Go see Weeksy. Depression lies to us and makes us anti-social when we need company. It’s nice weather and spending time on the trails will help you.
My pennyworth of armchair analysis:
From reading your post I think you are an independent and adventurous spirit trapped in a conformist life. This could be the right time to retrain, mtb’ing guide sounds a good idea, or your own business, something that allows you to express this side of your personality.
I think this is a big reason for male depression – many of us are wired for adventure, not routine.

bank hol hangovers @ halfords

On that basis I’d like to hear from those who say the rich should pay more, just what percentage of my income they think I should be paying in tax?

The “rich” I dislike are effectively tax exiles, or use various lucrative exotic instruments to avoid paying tax altogether.

I don’t have a problem with high earners in general, infact I’d say they are paying enough tax as it is.

The vote for Brexit was partly motivated by the idea that it would somehow reverse the growing inequality in the UK. Insofar as it seems to be cooling the housing market, which is a major source of inequality, it may do so, but then I look at the shadowy people involved in the Leave campaign, people like Aaron Banks and Jim Mellon, and I fear the overall plan is to turn the UK into a tax haven for the super-rich and turn the masses back into their servants.

Marbles.
Wanna play?

9 out of 10 amateur FX traders lose money, in some cases, lots of it.
Don’t go near it.

Had a few days of reflection which have made me conclude I need to resign from my current job. Maybe go back to part-time as I was before or do something different.
I’ve just reviewed some of my behaviour over the past year and it’s clear I’m suffering from job stress and associated depression. The new yearly targets are even harder so I don’t want to end up in a coffin, I have to go.
This means telling my dad to f-off with his advice about the importance of money, and his asking “well what else are you gonna do?” questions. I need to tell him where to go, in order to save myself.
All melodramatic, I know, but I’ve not felt this bad for ten years when I was stuck in a very dark place.
Resigning on Tuesday.

Yep not 100 percent either.

Yep they want to stoke the right wing, stoke the left wing, create political divisions in general. Russia is also doing its bit to inflame the situation.

This is the strategy: do random attacks and create Islamophobia, which helps radicalise more people.

I’d sell the bike and start boating. Or become a roadie. Or drive to Thetford forest.
I wouldn’t want to live in Yarmouth, but it’s just a case of a not so nice town in a great area, so there are loads of good places nearby.

what @brooess said basically

Not London. Anywhere but London, not just because of mtbing issues, but due to cost of living, house prices, congestion, etc.
Edinburgh would be preferable, also as others have said Bristol, and also consider Leeds.
Anywhere but London. Anywhere but this craphole I’m currently existing in!

Organ donation, then turned to ashes and scattered somewhere on my local mtbing loop.

Santa Cruz make the best looking bikes hands down.

If I was regularly riding the Peaks I would be full-suss all the way.

Jonathan Swift biography by John Stubbs.

Sounds fantastic.

I had no idea she was that rich! Must be down to Ken Bruce playing one of her two good songs every five minutes.

£15 a month to the hardship fund.

Nice post @ourmaninthenorth, especially about trying to realise this is a positive discovery, not a guilt-ridden one.
I come from a culture and particularly family where work is everything (they called them the working class for a reason!). I remember my dad taking me into work with him as a 12 year old, where I did some oddjobs, and him telling me on the way home, “This is what the real world is like, school is just a bit of fun in the meantime. So you’d better get used to it.”
I remember thinking at the time, “Thanks for having me then, and introducing me to a world you fundamentally despise!”
My longer term hope is that with the rise of automation, things like basic income, people will be ultimately freed from Wage Slavery to pursue the things that ultimately interest them, whilst creating value through part-time work.
As discussed above, people who love their full-time jobs are either odd or just very lucky.

So on reflection, the choice for me is: start my own business / startup in a growing area (which is the one I’m currently in) with an exit strategy so I can kick-back afterwards (I’ve done this before but the exit was a moderate amount which I spent on a year out travelling), or go part-time/freelance again through consultancy and ride my bike a lot more but have less money.

Either way I’m fairly sure I just don’t have the personality for a full-time career, I just know this about myself and it also came up when I saw a therapist, who basically said the same thing!

So perhaps not defining yourself by a career and being open to completely different challenges and jobs might be the answer – although I appreciate, the financial rewards tend to be far smaller if you keep putting yourself to the bottom of the ladder!

I think this is good advice anyhow given what is happening to the job market and the ending of the job career as formally understood. I think however some people are just suited to the boring career – they are happy to compromise in exchange for a reliable, increasing income over time, and there will always be fields where you have to dedicate your whole working life – such as medicine, some academia, dentistry.

On the other hand, people can too readily take up the “portfolio career” and just end up not earning very much in increasingly competitive fields.

In order to succeed financially, I think you need to be in a field which is growing exponentially, and ultimately build an enterprise of some sort which you can exit at a later date, i.e. more a serial entrepreneur.

Or you can get by as a consultant but you need to constantly upskill and put a lot of effort into growing and harnessing your network.

@sundayjumper, yes I also know people like that.

House-husband would be my ideal career :D

Having done a bit more research into this, I see that some researchers have concluded that part-time work is actually the key to happiness, using the example of the Dutch. But how they manage to get by on part-time salaries is beyond me.

Some good conclusions there.
Any one tried the Human Givens approach? I’ve heard good things.
I’ve had traditional counselling and hypnotherapy.
What I’ve learnt is my depression tends to be situational, so it’s more a case of finding something else to do rather than staying in the situation (usually job) that is making me miserable.
Depression can quickly get out of hand. Oh and I’ve also learn’t to avoid heavy boozing sessions as that is one of my major triggers.

Edit, when you say ‘any work’ would that in include menial labour? Long-distance lorry driving? Joinery? Conversely, if you truly have an unshakeable negative response to .iyerally any ‘full-time’ work then maybe two concurrent part-time jobs?

I’m not cut out for working with my hands, I’m useless at it, so there is the option of just going back to part-time freelance work.

I’d also like to build a business on the side (I work in a growing and very lucrative industry), I just haven’t had any good ideas until recently.

People have been fleeing my current organisation and that is always a sign that it isn’t just how I feel about it.

I drive well over 1000 miles a week, and find driving relaxing, and meet a lot of clients, some regulars, some new.

See, that’s something I can never understand, how people find driving relaxing either! I think I would have a breakdown having to drive all those miles for work, but apples and oranges etc.

Really interesting post @councilof10.
I do miss the buzz I used to get when I was self-employed and finished a piece of work, but then again it was a trade off for security and reliable income by going full-time.
Then again, most jobs now aren’t secure anyhow.
It’s similar with mountain biking, the highs of completing a descent which had me shaking at the top is pretty indescribable, but then the normal desire for comfort zone kicks in and all that.

Yes, I agree trying to find it “relaxing” is perhaps too ambitious, although I do know people in high pressured jobs who describe it as such.
I think the ideal has to be to find something I enjoy and find fulfilling, not a clock-watching exercise that happens to pay me whilst I watch my life disappear.
On the question of flexibility, I’ve deliberately chosen not to have a family as I saw this issue with my dad, tied to a job he hated just to keep everyone happy. I have no responsibilities by choice.
Hitting the job ads as we speak…

Anyone who finds work ” relaxing” either has a very soft job or is somewhat odd

A good friend of mine can’t go on holiday as he finds holidays stressful (as opposed to work, which he likes). He can only do working holidays. He is odd.

Shame he’s just turned 21!

I think you are entitled to be upset, especially as kids were present.

I was recently on a bus in Hungary, two teenage kids at the back started messing around and throwing things. The bus driver stopped the bus, went to the back, and gave them both a slap, and they actually apologised.

The rest of the bus started applauding.

Too many excuses are made in England for appalling anti-social behaviour.

Depends what you want to get out of your riding.
In my 20s, I was a fit, light student and happy to do the odd race, lots of club rides, and mtb hols to Spain and the Alps.
Now I’m mid-30s, I’m not fit, 2 stone overweight, with ongoing knee problems, I’ve decided to ditch everything but my 15 mile local loop.
If my knee problems clear up with physio and/or operation, I might start doing some UK trail centres, but I can’t see myself going back to mtb hols or club rides.
Some people would just push through the pain as they can’t imagine their lives without mountain biking.

Nothing booked, plenty of ideas but no decision so far.
Options at the moment:
Croatia island hopping
Budapest or Prague city break
Majorca or Ibiza pool holiday

Or if the pound completely collapses, Norfolk Broads.

The Scots that move down to London are often the most aggressive, chip-on-their-shoulder nationalistic ones.
I’m surprised by contrast how pleasant the Scots in Scotland are.
Wouldn’t ever want to live there though.

Go see Jedi

I reside in a residential area which in the last 10 years has become a Rat Run.
Not the same as constant traffic, but annoying nonetheless.

You need to read your contract.

“Independent and impartial” doesn’t really exist, and never has done.
Most people read the sites/publications which confirm their views.
Journalists tend to be arrogant know-it-alls, the ones who joined the debating society at school and bored everyone senseless talking about abortion and gay rights.

The official name for it is ‘flirty fishing’.

Gives new meaning to the phrase, I will make you fishers of men.

This is clearly a tactic designed to get men to engage in conversation with them, as I am reminded of my early ’20s when the local JW family’s daughter would sleep with anyone for a drink. I wonder if they are all like that?

Yes, the Mormons also use it, in my case I had two pretty young American girls knock on my door last month.
I told them they shouldn’t really be knocking on people’s doors and going into their houses as they never know who they might be dealing with.