I am pleased that this forum is the preserve of adults and not children who shouldn't really be reading about driving and mechanical stuff - unless they are proper grown-up for their age kids !!!

I have the honour of being suspended by the Mercedes Benz Club forum yesterday because - My God - I posted an offensive cartoon that apparently could offend a 10 year old child reading the forum. What always fascinates me about car forums is who they are designed for, and I was unaware that the MB club forum promotes buying, selling, and driving Mercedes cars by 10 years olds. So there, you see. It seems that the Mrrcedes Club is not really intended only for owners buying and maintaining their 5 litre motors [or whatever] but is also for children under the legal driving age, as well.

I am now waiting to see a 14 year old legally owning and driving a 500SL which he has just spent his pocket money of £25,000 on !!! I don't, of course, include the 14 year old criminals who have just stolen that 500SL !

So, if and when, I bother going back to the MB club forum I must remember to stick to the rules as designed by the namby-pamby snowflakes who are the moderators and who don't like to see slightly risque jokes or cartoons. I think that these PC numpties are the same nuggets that have decided that the name of the childs toy, Mr Potatohead, is no longer acceptable. It seems that it is to be changed to a nice, grey, PC name, probably like Tuber Body Part !!

Here is my cartoon anyway, for better or for worse:

I think that we should have a jokes thread as well, by the way. Anything funny, sarcastic, amusing would do.

Pierre3.

MB club wouldn't be owned by VerticalScope, the same bunch of morons that own Rangerovers.net by any chance is it? I was made a mod on there, I suspect to stop me from complaining about it and threatening to leave but I recently had a post reported to me by an offended snowflake. He'd bought an L322 and had asked if it was possible to make it chirp when he locked it and if he could make the central locking open all the doors on the first press and not just the drivers door on the first press meaning he had to press the button a second time to unlock the other doors. Now I have no idea whether he could do what he wanted but someone very kindly pointed out that the answer to his questions were in the owners handbook and if he didn't have one he could download one from the JLR website and even supplied a link. He reported the post and asked that the 'rude and unhelpful' member be warned about his tone. He didn't seem to like it much when I replied saying that the reply wasn't rude, was entirely helpful and he should think himself lucky he didn't get a reply that simply said RTFM (Read The F*cking Manual). He eventually asked for the entire thread to be deleted, which I did, and he's not been seen since, obviously still looking for a forum where they are willing to hold his hand all day long.

I'm almost tempted to demonstrate how open minded Gordon is.... :)

I mean we know the Queen has various Landies, so it's on-topic. As I understand it her personal car up at Balmoral is an elderly L322, although whether she fettles it herself (could be) or is a member of fullfatrr (wouldn't be surprised, under a pseudonym) I couldn't possibly say.

If that's an after and before pick she looks a lot better before lol.

From my point of view any of these forums that involve owning, driving and maintaining any older or classic cars is aimed at adults. Maybe I am being naive but I don't quite know why a motoring forum would be including under-age children. They don't drive, they don't own motor cars so why would the forum state that a mildly adult joke is "unacceptable comment" ?

I don't know who owns the forum but I think that it is "approved" by MB UK. Whoever the moderators are they are obviously a pretty childish bunch of tossers. I have seen the occasional remark from some posters [I would like to say contributors but I don't really see what they contribute] asking whether an earlier poster "if he would allow his children or grand-children to read such and such a post", but I have asked previously who the forum is supposed to be aimed at - children or adults.

You never get a straight answer because I have found, in the past, that most of the posters, or members of the forum are a somewhat ponsy bunch. A lot of them know each other and you see jolly old meetings mentioned, where Tom Snotdick brought his newly rebuilt Mercedes W118 Landaulet [costing £65,000] to Warwick Castle to have tea with Mr and Mrs Ed Wobbleknob, Mr and Mrs Jules Stockbottom and Horatio Knobwobbler.

They tend to be very pretentious, and a lot of them own stuff like MB softops which are around 10 years old or so, and they like to call them "classic cars". Again, a lot of them have two or three models from 10 years old to 30 years old but these are all big money motors. So it gets a bit painful reading their buddy-buddy posts.

Anyway, that's my rant over - for now !!!!! Now at the risk of over-egging the cake;

Pierre3.

" I don't quite know why a motoring forum would be including under-age children. They don't drive,"

My 14-year-old would take issue with that. She's a better driver than most of the locals here, and so far in our Landie outings is the only one who has never got bogged.

Pierre3 wrote:

I don't know who owns the forum but I think that it is "approved" by MB UK.

If you scroll down to the very bottom of the page and see this:

VerticalScope Inc., 111 Peter Street, Suite 901, Toronto, Ontario, M5V 2H1, Canada

It's the same bunch that own RR.net. I very much doubt any forum would be officially approved my Mercedes though. People might start telling each other how to repair their own cars and not go to their main dealer's ivory castles. For questions regarding the other halfs Merc I use https://forums.mbclub.co.uk/ and they seem to be a pretty down to earth bunch. Looking at this, https://forums.mbclub.co.uk/forums/ot-off-topic-forums.32/, you wouldn't be out of place.

Forums are like village pubs, pick a friendly one and stay there or go down the road and go into the 'posh' one that won't accept you until you've lived in the village for at least 30 years.

As I said earlier, I do believe that all the members here are rather more adult, practical, and worldly-wise than a lot of the rather snobby bunch on the Mercedes Benz forum, rather than the MB-UK forum.

My main gripe with the administrators of the Mercedes Benz forum is that they seem to consider that a motoring forum should be regarded as a site aimed at children as well as adults, and therefore any content has to be suitable for 8 year olds as well as 58 year olds. And that is where I feel that the administration goes off the rails because, to me, it should be like a pub - you don't go to the pub, because it's for over 18's generally, and expect to be told that you can tell adult jokes, or have adult type conversations by the landlord because it might offend a 10 year old child. I would want to know why that child is still in the pub !!!

I agree with Gordon about young drivers being good as I, myself, used to drive tractors and cars from the age of about 12 on a relations' farm. I would drive an uncle's car down the fields to help him when he would be doing the fencing, and driving tractors was an every day event.

But would I mind my son or daughter reading adult jokes or comments on a motoring forum, allowing for the fact that they could drive and were interested in some of the threads ? No, I probably wouldn't mind too much as the likelyhood is that they would have the same or worse at school. One has to be realistic about these things, I believe.

Hey-hoo, I think that it's time to put this to bed though. Although I probably won't be too bothered about going back on the Mercedes forum.

Pierre3.