Metallica – S&M. Shows how great their musicianship is. For Whom The Bell Tolls is stunning. Bombastic 🙂
1916 by Motorhead – may make you cry too…

It may not be obvious yet to us, but every last bit of today’s speech would’ve been electioneering at some level. Gideon’s a real game player – like Balls he loves the games more than he likes to do his job properly, + with the election result looking increasingly unlikely like a clear win for the Tories, he’ll be under strict instructions to do whatever he can to buy votes.

Re the stamp duty – I worked out that I’ll likely pay £3k less. Whoopy-do. In my area of South East London 2-bed flats have just gone up from £250k-£350k+ in less than a year thanks to Help To Buy and loose money – so £3k saving on stamp duty is hardly making any of those flats suddenly affordable is it?

I suspect buyers will just go ‘I can afford to stretch myself a little further now’ and prices will just creep up accordingly…

Never in 17 years have I ever worked for a company that didn’t pay travel expenses (+ accommodation if overnighting). £50/month in your pocket equates to about £1k extra pay so at £1,500 that’s effectively £30k more they should be paying you so I hope it’s a very, very well paid job!
Is it even legal to refuse to pay expenses?

110-140mm U turn Revs at 125mm here. Been used in the Peak and sometimes increase the travel to 130 or 140mm on the really rocky stuff but can get a bit wandery. Def try and get something with a maxle for stiffness

I think Ribble do a carbon version of their winter frame don’t they?
Kinesis seem to be recommended for a nippy winter bike
My Condor Fratello isn’t as fast as the summer bike but it’s certainly no slouch

Another one v happy with Look Keos – had mine c 8 years no maintenance – maybe 3 sets of cleats but they’re only £12 on Wiggle.
Be prepared to learn to walk like a constipated penguin at the cafe stop tho’. And avoid shiny floors in public unless you want to embarrass yourself 🙂

Today was definitely ‘overtake into oncoming traffic day’. Lots of people having to jam their brakes on to stop the overtaking car ploughing head on into them.

One of the nuttiest bits of driving I saw was a few weeks ago – approaching a roundabout. The car in the right hand lane wanted the first exit and the car in the left lane wanted the second exit. Neither was looking, neither was signalling, they just went for their undeclared exits at the same time and ended up they both driving at each other as their paths crossed. Can’t quite believe they didn’t hit.

Today was also ‘stay behind the club run until there’s space’ day which was nice…

i’m not in favour of complusory retesting

Given everything you’ve said in your thread, why not?

People tend to drive at a speed that they feel comfortable with and a speed that their car is comfortable with. Normally this is related to their level of skill and confidence as a driver (okay there are always exceptions e.g. Boy racer, but I’m talking generally here). People with less skill and confidence perceive that someone driving faster than them must be more dangerous. They can’t comprehend that the faster driver may have more skill, more experience, more training, a more capable car etc. To the slower driver it just looks dangerous, even if in reality is that it’s probably not.

The faster driver might believe they have more skill, experience, training, car etc but studies of illusory superiority suggest they’re wrong.

Illusory Superiority

Driving ability[edit]
Svenson (1981) surveyed 161 students in Sweden and the United States, asking them to compare their driving safety and skill to the other people in the experiment. For driving skill, 93% of the US sample and 69% of the Swedish sample put themselves in the top 50% (above the median). For safety, 88% of the US group and 77% of the Swedish sample put themselves in the top 50%.[26]

McCormick, Walkey and Green (1986) found similar results in their study, asking 178 participants to evaluate their position on eight different dimensions relating to driving skill (examples include the “dangerous-safe” dimension and the “considerate-inconsiderate” dimension). Only a small minority rated themselves as below average (the midpoint of the dimension scale) at any point, and when all eight dimensions were considered together it was found that almost 80% of participants had evaluated themselves as being above the average driver.[27]

A survey by Princeton Survey Research Associates showed that 36% of drivers believe they are an above average driver while using a phone for things like texting or email compared to other drivers who are using their phones for things like texting or email, while 44% considered themselves average, and 18% below average.[28]

In answer to the OP’s question I suspect what underlies the apparent increase in incompetent driving is that modern cars are too powerful for the skill of the average driver and that the average driver has fallen for the effects of illusory superiority and believes (falsly) that they do have the skill to manage that power.

It’s obviously too late to ask but I bet if you could interview every dead driver, they’d tell you they thought they had everything under control…

Yep. Had two people try to overtake me when riding today. Both in 20mph limits into oncoming traffic and I was already riding at 20!
Both had to stop in the middle of the road when they realised they were about to have head on collisions – one with a car, the other with a pedestrian refuge – which I’m sure are highly visible objects!

Something’s gone wrong with the great British public’s minds 😯

They’re cool.
The ones you get skydiving are even better, with no ground to break the loop, you find yourself falling towards a full 360 degree rainbow

That thread proves its easy to overthink hifi. Spikes just stop wobbling on carpets. Blu tack is much easier on hard floors.

Excellent, I just got my 40p back 🙂

It’s mad though, how much better the same set up is in a different room

Truth about ‘Hi-Fi’, is that unless you have an acoustically optimised listening room, it’s not worth spending thousands on equipment, without knowing what works properly within the unique acoustic environment of you home etc. You could spend a lifetime ‘auditioning’ countless pieces of kit, then maybe find that a £500 set up actually sounds better than stuff costing 10 or more times than that. All the different surfaces, soft furnishings, materials etc will affect the acoustics, so it’s about finding the right balance for the kit you have, than throwing money at the ‘problem’. You can change how a set up sounds by moving or angling speakers by just a small amount, or moving furniture around, as well as replacing cheap chipboard shelving and the like with heavier mdf stuff. The type of plaster used in your walls has more effect on sound than many equipment ‘upgrades’ or modifications. Designing and making your own speakers can be far more beneficial than spending thousands on speakers made with totally different sets of acoustic parameters.

I moved house recently. My amp and CD player are c 20 years old, the speakers I bought 2nd hand but have had them 8 years. My hi-fi has never sounded better – so much more detail and seperation – and I’ve lived in several places with this setup. I’ve no idea quite what it is but the lounge is a big room hard wooden floors with rugs rather than carpet and the speakers are miles away from any walls. I also took a tip from Rusty Spanner on this forum about putting coins beneath the spikes on the speaker stands to give a solid platform for them to sit on. 8x 5p coins, probably the cheapest upgrade ever 🙂

I’m hoping that the stories about fighting etc were just media hype – ie a few scuffles broke out and they reported on that cos it makes a good news story, whereas in actual fact the vast majority of people are sitting at home in despair at how materialistic we seem to have become.
Certainly at work the main commentary was the same as on here…

So yes everyone knows there’s a risk, however not everyone follows recommended procedures to mitigate that, occasionally with tragic results. There used to be a poster at our DZ, “take not thine altitude in vain, for lo the ground shall rise up and smite thee” which is a quasi-biblical way of saying “don’t be a dick.”

I think we’re on the same place here – there’s no general acceptance of ‘don’t be a dick’ in driving culture.

AAD was an optional piece of kit, at least when I was jumping (2000-2002). When I say known and accepted procedures I mean more things like packing your parachute the same way every time to minimise the risk of a malfunction, checking each other’s reserve pin just before you got into the plane etc, tightly managed exit order, spotting etc – no-one ever complained about needing to do those things or accused anyone of being sanctimonious when they insisted on doing it.

Almost the polar opposite of attitudes to speed limits, highway code, red lights etc

I also think that cars increasingly insulate from the risks of driving, whereas rock climbing the risk is obvious and tangible – and pushing personal limits whilst balancing personal risk is a conscious part of the sport. Sky-diving is just lunacy though

Quite. There’s a risk of death from driving, just as there is for skydiving.I don’t have data to compare but it’s curious that with skydiving, everyone’s happy to admit there’s a danger and quite happily accepts they have to follow specific procedures to manage that danger.

You try and get your typical driver to admit there’s danger and try and get them to follow specific procedures to manage that danger… well.. .take a look at some of the comments on here!

Well, 8x200m did wonders for me. But then I was no couch potato. I’d been running now and then for a year or two by that point. If you don’t hurt yourself then I reckon it’s worth a try.

You’re 100% right about intervals for maxing your speed but OP is not in the same situation as you – you were running regularly before you started speed sessions. He’s brand new, his body wont be used to running at max heart rate and he’ll likely pull every muscle under the sun.

The main caveat here is what you mean by an interval session. 8×200 at half marathon race pace with 2 mins rest between sets will be steady away and is not the same as 8×200 at 3k pace with 1 min rest, when you’ll hit max heart rate and be pushing hard as hell to complete the last couple of 200s.

Right, here goes, attempt No 2

a-ha-hem

‘I’m not sure what’s going to blow first:

my sanctimonometer or my bravadotron’

Thank you for your patience.

Which actually, sums up attitudes to the risk, danger and collateral damage of driving quite nicely!

If I’m ever caught I’ll fess up and throw myself at the mercy of the court – what else can you do?

Doesn’t take this into account:

I tend to think there is a suspension of disbelief with many road users – they think they cannot die or be seriously injured.

It’s noticeable how differently people approach risk when they rock climb and skydive – there’s nothing like the same level of nonchalance about the risks and dangers and an awful lot less over-confidence and unjustified self-belief.

The whole culture around danger is noticeably very different and people who don’t understand or want to understand the risk to themselves and others are dealt with pretty quickly… whereas when it comes to driving, at personal, community and government level the whole attitude just seems to be accepting of death and injury as some kind of theoretical risk or acceptable collateral damage.

Best advice – intervals. For endurance and speed and everything. Don’t just plod for longer and longer.

For reaching peak speed and personal bests – absolutely. As a new runner, I’d not worry about this until you have your base fitness sorted and can run the required distance injury-free.

Best thing you can do if you’re brand new to serious running is join your local club, they’ll know more than any amount of your own internet research. They’ll be able to advise you on shoes, training plans, the main do’s and don’t etc. My club has formal coaching sessions with trained coaches – their knowledge is worth the annual fee alone (which is only £25 a year). You’ll be surrounded by experienced runners who have a lifetime of knowledge to pass on.

New runners tend to let their desire to achieve run well ahead of what their body’s capable of and then you’re injured or the whole experience lacks any kind of enjoyment (and running’s not a whole barrel of laughs anyway!).

You don’t get good race times by just buying some shoes, doing a few training sessions and then turning up on the day and beasting yourself…

Another angle to take is whether modern cars are too powerful for the skills of the average driver?

We (UK) don’t get and probably never will get the benefits of a unified Europe like the French and Germans (in particular) do.

a) we’re an island nation, our neighbours are physically distant and we have a strong streak of bloody-minded independence/isolation which comes from that

b) by the end of WW2, France and Germany were trashed – economically, physically and mentally. It was the third time they’d wrecked each other’s countries in less than a century – Franco-Prussian War 1870, WW1, WW2 and they realised they had to do something to stop them doing the same again – the human cost was too much as well as anything else.

That’s where EU comes from – a very rational fear of Europe destroying itself again. We don’t quite get this – partly because we weren’t invaded in either WW1 or WW2 and UK, whilst economically on it’s knees, came out as a victor and UK soil hadn’t had foreign boots trampling all over and wrecking it.

UK leaving risks the whole European project falling apart so to the OP, yes I think EU would miss us. We also need to understand some of the above and recognise our own responsibility not to be the catalyst for a break-up – it’s unlikely to do anyone in Europe any favours.

Call for reform, yes. Threaten to leave. Not helpful…

Stereotyping is for people who don’t have the intelligence to understand nuance and evidence-based analysis. It’s nasty stuff and a favourite tool of autocrats and dictators for several millennia. Ask any Jews you know…

Choice of brand of car is tightly linked with ego needs and status so whilst stereotyping is unhelpful there may well be some similarities of underlying psychology which drivers of certain brands have in common. For e.g. why would you buy a big, macho-looking pickup called a ‘Warrior’ and with that word written in big letters on the back of it if you felt strong and secure in your own masculinity 😆

Same with a car which is vastly more powerful than you need given UK roads and speed limits… what, really, is the point of a car that does 120mph in a country where there is absolutely zero opportunity to drive above 70mph if it’s not somekind of expression of your status? Insecure people tend to need these kind of status symbols and are therefore more likely to be inappropriately aggressive to hide their insecurity…. from that you get stereotyped behaviour. I don’t think this is brand-specific, just leads to an observable tendency for people with powerful cars to also be the more aggressive drivers…

It really feels like it’s getting worse. Personally I’d rather not even drive anymore – train is a much nicer way to travel, or cycling on quiet roads.

Interestingly, the commuter trains and Tube in London which are the traditional preserve of lousy behaviour, are getting nicer and nicer – there’s almost a competition to be polite and do the English ‘sorry’ thing. Lots of standing up for pregnant ladies and helping people carry luggage up and down stairs. I think people are tired of feeling stressed and isolated – and being nice to other people is an antidote.

Cars are fundamentally unhealthy – physical, mental, social. They bring great benefits when used appropriately but current usage patterns are excessive and unnecessary. The sooner we get back out of our cars and back on the streets with each other, the better IMO

At present, I do feel that many larger firms are effectively side-stepping a lot of obligations by using agency workers to a very high degree, skewing the playing field in their own favour.

yes and no. Contracting can be better for individuals as well as for the employer – better pay, more flexibility to take time out, less need to fit in with the corporate culture etc.

My own experience with this is 3 1/2 years contracting on a sequence of contracts at the same client. Before that I lasted 8 months in a perm role in another company before being unceremoniously ‘managed out’ because a head of dept decided they didn’t like me. All employment laws were bypassed by the simple technique of my manager telling outright lies to HR.

I have more job security as a contractor as I’m judged on whether I can get the job done (which I can) rather than the subjective views of one senior person who’s able to exploit company hierarchy. I also get paid more as compensation for the lack of a perm contract so am no worse off financially.

So in this example, employment law gave me no advantage at all… a union might have stopped the gameplaying but would I have wanted to stay anyway?

Personally I don’t see mass movement towards contractors instead of perm staff as a bad thing. It’s another option, which may well suit people much better than the false security of a ‘perm’ contract…

You realise how tight regular cycling makes your body when you do yoga (and how much long term damage you’re doing if you’re not also doing a load of stretching to counteract it.)
Strong core will really help you climb, sprint and your top speed.
Personally I don’t think you can do any regular athletic sport to a decent level without knackering your body, unless you also do 2-3 core and strength sessions a week as well

By selling them the houses they already lived in

IIRC this was a policy considered by the Labour government before they got voted out in ’79.

The point being, that it wasn’t either Labour or Tories who created the current mess – neither ideology managed to cover up the fall in our underlying postwar economic growth and neither managed to find an effective and stable way to replace it.

ie: neither ideology actually has a solution. A pragmatic mix of the two, managed by a technocratic government might.

Our current situation is not really the result of Blair/Brown or Thatcher’s policies really, it’s more systemic than that.
The economy grew fast after WW2 because our GDP at the end of that was so low (we were close to broke) – any growth would look high as a %. We also had the demographic bonanza of the baby boomer generation – more people = more work = more earnings = more spending = more GDP.
That came to an end in the 70s.
Thatcher realised this and went for liberalising the markets but that didn’t really solve the problem so Blair/Brown kept our living standards increasing by borrowing massively and encouraging consumers into debt. Loose lending standards for mortgages was also part of this game.
Then the inevitable came in 2008.

But the main point here is that it was neither Thatcher or Blair/Brown that caused the crash. This game of liberalisation and debt was being played by all of the Western economies – Europe, USA, Canada, Australia etc.

I know it’s comforting to scapegoat leaders or a particular colour of politician but this is so much bigger than party ideology or policy. We simply don’t have the ability to keep growing the economy in the way we got used to from 1946 – mid-70’s.

The demographic dividend of the baby boomer generation that gave us that growth is now going sharply into reverse as they become dependent on the economy rather than fuelling it. There’s not a government policy which can deal with the fundamentals of demography… the harsh choices are either robots/technology to do the jobs or massive immigration, and we all know how well the great British public are responding to that idea…

Looking back, it would’ve been better for the Tories in 1979 to admit the fundamentals were too weak and managed us into low economic growth. Problem with that of course is that the electorate wouldn’t have supported it – we like being rich…

I still don’t get why expressing anger at two ex-PMs helps make life better in the here and now…

We’re probably at the beginning of a lost generation – there’s been enough very clever people around the world trying to find a solution to our economic mess and no-one appears to have found it yet and our current political options don’t even seem to be trying that hard tbh… surely our focus should be on pushing them hard to provide some leadership through a very difficult time.
For the first time in my life I’m not sure if I’m going to bother voting.

Banging on about people who aren’t in power any longer helps us how, exactly? If anything it lets the current shower off the hook…

I’ve got a few Howies ones. No other merino to compare them with but they’re 8 years old and still really comfy. Got a few holes in tho

Given that they both won 3 consecutive terms in office, the data suggests they were both very-well liked by significant proportions of the electorate!

We’d be better off holding the current bunch to account IMO

Cheapo option FTW: standard digi watch with stopwatch and plot the route on gmaps pedometer when you get home 🙂
Divide the distance by the time for your pace calculation. Takes about 3 minutes and gives you a certain sense of satisfaction seeing how far you ran on the map
With so much tech available free on t;internet and apps it amazes me how we convince ourselves we need half the gadgets we buy

Does trading standards not apply to ebay? That’s not actually a bike!

Shame about the music though.

You’ve not been on the ‘best 80’s metal album’ thread then?

I thought they were going to waste a perfectly good mountain bike. Good use of SPDs there 🙂

+1 for getting the things done that have needed to be done for some time. Outside looks like a horrible place today…

London eating out may not be cheap but there’s so much competition, IMO what you get for a given price point is better than you get in the provinces.
In particular a lot of London is owner-managed rather than chains so you get more original, better quality and better service.
I don’t think the cost of eating out has gone up that much in the last 10 years either.
Depends if you want posh or not but you can eat out very well for £30-40 and up to the £70 above for something more swanky

I’m in the basement flat of a big Victorian house and it’s def warmer if I’ve kept the thermostat on 16 degrees when I’m out and then stick it up to 20 when I come home. Leaving the place cold means it never gets fully warm even after a couple of hours at 20 degrees.
Depends on the volume of air you need to heat and how well insulated the house is, I guess

OP – you need to do something more structured I think. But a few random thoughts from me:
1. Great social acceptance of cycling – it’s the only time I ever receive verbal abuse from strangers
2. Higher driving standards and more care taken to drive within the law
3. Enforcement of driving standards, speed limits and red light jumping/amber gambling – primarily by drivers but some cyclists too
4. Non-compulsory but significantly wider participation in Bikeability
5. Education of drivers about how cyclists are taught to ride. So when I’m riding out of the door zone so I don’t get knocked off in front of you, back off, rather than leaning on your horn, pulling off a punishment pass and then turning at the next right turn as the moron did this morning. In his/her mind I;m sure their behaviour was justified as I was ‘in the way’ when in fact I I was riding according to Bikeability and Cyclecraft best practice…
6. For my money, separate infrastructure achieves non of the behaviour changes required, it just puts cyclists ‘out of the way’ as some kind of second class citizens who have no right to be on the main highway. Funnily enough cycling on a main road is fine when drivers drive carefully…

I’ve used them a fair bit over the years and don’t remember having any problems