Aston Hill. Gone twice, been overcast both days.

Steve Cram has been wearing the same shirt and top for the last week.

Buy some gold, will perform better than trackers or ISAs.

Longer working hours and/or lower benefits: that's the dilemma facing liberal democracies like ours. Back in the 50s people did a six day week, that's probably why they lived shorter lives, along with the smoking.

NI is becoming a hotter potato as its economy suffers. Young men without jobs, the opportunity to find meaning, belonging, and routine in an extremist political movement, it's not a nice situation and its likely to continue getting worse.

Stuck to the singlespeed and to the roads. Went upto the Henry Moore foundation for the first time, a good place to relax, spiritual.

Mtnbikers in the south east tend to wear miserable faces. Maybe that's more to do with the south east than mountain biking.

The main benefit is the lack of mud to clean post-ride. I ride singlespeed on the roads to try and get some exercise from it, I live in a pretty flat part of the world, east herts.

Best place is in the bin, along with the wheels.

It does if you're weak-minded like Badnewz and always going into the granny ring on a geared bike for those local climbs.

Edukator has it spot on. Japan's fate is the fate of the UK and the US.
Buy gold and buy Japanese stocks (they've been down and out so long they are in line for a rally).
There is a lot of money to be made through currency trading. There is also a lot of money to be lost.

If you can afford it, a place by the docks, maybe even on the southside of the river around Woolwich. I work in Stratford but commute in, I wouldn't want to live anywhere in the area unless I was down by the docks.

Apparently its Ireland's biggest lingerie department.

Looking forward to it, I think there will be plenty of riders on the trials tomorrow with the sunshine. See you at the farmers around 9.30.

Replacement saddle arrived today so all being well I shall see you at the Farmers, badnewz's real name is Stephen and he rides a silver stumpy in a blue jacket.

I'm around Hertford on sunday, providing my new saddle arrives before then I'm up for it.

Yep not a good start to her new year that's for sure. I'd be more interested if she'd had a fling with Sarah Palin. Film rights?

The Northern Irish side of my family are completely bonkers. She is thus a transparent political representative.

The banks arent lending, don't take it personally. Credit card debt could blow up this year and be another subprime.

Congratulations mate, may you travel in style.

Just incase you forget, MPs periodically start backstabbing just to remind the general public about the depth of their vileness.
Babyboomer politicians in particular have to be the most wretched bunch to have walked the corridors of parliament for some time.

When at university, some friends took my credit card and put down a fat deposit on a russian bride. The following day they remembered and told me so I cancelled the transaction, still lost my deposit, but thinking I should have gone through with it now – that was when sterling was strong.

The IPhone cartel continues in the UK. Vodafone are entering the market now, but are refusing to lower the minimum price of £30 a month contracts – although they do point out that they expect their network coverage to be tip top. I have to be connected to the internet over a mobile for work, but otherwise my normal mobile phone contract has been going down significantly the last two years, to an average of £15 a month including calls.

Spreadbetting is leveraged, meaning you can trade by not actually buying the currencies, but by leveraging a deposit of say £70 – you can also place 'stop-losses' to stop you from going over that limit. In theory you can make thousands off a relatively small deposit if you get it right; any profits are also tax free although i'm sure the government would fancy changing that sometime soon (losses are also tax free :D.)
But it is risky as its effectively a form of gambling.
Only other people I know who work from home are involved in IT – website design in particular.

Cawley would have got it mind.

Currency trading through spreadbetting, if you get it right. If you get it wrong, off to Tescos.

Correction to Sandwich, Stryder is at the University of East London, keeping it real.

Slovakia (on the bike) mid June, Croatia (on the beach) end of June.

If we knew the answer we could become very rich.
The euro has been losing ground to the dollar the last month, and this looks like it might continue with an ongoing rally in the dollar.
Whilst the Euro has strengthened over the last two years, sterling has devalued – which is a) why our holidays in euroland are getting so expensive and b) why UK manufacturing has been doing relatively ok considering the economic mess.
Clearly the UK government wants to keep the pound weak, especially coming upto an election. So I'm not convinced there will be any fall in the sterling to the Euro, unless the Euro goes into crisis mode, which could happen. But in most events, I do not see the Euro significantly strengthening against the pound, so in that case I would just pay the deposit and keep your fingers crossed.

Stumpjumper all the way unless you plan on riding trails with uplifts to the top, and some narly descents – even then, I still think the stumpy handles the rough stuff just fine – especially if you are as smooth as silk.

Hey hey, she should ride her bike in a bikini.

My answer: any will do. My main bike is out of action so I went out on my flat peddled bike today instead, damn those hills are hard work when your not clipped in. Ive used eggbeaters and shimanos, but stick with shimanos overall.

Yo Chucky, the one named catwoman. Whats the village in the background – is it cabra?

Darcy T, good shout. Im surprised she's not featured more on the A and A sessions on here every Friday.

AlasdairMc – fair enough, although I'm not saying it's a bad thing to plan – I'm making the point that its generally not a good time to think in terms of decades when your not feeling too great, which for a lot of people tends to be the winter time.

I second the consultant idea. Keep on good terms with the customers, and probably best to keep up the work rate until you leave – the employer may have screwed you, but you never know what work colleagues will end up doing in five years time – if you stay in the same industry there could be future opportunities via them.

That is sweet singletrack. Is that a recent addition to the joyriders trails? I've been out there twice, last time over two years ago, but we didnt do that one.

Think in terms of days, not decades. I've recognised winter gets me down so refuse to do any long term planning – I save that for spring and summer. Oh other than planning for a great summer holiday of course – slovakia and croatia this year.

Ancestry.co.uk seems to be the best run, with access to the main digitized archives.
You can also get access to a lot of the archival websites by visiting your local archives office – every county has one, usually in the county town. They also have trained staff who can point people in the right direction.

Hopefully the weather will be great for you. Just in case though take some waterproofs – I was in Lanzarote at the end of last January, and unfortunately 5 of the 7 days it rained. Saying that when you do get the sun it makes it all worth it.