That’s true myti, I lost out on two houses despite being the highest offer. One went to a cash buyer and one went to someone they knew. If you can offer something other than more money, like flexibility with moving dates or no mortgage required or whatever, then you might not need to be the highest.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p06spb8w?page=2

It’s not true crime, although there is a weird blend of truth and fiction, but I absolutely loved that. I’ve even listened to it twice, which is something I never, ever do.

You’ll probably need a basic understanding of the occult or a few legends to get the most out of it, or to at least recognise which bits are ‘true’ (Comte St Germain, Rowanoak colony, that sort of thing)

If there’s any pubs or anything nearby go and walk passed at chucking out time, see what it’s like

What is wrong in this photo?

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I don’t know that one specifically but airport car hires vary wildly in general. How many people were on your plane, how many planes have just landed in general, how long you had to wait to get your bike from oversized baggage whilst everyone else got in the queue first, the language barrier or credit card not being accepted abroad the person in front of you has to overcome before you can get your car, or my most recent one, hiring a van which won’t fit in the airport car park so they have to send someone to fetch it from somewhere else.

Basically, if you land when there’s no other flights, you are sat near the door and first off the plane and don’t have to wait long at customs or baggage reclaim you’ll be first at the hire place and you’ll be fine.

Hiding from Sheffield station

Or he did he know it but just didn’t say anything?!

He’s not infallible. He missed the double-diffuser trick which three other teams spotted, probably the biggest example.

I think a lot of the problem is that they are trying to find someone with the same driving style/car preference as Verstappen, which I believe is quite unusual. Riccardo appeared to. I do wonder if he’s just not found a car suited to him since he left. RB don’t appear to have found anyone who gets on with a similar car since.

The real greats can of course drive anything rapidly, Senna or Clark for instance, but they are few and far between. There’s a few who were very, very good once they got the car in the sweet spot, but would struggle a bit if it wasn’t quite right, Button or even Vettel for instance.

RB trying to make a car suit very different driving styles is always going to be difficult. Now Checo is happier with the car, as he said at the last couple of races, he appears to be good again, I don’t think he’s suddenly rediscovered some talent, he’s just more confident with the car. But it appears to not suit Max so well, he’s not suddenly lost talent.

There is a lot of luck involved here, especially for people like Riccardo who appear less able to adapt to different cars, you need to be in the right team at the right time when their car is how you like it. Which I guess is very difficult to judge before you join them.

Onetime makes a good point, closed Facebook groups are good, much, much lower timewaster count than the general marketplace, smaller market admittedly but a better class of buyer and just less agro.

Just imagine how fast you’d be if you could combine it with one of these!

Checo’s dad had a mild heart attack when he saw the crash, found unconscious at his home. In hospital and apparnetly doing OK now.

Surely offer it to rustynissanprairie for £500….?

£500 for a broken Audi? You could get a Porsche for that!

Never mind the aesthetics, surely they’d be bumping into things and pulling wires they shouldn’t be?

See what the scrappy offers.

Use that as the starting bid on eBay, someone will be able to fix it and it may be economical for them if they’re doing their own labour. Just give an accurate description and see what happens.

I think at least half the teams have a clear lead driver

Ooh, I wonder if we can all agree on who that is?

Red Bull Verstappen

McLaren Norris now, but subject to change

Ferrari LeClerc, but Sainz is still up there

Mercedes. Hmm. Hamilton ahead and has greater expectations of him, but he’s heading out…

Aston Martin. Should be Alonso but Stroll is a Stroll

RBVCA Tsunoda. Maybe? But he keeps being passed over for promotion. I think Ricardo is the team favourite but I don’t think he’s just justifying it right now

Alpine. They are very close. Usually to the point of trying to occupy the same piece of track. Probably favour Gasly as he’s staying

Hass. Hulkenburg. I don’t think the team are biased, I think he’s earned it by beating KMag

Williams. Albon. Same as above, he’s earned it. But looks like he’s going to have bring his A game to keep it, even more so next year!

Sauber. Bottas.  Although Zhou is actually ahead in the championship.

I think the only one which would systematically favour one driver is RB, the others who are doing so will change which that is from race to race according to whoever is in the best position or whatever the Papaya Rules say.

 no. 1 driver who is favoured right from the beginning of the year in the way that Schumacher was at Ferrari.

That did backfire though, one race fairly early in 1999 Irvine moved over for Schumacher. I can’t remember which, Schumacher broke his leg (Silverstone IIRC?) and Irvine went on to lose a very close title battle with Hakkinen. Had they not moved him over earlier in the season Irvine would have been World Champ.

I thought the off topic bit was more civilised than much of the main debate ?

Nope, emoji fail again

I think what matters is the surplus manufacturing capacity after basic needs are met

It does to us. Less so to, for instance, North Korea, where the basic needs come after the millitary.  Although even here priorities can shift as cercumstances dictate, the priorities in the early 1940s were very different to what they are now, and to a lesser extent, those at the height of the Cold War were too.

I totally agree, per person they are way down the list.

In terms of wealth per person it’s very much the smaller nations that are at the top, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Norway etc.  However, I think the debate over China arose as we were talking about the West’s reliance on their manufacturing and how they might be able to support Russia with materiel, and for those it’s absolute size which matters, rather than per capita income. The US is pretty much on a par with Ireland by this measure, and China roughly the same as Coasta Rica but they are very different in terms of economic anf military clout.

Ah, the ‘bowsprits’ are for air-air refuelling.  Obviously very long as the rotors means they can’t get very close to the tanker.

There were a couple of Chinooks over the Tweed Valley today, heading south about 0900 and heading north about 1645.

Saw them more clearly in the afternoon, two of them, both with large poles of some sort sticking out the front. (Bowsprits if we just calling them ships?) I wonder what they are? No doubt Google will tell me but someone here will almost certainly know a lot more detail

China has been the world’s largest economy for pretty much the entirety of recorded history.

The British took over about 300 years ago, then the Americans more recently, and now it’s heading back towards China.

I think regardless of what we do their sheer size makes this almost inevitable.

Anyway, slight digression.

I can remember exactly where I was when I heard that Aryton Senna had died.

He was the first one I remember, I hadn’t watched qualifying for that weekend but obviously must have heard about Roland Ratzenburger on the race broadcast.

There’s been a few while I’ve been watching, since the early 90s, those two in F1 plus Jules Bianchi and Maria Comba. I can also remember the names of two marshals killed, Graham Beverage and Paulo Gizlemberti. And there’s a few others I remember seeing, Greg Moore, Justin Wilson, Dan Wheldon, Henry Surtees, Antoine Hubert.

That’s in just over thirty years of watching, there will have been others but they are the ones I remember. Probably as many as in single a bad year back in the sixties but it’s still a sobering list.

But Senna is the one where I remember exactly where I was and exactly what the newsreader on the radio said.

I’ve no idea where I was for Princess Diana or Margaret Thatcher for instance, although i do remember the announcement of the Queen’s death, but not word for word like Senna.

Rather bizarrely I can remember exactly where I was when I heard that Michael Jackson had died, as I was watching a UFO at the time and that definitely sticks in the mind, but that’s another story.

To misquote Senna, when you stop aiming for the gap etc etc.

There have been 26 safety cars in the 14 races since the race was first held in 2008. There has never been a race at Singapore without a safety car.  2022 had the most with 4

(Includes VSC)

I feel old, I’m watching Sainz and Verstappen and Magnussen and thinking ‘I used to watch your dads racing’ And Alex Brundell and Mick Schumacher too when they pop up.

Not quite old enough to remember Nico Rosberg’s dad, or Damon Hill’s or Jaques Villeneurve’s, but I’ve seen two generations of Nakajima

I’ve almost certainly got some in the bits box. If you are anywhere near the Tweed Valley you are welcome to pop round

I think there’s a big difference between escalation for the sake of it and standing up to aggression. There are often parallels drawn with the 1930s, quite accurately in my opinion. Nobody wanted an escalation over the Rhineland, Austria, Czechoslovakia… But ultimately the earlier we had got involved the easier it would have been.

I know the political situation in Ukraine at the time, in terms of corruption etc, made it difficult for Western leaders to be seen to be supplying Ukraine with this current level of military support but we should have have given them everything they needed to take back Crimea and the other occupied areas. I don’t normally say very positive things about our previous government but at least they started the process of training Ukrainian soldiers back then. However, if we had gone all in and granted them NATO membership we wouldn’t be where we are now. We are either involved or we aren’t, we either let Putin do what he wants or we stop him, hanging about in the middle doing neither is just dragging this out

I’ve had issues with Shimano road calipers. It’s definitely not a storage thing as the Hopes on the MTBs and the TRPs I replaced the road ones with have all been faultless, and are stored in the same way. Like the OP the decent bikes can be away all winter, hanging in the shed. In fact most didn’t come out at all last year due to long covid.

I was out the other day and stopped to chat someone who was packing up.”My front brake has died” he said

“Shimano?” I guessed

“Yeah, XT” was the reply, in a kind of resigned tone of voice, like he knew this was inevitable with XTs.

Probably something daft like squeaky shorts/saddle interface?

I had a helmet/light bracket squeak which took a while to track down, sounded like it was right in my ear, couldn’t replicate it not on the bike, bouncing it or pushing it, no one else could hear it when they rode my bike

Big oof for this one

So they didn’t forget it then, looks like he was still trying to get it out and Albon was released a second or two early?

The best thing Piastri can do to help Norris is stop Verstappen winning the race, ideally by winning it himself. I’m sure he’ll delighted to help out if he can

Quali. Checo has done a pretty good job, right up there. This track does seem to suit him.

Decent position from Bearman. Collopinto has gone faster than Albon and not crashed, so that’s a big improvement on Sargent.

If it’s a standard size and the frame is still square it’s a doddle. Easier to hang doors if you’ve got a second body. Pop some cardboard or 3mm ply or something underneath when you do it to make sure it’s not dragging on the ground.

There’s also some guides you buy to make sure hinges are spot on, frame/door line up, they are great but expensive, although if you are doing all of the doors maybe worth it

If it’s a weird size it’s still easyish to do but involves a custom made door. If the frame is squint it’s going to be a right pain in the bottom. I made a door for my bike shed, the door aperture is nowhere near square, actually found it really satisfying to do, took a couple of days.

I was trying to buy a bike a wee while ago, and the chap I was discussing it with said he’d had quite a few problems listing his Cannondale Scalpel because of their ban on knives.

There’s some on there now so they’ve changed something

FP2. Checo has done a pretty good job, right up there. This track does seem to suit him.

Decent position from Bearman. Collopinto has gone almost as fast Albon and not quite crashed, so that’s a big improvement on Sargent.

Oh, I’m not, Mat’s link has finally loaded

I can’t be the only person who thought of this?

FP1. Checo has done a pretty good, right up there. This track does seem to suit him.

Decent position from Bearman. Collopinto has gone faster than Albon but also crashed, so that’s something of an improvement on Sargent