I thought chocolate milk was the best balance of carbs and protein for recovery? I make my own from Cadbury’s Chocolate powder and milk in the blender.

Personally I reckon a lot of these specialized products which have come about in recent years e.g. gels, bars, protein supplements etc etc are just because we’re so consumerist about everything these days – the same nutritional function was delivered in days gone by using naturally-found food and a bit of hard work…

Beryl Burton didn’t need a protein shake when she got home did she?

The world has gone barking mad.

Yes and No. When the middle and lower classes (ie: majority of the people) see their chances of a secure job/income and financial security in retirement getting torn away by the incumbent elite, you want to get rid surely? History shows that when those at the top take more than the masses feel is their fair share, and leave them with the scraps, that extremism takes over?

JC does come across as nuts, as does his Chancellor but a lot of people are losing out badly from Osborne’s games and did so from Brown’s idiocy, so you can see why they’re getting traction…

My prediction is that come the next election, Labour will have split into a centre left party by those who think Corbyn has no chance of winning, and Corbyn and his gang. Meanwhile the Tories will have ripped themselves apart into two seperate parties: a Eurosceptic right wing, stealing Farage’s support and a more moderate Europhile group – so we’ll have more extremist parties in the UK too – more so than we do now

Jeremy Paxman wrote a book called ‘The English’ where he said the English habit of getting leathered and having a scrap with random strangers was the basis of the Empire which made us the most powerful nation on earth – a wealth and power which we’re still the recipients of even now. We basically got drunk, went and fought foreigners and nicked their stuff.

So your local high street on a Friday night is just carrying on an great English tradition :-)

Well, in London it’d be £500k even in a tatty part of SE London!

Go to the interview and see how you feel. You can find out a lot about an organisation by visiting the building, meeting a few people and even, if you’re observant, just getting a sense of the culture as you walk from reception through to your interview room.

I’ve been for 2 interviews at Barclays over the years (in Canary Wharf) and both times the people just struck me as really hard-faced, nasty people + the office was a tip – paper all over the floor and and atmosphere of pressure and politics…

I’ve been working in London for 20 years and just left this year on account of no longer being able to afford to live there (housing costs) – most of my time was in financial services and I have a lot of friends who work in the City. To say Finance rinses people and has no respect for work/life balance would be fair I think – the culture is not supportive of workers as people with lives to lead and health to maintain. Look at what happened to both Martin Wheatley and Antony Jenkins when they tried to straighten out financial services culture – both thrown out..

I’ve a couple of friends in the City who were good enough to do very well but even of them, one is now out of Finance and the other’s left the UK and on the ex-pat circuit so they got out in the end.

Also, people I know who’ve worked in Consultancy say the same – the reality of the job is high stress, long hours, politics and the carrot of Partnership dangled in front of you when in reality very few people get there.

Now I don’t mind working hard and love(d) the energy and ambition of London but after only 2 months of moving out I’m much calmer, getting lots more sleep and have so much spare time I don’t know what to do with it. My commute is 30 mins easy riding through quiet lanes and I’m home by 6:30 pretty much every night. I worked till 8pm a couple of weeks ago to meet a deadline and my boss was rather upset with me! I’m in a bit of a quandary tbh because I’d still rather be in London… irrational.

So if your standard of living is currently something you’re happy with – enough cash, living somewhere you like, good health (incl sleep), time to invest in your relationships and good work/life balance then I would ask yourself what you’ll gain in this job requires you to sacrifice these things.

It’s nice earning a lot of cash but at the end of the day so long as you have enough to live the life you want to live, and provide for your pension and have some financial security, why do you need more?

For my money one big reason why economic growth and inflation are so low is after 2008 we’ve all realised the ‘working all hours for loads of money to buy shiny things’ isn’t a good deal in the long run and a lot of people are just taking it easy and making do with what they have and focussing on quality of life. Which in my opinion is a GOOD THING

I have 10mm on mine. I might need to up it in a few years, or want to sell it. More than that looks daft IMO

From your description I can’t see how you could be at fault or even have avoided it.
Sometimes, though, from the speed/style of someone’s driving you get a spidey sense they’re going to do the stupidest thing possible, and these days when that’s the case, I’ll sometimes pull over just to get them out and away from me. Same with being tailgated when I’m driving, just pull over and let them put someone else at risk.

Some people simply can’t judge driving properly.

Make life simpler and ride fixed instead :-)

OU much better respected by employers than the new online stuff – properly accredited – been around for nearly 50 years after all…

Those of my close friends whose lives I know well and I think are most happy with themselves, their relationships and their lives in general barely post on FB – I think they’re too focussed on giving to those relationships and being present for those people, rather than sitting in the same room ignoring them whilst living some fake reality on FB
Not in my experience

Do you know my friends?! I’m making an observation about people I know well, not your friends… 8O

Tell her to email the Chinese military, they’ll be able to tell her everything that’s in her calendar :-)

I wouldn’t believe any impression anyone gives of their lives on FB – it’s an advertising medium after all… for us to advertise ourselves.

There’s bits of my life I’m very happy with, other bits I’m not that happy with at all. As it happens I rarely post anything much on FB as I think it’s just some mad status competition which will only end in tears but I certainly don’t post anything about those bits of my life where I feel like I’ve failed as I don’t want to publicise them. Who would?

Those of my close friends whose lives I know well and I think are most happy with themselves, their relationships and their lives in general barely post on FB – I think they’re too focussed on giving to those relationships and being present for those people, rather than sitting in the same room ignoring them whilst living some fake reality on FB

+ 1 for the nav being tricky when the weather closes in. I walked round and round in circles trying to get back down to the Corridor route once, for about an hour!

But like most of the Lakes, it’s great scenery when there’s a view and a great day out, albeit not the quietest re numbers of people.

Quite remote too.

I’m sure there are benefits but one of the things I love about cycling is the mechanics are so simple/old tech that I can fix most things myself – whether at home or out riding, which is a great relief compared to the 100% dependency we have on so many other things these days – cars, computers, phones etc which kind of turns us all into dependent children…

It’s noticeable how slow takeup of new tech is in road biking compared to MTB – it’s a very different culture. Hardly anyone in my club has electric gears, carbon rims or discs. It’s not an old or poor club either – largely 30 something males, with more than a smattering of Assos and Rapha and carbon frames! Just a general disinterest in new tech for the sake of it

Two elephants fell of a cliff. Boom. Boom.

Two elephants and a cymbal fell of a cliff. Ba Dum Tish

We should dolphinitely scale back on the fish puns

Not ridden a Pompino but my Condor Tempo is so nice to ride that I find excuses to go and ride it. Yesterday I rode down to Ikea to buy two £1.20 plates just so I had an excuse to ride :-)

I reckon it’ll pay for itself in reduced train fares and petrol as well as having a bigger smile on my face than anyone else by the time I get to work.

I wouldn’t over-upgrade the frame, though if you’re using the same wheels, unless they’re something really nice

+1 for speaking to Exposure, their customer service is excellent – they tend to repair or replace at their own expense IME

One can only assume the bike companies balance sheets are looking a little weak – smacks of total desperation 8O I’m well up for innovation but this is getting silly

Meanwhile I’ll keep riding my steel fixed with 700c wheels which is pretty much the same as my Dad was riding in the 50s and 60s and isn’t so far removed from the Rover Safety from c 1890… and takes me pretty much anywhere I need to for day to day travel

Love my Barker brogues, best money I ever spent.

[CFH mode]They need to get their branding straight, on that link you posted they have a pair of Barker shoes called Barker Staines. No-one who aspires to a pair of Barkers will ever admit to having been to Staines![/CFH mode]

My dad gave me some 5 year-old Loakes about 5 years ago which he didn’t like anymore. I wore them most days, walking to and from the train and tube and, whilst they needed re-heeling and re-soling a few times, they only finally wore out at the back end of last year. For £160 I’d say that’s a bargain – much cheaper than buying cheaper shoes and having them last only a year. More environmentally responsible too.

+1 for avoiding leather soles. One of my replacement pair of Loakes has rubber soles – they’ll last for way longer than the leather soles and just as comfortable.

The cheaper Loakes start c £125 so well worth a look IMO. Also much better fit than cheaper shoes

Why does anyone have to be to blame?

Our breaking point is coming, just look at the country our lifestyles, levels of consumption, levels of debt, the general lack of happiness, poor social cohesion. we are living in a bit of an unsustainable mess.

We’re definitely at an inflection point in the West. For me, self-driving cars, potential financial collapse of the NHS, falling living standards, and increasing attention paid to mental health are all drivers away from current car-obsession.

Whether we see a calm, peaceful transition or something challenging is a different matter. The ranty prejudice meted out to people on bikes suggests not everyone in the UK is up for even slow, evolutionary change! They’ll get used to it eventually, I’m sure, but we’re a rather conservative country when all’s said and done

One of the great things about London is so many people take public transport and almost everyone gets to work in a combination of walking and train/bus/tube.
It means you actually get some exercise during your commute. Obesity levels are noticeably lower in London IMO.

I’ve left London now and my new workplace is excellent on work/life balance and giving us time to look after ourselves and today we discussed how we would have one of our weekly meetings as a walking meeting – the three of us will go out for a wander when we have a particular problem to solve or just want to get a decent discussion going… I can’t imagine it going down too well as an idea in anywhere else I’ve worked..

It’s too dangerous when there’s so many bloody cyclists riding on the pavement :-)

Hi! Hows the view from up there?

Given the fact I’ve fallen off my bike 3 times since 2007 with a broken collarbone, scapula and wrist, I don’t think I’d be safe on a high horse – and I’d end up costing the taxpayer even more than I have already :-)

Interestingly, there’s no way of finding out how much this cost, or any mechanism other than overpayment of tax for me to make any kind of repayment…

Re the point about MTBers in the Borders – not really a like for like comparison – riding bikes is at least an attempt to look after your health. Drinking and eating unhealthy food, given the amount of info and healthy choices available, is, these days, knowingly doing damage.

Given the NHS is currently in serious trouble and an ageing population to look after, surely we should be confronting behaviours which are avoidable and knowingly damaging so the NHS has some chance of survival? Ignoring the problem because it doesn’t suit our ideological standpoints isn’t going to provide a solution…

If we can get robots to do the fighting then I’ll be able to spend WW3 riding my bike and on STW, unlike my grandfathers, one of whom was shipped out to the African desert and the other one wandered round in the snows of Norway getting bored and dodging bullets.
I know which era I’d rather be around in :-)

They’ll be around for ever. My Dad refused to buy us Coke when we were kids on the basis it was so rammed full of sugar – that was late 70’s early 80s – the facts about how bad it is for us have been known for decades but consumption of it has not fallen. Cigarettes didn’t fall in consumption until there was massive government intervention and even now there are people choosing to start smoking…

It’s a mass market product and those who really watch their health are a minority – especially in the UK which is c 66% overweight or obese. The masses are, quite literally, massive!

For now, there’s a lot of people who are still happy to make choices which they know harm them. Darwin pointed this out a little while ago… it’s just a shame that in a publicly-funded healthcare system that this means funds are used to look after people who’ve knowingly wrecked their bodies…

Cars cost a fortune.

Well, they cost society and everyone else around you a fortune!

My car was cheap – it gives me all the utility value I need from it and I spent my money on stuff which adds value to my life instead like bikes and financial security.

Spending lots of money on a car suggests a lack of perspective IMO… besides, with so many cars in the UK now bought on finance, only 8 years from a debt crisis which we’re still in, spanking out for a new car is just making us poorer overall as we make the debt problem even worse

Condor now do a disc Fratello. Not sure about the bolt thru bit though

I love how everyone is proud of not looking after something they’ve spent thousands of pounds on.

Don’t forget to add in all the external costs to everyone’s health and the environment for a full net valuation of the car…

If we disrespected the motor car a little more society would be an awful lot healthier and happier

Milton Keynes has a full, fully segregated, signed and reasonably well-kept network. Which is barely used…

We are already going through a cycling revolution here in the UK – it’s just rather one-sided, being mainly a sport revolution for men, rather than a transport option for the masses. Given the progress made in the last 5 years though, there’s hope for more…

Condor Fratello? Lovely bike to ride and perfectly sprightly when you want it to be. Mine’s a keeper.
It helps that you get measured up in the shop and put on all the parts you want so you get exactly the bike you need.
They do a disc and canti version too.

I wash my car proportionally to the amount of use it gets, which is not very often. Which is how life should be IMO :-)
My bikes get a lot more TLC

Mixture of old and new tech. I ditched all my CDs and vinyl before Xmas in a fit of wanting to declutter. Now it’s a combination of iTunes through the £25 Behringer DAC recommended on a thread on here or Spotify through a Google Chromecast, combined with my 20 year old Denon amp and some Acoustic Energy floorstanders bought 2nd hand from someone on here in 2007.
Overall this sounds as good as/better than my CD player and turntable, which is pretty remarkable.
In the car or at work, iPod

From recent experience and thinking about future trends:

1. Does your mobile work in the house? I’ve lived in two places now where it doesn’t and it’s a real hassle when other people can’t reach you + it means you need a landline deal which includes calls
2. Broadband speed. Ideally can you get fibre with Virgin so you don’t end up with a provider reliant on the disaster that is Openreach…
3. Flood risk. Even places which have not been before seem to be now: recent e.gs, York, Greenwich, Staines/Chertsey/Egham and obviously the Lakes. I would take a look at the Council maps and go and check the local area pretty carefully as well

If you look at photos for items which you know are square or round e.g. a clock or mirror you’ll always see that they’ve been elongated.

A flat I used to rent is on the market – I was in the day the photos were taken so I know how dull and grey it was that day – but the photos make it look bright and airy, which having lived there for 8 months, it never was, even on sunny days.

Those photos were massively misrepresentative of the flat – to the extent that if a retailer or manufacturer did it you can bet they would be taken to court under trades descriptions act…

I really don’t know why estate agents haven’t been regulated… pretty much everyone I’ve dealt with has lied or misled or left out something significant

London is nothing as bad as it’s portrayed. I lived there for 15 years and saw plenty of kindnesses… it depends what you’re looking for IME… but if you’re not very focussed on getting to where you want to get to you’ll not make progress when there’s so many people around you… which gets interpreted by outsiders as rude and aggressive.

That story’s just clickbait – wouldn’t surprise me if it’s made up clickbait…

This forum – it takes up huge amounts of my spare time!

RAC are cool with this IME. They know full well they’re taking advantage of apathy from existing customer – it helps pay for the cheaper acquisition deals.

I was quoted £140 renewal, checked out new customer deals through Quidco and spotted it would drop down to £45, rang them and asked if they could match it and they did quite happily…