Sharki

The previous Quantocks one was a rather dubious photo of me!

And yes, it was taken in the Quantocks.. February, if I remember, with the remit of “pretend it’s spring”. Spring my arse :-)

LabMonkey

I’ll wager you’ll not be saying how wonderful it is in your final year.. if you are, then something is very wrong :-)

I’ve got a PhD in neuroscience, by the way – and I’ve got an ace job in academia doing something I care about that may well have valid real-world results.. win!

But if you don’t care about the project to seriously consider it even if the money elsewhere is better, then don’t do it. Certainly don’t do it for the cash; you’ll leave inside 2 years.

Well, they’re all different, and if you really like your subject then go for it. you get to put Dr on your credit card, and everything.

Although often they’re not so much about research as endurance, and they’re often anything but fun.

Does consultancy pay well?

Hmm.. thanks for everything, chaps! I’ll give that a go in the next week or two, once I’ve figured out where I am/the showers are…

Ed, are you referring to Ton or I as High Tower? :-)

Canal would be somewhat long winded – I think it’d be roughly twice as far as using the roads..

Mark_b – I’ve seen those, ta!

Thanks all :-) Ton – looks like I might be able to adapt that for me quite nicely..

Garstang/Miall buildings, dept of biological sciences, on the main campus. I’m afraid I don’t know Leeds at all well, yet, but I’m sure you’re right about the Burley Road!

Is there much off road from the Uni?

Crying during vivas = bad

Crying after vivas = normal

Good luck, Mr Spoon! I hope you’ve got something lined up for when it’s over (job and/or protracted drinking session) :-)

I was brought up 2 miles from his house, and very close to Alderley Edge.

Fantastic stuff, all of it :-)

Eldridge – WTF are you on about?

I think Mr Grumpy Trousers got out of bed on the wrong side this morning.

Avast thirded.

A proper gentleman’s shoe. To be worn with one’s cycling tweeds.

Excellent.

“you can take your juris-my-diction crap, and you can cram it up your ass.”

Me too, Yoshimi – got some very happy memories of the place, even considering I lived there the whole time pretty much with a broken collarbone!

Andrassy Utca – lovely street – opera house, and a great coffee bar in (IIRC) the german embassy. Some cool old shops selling ’40s stuff.

The old secret police building a bit further up which has “joy division” carved into the brickwork (the whole street front is made of plaster though; it’s not stone), and Hosok Ter at the end of it with a couple of awesome museums with random gold fronts. Along the street is a very old subway, beautifully restored.

Oh, just buy a book :-)

With regard to the Gellert baths in particular, but other baths too (the Szechenyi ones exepted, as they’re more touristy – but still ace) – make sure you don’t go on one of the “genteman’s only” days. It used to be every Wednesday at the Gellert, but may well have changed.
Still a totally ace thing to do though.

There is a whole bunch of stuff to do over there…. I don’t think you’ll ever get bored. Almost a shame it’s a stag do, as I’m not sure that’s the vibe I’m thinking of when I think of it. But what someone ^^ said. Play by their rules, and you’ll be fine. Not sure I’d be totally happy getting 100% slaughtered, though. But then, I’m old.

There’s a railway in the Buda hills run entirely by children. It’s ace – they take it totally seriously, and will happily give you a bollocking if you step out of line.. There are quite a few good trails in them thar hills if you know where to look, but I guess you don’t have time :-)

Budapest is 100% of ace.

And eat some totatoes. Best tomatoes ever! And great wine, and lovely thick sauces over everything. Had the best Greek meal of my life on the top floor of a Mamut (I think) shopping arcade once. And occasional random throwback Eastern European shops (or there were in 2001, the last time I was there).. and if you go a bit out of the centre to the communist tower blocks, the random communal heating with huge pipes everywhere that makes living space look like an oil refinery..

I’ll shut up now.

Tinsy – isn’t it more likely to force the wheel *in*?

With disc brakes, at any rate. You may have a point with Vs.

Believe it or not, I think that guy over the bars on that bike is doing it deliberately. I’m sure I’ve seen some German(?) bloke on the internet who dismounts like that as his “party trick”.

I think he means the footbridge.

RE the Maverick wheel

Don’t forget that Hope ProIIs (or whatever they’re called) have a Maverick axle you can buy for them. If you’re converting an existing wheel, you’ll have to get the dish taken out of the wheel, but it’s no problem, really :-)

Once youve stripped it, get some Scotchbrite pads from ebay, but don’t use a drill attachment – the finish will come out funny.

Use the pad around the tubes, rather than along them, and it’ll look sweet as. It doesn’t take much.

You could show them 100 studies saying its safe, but it only takes one to say it isnt to undo the work of the previous 100, and thats the one thats going to make headlines and people are going to read.

I know; that’s what’s depressing :-(

My old physics teacher used to have a 5l beaker of mercury he’d put his hand into….
He’s got autism now (joke)

Hi Jeremy

why has no one actually spent time and effort on corroborating or disproving his work?

I found at least one on PubMed (although linky doesn’t seem to work!)

Lack of Association between Measles Virus Vaccine and Autism with Enteropathy: A Case-Control Study
Mady Hornig,1* Thomas Briese,1 Timothy Buie,2 Margaret L. Bauman,3 Gregory Lauwers,4 Ulrike Siemetzki,1 Kimberly Hummel,5 Paul A. Rota,5 William J. Bellini,5 John J. O’Leary,6 Orla Sheils,6 Errol Alden,7 Larry Pickering,8 and W. Ian Lipkin1*

I’m sure there are others (I haven’t got time, again).. there will be many reasons why people haven’t leapt to his attack or defence; largely due I suspect to the way that these things are funded. Certainly disproving an already discredited paper isn’t what I’d call sexy research :-)
Or maybe we’re just not aware of them because it’s not “exciting” and doesn’t sell newspapers :-/

no one died, no one went to hospital

Yes, they did. Look it up.

Why does everyone ask for evidence when previously theyy’ll be saying dont believe everything you read on the internet??
The proble with the internet is that you can find somewhere that will say whatever you want.
I’m asking for evidence in peer reviewed journals, FFS! Scientific papers, in proper, peer reviewed journals with a nice high impact factor. If you think that’s the same as the scaremongering hogwash that floods the rest of the internet, then good luck to you in your own little world.

Mercury poisoning and MMR have different symptoms, really.
Go to PubMed and do a search. They’re all peer reviewed abstracts of published papers, and as such are sight more believeable than most stuff on the internet. If anything there corroborates your claims, let me know.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez

the bit about mercury was actually on the Autism UK website Written by whom? Is that where you got the “most toxic substance known to man” riff from too?

mercury (the most toxic substance on the planet)

It’s in your fillings, too.

Mercury poisoning symptoms are different to autism.

You got any proof/papers? A quick google just brings up a load of scaremongering bollocks. Ta.

Measles infections are rising – you telling me that deaths/disability from measles won’t rise too?

someone whose son was in a coma as a direct result of the MMR (and yes that was proven). Yep, in extremely rare circumstances you can get anaphylaxis.

Rich

Let me see the peer reviewed papers; not just some Daily Mail blathering.

Until then, I say “yes” to your question.

Or “B*llocks”.

We are waiting on the Measles, but have seen off Mumps, Whooping cough, German measles and Chicken pox, none of which were serious enough to warrant a doctors visit.

And it’s thanks to people like you that measles is massively on the rise, and many more children will get it, and as a result more children will die. This is what happened oin our generation as they did in our generation. Well done.

What people don’t seem to understand is that immunisation reduces the *likelihood* of an individual catching these illnesses – it doesn’t make you immune.

Their strength lies in populations, not individuals, where everyone’s immunised and the chances of getting the illness drops massively. Introduce one un-immunised child and the innoculations effectiveness is hugely reduced.

I suspect engineering doesn’t teach you population dynamics.

Your actions have a massive bearing on your child’s circle of friends; I hope their parents know.

CFH, that is genius :-D

Proper cheered up my morning!

£1 BILLION of tax payers money will be going towards bonuses of those who already rich

To be fair, that’s not quite the case as I understand it. It’s bonuses across the company, so it’s also the people on £25k per year getting an extra grand or so. Of course, the board will get hundreds of thousands, too.

bocanova has been sold

:-(

What is it now? (I moved away in July)..

If there are people paying this sort of money, for a tatty old car, while others face poverty, something has gone seriously wrong in society…

But this has been the case for hundreds of years; it’s just been brought a little closer to home. If it’s taken you this long to be amazed, then something went wrong with society a looong time ago.

Susprised no-one’s mentioned Bocanova at the tope of Colston Street yet – really good..

Bell’s Diner didn’t get a very good write up at all in the Guardian the other week.

The only problem I’ve found with zero degrees is that often their (micro brewed on the premises) beer has *seriously* disagreed with me. Quite good pizza though.

Aren’t the SS purists just wanting to re-live their BMX days?

Nope. Didn’t have any BMX days, for various reasons.

It’s harder and quieter, mostly, with less maintenance.

all their intellect into building TOOLS OF WAR

It’s all you could do to stop yourself from rubbing your hands together and going “Mwa ha ha ha ha” there, isn’t it?

My missus said that she though men were finding the amputee presenter attractive because the end of her stump looks like a vagina; I said it has a kind of hermaphrodite quality because of its phallic form – a kind of vagina at the end of a penis.

Now that has elevated this thread even further into the realms of the weird.
Pass the mindbleach, someone.

The 1.9 should be fine – we had a 105bhp 1.9 TDI Golf, and it was perfectly acceptable. Not as good as the 2.0, but certainly good enough. Can you not take it for a drive first?

Can’t help with the canoe stuff, though – sorry!

Use the spring from a biro and cut it down with a pair of pliers.

‘s what I do.

From what little I know of publishing, if you submit “snow” pics in (say) autumn, they’re more likely to get published, as what with lead times and all that you don’t want to be emailing wintery pics when the mag’s theme is “bounding into spring” or whatever..

Of course, I could be spouting absolute cobblers.

Wwaswas
Wotchoo tryin’ to say?

*bangs mug against bars*

Rudeboy – you win :-) (the Alfa, BTW)