What BigJohn said about going to a concert. Get someone who knows their stuff to pick something to go to.

Classic FM goes on the radio when I’m in the shower for a few weeks then gets dumped for Radio X / Smooth / Gaydio (I’m not gay but it’s so cheery).

Rachmaninov / Holst / that South American conductor who I can’t remember the name of.

Dress up really smart and go to a concert. You don’t have to but to me it’s part of the experience.

We rate caring roles highly as we come into contact / have need for them. If they can’t resolve our problem and the higher roles disprove whatever those roles will disappoint us. Caring roles provide a level of satisfaction.

Borovets, Bulgaria.

Went with a group of friends and friends of friends so there was a bit of getting to know half the people. Checked into the hotel from the Shining and went to our rooms then back to the bar. Having the how’s your room chat and the answers are dowdy, it’s somewhere to sleep etc. Someone asks does your telly work? Leads to did you find the porn? Where’s Richard? Still up there – it’s proper hardcore and he loves it.

My laptop is dual core T4300 / 2.1GHz / 4GB and it runs Windows 10 just fine. I would chuck it for being HP rather than the spec.

It would be interesting to see the stats for job applications, e.g. male / female ratio applied and ultimately employed and everything in between. You’d find it hard to criticise any company that had 5% female applicants and took on 10% regardless of the talent / experience. I have no idea what way this might show.

To extend this further I would be looking at the background of the hiring manager. Does any particular ethnicity of hiring manager favour a particular gender? Is there a candidate rating process put in place to avoid exclusion / favouritism?

I have some pretty strong opinions and I have objected to practice repeatedly in my previous employer. I wouldn’t say it made a blind bit of difference but I went further than most. Note this was recruitment outside of the UK.

Point to remember is that the temperature needs to be below zero for snowmaking to work. Skiwelt is awesome but I’d still be thinking snow sure (not necessarily high) plus extensive snow making.

If you’re a gambler and not fussy hold on and book near the time but expect to go to 3 valleys, val d etc

If you’re completely clueless reflets de France label in Carrefour usually gets you something drinkable.

The above advice about watching locals doesn’t apply. Think Binners in Greggs. You need to be watching someone with a refined palate.

I was there last month. Arromanches is great and the American cemetery just a few miles west is really well done.

Dammit KM, you just made me look up where Gairloch is only to find it’s far enough out of average arsehole weekend driving distance.

Apart from that, I think I want the power meters to be banned from racing. I have a small doubt in that I don’t want to block progress but I think this would open things up more than most of the other ideas.

Another +1 for there being no point in banning power meters. They train with them (you can’t ban training aids like that practically), they know their bodies. It’d add a percent either way I’d imagine and in reality almost all of them would be hindered not knowing the power output at various points. I don’t believe that Quintana or Voeckler don’t know when they can give it more or when they’ve gone too deep despite not relying on power meters to race.

I don’t think they’ll all get it right all the time. There’ll be an element of doubt or optimism in certain riders that will start off attacks that are a little bit less predictable and will need to be defended. Of course, some will cope well but if Bardet had stuck with PM data on Saturday his podium place would have been more comfortable.

So in the end Bardet held his place by a second. He’s very lucky the 20 second penalty wasn’t applied for the illegal feed.

Apart from that, I think I want the power meters to be banned from racing. I have a small doubt in that I don’t want to block progress but I think this would open things up more than most of the other ideas. I want to keep the radios as to me that adds more than it takes away.

Highlights for me are the French countryside (as ever), AG2R, Bardet, Contador, the Sky team professionalism and Lunge.

Apart from that thanks for all the expert opinion on here. It makes it a million times better for me being someone who’s watched for almost 30 years but never had a better insight than what is discussed here each day.

Forget about the interview, just go to harts and gorge yourself on sausage rolls then get along to playground for coffee on St Nicholas Street along with some of the best cake / baked stuff.

I was platinum with Continental a few years back. They offered upgrades based on status and ticket on US domestic flights so for me that meant every flight I got on. I did avoid flights that I had no chance such as the first morning flight out of New York. The 11 o’clock would be fine.

The first time it happened the flight actually got delayed by about 3 hours so straight back into the lounge for beers followed by a bottle of wine on the flight. I was with 2 colleagues and we had a connection that happened to be on an E145 which is pretty small. We thought we’d miss it but wandered along to the gate to check and they’d held it about 20 minutes for us. The glares from the other passengers as we bumped into just about everyone as we took the best seats whilst reeking of booze were pretty intense.

Trans Atlantic I got upgraded once when an air traffic problem caused me to miss the connection having run through the airport and nearly puked at the gate. I went back and found another passenger I’d been chatting to and got him into the lounge for a free beer session before going to a hotel.

A colleague used to know an airport worker and was upgraded every single trans Atlantic flight for 200 duty free cigs delivered on the way back through.

General experience is that airline staff are so fed up with the requests that they just blank you. Best hope is a full flight and luck.

It does feel a bit like it’s been put together to try and engineer a Bardet win.

That’s unfair on Bardet. They’ve been trying to make sure time trials are less important since Wiggo won it on a flattish route. I think they’ve done a decent enough job on that but equally agree with comments above that it makes a wild gamble less likely. Next step will be to reduce team size (already happening?) and remove radios and after that ban power meters.

Completely changing it, I remember AG2R being good a few years ago and improving ever since but where did they come from? Was it another team renamed?

I like to think he’s squeaky clean the last few years.

Contador is fantastic today. I never really warmed to him in the past but he’s been a joy to watch in this tour.

Who was commentating over the last 10 minutes on ITV?

The most important phrase was ‘you speak excellent english’ as the people can be very shy about their language capability but this goes a long way.

This is one area where using an agency can actually help. They tend to know the employer and how flexible they are on salary and tell you to forget it if your expectations are too high.

I’m quite in favour of applying and then declining interview if the offered salary comes out too low. Eventually employers will realise that people need to live and £30K in London for 20 years of experience is not going to cut it.

Walk down to Bermondsey High street. 10 minutes the other side of London Bridge station

Pizza Hut fry their crap. Hopefully you can do better.

There’s a cycle route that goes against the flow in King Street which then takes you around the south of Hammersmith gyratory. I think it disrupts the flow too much so I’d just stick with Shepherds Bush. An alternative is to come along Goldhawk Road and turn down Hammersmith Grove and then navigate the back streets.
Or else go to the North and get on the canal.

White Sands, the missile testing range (forget what its called), Roswell, steak for every meal.

I like the place and I wouldn’t bother. Sedona trip would be my choice.

Unless you’re into stargazing. That would be worth doing.

Not convinced, as Spain has more tourism than a lot of other countries the local companies may have to build more infrastructure to handle the increased traffic. Which I might have to help pay for

If they could handle the calls before changing who pays for it isn’t going to make any difference to the network infrastructure. It’s not like EE had a load of infrastructure in Spain that suddenly won’t be used. We were always using Movistar / Telefonica / whoever equipment and that hasn’t changed.

Austerity Arrows. Not powerful enough for aerobatics so just formation flying.

If you hire a car and the cheerful, friendly, happy person handing over the keys asks you where you’re headed for say something other than Auschwitz.

As for the place, I’m sure a tour guide would be great but I was happy to reflect quietly on my own. I think the person I visited with went for about 2 hours without saying a word to each other.

The salt mine was great and that was mainly down to the guide.

I think you need to decide when. Given that it’s your daughter does that mean half term? If so I’d be avoiding the big French resorts as your lessons could be delivered by anyone.

Outside of that time those resorts and ESF could be good for a first timer. Obviously suggesting ESF is going to be divisive but even at it’s worst it’s a load better than Bulgarian instruction.

If you’re not tied to half term and don’t have hugely strong opinions on where to go just wait and pick up a deal. Most places will have a sufficient variety of accessible blues but if you’re not sure ask at the time of booking.

What’s better about that?

I can fly a plane and have passed relevant exams but I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.

I’m not saying you’re wrong but understanding the level of understanding of your audience is significant .

Congrats flying ox. Life doesn’t get better!

Recipe? Cooked rare?

Wtf is a tandoori tuna steak?

Miso crusted salmon, gin and tonic, mr scruff

That basically demonstrates why airspeed is important and why you’d never take off on a treadmill (no airspeed).

Except aircraft work by pushing against the air, ground speed doesn’t matter, so an aircraft on a treadmill will take off completely normally, assuming the treadmill is as long as a runway.

That’s so wrong it’s almost convincing.

Stick your hand out the window of a moving car. If you hit the right angle of attack (leading edge higher than trailing edge) you will feel a lifting sensation. If you’re not going fast enough you won’t generate any lift. When you do go faster the angle you need to hold will vary.

That basically demonstrates why airspeed is important and why you’d never take off on a treadmill (no airspeed).

What nobeer said. Palamos is a good shout and only about an hour from Girona for a nice day trip. Some of the smaller places might feel a little isolated and some of the coves are rocky so have a good check. You need sand with kids.

There are lots of places in London that would be assumed to be 30 according to the rules but are now actually 20. It’s very easy to miss the sign (being at junctions where you have lots going on) but there are repeaters. I doubt it will be policed but it would be hard if you were using a telematics box.

Not quite text messaging but many years ago I took a temp job working in a paging call centre. The sender would ring in, say what they what you wanted to send and you would type it and repeat it back to them.

My first message taken:

If you was toast and I was butter I’d spread myself all over you.

That job didn’t last long.

Should I pick the red ones that look ready?

She’s pretty good at mental arithmetic.

Main use is streaming radio. I also paired it with my phone and play music that way as well.

And because of that I would have thought you would have been in demand – it’s easier to teach you engineering than taking a 45 year old engineer and teaching them programming.

Why would you employ an expensive programmer and let them do engineering? It’s software guys that are in demand. Electrical engineers make money by moving to IT in various forms, civils guys are managing big projects and mech guys are wishing it was 50 years ago.