Kayla & Branes – thank you for your help and please forgive my slow reply! In line with your comments, I think I have worked out what’s what. Switch Ultra are 881/882 and a switch Ultra Lite 771/772. The former can be run as 20mm up front but the Lite’s only have an interior diameter of 15mm as opposed to 20mm.

As it happens I’ve managed to pick up a set of Ultra wheels with 135 x 10 rear already fitted, plus some end caps to covert the 20mm to 15mm. All up for £100 including postage but, Kayla, thank you for the offer!

A different solution but we bought a Meaco dehumidifier for drying our kids’ resusablenappies but now use it for all our clothes pretty much. Clothes onto an aider in a smallish room with the door shut, dehudifier runs overnight and clothes are bone dry in the morning. As such, we don’t have loads of clothes hanging about the house in winter waiting to dry as per your complaint. Also, as there is No need for heating it’s really economical. We only use our dryer if the airers are full already.

What?! I came back from a week in Bluestone on a Friday night. I even had my bike with me to explore Canaston woods. Why didn’t you post this a week ago????! 😡

Joking aside, great to hear there’s some riding around; good effort to all involved. I lived in Roch for 2 years and got sick of having to drive to Brechfa!

Big Nige is going to get a surprise when he sees Boris Johnson on the guest list.

☝🏻 What he said.

An element of security is the concept of non-repudiation ie a user has an individual account to which only they have access meaning that any action taken on that account has to be made by them (or the account has been hacked). If anyone else knows the password then you don’t know who else can use the account and you might as well have no passwords. It’s fine for employers to enforce password policies ie length, complexity, format etc and possibly even provide automated suggestions which only the end user sees. However, for the employer to dictate the password and record it is poor security practice from my perspective regardless of the complexity of the system being protected.

(Passed Certified Info Sec Mgr exam last week so I’ve been reading up on all of this recently)

Bloody hell. This thread has just prompted me to get an estimate of our house value just out of interest…the mid range estimate that doesn’t even account for the significant redecoration / refurb we’ve done values it at £70k more than we paid. This was our first house as a family (3 bed link detached) but there’s no way I’d have been able to afford today’s price. Madness.

Davidson can’t be related to Hastings or any of the serving officers or that would have shown on the initial cross check of the Police database?

Not sure. I thought they said cross referencing of police DNA samples with the criminal database was not routine when she started, so it wouldn’t have been picked up. But Corbett’s on the database as a suspect given he went rogue in the last series hence the link is now established. But Hastings’ DNA isn’t in there as he’s excluded for not being a suspect…but that’s the next twist to come I reckon.

But yeah,Tommy Hunter is more likely.

Lucky the villains were only using Airsoft. I mean they must have been since they couldn’t penetrate the panels on a van.

Likely to be an up armoured van.

Unless….Jo Davidson’s mother was Anne-Marie (photo from a previous series is v similar to the one on JD’s sideboard at which she threw a wine glass) and the blood relative they found was John Corbett (son of Anne-Marie); and we think (know?) Hastings had a thing with Anne-Marie which makes Jo Davidson his daughter!

For what it’s worth, the two guys who established Animal and designed the watches are now the guys behind Elliot Brown watches.

100% go, without a shadow of a doubt.

This thread just cost me some cash.

I’ve been on the look out for a second hand version of some sort for a while but hadn’t looked recently. A quick check of eBay and there’s a seller with ~8 Shotgun seats, brand new at £80 posted. Uk seller with 1000+ reviews so I’ve given it a punt. 👍🏻

The Ex Strikes Back.

😂

Cheers Matt. I sit on my son’s pre-school committee so have pinged the details to the leadership team.

On the basis that I have the Merlin G1X I’d say go for the Merlin. I replaced the wheels for some hand built hobbies from Ryanbuildswheels for about £350 and now it’s superb. It replaced a Scott CR1 SL road bike which was superb…but the Merlin has made road riding fun again with the option to take the path less travelled in relative comfort. Great bike. Oh, and as for mudcmguatds. I’ve got some crud guard which attach via Velcro so negate any mounting issues.

You are correct that prepositions can go at the end of a sentence but it is generally considered to be less formal and less grammatically correct. My point is that a lot of people get thrown if you ask them to put the preposition in the grammatically correct place in an English sentence; however, if you understand how it works in English, you are better placed to understand how it works in another language. And of course, English is not French or Spanish (germanic vs romance for a start) but centuries of shared history means that there are plenty of commonalities between them.

When I explained he hadn’t ‘gone to the UK’ but was from the UK they were blown away. For years they thought he was a fellow Russian national.

Uh oh…you do realise you just blew his cover story don’t you? Have you heard from recently? If not, he’s probably in a Russian jail somewhere!!

I think teaching of modern languages would be better taught by spending 3 years in secondary school teaching pupils about language structure so that the differences and similarities between all languages start to make sense.

100%. Understanding the correct syntax and grammar of your own language first makes the whole process so much easier, otherwise you just transpose an error from your native tongue to the other language. For example, Brits are terrible for putting prepositions at the end of sentences; however, if you learn where they should go in English, then understanding where they should go in French / Spanish becomes so much easier.

Another example: I spent 4 months in Pokhara learning Nepali full time. The syntax and grammar is obviously different to English but the concepts are the same. As someone with a languages background it was relatively straight forward to get my head around, but for the the others on the course it was hell. However, when I started to explain what all the terminology meant in English and more importantly why it is so, then everyone found it easier.

Ok, so re-reading my comment – ‘full understanding of all the slang, cultural references, humour and all those other nuances, and the ability to manipulate them’ should have been caveated with the words ‘that a native speaker of your age / educational background / social demographic might reasonably be expected to understand’.

The bar is high for bilingualism; but my point is that it’s not just about getting the words and grammar correct, it’s the cultural understanding as well. But of course it’s not binary, it’s not like you either are or are not bilingual; rather it’s a sliding scale.

You make a good point in your first post though:

Bilingual is just being totally fluent in two languages as someone else noted above. No need to even think about about it, once in context the brain operates in the appropriate language and it can be quite hard to even find words in the other which is the very specific exercise of simultaneous translation.

Being able to naturally switch from one language to another with ease, being able to think in that language and not just figure out what you want to say in English then translating it in your head, that’s bilingualism. I remember one of my former teachers saying that when you start dreaming in the target language, that’s when you know you’re getting there!

Think of all the people who have done great things in their countries of adoption whilst retaining an accent that gives away their country of origin, yet still expressing themselves as well as the intellectual elite of their country of adoption.

@Educator – I seem to have hit a nerve. Going back to the OP’s question, he is equating ‘proper’ bilingualism with being able to pass yourself off as a native rather than ‘just’ being fluent which I take as being able to understand and express yourself in any given situation with ease, not necessarily being grammatically perfect. I suppose in my experience, fluency is difficult to achieve but possible with considerable effort, but ‘proper’ bilingualism is a whole different level of difficult. For me, this includes a full understanding of all the slang, cultural references, humour and all those other nuances, and the ability to manipulate them. Note that I don’t think the presence of an accent means you are not bilingual; I’m sure my random mix of Forest of Dean / Welsh / Bristol accent confuses English speakers every now and again…but that doesn’t mean I’m not a native English speaker!

Not that any of this really matters; whilst it’s nice when people thought my language proficiency was good enough for me to maybe be French / Spanish, it’s not essential. As long as I can understand what is being said and communicate with relative ease then that’s good enough for me.

To be properly bilingual, I think you have to be exposed to it from a young age and be able to use the languages interchangeably. There’s a story about the author Jorge Luis Borges who apparently grew up speaking in one way to his nanny, another way to his parents. Turns out the first way was English, the second Spanish. To him as a child, it didn’t occur to him that they were different languages.

Personally, I started studying French at 8 at school, Spanish at 12 and took both all the way to BA(Hons) with distinction in oral Spanish. I went out with a non-English speaking Spaniard for 6 glorious months and have since worked in Barcelona and Paris. I’ve also picked up Nepali along the way so have been speaking various languages all my life. However, no matter how good a level I achieve, the best I reckon I can hit is fluent but not bi/tri/quadrilingual which I reckon means being able to pass yourself as a native. The best compliment I’ve received was when the French person I was chatting with couldn’t work out where I was from.

Thanks Stumpy. I’ll try to figure it out 👍🏻

Anyone?

Joe’s not talking about me, but I have a set of Bitex built by Ryan into a gravel wheel set. They’ve not done big miles yet but they’re light, look smart and sound great: not shimano quiet, not hope loud but between the two with more of a buzz than a clicks sound if that makes sense. I was after Hope but budget didn’t allow; Ryan recommended Bitex as the next best thing within budget.

As for Bitex vs Novatec I asked Ryan this directly:

“Bitex are miles above Novatec; machining quality is better, freehub mechanism is ace, exceptionally easy to service (see videos on Bitexhubs.co.uk), seals are good and we apply our in house weatherproofing treatment to outboard bearings and freehub internals alike.  They give a dampened and quiet pleasant whir as opposed to a loud click ala Hope.”

That’s because you’re lazy 🤷‍♂️

Ha ha…lazy bit still quicker than you boyo 🤣

But no, it’s not laziness, rather if I’ve got a couple of hours to go riding, I’d rather not spend them on a bridlepath slog to the trailhead and back or crappy lanes that go in every direction other than direct to where I want to go!

There’s some decent enough routes off-road to get there, but this time of year it’s a proper slog to get there, lots of hills as well so you do get a bit knackered by the time you do a circular and then try and do the nibley loop!

@argee: just PM’d you!

@argee…I’m south of Nibley by 10 miles road ride but it’s that little bit too far to make the effort worthwhile especially when I have limited time. Can’t wait to be allowed to get back up there. Until then, gravel bike from the door it is.

In a full, ‘recommend what you’ve got’ style, have a look at the Merlin Malt series. I got a Malt 1GX last year for £999 and immediately upgraded the wheels with a set for Ryanbuildswheels for £330. I love it. Nice & relaxed, good to ride on the road and can take some decent sized rubber too. Spec is good too with Zipp handlebars, stem and seatpost. I think the newer models come with GRX not the Apex that mine has (which has been faultless so far).

I’ve got a LifeLine Tool Storage Bottle (£3.50 from Wiggle) with £10, tube, levers, canisters x 2, links, patches, zip ties and latex gloves. It goes in a bottle cage, doesn’t rattle and has proven to be completely waterproof so far.

I really don’t like a jersey with back pockets so use an old RaceFace Rip Strip for a pump, ID, phone and hip flask. All super stable and you don’t notice it’s there.

<p class=”p1″><span class=”s1″>Our little boy spent his first few months permanently irritable with cold like stuffiness, skin rashes and terrible nappies. We had numerous tests including bloods (horrendous to watch as your baby is screaming for help) and they all came back inconclusive. The GP / paediatrician / dieticians were dismissive and totally unhelpful so we just cut everything out and after a while reintroduced potential allergens: turns out that dairy gives him the skin rashes and flushed cheeks; egg protein gives him upset tummy; and soya just makes him go insane and aggressive. My wife breastfed until he was about 2.5 years so cut all elements out of her diet as when she ate them it had a noticeable effect on him. We got a handle on it in a month or so and he has had no flare ups since. We keep trying him on the milk ladder every now and again and he can tolerate baked dairy now with no problems but not more than that. To be honest, we’re in no rush to introduce dairy back; cutting back for all of us is probably a good thing and remarkably easy!</span></p>
<p class=”p1″><span class=”s1″>He’s now 4 and we know what we can / can’t give him. The best milk substitute is Oatly by a country mile; they do crème fraîche too and their ice cream is lush. Bread often has soya / dairy in it but various loaves in Tesco / Sainsbury’s don’t so just scan the label. Don’t bother with vegan cheese as it’s horrendous. Be mindful with wine too; milk is added to clarify it so buy vegan. Deserts and treats by Wicked are really nice. Oh, and Aldi has just introduced a vegan range; my wife basically bought up the store’s allocation of cookies as they’re lush!</span></p>
<p class=”p1″><span class=”s1″>Good luck!</span></p>
PS. We found lots of support through Facebook groups lined to CMPA.

I would also recommend keeping tabs on this website for a constant stream of resources and articles, including some from the Army’s most junior leaders ie the soldiers themselves.

https://thearmyleader.co.uk

Another vote for Turn The Ship Around. Also check out the CMI for loads of good advice; see if your company will sub your membership and CPD.

But fundamentally, regardless of your sector / specialism / industry, leadership and management is a people game so Rule #1 applies at all times.

@marksnook and @joebristol, in case you haven’t already realised you two live in the same area and often ride the same trails! I’m smack bang between the two of you. 😁

Absolutely gutted that we have withdrawn from Erasmus. It gave me one of the best years of my life in Spain and now future languages graduates will be lumbered with some half baked replacement that the Government will claim as world beating. ****.

Surely cleaning a bike is quickest / easiest when the crap on it is still fresh/damp? As soon as I’m back, the bike gets hosed down and most of the dirt is gone, then a quick spray with mucoff followed by a ince over with a big soft brush and rinse again. I’ve got a chain cleaner machine thing so the chain gets whizzed through that. I reckon I can get a filthy bike virtually spotless in about 15-20 mins tops. You can double that if it’s left overnight or for a few days to dry.

Thing is, I don’t get out more than once every couple of weeks at the moment; if I was out daily or every few days it’d get hosed off but not properly cleaned until after the last ride of the week I reckon.

Another vote for the Aether 7. I’ve got a non boost wheel set in mine with a Velosolo adapter set, works a treat.

Mine’s not built as burly as Joe’s and mine’s around 30-31lb. Awesome for a thrash but equally capable of a 50-60km day whilst leaving me feeling as fresh as anyone else!

Look at Miney Saving Expert for a quick look at the best deals available. I’m now on an iPhone 11 with 25gbs pcm for 24 months. £42 up front and £29 pcm. Winner 💪🏻 That was from affordable mobile on EE’s network. However, to EE I am just a new customer for them so get all the perks they offer on their normal contracts.

That’s a fair point: what harm can it do? You’re right though; in the lead up to the bereavement I mentioned, my sister started seeing a counsellor to prepare her. It gave her much better insight into a whole range of issues and she reckons it helped her cope better.

So here’s a question for you: where’s the line at which point you need help between having dark thoughts that you’d never act on, and genuine suicidal thoughts? My family life is stable and financially I’m sound; I realise that this is a fortunate position to be in and don’t take it for granted. However, I constantly feel like I’m always rushing for others with rarely any time for myself. Chuck into the mix everything else that’s going on at the moment (Brexit, Covid, climate change etc which fills me pretty much with existential dread) and I frequently feel emotionally drained and numb. That said, at times I’m plenty happy….but then my mood will swing to a place where I just think to myself ‘Ah sod this, wouldn’t it be easier just to get off the world?’. I suffered a very close family bereavement earlier this year and at times I find myself irrationally jealous that he doesn’t have to deal with all this anymore.

I am absolutely confident that I would never try anything foolish, but is it normal or common to have these kinds of thoughts to the stresses of everyday life? I assume it is… Or should I go talk to someone?

(Incidentally, just writing this feels wrong, like I shouldn’t bother anyone by asking but in the spirit of being open and honest about suicide in an attempt to encourage others as well…)