 23,115 (as tested)

    MPG – 83.1 mpg (combined)

    Power – 120 ps

    0-62mph –  10.1 seconds

    Top Speed –  125 mph

    Co2 – 91 (g/km)

  • Is Dr Ranj from Strictly Come Dancing married?

    Is Dr Ranj from Strictly Come Dancing married?

    Dr Ranj is starring in Strictly, but did you know that although he identifies as gay he was once married to a woman?

    Is Dr Ranj gay, who is Doctor Ranj's partner

    Dr Ranj Singh is most famous for being This Morning‘s and CBeebies doctor, but he’s currently starring in the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing.

    Who is Doctor Ranj married to?

    The doctor isn’t currently married to anyone but has, in the past, been married to a woman. In an interview with the Mirror, he described how he came out as gay to his wife in his 20s. They had been married for 5 years.

    Doctor Ranj Singh now identifies as gay, although he isn’t allowed to dance with a same-sex partner as producers of the show have decided once again to keep the dance partnerships traditional. Despite this Ranj has said that he would have loved to dance with another man.

    He revealed that coming to terms with his sexuality and ending his marriage made him feel as though his heart “had been wrenched out” of his chest.

    “I was completely broken. It was the lowest point in my life. I can only imagine how hard it was for my wife, though – she didn’t deserve any of that. I feel so incredibly sorry for what she had to go through.”

    Who is Dr Ranj’s dance partner?

    Is Ranj Singh gay,
    (C) BBC

    For the show, the doctor has been teamed up with Janette Manrara, who has danced with Peter Andre, Aston Merrygold, Melvin Odoom and Julien Macdonald in previous seasons of the hit show.

    What is Dr Ranj famous for?

    Apart from being This Morning‘s resident doctor, Ranj has also appeared on Save Money: Good Health and is a presenter on the CBeebies series Get Well Soon and also Bedtime Stories.

  • Azealia Banks wants the gays to stop using poppers

    She cares for your booty health…

    Azealia Banks has made a proclamation and she’s telling you to stop using poppers when having anal sex. The entertainer took to Twitter to warn that you might not know the harm you’re doing to do yourself, well, your bum hole anyway.

    In an astonishing Tweet, Banks wrote,

    “Stop sniffing poppers!! When you sniff poppers there’s is [the] possibility for your pain threshold to be heightened – which means you will not feel yourself being harmed until after the fact. No more poppers and fleets!!! Embrace that boochie baby.

    Fair enough.

    She then went on to explain that taking a big ole D might take “twenty minutes” and that is OKAY. In fact, if you’re the bottom, she says that you’re the one in control.

    “Just be patient with yourself. Sometimes it take 20 minutes to get inside a boochie and THAT IS OKAY. Don’t speed up the process by using poppers to accommodate a forceful top. Say “I HAVE THE BUSSY… I MAKE THE RULES!”

    CREDIT: TheGayUK

    Her fans were quick to thank her, calling her, “the patron saint of bottoms”, “woke” and one even said that they needed to give Banks an apology tweeting, “she does love the gays”.

    In the past, Banks has been blasted for using anti-gay slurs and had a huge falling out with gossip queen, Perez Hilton. In 2016 Twitter actually banned her from the platform, however, her current account, which was created shortly after being banned has amassed 24,900 followers and is operating somewhat on the down-low and is not verified by Twitter.

  • COMMENT | The Best Car I’ve Driven

    COMMENT | The Best Car I’ve Driven

    Motoring journalist, Neil Briscoe, on Twitter recently posted up that the best car he’d ever driven was a Mercedes pagoda. It got me thinking. I get to drive lots of new and old cars and those in the middle. But which is my favourite?

    This is difficult because my driving career spans 26 years and when I look back I could say the 1979 Mercedes 280SL but I was 18 when I drove one of those and compared to my second Citroën Visa, it was powerful and luxurious. Likewise I was also 18 when I first drove a VW Beetle and that’s enough to put you off motoring despite wanting one.

    No, it’s taken me some serious thinking, a little bit of drinking and a thumbing through photos and books to come up with my best car I have ever driven. It’s the Peugeot 104 ZS.

    I’ve had 2 of them. Both 1980 models, both blue and both ZS models. The first was quite the wreck but the second was much better. It wasn’t the best car in the world though. In refinement and luxury departments, it was overshadowed by the likes of the Ford Fiesta and Renault 5. It was rather crude and basic despite having electric windows and alloy wheels. It had rubber mats in the rear, piss poor ventilation and a tiny boot.

    What makes it the best car I’ve ever driven was one fundamental thing: I’d look at it and for unquestionable reasons, I’d dread the drive where I had to go. Yet it always entertained. It’s diminutive size and 1360cc engine with 72bhp was hardly left embarrassing itself in traffic of the day. I also had a comfy luxo barge, Peugeot 504 Ti automatic in the garage at the time too.

    On the motorway, it kept up and beyond despite only having a 4-speed gearbox, it was never tiresome or overly noisy. The 12 CD changer in the boot, 6×9 speakers in the rear side panels and 7” in the doors put pay to excess noise by drowning out the cacophony of mechanical screaming to Kylie Minogue and Duran Duran. 

    It was also one of the last cars I have owned where I’d just jump in it late at night and head for the roads in the dark. I’d be out for hours and hours, yellow Sev Marchal headlights cutting through the worst of the night. I did some stupid things in it and yet I lived to tell the tale. It never once got so out of hand that it ended up facing the other way. Something that could not be said for the Peugeot 205!

    The entertaining also stretched to its ability in the snow. Being a home carer at the time, I needed to get out and about in vile weather and that car was amazing in the snow. Small wheelbase with all the weight over the front wheels certainly helped. Its Achilles heel was its wipers. They were slow.

    So here we are, 2018 and the 1980 Peugeot 104 ZS has to be the best car I have ever driven though probably not owned. Oh crap, now I’m thinking about that one. Be right back…

  • CLASSIC CAR REVIEW | Saab 9-3

    CLASSIC CAR REVIEW | Saab 9-3

    Bravo, Sierra Alpha Alpha Bravo

    In 2012 architects the world over were weeping onto their 1:8 scale drawings and wiping the tears away from their eyes onto their black slim fit polo neck jumpers. It was announced that Saab were dead!

    Things were OK for Saab in the 70s. The Swedes craze for safety changed the way consumers looked at cars in terms of surviving a crash. The boffins at Saab threw their cars off cliffs, crushed them, hit them with hammers, shoved meatballs into the door locks and all other types of things that you and l wouldn’t subject our cars to.

    The Swedes are known for being safety conscious. The majority of the time it’s cold and dark there. They also spend a great length of time knees deep in snow so you wouldn’t expect them to become known as makers of a sought after and admired convertible car. Cut the roof off any car and there is always the risk of you falling out of it if the wheels end up pointing towards the sun. Not a very Saab safety thing at all.

    The Swedes gave way to some gay abandoning and in 1986 the 900 Convertible was born. The 900 is a serious classic now. In 1989 Saab sought the assistance of another manufacturer and unfortunately for them it was GM in America and Vauxhall Opel to those in Europe. GM took a brand known for innovation and quirky design features and presented the world with polished turds.

    Come the 90s and the 900 convertible had become iconic. You could say it single-handedly moved Saab up from the doldrums to Audi territory. All this changed in 1994 when the “new 900” convertible was launched. A well established and fine car was made to feel like you were driving something with a chassis made of only just dried paper-mâché. The rebranded 9-3 was no better.

    It wasn’t until 2003’s launch of the new second generation 9-3 that things started to get a bit better.

    Today the last of the icons represents great value for money. Because of the demise of Saab as a company, prices remain low, it will forever remain that way.

    I’m taking a 2005 9-3 1.8t Linear model for a test drive. This ‘new’ 9-3 was built for comfort and grace. Saab did a good job in disguising its Vauxhall Opel components. The 1.8 low-pressure turbo quietly produces 148bhp at 5500rpm. It has pace to keep up with the modern traffic but you’ll have to stir the gearstick around a bit. All but first gear are set to high in a bid to get maximum economy. In practice, this results in having to keep the revs up to no less than 1900rpm just so you can make good use of the torque the turbo engine produces. This coincides with 180Ib-ft of torque made within a short band from 2000 – 3500rpm. Less than 2000rpm and it feels lethargic. 0-60 time isn’t scintillating in the slightest, however the cruising speed is comfortably high. You could take to the flat-out Autobahns of Germany and make rapid progress.

    By today’s standards for an old car, it still remains silky smooth. Roof down motoring makes it a joyous car to pilot. Indeed if it’s night time, you can select ‘night panel’ on the dashboard. This turns off all the facia lights except the speedometer and even this will only then show a maximum speed of 90mph. l am told that if you go beyond that, the rest of the dial illuminates all the way round. Something l didn’t get to try. Despite the sales blurb and use of fighter jets in TV commercials in the 80s, this is the only lasting reminder that Saab had any connection with aircraft at all. It was a gimmick and not a very good one either.

    It no longer has that stab you in the back power of the original 900 turbo, After the launch of the “new 900” the turbo derivatives seemed to have been ‘blocked’ like strangers on Grindr with unfortunate profile pictures. In actual fact, Saab had no real sporty models at all after this.

    Thankfully the boffins at Trollhättan had managed to take the chassis and give it the stiffness required when you cut almost 2 meters of the roof off a car. The magic also results in a stiff scuttle area too. Drive any car with a removable roof and place your fingers within the door glass and windscreen frame and you’ll notice movement. This is called scuttle shake. The ‘new’ 900/9-3 suffered terribly from this. The ‘new’ 9-3 like we have here doesn’t suffer from it at all with only the merest hint of it over jiggly road surfaces. There is also a nice sense of draft free cabin. Opened up with the windows up or down you don’t suffer from the usual cold draft that engulfs your neck. In this Saab, there is no need to buy the mesh curtain that you see on many open-top cars.

    Owner Liz loves her roofless Saab. Partner Dave who never drives it with the roof down because it’s “so gay” has mentioned changing it. The reaction from her if he did would suggest he’d be able to sing soprano.

    Being that high, the lovey might want to remove the roof after all.