I have a work colleague, active out doors type, who after 15 months is still recovering from pneumonia.

Took me over a year to get back to what I’d say was a comparable level of fitness/health.

Always remember my doctors comment – “Well, if you’d have been 70 you’d probably have died from it”. Not sure if he was trying to cheer me up or not!

As long as you pay some of the value off (i.e. either into a savings account, or back to the mortgage provider).

If paying interest only, then I’d say no. Even the little ‘retirement’ houses are going to rise in value, maybe even more than the bigger houses like you’re looking at – the 2 bed houses round our estate demand a significant premium over the 3 beds becuase they are on one floor and thus perfect for the retirement.

Excuse the capitals but this is a naive and optimistic view. UKIP is drawing votes from accross the spectrum. If it where true that UKIP supporters where coming purely from the Tories the Tories would be polling around 5-10% which they are most clearly not. In France the National Front (sort of a watered down BNP) has won a lot of votes from the extreme left. The realty is that those in low paid work have the most to fear from immigration as it’s those new immigrants which undercut their wages and take their jobs.

If Labour supporters are sitting back and ignoring UKIP on the basis that it’s the Tories who will suffer they are playing a very dangerous game

This ^^^

UKIP are giving Labour voters who would never ever vote Con a potential way of ‘protesting’ against any perceived immigration / EU stance that they actually agree with.

The danger for Labour is that the ex-Con UKIP voters go back to Cons for a General Election (as they recognise UKIP won’t win any election/seats), but stick with UKIP instead of going back to Labour.

He’s been living at home for the past 2 years so not sure how much he’ll have saved up. But the month long trip to America last year won’t have helped. Wish I could afford to go on a month long trip somewhere.

And there is where any sympathy for him falls by the wayside…

Just tell him to stay at home another year and stoping throwing money at expensive holidays if he ‘really’ wants a place of his own.

Probably true for mtbs, but on the road, you hardly every need to brake.

Careful now, Paul Sherwen will suddenly pop up and tell you that if you touch your brakes in a corner you’ll suddenly be 20 places back in the peleton with no chance of winning the stage… 😛

In this interconnected world wouldn’t it be a simple thing for the doctor to book me an appointment from their desk as I was sitting by it?

To give him his dues he did try ringing the appointments desk, then looked at his watch and went “ah, dinner time, they won’t answer”.

Labour weren’t a one trick protest vote pony, thats the difference.

What you want to be very scared of the UKIP voters in this European parliament going back to Conservatives come the general election.

Or worse, people who would never vote Cons because of past history but actually ‘believing’ the UKIP spin and feeling comfortable voting UKIP. I know a lot of Labour voters who don’t stand for anything near what the party represents, but would never vote Con ‘because of Thatcher’ or whatever. Could be some scary swings come polling day.

After hearing too many conversation like “Dad, which one should I vote for” it did depress me to be a polling officer 🙄

Faith was normally restored by some infirm old gent or lady hobbling down the street probably for the first time in days just to use their vote.

Only a few of the earlier versions of this song used the n-word, why then is the song that he chose in of itself “not racist” and why did he feel the need to choose that version of the song?

To be brutally honest, it’s probably the one he was brought up with. It was the version I heard at school growing up, and the one I immediately thought of when my little ‘un started reciting “eeny meeny…” to chose between my or mum to take her swimming. Her version used ‘fisher’ instead but still to this day is makes me slightly nervous when I hear her saying it, even knowing she has thankfully never heard the offensive version.

Difficult one I admit. Given the nature of politicians I doubt they could bring themselves to consider that someone could turn up to vote and yet not vote for any of them. It would be too powerful a statement.
I guess there’s few more options these days given the prominence of social media.

The statement is already there to some extent. 60% of people don’t bother to vote already (and a larger percentage in things like the European elections).

The problem with none of the above is its a negative assertion – someone has to win to govern.

never voted but spent 15 years working the polling stations and vote counting in a previous existence.

It was my Grandad who told me that even if I did not actually vote for anyone I should at least go and spoil my paper.

Which achieves exactly nothing. Apart from wasting your own time. And that of the poor underapid person who sorts the votes.

Mates on one of the DIY SOS programs coming up, says it’s a really tear jerker.

End of How to Train Your Dragon caught me out the first time I saw it too…

How much are the cancellations fees for the fixed one you’ve got now?

Might be worth stumping up to get yourself onto one decent rate.

EDIT: Sorry, spotted the £5k fees – does sound a bit steep!

Technically, I’m sure the bank would only care if you couldn’t keep up payments. Obviously the sensible thing would be to pay off the mortgage with any life insurance but you don’t have to.

As the muffin man says, spend a couple of quid now and get a will sorted.

Be careful – road frames have a different top tube to flat bar equivalents, you might end up with a wacky stem length to sort it.

Check out Evans – there was a few of their own brand hybrid frames from last year going mucho cheap a while ago.

Two nuns in a bath.

1st nun ‘Wears the soap.’
2nd nun ‘Yes it does, doesn’t it.’

That was the first ‘rude’ joke someone ever told me, but managed to bungle the punchline to “Yes it is isn’t it” – we were confused for many a moon about it…

Anyway, thank to Les Dawson
“My mother in law is from Sweden. She has a face like a norse”

Thought I heard some reporter say even if he got cleared on these charges he would stll end up being tried for murder, which confused me.

Wasn’t in Labour demanding 50% of kids went to Uni.

The only benefit I can see for the fees are some people might stop and think about whether they should or should not commit to it.

44k is crazy money though, regardless of how/when it’s paid back.

Neil Gaiman?

Was just thinking the same last night after leafing through the ‘trail bike of the year’ awards in WhatMTB.

Whilst picking a bike on aesthetic reasons isn’t the best way I was mentally going though the whole list of contenders thinking only the bikes mothers could find any of them ‘pretty’ or even good looking. Think it might be that swoopy downtube that makes a lot of them a bit gawky.

Or ask me nicely – I’ve an old Cateye with cadence sensor that she can try – might need a couple of new batteries.

WHY ?have they paid you or not? that is what you leave feedback on

But if they’re a pain, complain about things that are clearly stated in the description etc. etc. then why give good feedback.

I don’t expect feedback off sellers until I give them feedback first.

As above, you can run mini-vs with road levers directly without any probloems solvers as I have done for many years.

Though I’d recommend getting an adjustable noodle to take up any slack in the cable when pads wear etc. – there isn’t any other way to do it apart from undoing the cable bolt.

PS Campy levers work better too as they have a cable release switch in the hood to allow you to get enough slack to undo the noodle.

So…. an alloy Cannondale Synapse disc with 11 speed, hydraulic discs and mechanical shifting and mudguards as a winter bike, anyone?

Sold!

I do love the way some of the reviews have been gushing about how the ‘new’ Shimano chainset ‘standard’ allows both compact and normal chainrings to be fitted as if that was some kind of miracle and couldn’t have been achieved by chucking a 52/39 set of 110PCD chainrings on a current compact chainset 🙄

IIRC correctly drop bar bikes have a shorter top tube length than flat barred bikes (or is it the other way round?!). So there would be some stem tinkerage involved with the potential you’d end up with a long tiller like stem for the flats to avoid too much sit-up-and-beg’ness.

If you’re thinking of a flat barred commuting/touring bike then it’s probably hybrids you want to be looking at, unless you’ve got a drop bar bike now and you want to change it.

Always used Swissstop ones on the CX and road bikes. Very good but quite expensive.

When was a handbrake a problem? Or even not good enough.

IIRC, electric handbrakes are lighter than the full on cable, lever etc. – if you want better fuel economy from a bigger/faster/safer car then you have to make things lighter. Much like the reason you only get a space saver tyre (or just a can of sealant).

Blame that market research when people tick random boxes on what they’d like their next car to have.

Don’t normally mind drafters, normally I just think I’m the one getting fitter so my win. Did get annoyed at the one the other week who drafted for many miles, then when I get sick of him, sat up and freewheeled – he just did the same. I did use several swear words after that to make my point.

Drafting can be dangerous – on one really windy ride home I didn’t bother to signal when turning right into a side street. Put the guy who was resolutely hiding on my tail into the pavement by mistake…

Still sounds quite destructive – I guess the front windows will be ok, but those at the side / back where its more out of site are vulnerable.

Folks were broken into many moons ago – the UPVC flexes and they actually managed to lever the window OVER the latch and got it open. Suffice to say, some very stern words has with window company…

Is my burglar alarm bell box likely to put them off?

Possibly, but don’t rely on it – some toerags set off my mates alarm. Police called by neighbours etc. etc. – no visible problem so left again. Scrotes came back an hour later, alarm went off again, everyone ignored as though it was a false alarm again.

And maybe anyone slagging off said Nissan should possibly mention what ‘beautiful’ car they are driving around in?

Depends how stoppy security get. A set of forks is a fairly decent weapon to be swinging around a cabin (in their view possibly).

Remember bringing a (boxed) golf putter back home with me on a flight – the jobsworth had a right strop/huff at me, and (for one reason and another) marched me all the way to the terminal gate and thrust it into the hands of the staff member arranging boarding demanding it be stored securely etc.

Fair dues to the gate guy – he waited until the security person had stormed off back to harrang other people, shrugged, smiled and promptly gave it back to me with a wink.

EDIT; Sorry, yes, no problems with hold luggage! Presumably they are boxed/wrapped securely?

Get someone to show you what the equipment does and how to use it. If your work doesn’t have some sort of initial briefing for the gym equipment then that’s a bit gash.

In fact I’m surprised there isn’t some H&S thing that means you can’t use the gym until someone has shown you round!

Check out the Vittoria Randonneur Pro 2 tyres on Planet X

Linky

The 32c comes up really narrow and more like a 28c.

Got them on my winter training bike, seem okay to me in the wet (and I’ve got lots of experience of that recently)

And £15 a tyre too…. 😛

I like the Nectar ones – seem less ‘chemical’ than the Nuun ones I tried, but unlikely to get them for £3.5 for 20.

Remember early on when I first passed my test – a guy pulled across my path at some lights so I flashed him in annoyance. The car behind him promptly took that as a flash to him to go and we got fairly close to having a pretty decent crash.

Since then I rarely flash anyone. Which is good at thats what the judge told me to do in that Court Order… 😛

If you’re going to be in Kingston Park you’re basically at the start of the Cyclone routes so check out the Virgin Cyclone website for their options for a bit of road riding.

Plus presumably import duties?

More importantly, will the newS cottish equivalent of the Royal Mail allow shocks to be posted without destoying them?

Bump for the dinnertime crew…

It’s not like I have “I’m a dyke” tattooed on my forehead.

Do you have ‘ekyd’ tatooed on because you did it in the mirror? 😆