When I worked for a big IT company a few years back they started playing games like this. After nagging at my manager and hinting I’d be off if they didn’t do something about it I was given a company CC. Provided I submitted receipts and didn’t take the mick there was no problem.

The problem for you sounds like the finance department don’t know their arse from their elbows. If doing work in London costs the company more than elsewhere in the country they need to bill accordingly.

Personally I’d just refuse to work on these assignments until they are supportive, if they get funny threaten them with someone like TandemJeremy.

I once punched my girlfriend as she slept because there was an old hag hovering over the bed. Unfortunately there was nothing there to for my fist to connect with so it kept going. 😳

As a teenager I once woke up to see my brother standing there staring at me but not responding to my questions, turn on the light and he is in his bed asleep. 😕

In August 2001 I had a really vivid dream about an man who for some reason I knew to be a yank throwing himself out of a tall office block. Really weird when 9/11 happened a few weeks later and the reports of people jumping from the towers came out. 😯

Do I believe in the super natural? No. I think the brain will just see things, and, I have weird dreams all the time, but rarely have cause to remember them. 🙄

Just a point, but, the ‘registered keeper’ is not always the legal owner.

Therefore quite easy to say you bought the car, are technically the legal owners but your daughter is the registered keeper.

Is there a reciept from when it was purchased?

Maybe you could get in touch with Viv, who started this thread; becoming a bike guide

PS – The other thing to remember is when riding with guests you are riding for them – not yourself. Don’t go leaving them behind because they are slower than you or can’t do the technical stuff.

The most rewarding thing is when they can confidently ride something at the end of the week that they couldn’t at the start.

Get the first aid certificate. Minimum I think should be REC level 2, which will take a couple of weekends and cost about £100 and is valid for 3 years.

If you are looking to work outside of the EU the next best thing to sort is the work visa for the country you are headed to.

Remember, if you are able to legally work in a country and can be flexible on start dates, have the right driving licence and attitude you might be more employable than someone with just an SMBLA or similar. If you are also handy with the spanners and they have a hire fleet you can add that as another reason they may employ you before you get fully qualified. Some companies just needs an assistant guide or a dogsbody to help run the place, clean up after the guests, and do the airport transfers etc.

Once you get out there you’ll quickly rack up the rides that you need to log for the SMBLA Exams/test rides and you’ll make good contacts whilst working in the trade.

Good Luck, the hours can be long, the guests annoying, the locals odd but the cycling is always fantastic. It was how I spent my gap year and looking back I’d definitely do it again 🙂

I can’t be bothered to read the whole thread but a few posts in and it reminded me of an article in yesterdays Independent;

Independent link

It’s not the same as land line telephones, there is no central directory or any reason they will have an email address that actually corresponds to their name.

You could try looking for them on Facebook or Linkedin, if you know where they work chances are they will have an email address registered at that company.

Sooballas,

Thanks for helping to collect the signs. As a good few members of the club headed straight out to Spain to take part in the “Los 10000 del Soplao” there haven’t been many people around to help with a full scale clean up straight away.

The majority of the club would also consider themselves as local riders and would be concerned about anyone taking any flack concerning the event; may I ask who from and why? I can pass any feedback to the club chairman so we can bear it in mind for future events.

If you didn’t enter this years event then make sure you enter next years, it was an excellent day and a very good course. If you want to have a look to see what the club gets up or is planning in future go to http://www.wdmbc.co.uk.

Thanks

BigEars

If you have a hard tail with a 100 travel fork and get a 29er hard-tail with similar travel then “no”, it won’t be all that different. It will feel like you are riding a different bike with different components same as if both were two different make/model 26″ wheel bikes.

BTW I have a 26″ Stumpjumper HT and a GF X-Cal 29er and yes they are different but not so much that I can justify keeping both for much longer. If you are after a large frame 29er just let me know 😉

Peanut butter has been the most successful for me.

I have both on two different bikes, got to say the foxes work better for me.

Yep, provided you are the original owner.

Don’t worry if we ‘fix’ global warming there will be another environmental problem (disaster?) just around the corner.

I’ve not heard much about possible problems with the Nitrogen cycle recently or man made links but that could potentially be a nightmare for future generations to worry about.

Then if we run out of genuine problems we can also create hysteria about the possible solutions to some of them, GM crops anyone?

Occasionally, the il-2 Sturmovik series is good and I think there is a new Battle of Britain edition released in a few days that I might just have to buy.

Plug both into the Mac Mini and download the Microsoft Remote Desktop util to take control of your PC.

Unless you are using that 6870 card for some high powered 3D graphics work in which case you could look at VNC or similar to do it the other way around.

The other thing to consider is that most modern monitors have 2 or 3 inputs so you could just plug the mac mini into the HDMI ports and the PC into the DVI-D ports and then flick between them as required.

Thanks for the feedback, you are right I’ve never had one before.

I’ve just got to wait and hear if I’ll actually get the job now.

I’ve no idea about commuting miles. I’ve basically had the interview and that went well so expecting an offer and only managed to ask a few questions about it the other benefits.

As the salary is about the same as my current one having a contribution to a car is an incentive. The the other plus is that on a good day it’ll mean leaving home later and getting back earlier.

That model can only support a max of 2Gb so I’d stick with 32bit even if the CPU is a 64 bit one.

See Here

It’s a ten year old car. It will really depend how it has been driven and looked after. If you know the history and its a good price, why not?

You might find you can get a newer other brand car with less miles for the same money though.

It’s a shame there are so many miserable people on this thread, to read some of the posts it sounds like 57 penguins are shot and three acres of rain forest are destroyed when one is built.

I’d love to take one for a test drive, doubt I’d ever be able to afford to run one let alone buy one though.

Big Dummies sounds like the best story so far…

Had Britain settled for a negotiated peace in June 1940 Hitler would not have waited as late as he did to kick off Barbarossa and therefore would likely have captured Moscow.

Cut off without allies and having lost Moscow the Japanese may well have been tempted to take chunks from a now weakened Russia.

We could play these games all night, Harry Turtledove’s books are worth a look if you like alternate history. You want Hitler kicking off WW2 early or alien reptile invaders in WW2? You’ve got it!

There is also an Aussie author who wrote a story about a 21st century carrier group getting transported back to the Battle of Midway…

Knowing nothing about the area and just doing a quick search I’d say you are way over priced;

This two bed flat is on at £185k compared to your £249

findaproperty
Good luck.

I think there is a conductive paint you can get. Do a search on a car forum, I’m sure I’ve seem posts on mg-rover.org and bmw forums about it.

Just a thought, you significant other hasn’t decided to get you a new phone (or two) for Christmas?

If it were me;

I’d follow up with Vodafone as someone *might* have set up a credit card in your name but were not able to follow through on the plans to intercept the phones (or vodafone screwed up and dispatched to the billing address).

Whilst you are at it a one off credit check with expirian might also be senisble.

hopefully it will turnout to be nothing sinister.

I’ve got an X-cal, bought it after test riding a Paragon. Both good bikes IMO but then most £1000 + hard tails are.

I’ve now got a petrol MG ZT-T which is probably the best car I’ve owned

Credibility FAIL![/quote]

Well I’m not one to care what others think! 😀 I test drove a few cars and compared to Mondeos, Honda Accords etc of a similar age & mileage it was simply a more engaging car to drive with better performance and abit cheaper too.

In terms of reliability it has been no worse than my old Nissan or 306 and miles better than the Ford Escort I had a few years back. There have been the usual wear & tear which you usually catch before they becoame a problem. The jatco gearbox and 2.5 KV6 engine should see me to 150,000 miles and there are plenty of spares on ebay (and a bunch of geeks on mg-rover.org willing to help with advice).

If you are after a bigish car with decent performance at a cheap price I’d recommend it provided you can live with yourself driving a brand others look down at 😛

I used to have a 306 SW GLX with the 1.8 petrol and auto box which I think was used in the 406. Engine etc was fine it was the pug glue that held the trim together that started falling apart once it was 10 years old.

Literally as soon as I fixed the wing mirror cover the rear view mirror would drop off. The drivers seat lumbar support broke and then the central locking went haywire and you had to guess which door was still unlocked. Good car though it did two euro road trips through Germany & Spain etc.

I’ve now got a petrol MG ZT-T which is probably the best car I’ve owned in terms of comfort/handling etc but the boot space isn’t all that and running costs are high. With hind-sight a cheap 407 diesel estate should have been what I bought.

Just to back Cougar up I’d stick with the 32bit OS now you have it.

Once you really start needing 4 Gb+ then get 64bit Windows 7 when you get the extra Ram.

I was perfectly happy with 32bit Vista & 3Gb and only upgraded to x64 win7 when I needed to do some work with 64bit SQL Server and needed to address > 4Gb.

It’s made very little difference to system performance for anything else.

If you do buy/borrow an air rifle I recommend some hollow point pellets. The problem I found was that the normal domed or pointed hunting pellets used for rabbits went straight through the squirrel!

Please also make sure you get a good head or chest shot. For your’s and the squirrels sake don’t shoot and injure it or he’ll just limp off and die some where in agony you can’t reach.

The chances are probably slim that they would recover anything to use against you but I certainly wouldn’t risk it if I had personal info on there.

Removing the HDD from a powerbook is not difficult you need approx 20-30 minutes and some precision screwdrivers and allen keys. Just lay the screws out so you remember which ones go where on reassembly – there are a few guides on the net: find one.

You can download Steam for the intel macs. Half-life 2 has been converted along with the source versions of CS & Team Fortress 2.

Left for Dead 2 is also there and a good few other titles.

Photos here;

photos

Really enjoyed it today. I managed 3 laps in just over 2 hours, and enjoyed each one. The area definitely isn’t what you’d call technical but all the berms were great fun.

Thanks to Chris and the guys and girls from West Drayton MBC for organising, lets hope the weather next year is as good.

Good promo video on last years here;

xcracer

Looks like it was very dry when that was made though.

TandemJeremy – Member

Big eared biker – I was born in 1961 and I am certain there was no threat of land invasion by troops from the USSR swince then. After all that was what the nukes did wan’t it? deterrence and all that.

anyway – that was defending germany not these islands.

Interceprtion of drugs? a very minor role and again not defending these islands.

Ship protection – not doping a great job off somalia. Again not defending these islands.

Well no way to prove it outright but the troops were there to deter small scale invasions and then slow down a full scale invasion for a few days/weeks to hopefully let cooler heads prevail. If the cooler heads didn’t them third shock would have to be halted on the German plain by tactical nuclear weapons and it would rapidly go down hill from then on. Remember just because you are at war does not mean you have to deploy everything. (Great episode of Yes, Minister about that).

Still that’s besides the point, if you can’t see that a stable Europe is in the UK’s best interests then not lot I can say on this forum will change your mind. It is the reason we fought WW1, WW2 & the cold war and why we are in the EU & NATO. If we cannot guarantee stable countries on our doorstep a country of 60+ million which imports a very substantial amount of food will soon go hungry and won’t itself stay stable for long.

You can nit pick over the other bits and pieces but they are useful functions and if the RN stops one boatload of Heroin that probably means one less druggie for me to trip over in Camden for a few days. With regards to Somalia, do you think India, China, Canada, EU, USA, Russia etc would all have vessels in the Indian Ocean at the moment? It’s in all our best interests and if they were not there what sort of message would that send?

1940s was rather different – ans we didn’t have a large standing army or airforce in 1939

Maybe if we’d had a large standing army in 1937 and the will to use it WW2 could have been completely avoided. Hitler kept on pushing and given no signals by either Britain or France that they would stop him kept pushing. When the German army reoccupied the Rhineland they expect France to act and were prepared to run away.

Anyway the present world is different to the 1930’s and having a small professional military you are prepared to use is a dam sight more effective than a large one you are not. However a small proffesional military is quickly over stretched by Governments with delusions of of their place in the world.

TandemJeremy – Member

I cannot think of once since I was alive that UK forces travelled away from these islands to defend them.

There has been much milatary adventurism overseas and some such as the intervention in Bosnia was right IMO

However none of it was in any way “defending these island”

You were born after the wall came down then were you? I’m sure all those British tanks and aircraft stationed in Germany helped to deter a Soviet invasion. Talking to old cold war warriors it is interesting to note that NATO troops nearly always practiced defence, the Soviets attack.

Ever stop to think about the important work the RN does to prevent drugs reaching these shores, or to help ensure those massive container ships & tankers carrying your clothes, bike parts and oil have safe oceans to sail in?

Not all military uses are about blowing other people up. A lot of it is just giving the impression we could ‘blow them up if needed’ and then being there to do other useful things like policing the high seas and search and rescue.

Granted maybe our interests could one day be served by a joint EU military or our own smaller combined armed forces but we will still need them.

The riots in Paris are a diversion, the French will be here by teatime Friday.