Cold calls are an invasion of privacy, hence as far as I’m concerned as much abuse as you feel like dishing out is perfectly acceptable. That said I usually give a polite “no thanks” then hang-up.

I did lose it bigtime once though. My wife worked evenings when the kids were small so I had to come home from work and do tea, bath, book, bedtime etc with two small nippers. A bunch of ***** called Mosaic Coatings got hold of our landline number and started to call EVERY evening, often twice and would not take no for an answer. Unfortunately they once called just as I was majorly stressed – I’ve never gone quite so mental or been so foul-mouthed, abusive, and downright unpleasant in my life. The woman on the other end ended up sobbing hysterically down the phone.

Not proud of it but equally it was asked for.

They never called me again 😀

As it’s a Friday night I’d avoid town and stay in Clifton. Plenty of good places to eat and drink there.

Long term cat owner here.

Sad? Not especially.
Lonely? Nope, not remotely.
Middle aged? Yup, got me there.
Divorced? Nope, happily married.
Woman? No, hairy-arsed bloke.

One out of five – well done 😉

Our two moggies (Maine Coon crosses) are ace, they never kill anything because they are, frankly, not bright enough. No idea where they cr*p, it’s not in my garden though so don’t worry too much about it 😀

Just got my iPhone5 (Vodafone) for £99 up front then £29pm for unlimited calls and text and 1GB of data. I do get 20% off through my employer. Happy with that.

bay1472 – Member
Desperate to find some trails that pass decent bakeries and getting a large rucksack to carry spare pies.

Welcome to STW mate 🙂

Can’t comment on the riding, but I have a mate who lives in Aber and I’ve had a few nights out there. It’s very “small town” but there’s some nice pubs and restaurants. I reckon it’d be a nice place to live, you’re surrounded by amazing countryside and Cardiff’s not far if you feel the need for the Big City lights.

Read this thread. Bored.

Bottom line is you can’t force kids into anything.

My elder daughter (now 13) took forever to get her head round anything.

Swimming – never had a problem with water, but was about the last in her class (aged about 4-5)to actually swim, getting her to jump in off the side took about a year. Now she’s a good swimmer.

Cycling – an absolute lummox on a bike as a nipper. I nearly lost the plot so many times teaching her to ride. I almost gave up – I honestly thought she’d never master it. One day she cracked it. Now she regularly asks to go out riding with me (cycle path only, off road has no interest to her) and will do 25 miles no probs.

Don’t stress about it, she’ll get there eventually – but in her time, not yours 🙂

If I was recruiting and had two final candidates I’d let the unsuccesful one know by phone, with feedback if requested. It’s a matter of courtesy IMO.

As above, get rid of this thread. You / your company could be properly in the sh*t if the wrong people read this and put 2+2 together.

Safe, bro

It was my dad’s funeral on 11 Movember last year and I felt it inappropriate to turn up with a comedy moustache.

So I started late but had a huge mexican ‘tache within a week.

I’m a hairy bugger mind.

B*gger. Just missed it. SG still good?

We were in the car at traffic lights once when my younger daughter was about 3.

I looked at the stationary car in the lane next to us to see two elderly ladies looking into our car with horrified looks on their faces.

I turned round to see younger daughter grinning at them and giving the old “hand shandy” gesture.

At my “WHAT ARE YOU DOING??????????” she replied, “waving at those ladies like you wave at people in the car”.

One very unimpressed wife.

I know what it’s like to lose people close to you. Hadge – thoughts are with you mate.

Discs on a cx bike – absolutely, no question (racing possibly excepted).

Done.

I’m a heartless capitalist pigdog.

So has anyone won this (crown) race yet?

Premier Inn. Stayed in a lot and never had any issues. A big step above the other budget hotel chains IMO.

Like it!!

I worked in Retail for a couple of years after leaving school. I don’t envy you, most people are fine, but there are some real ar$eholes out there.

Just try to pity them and be glad you are not them.

I had a HUGE collection of Corgi and Dinky cars as a kid. One day as a 12 year old I decided to play scrap yards. This involved smashing the f*ck out of every toy car I owned so I could have a great scrapyard.

I destroyed some great 70’s toys that day. Damn…..

Quality indeed, as ever.

Currently another 6 years (when I’m 53), however about to add c.£20k to the mortgage to fund a large extension (& extras such as complete new roof, boiler, large block paved driveway etc so c.£75k). Will overpay by about £300 a month and I can get a staff mortgage at base rate (i.e. 0.5% at the mo) so shouldn’t end up extending the term by much, if at all.

Roadie shoes last me a good 10 years +, so no probs spending c.£200. £300 might make me pause a bit though….

I used to repossess people’s houses (as a last resort…), now in internal Security & Fraud for a large financial organisation.

I wouldn’t particularly want to live there, but a very impressive build. Fair play to them.

Had one in the bathroom for about 10 years now. Works well but is starting to rust a bit 🙁

People who talk incessantly but have nothing interesting to say. Ever.

People who take up too much space on the pavement. Not (just) fat people, but people who wear many layers of clothing topped off with an oversized goretex jacket when it’s a warm Summer’s day and wear a HUGE rucksack and carry a number of bags… just to walk to the office. You’re not off on a 6 month expedition up the Zambezi are you? FFS…

Groups of people (i.e. more than 2) who walk so slowly that a funeral procession would be tutting, and just HAVE to spread themselves across the whole pavement, completely blocking it.

I’m so glad guns are illegal in this country….

I really liked it, best GD in a while. The chocolate boxes along the river bank look better for being broken up by something contemporary.

Really sorry to hear that Mike – chin up and hope it works out ok for you.

Yep I’m really enjoying it. The mother has a certain something about her too 😉

Nice one, cheers chaps. Looks like I’ll walk it, I’ll need to stretch my legs after 3 hours on the train.

In such situations I pretend I haven’t realised they are there, wait until the foot of a climb, fire out a HUUGE snot rocket in their general direction under my right armpit, then sprint off up the climb*.

*This worked a treat when I was fit. Now I suspect it would fail miserably.

grantus – so sorry to hear of your awful loss, thinking of you.

Re your finances: I’m a recoveries manager for a large financial institution so I have some idea what I’m talking about.

Given your circumstances you will be classed as a vulnerable customer by your mortgage provider and any other creditors. As such the payments required of you for your mortgage and any other debts (secured and unsecured) must be based on your ability to pay, not on what the lender wants, or what your original contract states.

You may fall under CiFD (Customers in Financial Difficulty) which again means lenders must be extremely sympathetic to your circumstances and base any concessionary agreements on what you can evidence you can afford. However, as your income is fairly high you will only fall under CiFD if your necessary outgoings are high enough to cause you problems paying your mortgage, loans, credit cards etc.

If any creditor you deal with is not sympathetic and treats you as I’ve outlined above don’t mess about, make a formal complaint immediately. If you’re not satisfied with the response refer your complaint to the FOS (Financial Ombudsman Service).

The chances of you getting any grief over your finances in the short-term are extremely slim – huge strides have been made in recent years to protect people in situations such as yours.

Hope that helps, feel free to PM me with any specific questions.

Good luck and stay strong.

Got my Boardman on the C2W scheme – it really is a cracking bike. I love mine.

cp – Member
yeah, I’m just not a fan of coloured cables.

I reckon yellow tape would finish that off nicely

Nah, not that I’m given to restraint on such things normally, but I think there’s enough yellow on my Boardman, yellow tape as well would just be TOO much.

Impressed you have a fast enough shutter speed on your phone to catch me as I sped past….. 😀

As clubber says above, atrocious conditions today, would have been miserable doing an MTB ride or a road ride, but on the cx bikes it was brilliant, loved every minute of it.

And that sums up cx bikes for me really.