The Graveyard Book – Neil Gaiman

skiing on Liathach

😯

Wow, which routes/gullies did you descend Spin? Did the traverse on foot at the start of March and didn’t see anything I’d be happy descending from the ridge on skis or a board. Like to think I might have the skills for that one day, but not sure I’ll ever be that gallus.

Had a great day up at Cairngorm last Monday. Quietest I have ever seen it and lovely conditions. Still loads of snow up top, though getting a little patchy and slushy at the bottom. Unless there is a massive rise in temperatures it’s going to be there for a while. The half pipe and terrain park look great too, but again I lack the skills for that.

Again, not zombies, but J G Ballard wrote some wonderfully dystopian stuff.

The Drought, The Drowned World, High Rise and Concrete Island are well worth a read. He takes fairly simple ideas and extrapolates them very convincingly and unnervingly.

EDIT – since your killing time on an aeroplane you should also pop a copy of the Langoliers by Stephen King on your kindle.

Am Fasarinen, Liathach, Torridon – taken on a Nexus 4

Ben Eighe ridge, Torridon – stitched from three shots taken on a Lumix FX40

Not particularly good photos, but I am quite proud of them.

Cairngorm was fantastic yesyerday after the sun came out and the CM folk dug out the funicular track to get the train running.

hopefully heading back up the mountain for a winter (walking) skills course with Glenmore Lodge today. Weather is a different story today though. Interestingly have been issued shovel, probe and transceiver which are being trialled on courses. Getting some basic training with those will be an unexpected bonus.

😀 ^ Love that appeal Haze

I think this thread needs some nomeansno

WTF? First the ASA, now the CPS. Today, I am incredulous at the actions of acronyms. FFS.

I imagine there isn’t going to be much time to prepare for the zombie apocalypse so I’ll just have to grab whatever is close to hand…

The storm before Christmas brought down a few trees at my inlaws place.

McMoonter and others efforts inspired us to have a go at building one, so here’s another for the stw festive holz hausen build thread.

We went for a 7ft diameter with a base of bark and old fence posts. After the downed trees (a snapped one is visible in the top right of the photo below) were sliced up with a chainsaw, they were hand split and stacked.

Everyone got involved in the build.

The finished stack, complete with wood/bark shingles.

A fun, strangely relaxing and satisfying little project. I think I might need to get some woodland and a chainsaw.

Wheelbase in Stavely had a Burner built up in the showroom when I was in a few weeks ago.

Sad to see another Edinburgh LBS go, but I’m not altogether surprised.

I bought myself a Giant XTC from them about eight years ago to reward myself for quitting smoking. Got me properly back into mountain biking after a wheezy hiatus.

🙄 oh, **** buttons, how did I manage to miss that?!

The Red Wing, from Slow Focus

A simple, stunning, video for a track on one of my favourite albums of the year.

It’s not often I pay attention to YouTube comments but…

HD. Full Screen. Volume Up. Subwoofer +10. Rock it.?

Wellgo B233

Decided to go ‘legal’ on my commuter and bought a pair of these, nice grippy flat pedals with BS reflectors (which incidentally are tucked away well enough that I’d be happy to use them off road and bang them into rocks without risking littering the trails with orange plastic).

Thanks folks,

Weather forecast is pretty bobbins but it looks like the terrain is so good it would be rude not to drag our hangovers out for a ride.

This differs from the Scottish system where the short dashes represent a supposed path that peters out in the middle of a vast expanse of unrideable bog.

😀

/downloads Death Grips – Government Plates, considers a new car/stereo…

😳 indeed, I bought both Earth Rocker and Blast Tyrant at the same time as for some reason it was the only hole in my Clutch collection. Have listened to Blast Tyrant lots more, think it might be their best one, even though Earth Rocker is superb.

It’s definitely…

Chvrches – The Bones of What you Believe
Queens of the Stone Age – …Like Clockwork
Sleigh Bells – Bitter Rivals
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Push the Sky Away
Steve Mason – Monkey Minds In the Devil’s Time
Tomahawk – Oddfellows
Clutch – (Blast Tyrant) EDIT – Earth Rocker
**** Buttons – Slow Focus
Future of the Left – How to Stop Your Brain in an Accident
John Hopkins – Immunity

Carcass – Surgical Steel

I’d be tempted by either

GR 20 on foot

or

HT 550[/url] on a bike

Yes, when you buy a new headset it does include a crown race.

Porlex grinder is great if you’re only making coffee for one or two doubles at a time. I bought one to go with a Gaggia Baby class and, having a tiny kitchen, I like that it doesn’t take up anywhere near as much space a decent burr behemoth would.

The celery grown into hollow straws obviously

Perfect in a bloody mary… how else would us Scots get any vegetables into our diet?

As far as I can see, they’re not backing it, just stating that Bradley Wiggins is.

Looks like that is the case, but that blog post is a badly written, terribly cited and pretty much a thinly veiled sales pitch.

It pretends that its point is to elicit debate by asking ‘What are your views?’ on a blog you cannot actually comment on but really its all about the giant button at the bottom that says ‘Shop cycle helmets’

EDIT – even the word helmet in the post is hyperlinked to their stock of crash hats on their site. Whether you agree with compulsion or not, this cheapens the debate IMO.

Have always liked Crank Brothers pedals but last nights attempted rebuild on my Candy 2s was not a happy experience.

Everything about the pedals is great… with the notable exception of the plastic end caps which are such a jaw dropping design oversight I cannot even summon the invective to appropriately express my annoyance.

Have always been happy to lavish care, attention and grease on them and I allowed them a little grace on their first generation pedals after a pair of dozen-ride-old smarties disintegrated under me, but think I may have reached the end of my patience with them.

MISCELLANEOUS EQUIPMENT
Dinghy Stabber

A dinghy stabber, on the pilot’s glareshield and on the RSO’s right console, is provided to deflate the dinghy if it accidentally inflates in the cockpit.

😀

Grew up about a mile from this one, Leaderfoot Viaduct[/url]

EDIT – Beaten to it by tiggs121. It is a bonnie bridge though and if this is a competition, it’s winning so far 🙂

ooft, thanks for the PSA ElShalimo, although it was an expensive one…

An Easton Hat Trick 2p tent arrived this morning.

Have been looking for a bigger/lighter backpacking tent for a while and an ‘all season’ 2 person tent that weighs only 2 kilos is verging on ridiculous. Thought the Easton tents looked ace and had very good reviews but I could never have justified one at full price so they had dropped off the shortlist. At half price however 😀

From a quick look in the bag, it looks like a very well sorted bit of kit. Nice attention to detail and the carbon poles/ aluminium vampire killing stakes pegs are incredibly light.

Shame to see Hike Lite close as I had used them in the past and they’d been great.

Will post up a proper review if I get it field tested while they are still available.

Yeah, same happened to me when I was attempting to open them up to chuck in some grease. Was using a really big screwdriver which fitted the slot well and they still rounded out 😕

Have bought a rebuild kit which comes with fresh end caps so will screw them in very lightly after I grease them and hope they want to come out without a fight when I need to rebuild.

If not I shall resort to a drill/molgrips/fire/nuke from orbit as appropriate. Metal end caps were far better.

I still miss McLusky, only managed to see them once, but fotl are a brilliant substitute.

Off to see them in Glasgow in a few weeks and haven’t listened to the new album yet, but I’m looking forward to it. Thanks for the link, shall fire that on now.

’I want you to try to do the drop… it’s fun dad trust me’

😀

Deserves a good score for that. Fast and stylish.

Nice run for Wil White. Now I can stop worrying about his lack of bar end plugs.

Edit- can we add

its history in the making

to the drinking game?

McCaul’s expression said it all… Superb run from McGarry. Deserved first IMO.

Steaming pile of NAS? Get a Lacie Networkspace. Very pretty but very sloooooooow and incredibly flaky. One for your ‘to avoid’ list.

Skindred are superb live. Benji is one of the best frontmen around. Didn’t know there was a new album on the way.

Tempted to go see Scroobius Pip sometime too.

Jim Jones Review were great. Properly raucous rock and roll. King Tut’s will be a good venue for them.

Lots of interesting stuff in here, including a couple I fancied but wasn’t sharp enough dashing down to the local ticket vendor for.

Lovely photography and some stunning scenery, bookmarked to read some of the articles another time.

Gravel racing looks rubbish though, don’t quite get that concept.

Fatbike Hype!! Where??

Haven’t really seen any hype, unless Specialized selling one counts as such.

Had a shot on one a few years ago and given more space for bikes I would probably get one.

😯 and there was me worried about my magicshine batteries.

Tempest beer here too Tiggs – best thing out of Kelso in a long while 😀

Saison du Pomme[/url]