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Contact Graeme
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graeme@datasecurityexpert.co.uk
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About me within India 2 of 2: my second real job begins along with funny stories - thank you Prasad!
- Details
- Category: My Career Story
My first day of the new job went well and I made a new friend called Prasad. What did the job entail? Website administration. A bit of security, patching, backups, adding new content, adding new modules to Joomla! CMS and statistics. The job taught me Joomla which I continue to use 16 years later. In the evening I went out to a nearby large Western shopping mall with Prasad.
After a few days I moved out of the cricket club to a hotel which was a five-minute walk from the office. Next week I registered my work visa at the ex-colonial police station in the centre of Mumbai. One evening I watched a Bollywood film called Krish which was great even though I could not understand ¾ of it. Bollywood films are all a confused mix of English-Hindi (Hinglish).
About me within India 1 of 2: the culture shock begins in a very foreign land - thank you again Sunil!
- Details
- Category: My Career Story
One or two weeks’ notice remained and during that time I did handovers, leaving drinks, packing, research, flight booking and vaccines at my local GP clinic. The day came, my parents drove me to the airport, I checked in to the plane, said goodbye and boarded a flight to an incredible & long solo journey.
Before going to India, at nearly twenty years old I have been to Morocco for a day, a month in different part of South Africa and the rest around different parts of Europe. “Incredible India!” as it’s tag line goes is “Incredibly Different!” to all of the other places I have been to. From a poverty, population and cultural point of view.
The legendary Lada Niva Urban 4x4: the tough Soviet equivalent of the Toyota Land Cruiser
- Details
- Category: Car Reviews
| Manufacturer: | Lada/AvtoVAZ | Model: | Urban | Origin | Tolyatti, RU | Engine: | 1.7l | Transmission: | Manual x 5 | Weight: | 1.2t | Fuel Cons.: | 12.1km/l | Fuel: | Petrol | 0-60: | 19 seconds | Power: | 85hp | Torque: | 130nm | Price: | £19,000+ |
REVIEW NUMBERS
| Handling | Space | Build | 4.5/5 | 2.5/5 | 4.5/5 | Equipment | Speed | Overall | 2/5 | 2.5/5 | 64%* |
The Good
Easy to park as small, long lasting, tough, great off-road and fairly economical.
The Bad
Few gadgets, back seats only good for thin 10 yr olds, noisy, non-smooth gears (mainly 1, 2 & R) and smallish boot (trunk).
Introduction
Ask anyone in the West about a Lada and you will get two responses, 1. Isn’t that car extinct? 2. It is the butt of all jokes. Travelling around the (ex) USSR you see lots of classic Lada’s, mainly sedans, estates and of course the Niva. This makes you think if the cars on the street are 20-30yrs old, they must be well made – just look at how many Soviet structures are still standing today. Even if they were cheap, people would not buy them if they only lasted a few years.
Having driven other 4x4s, which are far more expensive like: Mitsubishi Pajero, Mitsubishi Montero Sport, Mitsubishi Outlander, Toyota Rav4 and a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado, I thought for a laugh I would hire one abroad. The locals say they are good so in January 2022 I hired one for a few days to drive in tough terrain; poor tarmac roads, off road, high altitude roads (2300m passes) and roads with crazy amount of snow in & at the side of the road.
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