Solved ;-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kutani_ware

In Chinese, maybe:

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Interesting, thanks – I was wondering if it was:

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That photo is sideways for starters.

Ha! Yes, don’t even have a clue which way up it goes. The second symbol looked a bit like a Kanji one this way up.

Those slopesoarers are amazing – but fixed-wing aircraft scare me. The only thing I’ve flown seriously is a bunch of Mikrokopter multi-rotor helicopters, with those if your head gets messed up you can just press a button and it’ll sit in one place in the sky until you get yourself sorted out. Can’t do that with a fixed-wing aircraft.

That reminds me, though – I’ve still got a big 6-rotor Mikrokopter at the shop that was never collected – I should see if it still works and go play with it.

Once I answered the door, and ended up with a crazy man with a knife in the house. He was escorted out. But we do live in Glasgow.

you have to say it 3 times,like Beetlejuice or Brant.

Or have someone kindly tweet me a link to this thread :D

Sure, that’s something I can build – if you want to chat, email me on ben@kinetics.bike or my phone is 0141 942 2552.

9/11 conspiracy theories are all part of a massive government conspiracy to make us think they’re competent enough to pull this kind of thing off.

Yup, completely normal for Rohloff :D

It probably won’t affect the serious alcoholics much – as others have said, they’ll find a way anyway. But what it will affect is the occasional alcoholics – the kids who like to get hammered on a bottle of cheap cider, the people who drink two beers a night instead of one, people like that.

A bottle of wine will be about £4.50 minimum, a bottle of whisky about £14. So if you like an occasional drink, it’ll still be possible to do that pretty cheaply. What will be more expensive is the 8% cider and the high-strength lager.

I’m looking forward to people becoming more discerning about what they think – tasting notes graffitied on park benches ;-)

Have we done this hilariously biased 1970s BBC report yet?

The tartan oil cans are what make it art.

Jeremy Corbyn got £20,000 appearance fees from Iran’s PressTV. RT has an Ofcom license while PressTV doesn’t.

I’m not a massive fan of either Alex Salmond or RT, but there’s a lot of double standards going on with the people complaining about his show.

I do like that idea :D

Though happy to ship it anywhere…

Russian state money vs US (Australian) private money is chalk and cheese.

You know where Theresa May was last night, right after she fired Priti Patel? Having dinner with Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail.

The distinction between state and private money is pointless – they both use their massive wealth to influence politics.

Not so easy to use one-handed.

Stop sniggering.

Paying over the phone with a card then collecting in person always makes me suspicious.

But yeah, no-one really cares about it – especially since with CNP fraud it’s usually the retailer who takes the hit.

we’re working now to pay our parents/grandparents pensions. Who’ll pay for our pensions? easy: we’re not getting one.

It’d still be nice to have young people about to do stuff, though.

Yeah, ‘cos that’s what literally all women are like – sneakily having babies so they can sit around all day while their partner goes off to work.

I use Easy Books. It is a subscription for the cloud sync service though – I don’t think there’s anything that isn’t, and not sure I’d trust keeping data only on my phone anyway.

It also runs on iPad and Mac computers too. Very good and easy to use for people who hate accounts like me.

What was interesting was when I started losing control of the car I felt little sick as my eyes were telling me I was about to spin but obviously wasn’t experience any of the G-forces associated with it.

Has anyone tried using a tilting seat to compensate for that?

They also all blend into the whole MRA/Incel thing.

we can bottle feed expressed milk.

Of course. Or there’s formula. But the former still requires the woman to be involved – it helps but it’s not equal.

Being of the age where most of my friends have or are having young children, open discussion of number of kids and impact on household finances, working arrangements and general quality of life is common.

And this is one place where it’s unequal. Because there’s a basic inequality there – men can’t breastfeed. Lots of women go back to work after having a child, but it is unequal – it is harder for women to go back to work than it is for men. So women suffer both ways – they’re less likely to be employed because employers think they might leave to have a child, and it’s harder for them to get back into work after having a child.

Aye, of course :D

But that doesn’t alter the statistics.

Is related to size and strength, not gender and is the sort of generalism that weakens the rest of his argument. There are husbands suffering physical abuse from their wives who are too ashamed to come forward about it due to those types of comments.

There are men abused by their wives, of course. But statistically they are in the minority – just look at the statistics for women murdered by their partners or ex-partners.

It it partly about being physically bigger and stronger – were you really trying to deny that men on average are physically bigger and stronger than women? But it is also about men who feel like they own women – the “are you looking at my bird?” effect.

Men are more likely to be assaulted/murdered than women

More likely to be assaulted/murdered by men which pretty much proves the point. Men are more dangerous than women.

So men are privileged a way that so subtle not everyone understands it.

Ways I’m privileged:

– No-one has ever asked to speak to a woman bike mechanic instead of me.
– No-one has ever suggested I should have sex with them to get ahead in my job.
– No-one has ever talked to my partner about technical things instead of me when I’m standing right there.
– I have to worry much less about being physically attacked by someone bigger and stronger than I am.
– I feel little societal pressure to be the one who stays home with the kids.
– My appearance isn’t commented on by strangers.

I could go on.

The privilege of being a man seems is all about work, which isn’t a privilege it’s a chore.

Whereas the privilege of being a woman is to be able to do most of the domestic chores which, unlike work, don’t provide pay or career progression.

I’d say some of the views on this thread are Neanderthal, but that’s unfair on Neanderthals.

And the idea that I, as a white male heterosexual, am in any way disadvantaged by society is so delusional to be laughable.

Conversion kits have several benefits. You can convert a bike you already have. You can use a bike to the spec you want, instead of what happens to come with a fully built bike. You can convert a kind of bike that’s not available electric.

Fully integrated electric bikes are good too, but conversion kits have their place.

That might’ve been a Steve Parry Brompton – he did some modifications a while ago.

I now do them with 8, 11, 14 or ? gears :D

I haven’t read every reply, but it really annoys me when people comment without reading the whole thread.

The 5-speed was a special narrow version of the hub made by Sturmey – when Sturmey went bust, Brompton were in big trouble. For about a year, they could only sell 3-speeds. They vowed never to be in that situation again, hence the solution using a 3-speed hub and 2-speed derailleur to get 6 speeds.

Interestingly, the old 5-speeds used two shifters as well – One shifter did 3 speeds, the other did narrow-wide. It was a bit confusing!

If I had the opportunity to pick my own name, I would choose a cooler one than Philippa York…. just saying.

You can do it any time you like by deed poll. Just saying.

Is it a 3 speed or a 5 or 7? 5’s & 7’s are rarer and more desirable

A 7 would be really rare :D

Window cleaners are like cats – you don’t actually decide to get one, they just turn up.

A resolution – putting it here just in case anyone else needs such a thing:

https://uk.misumi-ec.com/vona2/detail/110302289370/

€17.53 each. and M8 threaded so not perfect. But promising.

I am delighted that on that website there is something called a ‘sex bolt’…

I’m going to have to work out how to incorporate those into something now…

Cheers – I have a lathe and a tapping head, but drilling 60 holes in stainless makes me tempted to just pay the £25 each :D

I hadn’t thought of doing it with threaded rod and spacers, that’s an interesting idea – I did consider 12mm tube with rivnuts in the ends, that’s how I do some other parts.

I have a sunstar so3 kit which is unfortunately now discontinued.

The battery on mine has died, wasn’t very old either.

Like MTBs, you get what you pay for – the Bafang etc are the equivalent of a Halfords MTB. They’re okay, but there are much better systems available. For retrofitting, I use Heinzmann, Go SwissDrive, BionX or Pendix depending on what’s needed.

Who is bencooper ?

Infamy, they’ve all got it in for me ;-)

If it really is in good shape – no wobbly rear pivot, no rust on the rear triangle, stuff like that – then £300-£500 wouldn’t be unreasonable. It’s a short-whelbase with rubbish brakes and tyres, but someone might want to ride it as is, or upgrade it.

I see quite a few which are that age and completely wrecked, though. Two years in a row, I’ve been donated bikes like that, and I rebuild them and sell them with all profits to MSF, but it’s not really economic to do that.

I wonder how his German Citizenship application is progressing…

His type tend to flee to Argentina.