THEY don’t seem to come around all that often, but I do have a soft spot for a properly fast Volvo. So imagine my delight when they said I could borrow their new “twin-engined” V90 T8 estate. Something about having “two engines” conjure up images of inappropriately powerful speed boats, or one-off track-ready hot-hatch monsters made up by a cash-rich tuning firm who have resolved the intricacies of fitting two engines into a Vauxhall Corsa. But, in the context of the V90, it doesn’t really w

More than 1,000 people have signed a petition calling for the removal of the historic depiction of a black man from a town centre pub sign. Rebecca Jordan has started a campaign on the petition website Change.org to have the listed wooden sculpture removed from the Green Man and Black's Head gallows sign that has stood over St John Street for decades. She says the "disgusting racist imagery" should have been removed years ago and she feels it is especially inappropriate in the wake of the rece

Buxton's infamous "Blue Lagoon" has now become a black lagoon, after it was dyed for the second time this year to prevent day-trippers from being fooled into thinking it is a beauty spot. The former quarry, which is actually a toxic lime dump, has been attracting thousands of people during the warm spell of weather who are trespassing onto the private land surrounding the pool and using it as a picnic site. Villagers in Harpur Hill, which lies below what is officially known as Hoffman Quarry,

Day two of this year's Ashbourne Royal Shrovetide football match ended with a last minute goal from the Down’ards. Thousands congregated in the Derbyshire town today as the ball was turned up at Shaw Croft car park. It was goal scorer Craig Frith who finished off the evening with a goal at 9.49pm - just 11 minutes before the game was due to end. Conditions were tough for players and spectators alike as they tramped through mud, through streams and over fences and barbed wire to follow the bal

Until fairly recently, the Land Rover Defender was one of the last mainstream cars on sale that looked pretty much the same as it did when its original version was launched. Sure, a few cars have had retro reboots over the years, but this side of a Morgan sports car there weren't many cars that gripped quite as tightly to their roots than the old Landy. But while the Defender has now morphed into something almost unrecognisable, there's still one car that flies the flag for originality - and i

The wife and I were walking along a canal towpath a few months ago and noticed our dog seemed to have an urge to jump on every narrowboat we passed. Rupert, our two and-a-half-year-old Cockapoo, isn't fond of swimming, but he did seem to have a thing about boats. "Perhaps we should hire one, see how he gets on", I almost jokingly said to the wife. She loved the idea, so the next day we set about finding a rental company that allowed dogs. It's not a tricky thing to find, it turns out. There ar

This is Gareth’s favourite article of 2015. THE Twizy arrives. It’s fully charged which I gather should offer up a range of around 50 miles and I have just 15 miles to cover to get home. The sun’s shining and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed zipping along the country lanes, taking the scenic route to my house. I’m just about to plug the Twizy’s front-mounted cable in to charge when one of my neighbours comes out to see it. I explained what it was, let him sit in it and then another neighbour came to s