not sure what this has got to do with google precisely.

It was just to emphasise that the government seem to have their priorities wrong. Slack UK taxation laws let Google (and other large corporations) get away with paying next to no tax, yet small businesses who don’t realistically have the time, will or money to offshore get hammered as an easy target both in terms of Corperation Tax, and now again via dividends/earnings of their directors, many of whom don’t actually earn that much and yet will have put everything on the line to start these businesses and support their staff. The government has now removed a big chunk of that incentive to start a worthwhile business.

They want to properly tax contractors who are still dodging IR35. Good idea.

Understand that but at the same time they’re also penalising all small business owners who employ people and entrepreneurs at the same time. They’re trying to crack all of the nuts very clumsily with one large swing of one oversized hammer!

Not great when we’re trying to grow the UK economy through business startups and rely on these businesses to provide jobs for people, particularly when the government are expecting the private sector to take up the slack with the public sector job cuts.

It’s pretty stressful and risky proposition setting up a new business, even more so when you start to employ people – there has to be some incentive surely!

I wish I’d just paid the £60 this time last year…

You don’t work for UKPC do you?

I told the cold caller who asked about my accident that ‘I was an accident’ – at least that was what my parents had said. Where was the accident he said? Told him I couldn’t remember although probably most likely in the bedroom. Took him a full 10mins for him to realise that I was winding him up. Accused me of wasting his time and then promptly hung up! :roll:

People seem to make this more complex than it is….

If you want to lose fat go into calorific deficit. don’t over do it cause it’s not sustainable.

Right and wrong, if you want to loose fat, muscle and weight just go on a calorie deficient diet.

If you want to loose just the fat and therefore weight (but not muscle), then don’t worry too much about calories, just cut down on sugar, processed carbs and eat more natural sources of protein plus plenty of carbs from vegetables.

If you cut out the bread and crisps then you’d loose far more fat than you’re currently doing. Replace these with rice, couscous etc. Also add perhaps one session of weights work into your training every week. That will help you loose just the fat rather than a combination of fat and muscle weight. Simple, worked for me.

Can’t really comment on the correct set up for your kite as it’s not a system I’ve seen before, a little different to the standard kitesurf setup in use these days.

Generally we always try to launch and land a kite right at the edge of the wind window, 90 deg to the wind, where it’s generating very little power. Self launch is possible but normally even experiences kiters much prefer help launching as it’s much safer. If a kite puts down in the sea then move it to the edge of the window before relaunching. Would never try to launch directly downwind. 45deg as above then you’re fully in the power zone so it’s no surprise it dragged you along.

Right overhead there’s very little power, however when it’s overhead you’re susceptible to gusts and need to be switched on to the possibility of getting lofted. Hence when walking around on land towards the sea, most people tend to hold the kite towards the edge of the wind window, where if you get hit by a strong gust, it will drag you more along the ground rather than up into the air. Then again if there’s a risk of being lofted anyway then you’re either out in inappropriately gusty conditions, or you should really be using a smaller kite.

Generally us kiters will go out with a smaller kite if we can, since they’re more fun, less cumbersome and react quicker. Beginners though will often need a slightly bigger kite to start with to go upwind as they’re not using the power of the kite as efficiently.

Sorry, late to the party – just now seen your post about a lesson. Good call, you’ll love it :)

Can’t really comment on the correct set up for your kite as it’s not a system I’ve seen before, a little different to the standard kitesurf setup in use these days.

Think I need to put my big boy pants on and have another go*!

*other thing’s I’ll do are;

– use it on sand, not rock-hard mud
– wear long trousers
– make sure to depower as much as possible
– maybe a bigger kite with more control is better than a smaller kite (if 14m can be called small) that isn’t under control!

Dude as has been said before I really think you should just go and get some lessons to learn how to handle this sort of kite properly. I know you have experience flying other kites but with a smaller kite you can get away with making mistakes – not so with a bigger kite and it’s only a matter of time I’d say before you end up in A and E.

I’ve been kitesurfing a few years now, was out on Saturday and after a crash had the 5th line wrap around the middle of the kite. Despite it being a fully depowerable new kite, despite me knowing what to do, it still dragged me 200m all the way to the beach before I sorted it out – thought I was going to end up in the dunes at one point or worse.

I know some people don’t like to be told and just want to try and figure stuff out by themselves, that’s admirable yes, but having been around kites long enough I know the power they can generate and how much trouble they can get you into. The £150 you save on lessons by learning yourself wont look like such a great saving once you’re off work for a few weeks after a nasty accident.

Get the feeling though that you’re determined to press on regardless though and if that’s the case good luck to you, I really hope it work out.

Mates had tickets to a six nations game 2 years ago, a couple of us went to Twickenham to drink with them outside the ground before the match. they left to take their seats just before kick off and were heading out of the ground going to walk to a local pub and watch on the big screen where’ we’d all meet up later. Just then we passed a forlorn looking tout also making his way off from the ground. He still had tickets, so we asked him if he’d take £20 for two? Deal done and we’re in, missed the first 5 mins of the game so yes it is possible. Guys we sat next to had sold the same tickets to the tout an hour or so earlier, for £20. Good all round I’d say.

At which point we come back to media coverage for the women’s game so that more girls see that it’s something worth them aspiring to.

Yes but no one really wants to watch women’s sports do they? I mean the viewing figures for the Women’s football world cup in Canada last year were pretty dire weren’t they?

By equal measure, who want’s to watch men’s beach volleyball? :wink:

Folks watching sport generally want to watch people pushing boundaries, and unfortunately for women, with very few exceptions, men are better at sport than women, often by quite some margin.

Men by nature are more competitive too and I’m guessing that far more men take part in and watch sport than women do. When was the last time you heard some husband complaining that their wife watched too much sport on tv?

Regarding careers outside sport then again it’s generally men who are more competitive, more work obsessed than women who tend to balance work with family duties. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s probably the reason why there’s more men on company boards than women. The door is now 100% open to women but you’d probably find not so many that would want to walk through that door at all cost to work life balance etc.

There’s gonna be x million people moving to the UK in the next twenty years and they’re not going to be moving to Oban, Scunthorpe or Rhyl.

Yet where will they live if prices stay high?

Get a hotel booked for the night to remove the ‘where are you staying’ pressure.

Good idea but don’t tell her this of course as she might freak that that’s where you intend to take her later, which you can of course if things go well for you :)

Or you could cover both bases? Girls love handbags right?

I’d have to guess that without a fall in prices the number of FTB’s getting their hands on them won’t go up much.

I’d argue that there will be a fall in prices. Things have gone crazy round here. House that was advertised and sold for £235k 18 months ago has just come up for sale again priced at £349k. Flat in my development that was sold for £190k 8 months ago has had a lick of paint and just sold again for £230k. House I put an offer on 12 months ago at £250, but which was then taken off the market, has now been put up for sale again at £299k!!!

That’s a 30% increase in little over 12 months. If that isn’t a warning to a crash I don’t know what is?

Oh and don’t get too hung up on the outcome. You’ll often find that people in real life are nothing like how they appear from online dating, texting etc. Either that or you just might not click when you meet in person. That’s why meeting up quickly and moving on are so important before you waste too much time and your emotional health chasing the perception of what she’s actually like that you’ve built up in your own mind.

Equally she could be ideal – but you’ll never know unless you meet her, and if the only way she’ll agree to meet you (well not actually agree as such) is for you to arrive unannounced then things are not looking good. If she agrees to a date then that’s way different.

A few points:

Landlords cannot simply put the rent up to offset their additional costs. They can only put rents up so high as the local market can sustain – which low and behold happens to be whatever they are charging at the moment. No one rents their flat/house for less than market value do they?

The government do not have a hate campaign against BTL, it’s had far too many tax breaks for far too long, skewing the market against hard working young families in the process. BTL has had an easy ride, hence it’s got out of control and now risks our economy. Something had to be done.

Even if the amateur BTL brigade have to sell up, then there wont be a shortage of property to live in or rent. Those properties will simply get released from the clutches of overstretched amateur BTL’ers and get snapped up at a cheaper cost by first time buyers, or landlords who have their house more in order. The houses won’t simply disappear, they will still be there so no worries there.

‘Build to Let’ is a different story – this should actually be encouraged as unlike BTL, it doesn’t remove property from the market, but actually creates new homes. Tax breaks could help here as ‘build to let’, unlike BTL, would contribute something positive to the economy and society in general.

If people say that supply and demand is the main long term driver of house prices upwards. Well what’s the main factor that influences demand? It’s not the number of people who would like a house – it’s the number of people who can afford a house and are actively looking. Apart from areas of central London, for the rest of the UK then this is driven almost entirely by what they can afford to borrow, the availability of credit. What has started happening to the availability of credit recently and what may happen in the years ahead? I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

Ex colleague of mine had a similar long distance thing going on with a girl 400 miles away. 6 months backwards and forwards on text apparently? Bought her gifts etc but had never met. He even started calling her his girlfriend one day whilst out for lunchtime drinks.

We very delicately explained to him, in the nicest (and possibly quite old fashioned way), that she couldn’t possibly be his girlfriend, because he hadn’t f****d her yet ;)

Seriously though dude, man up, if you’re chasing the right person then dating should be simple, ask her out on a date, is she can make it then great, go and see her. If she can’t make it but offers you an alternative date then great, shows she’s keen so reschedule. If she gets back to you and declines more than a couple of times for some reason (too busy, other stuff on etc) but doesn’t offer an alternative date then she’s either not serious or she’s playing you (and probably loads of other schmucks) for attention so sack her off an move on.

Oh and please don’t ever buy a girl a gift until you’ve at least met her a few times. Girls can smell desperation a mile off and sending gifts at this stage just looks far to ‘needy’.

Sorry mate but I’m experienced at this stuff, just departing my wisdom. Choose to do with it what you will. Good luck ;)

Same happened with me, offered what it was worth to me. Vendor declined my offer. Moved on, continued to look at other places. 4 weeks later agent was back on the phone saying vendor would like to go with my original offer. Bought the place. Happy days :)

You will see lot’s of BSAC people say PADi is rubbish, and you will see it the other way round. The real truth is either program can teach you to dive properly, it is more about the person/school teaching you. I have dived for 20+ years al around the world and have seen good and bad divers trained by both organisations.

Totally this. Find a good school/instructor and it will open up a world of possibilities. Get a bad one and it could put you off for life.

Personally I’d go somewhere warm to learn with good visibility. If you’re going to go the PADI route then no point going for just the basic Open Water – you may as well train right through to Advanced OW, perhaps with a deep cert too. That way if you plan to dive anywhere in the world you can do dives as deep as 40m without problem. Most of the better more interesting dives are at depths greater than the 18m that you’re certified for with the basic OW cert. With just the basic OW you will be a bit limited.

I have test ridden both, the old 5010 the year before and the older T130. The 5010 was great, really fun, a bit skittish with a compact cockpit. The T130 was a ride round the block rather than a full on demo. Felt right on the money though from what I could tell. Both bikes felt great.

What do you ride at the mo, and what’s wrong with it that means you’re wanting to buy something new

My current 26″ 120mm FS bike is 8 years old and probably very soon will be needing around £1,000 spending on it to replace worn out components.

Why not get the top of range works version at £4500 – your £500 back off whyte that’s the same price as the santa cruz but a lot better spec with carbon wheels

To be honest the price of the Santa Cruz at £4k is pushing it, but it’s a Santa Cruz and I’ve always fancied one. Tend to keep my bikes for quite a while. That said the reviews of the Whyte seem almost too good to be true so unless there’s something dodgy going on, it must be an outstanding bike. Love the way it looks too and demo’d a T130 last year (the old version) and it just felt right.

Reading your post again I’d say, much better to learn on a twin tip, mono-directional boards (i.e. surf type boards) are a whole new level of difficulty to ride and really suited for advanced riders only.

Don’t forget that kitesurfing is probably 75% about kite control and only 25% to do with the board. Ideally you need to be able to control the kite one handed, without needing to look at it to know what its doing. This will take time. Regarding the de-power then if learning then not sure I’d be happy using a kite that didn’t fully de-power. That said, people did used to learn years ago on old kites without much de-power, and some of them are still alive I think ;)

I’d book some lessons, get up and riding on their more modern (and far safer) kit. Then once you are feeling more confident, progress onto the kit you’ve bought once you know what you’re doing. You’ll also be trashing the schools kites during the learning process rather than your own. The cost of replacing or repairing kites damaged by students is one reason why lessons are not cheap.

If you’ve prior kite experience then you probably wont die, but taking lessons will get you up to speed much quicker, put you in touch with the local kite community, and more importantly teach you what to do to ave your life should you get into trouble out at sea.

At the end of the day it’s going to be far cheaper to get a couple of lessons and be up and riding quickly than take many trips to the local beach to try and figure it out over a much longer period of time for yourself, particularly if you have to drive there and wind conditions are marginal.

Grum, of all the Muslim young(ish) people I consider friends (6 closely – 3 from the UK of Pakistani origin (2 x girls, 1 x guy), 3 from and living in Egypt (all guys), all have drunk alcohol, all bar one have taken some form of recreational drugs on a reasonably regular basis. All have engaged in pre-marital sex, some quite prolifically.

Is this a bad thing? No I don’t think it is. All 6 are what I’d consider grounded open minded individuals with a strong family ethic. Far better this I’d say than restricting young girls to effective house arrest until it’s time to force them into an arranged, naive and possibly abusive marriage.

So you’re effectively saying it’s anti-liberal to stick up for liberal beliefs?

Or taken to the extreme the overt promotion or protection of a liberal and tolerant society/way of life is in itself racist against people whose culture couldn’t be described as liberal and tolerant?

OK, now I recognise I am going way off-piste for the socialist republic of singletrackworld, but here goes: our culture is better. I wouldn’t care to live outside of Western civilisation.

In our eyes our culture is better, but if you ask people from other cultures, including some of those cultures around the world where women are routinely degraded and have very little rights, then a lot of those people genuinely believe that their way is better. Ask a man who has five wives what he prefers – he’s not going to say Western culture now is he?

Still it’s not our place to educate them or tell them different, the same as it’s not their place to do the same to us. But it is our right to defend our largely liberal beliefs inside the UK (or Germany, France etc) when this appears unduly threatened by outside influence.

I’m guessing the problem is that many of these male immigrants are coming from countries where the treatment and rights of woman (by our standards) is shockingly backward. It’s not racist to say that, just a sad and unfortunate fact that sexual assault and abuse seems more tolerated in certain cultures.

Speaking from personal experience in Egypt, a blonde female friend of mine was repeatedly hit upon in an aggressive and sleazy fashion by the local men in a bar frequented by tourists, at the same time as I’m stood next to her trying to have a conversation. We left pretty sharpish after 1/2 hr when it all got too much and after an attempted ‘touch up’ by a particularly unsavory and persistent suitor.

We did meet a lot of genuinely lovely Egyptians too, but it’s still worrying that the above could take place so publicly.

Can’t believe if you’re short of cash you’re thinking of taking on a more expensive car – are you mad? I bought an old Saab 95 estate a couple of years ago off EBay for £900. Ran it for a year and approx 10k miles and only thing I did to it was check the oil. Took some much better photos after a thorough valet and sold it on Autotrader after 12 months for £1,300. Why don’t you just sell the Civic, pocket the £5k you’d save and do similar if you’re short of cash?

I don’t know what it is about female profiles on dating websites but the following want to make me instantly move on:

Photo posing with one of those god awful fashion dogs with a face that looks like it’s run into a concrete wall very fast.

Pouting selfie in the mirror, screams ‘self centred’ and makes you look like a goldfish.

Set of face only photo’s without a full body shot (have to assume the ‘iceberg’ scenario).

Photos with all your mates – which one the hell are you? Probably the ugly one!

Photos taken with dudes – I’m looking for a girl to date, not guys to drink beer with!

Come on girls, you can present yourselves better surely?

surely it’s obvious why us ladies like a good dancer. S’all about the rhythm y’know…
Maybe he shags to a different tune

Here’s my favourite

Paying for somewhere nicer to stay is probably whats going to happen, but given I’m paying for the whole trip already, and so far this little jaunt has cost me the equivilent of that shiney new Carbon Bronson Frame I had my eye on, and am no longer available to afford, I’m slightly peturbed that decent accomodation hasn’t already been factored into the budget.

But why on earth are you paying? If I go on holiday with my other half then sure, I’d happily pay if she couldn’t afford it, but if she’s going on her own trip without me then why on earth pay for her? Okay so I don’t know what sort of relationship you have, could be totally wrong here, but sound’s like you’re being taken for a mug?

permanently broken or worn out, absolutely disgusting, worse than a farmer’s Land Rover inside

So you sampled some goods you’d rather forget about?

Thisisnotaspoon, we’re not slating all rental property, renting suits a lot of people, it’s just that BTL is out of control, has had an unhealthy impact on the property owning aspirations of those who were unfortunate enough to be born at the wrong time, and an unhealthy impact on the UK economy as a whole which seems now to be based more on renting or selling over inflated property to each other, rather than delivering goods and services that can be exported.

Build to let – now there would be a much better idea, creating income through positive change. Might take the average BTL’er a while to get their head around that one I suspect!

Blame the banks then.

The banks only offered the loans – people didn’t have to take them out!

I presume taking taxpayers money from the NHS, at profit and good salaries allround? Just think how much more the NHS could do, if you lowered your prices, took a salary cut and reduced profit. Profiting from ill health, shocking.

We are lowering marketing costs for these businesses whilst at the same time allowing their marketing to be more effective. That allows them to cut costs, not increase costs. Without companies in this field being allowed to make a profit, there would be no incentive to develop new treatments, so the NHS would still be in the dark ages without them. Certainly cheaper though, but would you want that if you were ill?

I’m not sure how much money the inflated rents of the BTL brigade cream off the taxpayer every year through housing benefit? Thankfully there seem to be some sort of controls coming in now at last.

Sounds like you’re exploiting them to make a fast buck to me

That’s business – all businesses need to turn a profit.

Housing is a social necessity, it should not be subject to speculation or at the whim of greedy people hoping to turn a profit. Whether you like it or not, BTL by en-large is making money out of someone’s inability to afford their own roof over their head. Part of the reason that they can’t afford a place of their own is that the house they could have bought (had they been lucky to be born at the right time), has had it’s price inflated ridiculously by greedy BTL’ers, irresponsible bank lending, ruthless agents, a government hellbent on protecting the same said over leveraged borrowers, and TV inspired property developers.

Matt, I’m director of a company that provides services to large corporations, mostly in the medical and healthcare field. We do a good job and deliver solutions to our clients that will enable them to save money on their marketing, yet deliver a proven increase in it’s effectiveness. Make of that what you will.

Funnily enough, and part of the reason I don’t like BTL is that it takes funding away from businesses that actually export stuff, like us. Well when I say stuff, in our case it’s service based so there’s no actual physical goods as such.

3 Years ago a large American client asked us to deliver a £300k piece of work but this would require us to make an investment in our suppliers of roughly £100k beforehand to be able to deliver that work. It wasn’t a pitch, this would have been guaranteed work for us with a good profit margin.

So we approached our bank to apply for a bridging loan or temporary overdraft to cover our cashflow until the deposit payment was received from our client (it’s likely that would have had to part pay our suppliers slightly before we received the deposit payment from our client – possibly around a 2 week overlap). There was no real risk – the loan was required just to solve a temporary cash flow situation.

The bank refused as we’d not yet been in business for 3 years at that point. So unfortunately since we couldn’t work it with our cashflow, and in the absence of other suitable sources of funding we had to decline the work. So that’s £300k out of the UK economy!

Yet at the same time our bank was seemingly dishing out loans on BTL properties like nobodies business!!!

Friend of mine who is director in a very profitable business also had an equally torrid time trying to fund investment and a management buyout via a bank who was making loan conditions so draconian that he couldn’t risk it in the end since if the business had failed he, and his kids would have been out on the street, homeless. Funnily enough, my mate deciding that it wasn’t worth the risk with the conditions imposed by the bank is now employed by the Danish company who bought the business and whom now continue to turn a fantastic profit.

Again at the same time BTL mortgages were being handed out like confetti by the big banks!!!

scaredypants and agent007 – what do you do for a living?

How does this make a difference?

So you are suggesting the new mortgage rules are an issue? More so than BTL?

The new mortgage rules are an issue for people looking to buy a house to live in – unfortunately they don’t seem to apply to BTL investors which puts young families looking for a roof over their head at a huge disadvantage.

I do think there are some awful landlords out there, some greedy ones and some quick-buck-on-price-rises landlords out there.

Of course all landlords think that they’re a great landlord don’t they – that they’re somehow doing it for the greater good. Much like most drivers think they’re way above average ability.

BTL is not only taking advantage of those financially less fortunate, but it’s also destroying communities in the process. Transient residents become the norm – I mean why put down roots and take an active role in your local community when you could be kicked out with 2 months notice and at the landlords whim?

The cheapest two bed flat in the area is £70k.Deposit £4k,

I’m sorry but you’re living in cloud cuckoo land if you think that a deposit of £4k on a £70k property would be acceptable to 99% of lenders out there? Sure, deals are advertised out there but have you actually tried applying to get one? I had to jump through hoops recently to get a mortgage with a 25% deposit and I have a perfect credit rating and earn roughly 3 times the national average.