Getting back to the earlier discussions I agree with the sentiments that Vettel is likely to get riled by Leclerc as I think he will be a hungrier driver than Kimi. Vettel is a very good driver but, IMHO, like Rosberg just doesn’t quite have that x-factor when it comes to driving with his elbows out and overtaking strong drivers. It often just looks clunky and badly managed and last season usually ended up with him coming off worse. I originally thought he was a great driver – his first WDC, but by the time it got to 3 and 4 he got far too smug and up himself, disrespecting his fellow driver. I ma hoping Leclerc will at least win a race or two, certainly podium and generally give Vettel a proper fight. Bottas is clearly a number 2 to Hamilton. While he is a quick driver he has drifted off in far too many races this season. I expect this to be his last season at Merc before Occon comes in for him. The thing with RBR is that their cars have been very good in the past couple of years – they seem to drive well, get good traction and are capable of getting up close to the car in front. They were let down by the unreliability and lack of power in the engine. Not sure that the Honda engine will be as bad as some are predicting and I see them doing much better than we saw McLaren doing. As the Honda engine got better it revealed that the McLaren chassis was not as hot as they had tried to suggest it was. Could be an interesting season and looking forward to seeing the results from the first couple of races. I would expect Hamilton to do well – but will see how the cars are before thinking of predicting a 6th WDC. Will miss seeing it on TV though

Funnily enough looking at this myself at the moment. Yes, I have a hifi but this is for the casual listening anywhere in the house (mostly for Mrs BC) to play from her phone or ipad that’s going to sound a lot better than the built in speakers. Looking at that balance between good sound quality and convenience. Not convinced by the UE devices personally as they come across a bit bass heavy / bordering on a bit woolly. Hadn’t really seen them before but noticed that the Audio Pro boxes are getting good reviews so might look at them. Always interesting to catch others experiences though

My understanding was that the standard fuels are BS xxxx petroleum spirit / diesel and that just because you are filling up at a shell or BP filling station it is just as likely to be exactly the same fuel as you would get at the Tesco  next door. The difference is in the branded “special” fuels which I always understood to be the manufacturer specific ones.

Happy to help but am working away until wednesday. If ebayer is happy to hold onto it for a couple of days then all good. PM me if that works for you

What you after? Might be able to help

In line with Rone on MI:Fallout. Considering any film like this will require suspension of belief / reality it was a really enjoyable action film. Some good humour, great action scenes and it still even kind of hung together from a plot perspective (big picture wise, obviously, not the mysteriously quick way they seem to be able to cross country and continental boundaries)

We got ours about this time last year as part of the Crosswater annual sale. If you are quick you can find a local outlet that deals with them and bag yourself a bit of extra savings, We went for the Ten sliding shower enclosure – very impressed with it and, to us, looks very nice. Very simple lines and minimal metalwork.

http://www.crosswater-sale.co.uk/product/showering-shower-enclosures-single-sliders/ten-single-slider-shower-door-ten-single-slider-with-sp/

I had a much smaller budget but similar requirements. I went for the Honda CBF1000. If I had your budget then it would have been no contest: Triumph Tiger Sport 1050. Both bikes felt just right for what I wanted and although I do really like the Honda I would have preferred the Triumph.

Depends on who it is, obvs! :D

While it is always going to be difficult to get the truth of what is actually said by people behind closed doors the recent “event” between Junker and May along with the Guardian article Varoufakis Greek finance issues wrote highlights to me one of the reasons we are better out of the EU than in it.

Agree, should be fine. 2 observations though:

1. You may find that 1TB is not very much especially if you are planning to store media files. With 2 disks you will be setting it up as a mirror pair so although you have 2 disks you will still only get 1TB of storage. If you can, get bigger disks – 4TB if you can stretch to it.

2. With bigger disks there’s nothing to stop you using the NAS for backup as well. Just backup your data to a different share on the NAS.

The underlying issue is not new and has been around for decades. Bottom line is that holidays / accommodation costs more during “peak” periods which is, inevitably, when kids are on holiday. Which means that, as a family, you have to budget and plan for your holiday and work within that budget. Sure, we would all like to go on exotic holidays but if we can’t afford it then look for something cheaper. We have a fabulous country here with a breadth of diversity and part of the benefit of a holiday is to relax and get away from it all.

What we have seen on this thread is one of the legacies of the 80’s culture “It’s all about me and **** the lot of you if it interferes with what I want to do!”. This has merged with that hideous trait of entitlement to make this situation worse. Yes, I hated having to pay more for our family holiday, so we adapted. And while we think that taking our little princess out of school is no big deal, if you extrapolate that across the class where most of the parents did it but at different times of the term then it makes the teachers job an absolute nightmare and everyone in the class suffers. Peyote made, I thought, a very reasonable post about accepting responsibilities. It’s also about respecting other people and their roles as well. That is not sucking up to “The Man”. As others have posted, we do not have any divine right to expensive or foreign holidays. Or to go when we want. The “rules” are in place for a reason. You may not like it especially, but that doesn’t give you the right to just wilfully disregard them because you don’t like them.

Money isn’t everything. Mrs PP may like the work and the company, plus there may be other factors such as convenience for home etc that are very compelling reasons for staying where you are. Sure, we would all like more cash but it is more complex than that.

It is tricky in this situation without knowing all the facts but it does seem unreasonable based on what we have heard from PP. There’s no evidence from the information so far that this is a business that has key periods that limit what leave can be taken (eg taking leave in December when working in retail, or leave in April/May when working for an accounting firm) so, on the face of it, the boss is being a bit of a ****.

Yep, those 3 chords are most definitely not the guitar version of A, D and G. :)

As the others have said, get on to Justins Guitar and try and do a little bit each day. The great thing about the guitar is you can get something sounding good and tuneful really quickly. Don’t be surprised if your fingers start to hurt in the first few days. A bit of perseverance and it will pass as those fingers harden a bit. The other valuable piece of advice is to try and not learn / develop bad habits / poor technique from the start. Concentrate on trying to do things properly and well and it will serve you in the long term. For example, get used to using your little finger on the left hand and don’t press the strings too hard.

Enjoy!

Passed first time (much to the surprise and disappointment of my parents) although that was 33 years ago. :) More recently also managed to pass my bike test on the first attempt – mightily relieved at that one.

Someone else mentioned it earlier but Brockmans is really very nice. it is a bit sweeter but excellent. A lot of love amongst my friends for Pinkster as well.

Apparently a little bit like this fella. Been told a couple of times although I am not sure I see it myself. Once it was a woman on a bus in the US who said I was the spitting image. I think she must have been either not quite all there or a bit tipsy. Maybe in the right light, on the right day…

Arrival. Exceedingly slow and ultimately pretty dull. Deeply disappointed.

FWIW both Mrs C and I really enjoyed the film. I thought it was very well done and didn’t have quite the full on American shtick that sometimes accompanies a Client Eastwood film. I wasn’t aware that the NTSB stuff was completely fictional as per the film although listening to Tom Hanks interviews it would appear that a lot of the investigation work and reviews he had to go through took a lot longer than appears the case in the film. Sully had that hanging over him for close on a year, I believe, although as was mentioned earlier it wasn’t as hostile as depicted in the film. Hero is a strong word to use but I can see why passengers or close friends / relations of those on that flight would see him as a hero. It’s an easy way to ascribe recognition and gratitude to someone who managed to keep calm and avert a disaster in challenging circumstances and in so doing probably saved the lives of 153 passengers. Sure, he was doing his job. But, it could so easily have not panned out. Based on the film, I have a deep respect for him and what he did.

We’re just getting quotes for re-doing our bathroom and we were recommended these bad boys as being ICON Fans pretty efficient as well as very quiet. The 15 was suggested as being perfectly adequate for the standard bathroom

While it won’t be warm I woudl be back in Vancouver / British Columbia in a shot if I could. Love the whole area from the stunning scenery, things to do and the general vibe. Loads of skiing to be done at that time of the year although there is more to do and see in the warmer times. Maybe consider it for another time in the year but it is definitely worth the trip.

Isn’t all this part of the experience of going to university? How much are you willing to spend? One other way may be for you to cover the rent and then he uses the maintenance grant to cover his living expenses. If he is not good with money then this is going to be a great life experience in learning how to do it. As others have said though, one of the most important things to do now is sit down with him and go through what his likely budget is going to be. Why is he going to Uni in the first place? What’s his goal? That longer term goal should be enough to give him the focus he needs to make it work. If he doesn’t really know then I woudl question why he is going and tell him not to bother. : )

Would this be the appropriate thread to pose the question “Anna Mears – bush cyclist”?

@FunkyDunc. That was a really unhelpful picture to post! :)

[Yep, I really am that shallow]

An entertaining night out but yes, as others have said, a massive cheese fest. Pretty much every movie cliche was used, a huge slice of improbability and lashings of WTF. Will make you smile in places that I am sure the director wasn’t meaning to be funny. Overall, it is a bit of a shocker. But one that does entertain. More cheesy than a Jason Statham film (and there’s another one of thise coming soon) but provided you are not too precious or arty about your cinema going experience then you will be entertained.

“Neither does the EU/UK have a deal with China, but that doesn’t stop us being flooded with light sets for a couple of quid. “

Or steel.

That is one thing I have noticed about the US – broadly they have utterly **** cars. :)

After hunting around a few months ago we plumped for the MS Band for my wife. Actually a surprisingly good piece of kit and she definitely like it. Unfortunately it broke quiet quickly. At least it was replaced for free – waiting to see how she gets on with the replacement. It’s a pity there have been issues with them as it’s not bad and the integration with her phone (iPhone) and Strava etc has been great for her.

Not being fully party to all that a trade deal entails I am still slightly unsure what all the fuss is about. Apparently the EU does not have a tade agreemnt with the US. Neither does the UK. And yet we seem to be able to export goods to the US. Last time I was there I saw plentry of VWs, BMWs and Mercs.

It certainly seems a bit rocky at the moment but it also feels as though there will be some settling down. We have a long way to go before we get to see what Brexit actually looks like but there are moderate voices in the EU (Merkel for one seems, at least outwardly, sensible and reasonable on having grown up conversations). We may see some companies talk about moving HQs out of Britain etc but I don’t think they have fully thought through what they are doing and why. For a number of them I suspect one of the issues they may face as a result of Brexit is that it may be harder for them to move cash around the European countries to minimize their corporation tax liabilities. I doubt anyone will pull out of the UK beause we are worth too much to them.

Was he staked to the grass while you were cutting it thm?? ;)

I share your sadness Ro5ey – and it is not something we should tolerate in this country. As others have said, we need to rise above this and make it clear to the majority of immigrants in the country that they are still welcome, that they are still human beings that we share this planet with and that we are happ to live side by side with them. I say most, because a small number are not welcome. But that’s also true of a chunk of our own native inhabitants too.

For the record, I was a Leave voter and immigration, as such, was not my main reason for voting that way. The only part that immigration played in my thoughts was that we do need a way to have some control of how many can emigrate to this country. Membership of the EU made it possible that there was a degree of not being able to control it. Nor was there any part of my decision to vote Leave because I dislike Europeans, because I don’t. The majority of my friends and colleagues who also voted Leave had broadly the same reasons as me. I would like to think that the majority of Leave voters were similarly considered, tolerant and rational but the truth is we do have an underbelly of decidedly undesirable, ignorant and intolerant people who are potentially tarnishing this country and our reputation abroad. Desperately sad.

Got to say that I am kind of failing to understand what the rela problem is here. There are a number of headphone amps that are there to just drive headphones for people who will only listen to theor music on headphones. What are you meaning by a decent headphone output? My experience is that most amps are pretty decent at it. Having said that, I am a tiny bit excited about the upcoming Cyrus One amp which looks like it might be a decent little cracker and coming in at a very competitive price. And it is supposed to have both a decent speaker output and headphone output. Potentially quite a bargain at around £700

Overall it was pretty disheartening last night. I can agree that we dominated all three games in terms of possession. But last night looked more like walking football. We were sooooo slow and pnderous going forward. No one pulling defenders out wide or attacking space with pace. There was one moment when Vardy was released and the defence shat themselves. I don’t think we shoudl be too harsh on Vardy for missing it – at least he hot the target, was going flat out. There are times that would have gone in. The times we moved the ball with pace, had runners was when we looked most dangerous. Unfortunatly we hardly did that at all. As most others have said Wilshere was utterly useless. Lost the ball nearly every time he had it, was either over-reaching or passing the ball off too hard or too soft. No idea why Roy even thought it was a good idea to have him on. Henderson has been poor but he was a bit better last night – although I still wouldn’t have played him from the start. The worst thing though was our inability to fashion a goal. All that possession and very few real, clear cut chances. And we still give too many stupid free kicks away from right in front of the posts. All of the worst ones in the past couple of matches were completely uneccessary. I really don’t understand why they do it. Still, at least we get to fight another day. Let’s hope for better fare in the next match.

Big congratulations to Wales too. Well deserved and well played.

What seems to come through your posts on this matter is a great sense of compasison and trying to do the honourable thing. And that’s a great attribute for a boss to have. Unfortunately we can’t always fix things or people. It feels like you want to have a try at it though, to feel as if you have at least done the best you can to give hime practical advice that may serve him in the future. I would say go for it. Find a way to do it tactfully (although whichever way you do it, it will always look like a **** sandwich) and by way of “observations”. As others have said, he is probably unlikely to heed it or believe it is for him but you never know. This time something might just seep through. :D

The biggest problem is that no one really knows anything, for sure. BY remaining in the Eu we have no guarantees about what the future will look like or what future demands will be, or what rebates we will get. The outers don’t really know anything for sure either because it’s all a bit unknown. The politicians seem incapable of actually disussing the realities or lookinbg at what the real issues might be. Not entirely sure I would trust all these so called business leaders or CEOs as, for the most part, I suspect their primary motivator is what will keep their company most profitable and this keep them in the money – and not whether it is the best thing for the country as a whole. I have found the whole debate pretty dispiriting really and it has done nothing to show politics in this country in a good light.

Personally, I would rather be out. I accept that this may cause us some financial pain as a country for a while. However, my main reason for wanting out is that I do not trust the EU as a political entity and what their longer term, as yet unspoken, aims might be. It’s a bit of a nonsense for inners to say that we are best being inside so that we can drive reform because, let’s face it, we haven’t really done a whole lot of that so far. So what will prompt us to suddenly change and begin to drive for reform? I am not anti European. I think we are pretty privileged to live in this part of the world and we have a continent of neighbours who have fascinating and diverse histories, cultures, languages, customs and landscapes. I would prefer it that we stuck with the original aim of being more relaxed about trading between ourselves. I am not agianst immigration either as I think it is a good thing. We have a long hostory of welcoming people to these shores but we also have to face the fact that we cannot support or sustain the potential for a large influx of Europeans. This referendum feels like the last chance we have, as a country, to say we are not happy with the way things are going and give ourselves the option to get out before it becomes impossible to. Again, there is a sense that the EU is a slow and steady march to tighter integration to absorb and consume all of the European nations into a single conglomeration that isn’t, I feel, in the interests of any of us except perhaps the politicians and apparatchiks at the very centre of this project. And when these sorts of people are lined up at the feeding trough it is almost always bad news for us, the little people.

I do appreciate that leaving will have consequences and there will be a whole raft of little things that may, in the short term, look like colossal losses, but taking the long term view of steeping out of it I feel is the right thing for this country.

This has been one of the funniest threads I have read on here for a while. Some comedy gold in here. Good work people. :)

What is it with women and lights though? My missus also appears to need light on in whatever room she has passed through even if the sun is blazing in through the windows to the point that you can’t even tell the lights are on.

I can also identify with the dishwasher stories. I don’t doubt that I am a bit more generous with the stacking in the dishwasher but she will often complain that there is still more space and just chuck stuff in where there is clearly not gong to get an all round clean. That is relatively rare though as more often than not stuff gets stacked on the side. WTF is wrong with taking the extra 3 seconds to put it straight in the dishwasher??? It takes longer to come along later and put it in, why not do it as part of the same operation as bringing stuff back into the kitchen??

And the other one that seems quite common – using every utensil in the kitchen when cooking or baking and then just leaving them to fester when finished with. “It’s ok, I’ll clean them up later when I’ve finished”? Oh really? I’ve yet to see this phenomenon.

Still, there’s plenty more for her to complain about me though. She has at last persuaded me that it’s not a bad idea to use the air spray when I have finished in the bathroom as, for some reason, I seem to be able to generate some really quite toxic and paint peeling aromas after a pleasing dump. Never used to see the problem in leaving the bathroom door open after finishing and letting the gentle perfume waft around the house.

What Operating System are you using? Worth noting that if it is Windows 10 there are a number of security improvements and enhancements inluded and coming that improve the built in Defender.

It’s all I use on my machine and no viruses.

“No it wasn’t. Some people want that, but a lot don’t.”

And you know that for a fact do you Mol? Considering what the original stated aim of the EU was we seem to have an awful lot of political aparatus in place these days including European Parliament building, EU MPs etc. All looks suspiciously like a federated union of member states rather than a trade agreement body. Although I can’t recall where I saw it I seem to vaguely remember some revelations following Ted Heath’s death that the grand plan had always been to grow the role and influence of the EU but that the politicians in charge at time had deliberately kept that information from the public to ensure less / no resistance. Who knows what the truth of the matter is but I do know that I don’t like what we currently have or where it is heading so given the choice, I would vote for OUT.

Nice try Woppster – I think you must have borrowed that picture from the engineers. Whatever you personally might think, my experience wth them is that they are vastly overpriced and overrated. Case in point, the Bristol Show last year the demo kit on the Naim stand was pretty poor from a sound qulity perspective – you couldn’t have paid me take anything from there! I know, shocking isn’t it – people are different. :)

From your passion for the company one would you think you worked for them….

In answer to the original question – Out.

If the Eu had remained what we, the poor, uneducted and pitiful little people were told it was in the beginning (ie a common trading market, reduced barriers to buying and selling goods) then I would be keen to stay. However, it has become clear that the grand master plan was always to create a United States of Europe which IMHO will never work and not something I want to be a part of. So, right now, I don’t really care what concessions Cameron may be able to get I think the whole project is badly broken and the best thing that we can do is leave it.