Another vote for Rome.

We went in Feb 2008 and had great weather. It was usually warm enough during the day to walk round without a jumper or coat. Evenings could get a bit nippy but nothing like the UK.

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Rome from the Cupola of St Peter’s Basilica[/url] by *ChrisB*[/url], on Flickr

Find the Gelateria della Palma near the Pantheon – ice cream heaven 8)

Entry to the Vatican is free during the morning of the last sunday of the month. Get there early doors as you still queue though.

Terrible coverage in places I would expect them to cover – A55 through North Wales is dire in my experience.

Viro-Sol – under a tenner for 5l if somebody local to you stocks it.

Also good for degreasing bike bits.

You’d need to enjoy mud (and lots of mud at that) to enjoy bits of the Clywds at the moment…

We’re on 3 via a VNO (Virtual Network Operator) for our work phones.

Coverage is dire at times – there’s several chunks of the A55 (North Wales) where it’s impossible to make a phone call.

I’ve got Crocs Mammoths – they are fab. Great for nipping out to the garage in, had mine for ages.

I’m a one time member of the “drives like a twonk” club – a pair of Conti Sport Contacts 2 on my Ibiza TDI lasted about 8k. Thankfully VW Financial Services were paying. I I think I usually got about 12k.

Get about 15k out of Ultrac Sessantas on my Saab 9-3, though they are bad for tramling when getting towards the end.

I’m at work, except the boss went home at lunch so we’ve spent the afternoon playing Call of Duty.

Hire one of the bikes in Villa Borghese (one of the parks). Get a two seater with the steering wheel – was a great laugh.

I’ve got a 310XT – amazes me how much can be crammed into a package that size. Can’t say I’ve run the battery down from 100% but the review/comments by Rainmaker suggests 20 to 30 hours.

Average pace is probably my fave’ function too, though the day my 310 tells me I’m sub 6 min/mile is the day it’s telling lies!

CRC have a great bargain.

Puncture repair kit @ £2.99 – Save 1% – now £2.95! 😆

I got sent a cheese selection by a supplier the other day.

Sampled the Bath Blue and Wyfe of Bath from it at the weekend – both very nice.

http://www.parkfarm.co.uk/our-cheeses/

We had a missed delivery card from RM yesterday (Sunday) and I also saw posties in Stafford working, so some folks are doing their best to shift what is delayed.

Thats a good site – thanks Crell.

-9C not far from our house right now. No wonder the condesate pipe on the boiler froze again today. 🙄

Questars is good, although I have some gripes with the prize structures.

The Beeb ran a story about being at Birmingham airport being stuck on a plan for 9 hours. How on earth can it take more than an hour to realise the plane is going nowhere and let the poor sods off?

I hope David Croft and Anthony Davidson stay on R5L – a good combination IMHO.

Borked here as well

I bought an 32EX403 a few weeks ago. Very happy with it and I’ve not got round to tweaking the picture yet.

I got the USB WiFi dongle for it and things like iPlayer work a treat. Also use that to stream music/photo’s from my XP PC (running Windows Media Player)

BhurtPore Inn

11 ales on tap and the full beer menu runs to pages of A4:

http://www.bhurtpore.co.uk/bottledbeers.htm

Kick ass home-made curry to soak up the ale with.

Aye, IIRC, the max speed on the packet is 50km/h. I was glad to make it up the hills and keep moving though, so have no problem with chugging along. Once clear of the snow, I did stop to remove them.

Quite easy to fit on my 225/45/17 wheels, even in the dark for the first time.

Tried and tested on my Saab and other cars in the family (couple of Ford Focusssssss)

Big thumbs up from me – made a huge improvement to grip last winter, especially one very snowy night in the Peaks. I stuck them on at the bottom of one hill which had a line of cars / trucks waiting at the bottom and a few people going sideways/backwards a lot. I pottered up the hill with no problem and even stopped half way to avoid somebody getting pushed.

My G/F’s Sister used them quite a bit around Sheffield last winter and was very happy with them as well.

Can you get anymore TLAs in a post? 😉

I was trying to clarify the point that if your line rental is billed by BT Retail, Infinity is not your only choice for an FTTC service.

I’ve got FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) with Enta (Infinity is BT’s name for FTTC when they sell it), though line rental remains with BT (Retail) so you don’t have to have both with the same provider (though technically Enta are using BT Wholesale for the local FTTC services).

Estimate was 16.6 down / 7.9 up. Sync’ speed has settled down at 33Mbps down / 10Mbps up which is a huge improvement on the ~3 down / 1 up I got before.

BT engineer will do a few bits when he comes to install the VDSL modem – he moved our master socket upstairs and replaced a bit of external wiring that was ropey.

Goes like stink in general 😀

I’ve commented to my good lady about the lack of calibration across the panels. I think she feel asleep quite soon after…

I got an e-mail from ProBikeKit on Friday saying they had 800s in stock.

You are Mystic Meg and I claim my five pounds.

Ashton’s second try sounded ace via Radio Five – looked rather good on the highlights.

Reminded me of the days of the French when Saint-Andre, Blanco, Sella and co were playing.

I don’t know about timings but any chance to get to see an opera at the Arena di Verona?

I saw Aida there with the misses a few years ago. The only opera I’ve ever been too – utterly fantastic evening. Sat up in the cheap seats, well stone, IMHO it’s quite an experience.

That trip we stayed in Tuscany (here[/url]). I remember Florence being screaming hot and rammed with people. Sienna was good and I forgot where else we went other than San Gimingagno. Then we drove up to Sirmione on Lake Garda – very busy at the weekends but very nice in the evening – and finished off by getting the train over to Venice for a couple of nights.

Rome is a good city-break (I think we did 4 nights there), so you might want to save that a seperate trip and move around more to get loads in.

Ours are great. The bloke next doors mows our lawns, front & back – I haven’t had to touch a lawn mower for years.

I bet that generated a bit of paperwork.

Nationwide current account isn’t what it used to be:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/travel/2010/07/nationwide-kills-cheap-overseas-spending-for-current-account-customers

It will introduce a new 2% load for European currency and it will double its load for worldwide currency from 1% to 2% (the 1% charge came into force last year). This means £100 of foreign spending actually costs you £102.

Currently, using ATMs in Europe costs nothing. From November, it will cost £1 per cash withdrawal (plus the loading fee).

Only 1.3s

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Oyster Bar at Grand Central was very good when we were there (2007 IIRC)…

http://www.oysterbarny.com/

We did the Rockafeller Centre first thing in a morning, then the Empire State at night. Didn’t queue for either.

C&F webcam:

http://www.maccinfo.com/cat/

Freezing your nuts off outside must still be better than the X-Factor though!

Done – sounds interesting…

No issue with the chainrings on the Evolve XC X-type which came on my Trance. The black/gold BBs were rubbish though… at least until they die and I get Mr Overshoot to rebuild them.

How much data to backup?

With a bit of effort, I’ve got over 100GB of stuff uploaded to Mozy which is 4.95 USD per month for unlimited storage.

If you’ve got shonky broadband, rotate a couple of external USB drives and keep one away from home.

SyncToy is free and does a good job of sync’ing changes.