Just thought I would post a quick follow up to this and say thanks to all who helped! This year Jasmin organised two fab placements, one at Pinderfields with a guy called Stuart who does wonders with pharmaceuticals. This week she is at the LGI shadowing a consultant. Though she organised the placements herself, it was down to the epic network that is STW that she had people to contact. STW is brilliant for the stuff that matters. :-). Thanks.

Shave gel here is the only main thing of surplus, oh and imperial sockets bought as part of an ever expanding tool portfolio, never used. I have the usual Psion, Palm and random serial cables…just in case. Chick Peas and tomato based stuff (tins or tubes) are something that we always go from feast to famine on. Either metric shed loads, or emergency Mr HB dispatch to Lidl to conclude this evenings meal.

This has so much potential! Will see it out of nostalgia/loyalty/curiosity. The other 2000AD that I am surprised never made it to a film is Buttonman. The concept of shadowy wealthy people playing sick games is more pertinent than ever.

Giannis looks good (we wanted to go last year but hadn’t booked and the place was really busy). So BOOK and perhaps go there.

We got a V40 a few months ago (to replace an XC90 with a chewed up engine!).

Ours is a D3 Lux Auto with the 2013 5 cylinder Volvo engine.

Loving the car so far (8000 miles in 4 months). The adaptive cruise is amazing, the engine has plenty of power and at 50mph it does nearly 70 to the gallon. On a run to London and back it will happily do around 55mpg on the 400 mile round trip. The boot opening isn’t great (not tried putting bikes in yet, but surely it must be bigger than my old Austin Metro and that coped!). Seats are epically comfy. Rear leg room not amazing for adults sat behind a 6 foot tall driver.

Ours had 22000 miles on a 2013 plate when I bought it, so crazy low miles. Plan is to keep it for many many more miles.

I would sell hope and optimism (in schooners cos you couldn’t afford a pint of hope).

I might also sell artisan trousers if I could find a supplier.

Putting the kids in a rigid cocoon with full face mask and towing them out is my (ill informed!) guess on how they will do it. As said above. make them safe, keep their arms bound so they can’t move and take them out like cargo.

Just over a fiver for fish and chips here in Leeds at a number of great establishments. Haddock and fried in dripping, none of that pollock or veg oil nonsense.

Eddie really makes R4 PM one of my favourite radio programmes. Mind you, I also like thought for the day and iPM.

I hope they replace him with someone with a bit of humour. Nick Robinson maybe?

No smart words, just huge sympathy. You know there is a good group on here if you need any support, either practical or talking.

The Hustler, that’s exactly what I thought! If the contact lens agreement is in my name then it’s my financial data, not my daughters, and though it’s her prescription it’s me who signed the DD and supply agreement.

I am a spiteful ****, but you are not permitted under GDPR to remember that unless I give permission :-)

The commercial set up of the DD and payment was all signed by me and is set up in my name, but with daughter as the account holder from a medical perspective. Appreciate it potentially is messy, but surely the commercial bit of GDPR data and the medical bit of the data should be two separate permissions. The view from Vision Express is that they have daughter as the customer, even though all the paperwork was signed by me.

Just dropped my daughter off for DofE gold practice this morning. Her pack weighs a tonne and today she will be doing 24km before wild camping somewhere in the Dales. By the time we pick her up on Saturday she will have effectively walked the three peaks route twice and navigated round some tricky terrain. Coupled with the year of volunteering I think that DofE has been a great way of making her grow up a hell of a lot.

The fact that she packed only last night with minimum fuss and knew exactly what to take shows how far she has progressed since bronze. That said, as I type this, I just noticed a 500g bag of pasta in the living room that she forgot to take, guess she will be a bit hungry by Saturday!!

I was 18. Same time as I got my first “proper” bike, a Marin Palisades with fluro yellow forks. I mainly have worn one ever since and have had two accidents without helmet (always a side slip, once on moss on an off camber hotel driveway and once on ice under a dusting of snow) where I wished I had worn a helmet.

OK now AND wearing a helmet. Bet you couldn’t tow him though these days!

I was always inconsistent in making my two wear a helmet in the trailer (depends on where we were going). But as a general rule I think Daern above has it right. There are some things that kids just have to obey now and question later. The key is “do as I say now and we can explain later”  vs “do as I say because I am an adult”. Simple concept to me, but astonished how many parents either go authoritarian OR just cave in to kids.

Both my two are now much older (20 and 17) and they turned out OK.

Neat washing up liquid dripped to cover the full oil patch. Then leave it alone. Stain will be gone in a few days. Any residue can be hosed down if needed.

Europe generally is the best place on Earth for food. I mean I love Asian food, Thai, India, Sri Lanka, Chinese and Japanese, but the sheer variety of landscapes and cultures in Europe generates a variety of different foods in such a small area of the planet. Add in the wine and beer selection and it’s a clincher. I actually don’t want to pick a favourite as that would mean choosing between Moule Frittes in Hasselt, Pizza in Naples and amazing steak pies in Callander. It’s all good (apart from Dutch knock off copies of Feta and Peperoni) and I love the variety.

I have a Kalkhoff ebike with pannier racks and it’s fab. Really makes everywhere feel like cycling in Holland, despite the Yorkshire Hills. I have a couple of big Ortlieb panniers and can get a ridiculous amount of shopping in them and cycle back up the big hill from Morrisons Rothwell to where I live. For a commute of 10 miles or less and for general shopping duties they are perfect. Mine has a range of about 50 miles, but over 20 miles each way I would still probably use the car and listen to the radio.

My Tesco bag for life has a Bic biro in it.

Name dropping “Tesco” and “Bic”. Bit of a brand snob are we. (Saunters off with generic biro nicked from a betting shop inside a fake charity collection bag). :-)

The other well known brand is “Antler”…had to run upstairs to check! Around 10 years of semi regular flights and trips and still wearing well. Protects my Lamy pen nicely ;-)

That Samsonite looks good and similar to what I have (but from another well known brand). For cabin luggage I think a polypropylene shell case with a fabric skin (ie like mine and the Samsonite) are the perfect balance of toughness, protection and lightweight. I too prefer the two wheeled option and frankly, this being STW, I would have expected a bit more enthusiasm for 2 wheels over 4.

(PS I do occasionally look lustily at Rimowa, but then common sense take over and I have a word with myself).

Big Nikon fan in our house (D80, D610, D3300 and D7200 between us). The later models are quite a bit better than the D80/D90 era cameras, though these still take good pics.

Biggest thing I always advise on Nikon for those wanting to actually control the camera is to get the models with two control wheels. The base models have some amazing sensor tech and will take photos nearly as good as models costing 4 times the price, however the base models are a pain if you want to control exposure manually. Most of the settings are in menus, which quickly becomes a chore. The next layer up in the Nikon ecosystem has many more buttons, which makes control of the camera so much easier. Cameras such as the D7000, D7200 or older D700 and even some of the older full frame cameras depending on your subject are fantastic bodies. Our D80 still gets used after 11 years as a walk around camera and still takes some fab pictures. Newer cameras are faster, have MUCH better ISO range and obviously more pixels. Enjoy!

We went there in April. Fab city and great to walk round. The east side art gallery is a fair walk from the centre, but doable and very worth seeing. The holocaust memorial is impressive and sobering and right next to the Brandenburg Gate, so doesn’t need much planning. The Reichstag is supposed to be good but you MUST book tickets in advance if you are to have any chance of getting in…we didn’t and couldn’t! Museum island is good if that’s your kind of thing and you can get a ticket that lets you in lots of museums for 3 days for about £25.

I have an i3 and drive down a hill as soon as I set off for work. The regenerative braking only works once the batteries are below 95% (so you don’t overcharge), so my car does pretend regen braking when the battery is full, ie it applies the disc brakes to simulate the feel of regenerative.

One pedal regenerative braking is very good, I almost resent using the friction brakes on our other car now!

Mattocks are good too! very satisfying kit to use. However my fave “big job” bit of kit is my persuading chisel. I don’t know what the proper name is for it, I bought it from screwfix to break up some concrete that had been holding in some fence posts. It basically is a 6 foot long solid inch diameter steel bar hammered into a chisel shape at one and and flattened at the other (presumably so you could hit it with something). It weighs about 15kg and will literally mash through anything, concrete, tree roots the lot. For delicate jobs I have a Makita SDS with chisel. :-)

Selection of hammers in varying sizes so that you always have the right one to reflect your level of determination/frustration with the given situation.

oh, and for every kid that arrives in primary school already able to read a bit and write their name, there are at least one or two more who are barely potty trained and can’t master some of the stuff that many of us would consider basics. Primary school teachers in YR1 have a really difficult job to balance this out!

Generally I am a fan of a little homework in primary schools. I had it in the 70’s and both my kids had it in the 00’s. The best homeworks are open ended creative things, writing, discovering  and making. But we also had word lists to learn for spelling. So many parents really don’t see educating kids as part of their role (no reflection on OP, just a general experience). They find time for PS4 and Britains Got Talent, but take little interest in their own kids talents.

A little homework in Pramary Schools gets the kids in the habit of independent study at a young age.

Much of the testing that goes on in schools is more to assess the school than to assess the pupil. I think this is OK however as we need to know how well our schools are doing.

As a scientist and geek I am genuinely amazed by how little curiosity and wonderment most people take in the world. We need an education system that maintains the sense of wonderment and curiosity. Homework can be both a positive or a negative thing to support this.

I’d use either a Horsetail half flange spigot knot or a series of four granny knots.

That looks like rock strikes to me, not deliberate serial number removal. With most stuff the identifying digits are at the end of the sequence, so the fact that the only digits truly damaged are at the lowest point on the BB tells me this is down to use rather than theft.

Working?

I relented and just rejoined. I have too many forum posts in various sites that were killed by the previous management approach. $20 a year is OK in my book and I can confirm the adverts are gone and all my old links in forums now display images in all their glory.

Daffy, as a fellow i3 owner I share your enthusiasm. So much so that I visited the Leipzig factory last month with the i3 Facebook group. Fab car and comparatively few compromises.

I changed jobs last summer so am now doing many more miles. As a result I have effectively swapped cars with my wife. So now I drive a V40 d3 which is ideal for long journeys and the i3 REX is having a slightly easier life (I did 30k in it in the first 15 months of ownership!!).

As battery tech improves, pure BEV cars will be the sensible choice for 90% of drivers. Already there is likely to be a new i3 battery later this year that will add a further 50% to the range, so 150-200miles approx.

My neighbour has a 330e and the poor thing has never been near a charger since he bought it, runs it purely as a tax break. The government really should put an escalator on the min range needed to qualify for tax breaks, probably starting at a real world 50 miles. There are too many cars that just add a nominal 20 mile range to qualify under current rules and then run on fuel for the rest of the time.

My biggest gripe with the new forum is that I can’t see posts that I have commented on any more. Before I could comment on something that interested me and a few days or a week later I could quickly check out if there had been any replies in the “threads started” and “threads commented on”. Losing this functionality is a big loss to how useful the forum is to me.

EDIT…oops. thought I had best check and this functionality has been reinstated to some degree!

Makita 4 stroke here. Three years old and always starts first time.

I have it on my Volvo V40. The adaptive cruise control (with Auto gearbox) is one of the best features introduced in recent years. I think the Volvo application is one of the best on the market as it uses radar AND cameras and also lasers for pedestrian detection, all in all very clever. Some other systems (eg BMW i3) are just camera based and therefore not as accurate at judging distance and relative speed.

The only problem I have with it is that if I move into the slow lane from behind a car in the middle lane because the slow lane is clear then I end up accelerating up to the set speed. This can mean you end up undertaking middle lane hoggers if you are not careful.

I have a Thule Euro G5 the posh alu 3 bike one. It’s for sale as the kids have grown up. £230 collect from Leeds.

In his defence, I think he found it yesterday PM as he was getting off the train at an unmanned station, so limited options for handing it in yesterday.

Will ensure he makes the appropriate overstretched and undermotivated police aware.

Not sure if it’s a cellular model. I am picking it up from my mate this morning and calling into Apple store to see if they can help. :-)

Also…. this was found on a train in t’North…..WIFI??!!!!! We only just got rid of the steam engines and replaced them with trains made from old busses!