Intrigued by those saddle type chairs, anyone used one, have an opinion. (What am I saying this is STW)

Done a lot of camping over the years. Would avoid a ‘pop up’ tent. Would not stand up to much weather.

Been in some proper blows over the last few years camping and the decathlon pop ups always stood up to them particularly the samurai helmet ones that were very popular, much better than some fibre glass poled Hi-gear and the like. Having said that I wouldn’t actually want to be inside one. Think 70% is in the pitching anyway (?)

I straddle the paramo goretex divide, Paramo Quito jacket and British Army goretex trousers for heavy/persiant rain. I also have Howies Epic jeans for other times.

Whats it like down in London?

Chilly and sunny, actually quite nice, no sign of snow.

Have we done the “Swinging lampposts” on the M62, not strictly snow I suppose

I got one of these free when I bought a TP Link router, works extremely well, bit only really useful if the room where the adaptor is placed has good-ish wifi.

Has anyone mentioned Joss Whedon yet?

Watching Buffy from the start again as my eldest daughter has got into it, poor Joyce :sob:

I beg to differ, no problems getting child seat in the back of mine, obviously its not 5 series, but its perfectly ok as a family car.

In The Mk 1 You can get them in ok but they don’t sit flat due difference in height between the recessed seat bit and the bolsters at the side, with 2 child seats in there is zero space in the back, the rear legroom is pitiful as is the boot size, I’m 6’1 and the roof felt oppressively low, most of my height is in my legs which made sitting in the back uncomfortable after about an hour. While the materials and build quality were ok the interior is drab, drab drab, feld-grau everywhere. I’m sure this must have been improved in the Mk2.

BMW 1 Series is not a family car, in the Mk1 you could barely get child seats in the back, it’s tiny and generally a hateful place to be. If you’re going to spend a lot of time in your car on motorways then get something else.

Oh yeah I’ve got a 2007 Montana 6 spare, it’s getting on but you may get a season or two out of it. I’ve got the footprint groundsheet and sunshade attachment. The tent itself is pretty watertight however there is a hole near one of the front/side windows which we patched with some tape stuff after a particularly tasty storm last year. One of the steel poles is slightly bent and one of the sunshade guy ropes is off at the tab but both function fine. Free/small charity donation to any noob camper. Pick up from Hertfordshire.

So much choice and lots of good suggestions above, particularly the Decathlons for a newbie camper

If you are a newbie then get something cheap/small easy to put up and suitable to be used as a second/weekend tent because within a year or so you’ll have a better idea about what you want from a tent etc – hint canvas/polycotton is much better to spend time in but with the downside of more weight, bulk and expense. I’d also be looking at outside space, Coleman Event shelters seem to be the go to solution for this, it’s much better to have a smallish tent with outdoor space than a massive tent without.

Really pleased with our Scenic MkIII which we’ve had for 3 years or so now (year and a half old when we got it), no problems so far, a couple of bits of trim are a bit loose. Did the Focus and small trailer thing for camping, it’s rubbish. Of course it’s total overkill in terms of size and space for 95% of our journeys but it’s big and comfortable and ok to drive. Don’t get the hate, just petrolhead tosspots for whom a car is more than a tool. If I had to get another car would probably go for another MPV.

what about one of these Neet boxes. Other brands are available.

Maybe a change up to something like an Innokin MVP is in order? Found legit Egos to be far better than Vision Spinners in terms of their ability to withstand my cack handedness

Bought a Quito jacket for riding when they first came out – 5 years ago? – quickly became apparent that it was too warm for all but the coldest riding days (I tend to run warm anyway) so it’s become my go to jacket for the cold and wet days walking and dog walking, camping, and just general bodding about. It’s absolutely fantastic, no crisp packet crunching and crinkling and not a single drop of water has ever got through. It’s warmth is a mixed blessing, too hot for me in anything 15C+ even while wearing a T-Shirt and with pit zips open but much appreciated when cold and layered up. Last well too, I’ve been unable to get anything more than 3 or 4 years out of a traditional shell jacket (albeit mid market stuff, nothing high end) before something goes wrong, the Paramo looks virtually as good as new.

Swapped from Virgin (runs on EE 3G) to Three, it’s pretty great in and around London and just before Christmas they enabled 4G in my home town. For me it’s not even the speed I just get a much much better data signal from Three than I ever did from Virgin, for instance streaming the world cup (on radio) was a joke on Virgin despite the apparent “full signal”. On Three I didn’t lose connection once on a two hour dog walk the other day.

Hmm I had a high/mid end av receiver from the early noughties £800ish and weighed 20+kg, with some pretty high end speakers (£500each * 5, +sub of course), I was never very happy with the music side of things, led to me listening to a lot less music on my hifi. Receiver died and I replaced it with a distinctly mid market (£500) hi fi amp and some quite nice £800ish standmounters and the new setup absolutely murders the old setup for SQ, not even close.

Maybe things have improved in the intervening years, maybe I had a mismatch on my equipment, dunno.

Daily Mail reader are you, Bimbler? That fits in well with their regular scare features on using wifi, sleeping with a phone charging by the bed, having any electric device like alarm clocks in the bedroom, and a whole host of other items of dubious provenance.

Oddly personal diatribe there. Just thought it worthwhile pointing out that the iPhone 6 plus produces 500% more radiation to the head than the Note 4 and in “simultaneous transmission” produces 1.59w/kg, the (US?) legal limit is 1.6w/kg

Apparently a 90 year old “invention”

Mum likes the idea of being able to access all the photos for the past x years on her tablet, and watch the odd movie. Dad would listen to music, watch tv, and movies on his tablet, laptop and desktop. He may even consider a streaming music setup if he gets the NAS working.

Do all of the above (except watch TV) on a Synology 213J, as he’s already got 6TB (TB or GB?) then maybe a 4 drive version would be preferable? I notice they’ve upped the specs this year so even the humble “j” models get dual core processors.

In synology naming conventions , the first number is the number of drives it can use, the second two digits are the model year and then there is a J – for the less powerful cheaper model, and a + for the more powerful more expensive model, with just a plain “215” or whatever for the middle of the range model.

I notice they’ve got a “Play” model as well which features more powerful dual core CPUs and hardware designed for video transcoding on the fly.

Just watch out for that radiation[/url]

PGP was an issue then it wasn’t

Wait, is PGP compromised?

Decathlon have some good scooters

More for hiking really but I live in Costco (Kirkland) merino socks for 5 months a year, entrepreneurs make sure they’re available on Amazon and eBay for a premium

Snapdragon 810 is going to be on the flagship android phones this year

Also nVidia Tegra x1 – bonkers[/url]

Unless you’ve got a real hankering for 4k then I’d swerve it for a couple of generations, besides Netflix pushing it there’s not a whole lot of content out there anyways. I think LG showed and 8k panel at CES so by the time your 2k TV dies, 8k OLED may be the thing.

I don’t get this “I don’t want a Smart TV” sentiment either, no one forces you to use it and unless you get some professional monitor type thing nearly every TV is going to have “Smart” features.

New Sony TV’s at CES were less than 5mm thick!

Thanks for all the advice so far. Project is a great idea.

What kind of level would you put yourself at? I don’t mean technical knowledge; I mean in terms of understanding light and composition, as well as being able to capture precisely what you mean to capture, rather than relying on happy accidents.

I know nothing, I did try and learn about it years ago (pre-digital) but it certainly hasn’t stuck, so a kind of happy accident guy I guess. Would like to learn more, possibly :shudder:a new hobby?

Needed a rain jacket, whilst camping last year, due to a packing error, silly cheap in the sale (they always have sales on), worked OK, nice cut, materials seem OK. Wouldn’t want to rely on it but for a stopgap it was OK.

Do they even do non-smart decent TVs any more?

DLNA box like a veetop or Neet.

#amazing

Thanks for the heads up

Oh and if standup’s your thing Bill Burr’s new special, “I’m sorry you feel that way” is amazing

Headhunters – really enjoyable scandi thriller

Google confirms Nexus 5 production has stopped, If you want to get hold of one, better act fast

I use the BBC ap for BBC stations and the myTuner Radio UK app instead of Tune In as it’s a little bit less spy-ey

@Cougar

My poor brain is melting trying to figure out if more speakers means more clarity when watching movies, which in turn means not having to turn the power up as much!

I worry a bit because depending on the audio source I have to turn the receiver up to -25db (Sky is usually the culprit). I know it probably doesn’t matter, but I’ve had experiences in the past where I’ve knocked out amps due to being overzealous with the volume!

As Cougar said, if you’re watching the TV through your AV amp in anything other than a stereo mode (on your AV amp) then it’s going to sound very odd.

-25db sounds a lot but it’s probably just low output volume, same from my Panasonic TV via optical, often get a shock when we flip it on to spotify/NAS or something

Edit: Just get a sub, pretty cheap s/h and they’re great imo.

Sorry for not being clear. Say I had to turn the volume up to -30db with two speakers, would adding a sub mean I’d only have to go to -40 because the load would be spread across the speakers and the sub instead of just the speakers?

How big are your fronts/stereo speakers?

The sub won’t make it sound louder, but should make the sound fuller, so if you like a lot of bass and you have to crank your speakers up to get the bass that you like the yes you probably can have your speakers slightly lower. Although -30 to -40 is a big difference.