Yes, more pay would help.

As much as we like to think about selfless nurses, paramedics, physios etc working for peanuts due to the love of the job the reality is quite different.

Just had my annual appraisal, my manager described me as a paramedic second to none, said he’s desperate not to lose me and I’m well liked in the job…..all nice to hear but doesn’t pay for a holiday this year, or put a motorbike in my garage etc.
Work has to be about more than just the job itself.

This week alone (and it’s only Wednesday) I’ve had offers from private providers willing to pay between £35 – £50 per hour for my skills.
I could work 2, maybe 3 times a week and earn more than I do full time in the NHS!

It’s seriously tempting, now if the NHS were to give me a 10k pay rise (never gonna happen) I’d happily sit tight and see out my remaining years with it.

That’s the real battle the NHS has right now, a lot of good staff are wondering why they slog and stress for £20k – £30k a year when they could move into the private sector and double their money overnight.

Had fibre optic Virgin services in previous house, bloody brilliant, fast as you could want your internet and seemingly instant download speeds for on demand services and movies, would happily multitask and allow connection of multiple devices too with no change in performance.

Now in an area without fibre optic cabling and having to use sky instead, films have to be downloaded overnight and watched the next day, streaming from Amazon on demand services requires phones to be disconnected from the Wi-Fi otherwise we get buffering and stuttering….almost makes me wish I was back in the South East, almost.

Passed on DAS (direct access) back in 2005, then didn’t ride for 6 months before buying a Kawasaki zx7r….steep STEEP learning curve, stalled it leaving the dealership, had to reteach myself how to ride as I left town and then managed to spin up the rear wheel exiting a roundabout….it’s a miracle I made it home.
Went into work on the Monday and worked with a seasoned biker, he looked at it and asked “have you done the third gear thing?”…perplexed I asked what he meant, basically he wanted to know if I’d opened it up properly and 3rd gear was a good choice as it was unlikely to loop itself in a wheelie and yet still give me the shivers with brutal acceleration.

On the way home I filtered onto the dual carriageway and did as he said, flicked it up into 3rd gear, let the revs build and then cracked the throttle wide open….. It honestly felt like the traffic around me had just gone into reverse…..or someone in my world had just pressed fast forward…..pick your metaphor.
I struggled to keep up with the gear changes and obviously stopped feeding it gears on number 6 when the shifter stopped moving (although I was still trying!)…..i was shrieking into the helmet like a child and for a moment genuinely questioned how this could be legal….then I came to my senses and just enjoyed the ride, that bike only lasted 3 months unsurprisingly, I took a brief step back to 600cc bikes (the Kawasaki had been 750cc) in order to preserve my licence but after a confidence building 18 months on a 600cc I was then into 1000cc Japanese sportsbikes for several years.

Thankfully I don’t have one at the moment, my riding never really matured like it should have done and how I kept my licence or stayed alive i don’t know.
Some people are cut out for it and can restrain themselves and others can’t, I think the combination of most speed cameras round my way being front facing (no front plate on a bike), the ability to outrun pretty much anything you’ll commonly come across on the road and the ‘no pursuit’ policy of most police forces led me to believe I was immune from road traffic law, I genuinely couldn’t go out and not hit three digit speeds….when I sold it in order to buy our house it was like a weight had been lifted, I don’t know why I ride like that, I don’t have an addictive personality re. drink, drugs or gambling and I don’t drive a car like that either so it was genuinely concerning, I just hadn’t realised how much so until I sold it.

On our second L200 now, a 2006 high mileage example we’ve taken a gamble on based on having cheap independent garages around us, living in an agricultural area and it coming with FSH and documented cam belt change….you can’t move for them around here, it just seemed logical.
That said there does seem to be lots of Isuzus appearing more recently so maybe something in that too?
Rarely see a Hilux but they are hobbled with a premium to buy.
See some Rangers, I understand parts are cheap and they’re easy to work on.

Rarely see Navaras for reasons already mentioned, early ones had a crank shaft problem that lunched the engine and went down as far as the Micra in Nissan’s range at the time but they never admitted it as I suspect the world wide recall would have bankrupted them.
Later ones have the hilarious habit of snapping the chassis where the flat bed joins the cab.

Amoroks are too new to judge although there are a few about but then there’s also a VW garage locally so it could just be that?

Our first L200 was an older shape 2003 model, absolutely fine, gave years of service without bother and then my other half decided to drive it through bonnet deep water without a snorkel fitted and hydro locked the engine….thankfully the insurance agreed it was flood damage or we’d have been stuffed….she repeated the trick in the subsequent Audi A4 a few years later only that wasn’t terminal and her dad (retired mechanic) managed to get it running again… i can only pray she’s learnt her lesson.

igm….beautiful thread, first the left screeching against a free press and now decision making on whether someone has the vote based on weighing up one life against another.
Truly lovely stuff, and yet it’s the Tories who are the ‘nasty’ party?!
Sticking a finger in and choosing who is and isn’t entitled to vote borders on rigging and a small elite (again appointed by who?) deciding on outcomes instead of proper democracy where everyone gets to vote….if you don’t like that life expectancy has increased in recent decades and may continue to do so (leading to the assumption of Tory bias in the electorate) then move somewhere with a younger population and higher birthrate…..otherwise try to understand that a government is there to represent the electorate and if the electorate happens to be older Tory voters then that’s the government you’ll get.

You don’t have to like it but proposing restrictions like some would seem to wish lends validity to taking back the vote from other groups too….maybe the unemployed for starters, after all they’re a drain on society as you so nicely put retired people’s contribution earlier on?….how about stay at home parents?….maybe people who weren’t born in the UK?, as they’ve spent some of their productive years abroad so can’t contribute as much to the UK and once you weigh one vote against another based on this fact it becomes easy….in fact I reckon if the spiteful left really tried they could come up for a rational argument that ends in dictatorship based on weighing one life against another, an individual’s contribution to society, life expectancy etc..who needs an annoying electorate anyway?!

Ah, good….must be election time.

The only occasion it’s fine and dandy to take the mickey and wish ill of the old…..because you know, they vote Tory and so don’t matter or some such bitter nonsense spouted by people who would seem to want the vote restricted to only 16-50 yr olds…..and then only if their views are deemed ‘correct’ by some unbeknownst arbiter that decides these things.

Weird, heaven forbid these oldies should work and pay tax all their lives only to have some bellend on STW decide their vote shouldn’t matter.

Don’t get the anti dog sentiment in threads like this, it’s not their fault or something they have a choice about, it’s the owners and mostly a problem of overpopulation.
Used to live in the South East and saw this problem everywhere, have been in Wales since 2015 and can’t remember the last dog egg I saw.
I still don’t get the infatuation with London and the surrounding counties, I couldn’t wait to get out of the dirty, overcrowded, expensive dump. There is enough of the UK that if people bothered to use their imagination (and put greed to the side) then a lot more people would move away from the South and enjoy more fresh air, countryside, cheaper housing etc….trouble is people don’t want to walk away from their ‘London’ salary, despite the bulk of said salary being taken up with massive mortgage payments just to stay in the same overcrowded, busy, noisy dump as several other million idiots with the same mindset.

Just turn the middle East into a sheet of glass with a few strategically placed bombs seeing as we’re going for nuclear disarmament.
Some states get to live and continue their oil production for the West but by and large it’s a vile place with warped religious beliefs and should be treated as such.

Anybody kicking off about it in the UK should be placed in an internment camp where they can moan and debate about it there instead. Perhaps they can have access to internet forums full of like minded people or a radio show they can phone in on once a week and do some more virtue signaling over the airwaves?

Oh, if only I had that power.

Remember folks, religion has nothing to do with this.
Islam, religion of peace.

I have the Sunrace 11-42 on a single ring 10 speed setup, the LBS said it was easier to work with than similar SRAM and Shimano systems they’ve done.
I took it as a huge compliment and it rides great and shifts beautifully.
I’ll replace like with like when it comes to replacement time.

X-fusion sweep are great for the money, not far off pike performance.

This.
You won’t regret it and you don’t need the Roughcut damper (i’ve ridden both, the RL2 standard damper is fine)….mine was around £300, I’m sure if you shop around you’ll find cheaper.

What then? Leaving the EU is supposed to benefit the country.. How will leaving with no deal benefit the UK?

Because we’ll take our German based military with us and our intelligence services that the EU rely on….. Scary thought for Merkel with Putin on her doorstep.

Theres more than one way to skin a cat, like in said earlier this will get ugly…..they need our contributions, our Intel and our military.
They are strong bargaining tools.

deviant I see you fallen for the basic brexie error of scapegoating the EU for the failings of our own government.
Brexit secretary Davis said last week before MPs that he doesnt expect immigration to fall after brexit, its almost as if youve been lied too…….

Skilled migrants? Welcome here all day long, families with no skills or intention to work can be turned back please.

There are 11 net contributors to the EU budget, out of 27 countries I think that’s disgusting and that’s why I voted out…. Nothing about racism, immigration etc just the simple fact that 16 countries are a drain.

Source:
http://english.eu.dk/en/faq/faq/net_contribution

Right on cue, a dyed in the wool anti Tory, do you think they still wear top hats and kick beggars on their way into parliament every morning!?

yeah for several years jamba has been predicting that the EU would collapse any minute now, still waiting….

Credit Germany with propping it up, Merkel doesn’t want it to fail so it won’t with German billions supporting it.

@kimbers I have ready acres of posts / news articles complaining about EU subsidies to rich landowners. EU doesn’t even oay for food production it pays based upon land area even if you do nothing with it.

We now have the chance to properly support farmers and food supply in this country.

Good post, Brexit offers a chance to right these strange anomalies and start again sensibly.

And some of the posters seem desperate for the EU to fail so they can say “told you so”

The EU is failing, see Greece, see the number of countries that take out of the pot instead of being a contributor, see the population discontent and the rise of far right parties…..yeah, it’s in rude health all right.
When was the last time the auditors signed the accounts off as clean and in good order!?
Corrupt to the core.

I’ll wet myself when it works out ok.
The trouble is there’s a professional class aged somewhere between 40-50 who’ve become reliant on the state (in this case the EU) and can’t fathom how a country can function independently, it’s like a mental block for them.
This thread has now become an echo chamber for the doom mongers and positive discussion gets lost in the ‘woe is me’ bleating from those who didn’t like the result.

You’ll have to prize my diesel from my cold dead hands, I play bangernomics, my last 3 cars have been mk4 Golfs with the legendary 1.9 tdi engine, they return 50+mpg, go like stink and rack up close to 300,000 miles before major stuff becomes terminal, look nice too and the last one cost me £700 with 4 new tyres and a years MOT…..find me a petrol equivalent and I’ll gladly make the swap.

ha ha!

Edit: Oh, sorry, you meant it.

POSTED 7 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

Case in point.

From your summary, he made no sense at all. “I want a free market” “I can’t compete with cheap imports so I want protectionism” “I want what I think is a fair price not what the market sets” “but I want a free market”

Maybe I didn’t explain myself properly, he was pissed off by being told by the EU how much product he could make, then got dictated to by the big 4 supermarkets as to how much (or little) he could sell his meat to them for, if he’d been in a salaried job he’d have been on minimum wage…..he rated his chances of a higher income, increased productivity etc without the EUs common agricultural policy holding him back, i admred his attitude, young lad too…i hope he makes a go of it.

I’d like to think Brexit would limit cheap foreign labour and see British workers paid a decent wage again, then they’d be no need for food banks.
I’m an optimist where Brexit is concerned whereas some on here seemingly can’t wait for the first hiccups. Sad, very sad.

Free market, I happen to believe in it in its entirety.
The farmer made a lot of sense.

(And some of us without kids eat steak every night, when it gets boring we switch to smoked salmon but you get the drift….food is too cheap in this country, hence our colossal waste etc)

Re. Gibraltar, they like to kick up merry hell because it’s on Spanish mainland….let’s see how principled Spain is when asked to do the same with their Moroccan enclaves …if they refuse then they can swivel for Gibraltar. Double standards from them and they’re to be laughed away from the negotiating table.

Farmer on the morning news the other day, he voted to leave, his reasons were cheap EU imports and the supermarkets drive down his prices.
He wants a genuinely free unsubsidized market where he can sell his product at a fair price, couldn’t argue with that really.

Funnily enough not everyone is entitled to eat cheap mass produced steak every night, if some costs get passed onto the consumer then so be it.

A blizzard of new figures paint a picture of accelerating growth across the region, with unemployment falling to an eight-year low of 9.5pc

Thats not something i’d boast about to be honest….nearly 10% unemployment across the EU, hardly a success story….and lets not mention Greece, in fact it barely get mentioned anymore, its like the embarrassing member that gets ushered out of the room when the grown ups talk….lovely compassionate way for the other 27 states to treat a member in need….meanwhile Merkel cant get enough immigrants into her country, theres a phrase about putting your own house in order before lecturing other people, or something like that.

Re. Gibraltar, lets call Spains’s bluff and see if they’re willing to give up their Moroccon enclaves of Melilla and Cueta in exchange for Gibraltar…i think i can guess what the answer will be already.

Withdraw all British security from mainland Europe, impose WTO tariffs, watch Spanish fisherman and French farmers go apoplectic with rage and then encourage a resurgence in UK farming, job done.
No one said this was going to be pretty.

…then sit back and watch the squabbling as the remaining States argue over who will pony up the missing UK billions, this could be be comedy gold infact.

The EU average is 8.1%

…..and in the under 25s in Spain it’s closer to 20%….wouldn’t you think the collective ‘power’ and ‘intelligence’ of the near 30 member states would’ve sorted this by now!?

I have no faith in the cooperative of idiots that call themselves the EU.

mb51 – Member
Makes me laugh. Spend 5-7grand on a bike , when if you look around you could build a new full suspension for under 2g that would go up and down just as well as a 5-7g bike.

This is what I like about MTBing and why I was so keen to throw myself down suicidal looking hill sides on my 456-evo despite it being a cheap bike…..yes I could have afforded better, yes I could’ve signed up to finance and yes I could’ve wielded the credit card to keep up with the Joneses but what’s the point when it’s just a depreciating asset that will get hammered downhill.
It’s why I love bands like Solid, Radon, Rose, YT, Canyon etc…..top spec components hanging on decent frames sent straight to your door, love the direct sales model.

Explain the divorce settlement then?…. The UK didn’t sign up to a minimum period, we’re not leaving before a stipulated contract date thus incurring penalties….the EU simply wants the UK gravy train to keep running as long as possible….erm, no thanks.
Likewise stating demands and then acting surprised when the UK threatens to withdraw military support for EU member States it’s leaving.

Did the EU honestly think the UK would bend over and accept any old garbage tossed our way!?

It’s about give and take and the EU are going to have to relearn that as they’ve been busy playing at being a superstate for the last however many years in a largely unopposed manner….. They’ll also have to find someone else to bring in the UK’s former contributions, that’s not going down well at the moment either.
They’re going to have a rough ride of it too.

Indeed, the lovely EU that people seem to want to remain part of are showing a vindictive streak a mile wide and a greed I’d not yet seen from them before….lovely organisation of mature countries dealing with this situation like petulant teenagers.
Good riddance to disorganised rubbish.
They demand billions in ‘divorce settlement’ then cry foul when the UK retorts with threatening to remove UK funded defences based on EU soil.
You couldn’t make it up.

While May is at it take back British fishing waters and.screw Spain too, the negotiators are going to have to get nasty over the next 2 years, the EU has done very well out of us, no wonder they want to make it as hard as possible to leave…..imagine all those Spanish fishing boats in port with no permit to enter British waters, another riot/strike on the continent over our generosity and how we could so easily take it back…..im beginning to think the UK has a stronger hand in this than many realise….problem is the EU do realise and are playing at aggression while actually shit scared.
Seriously, whose going to step up and cover the UK’s soon to be absent contributions!?
The EU is a mess, if they’d listened and reformed as the UK asked them to time and time again over recent years it might not have come to this….the EU’s staggering arrogance is what i want to get away from.

Never had a problem with motorbikes, however MTBers out on a night ride with enough lights to power Blackpool illuminations really grip my shit…..please explain to me what the difference is between a car dazzling me with full beam headlights and some twonk on a push cycle doing the same thing?

Glass houses and all that.

It’s funny the Germans loaned Greece the money they needed to practically bankrupt themselves in order to keep buying imported goods, remind me again who needs who?
Despite the posturing from various Euro states that have had their noses put out of joint by the Brexit referendum they still need a strong economy like ours to buy their stuff, tin pot economies like Greece can’t do it anymore and as is constantly pointed out but seemingly ignored the UK is a net contributor….deep down other Euro nations must be crapping themselves about where the extra money is going to come from once the UK leaves….Portugal?, Spain with its 25% youth unemployment?…..near bankrupt Greece, maybe that bastion of honest and non corrupt Italy will cough up the missing billions!? Lol.
This is why the EU is pushing for a ‘divorce settlement’….they want the UK’s money to keep coming in even though we’re leaving. If anyone needed an example of the greedy, self serving and corrupt organisation that the EU has become its that farcical idea of seemingly compensating the remaining EU countries for daring to leave…..maybe if their economies performed better they wouldn’t be making such stupid demands.
If I was May I’d also get together with Trump and threaten to withdraw UK and US troops from Germany and leave that country open to Putins expansion plans….let’s see how much grand standing from Merkel then.
Whether the EU likes it or not the UK army trounces any of the pissy little individual EU nation armies, they need our firepower more than we need Italy’s joke of an army for example.
While I’m in belligerent mood so what if Brexit slows rampant consumerism and materialism, not a bad thing in my book….let’s also threaten WTO tariffs should the EU show it’s true petty colours and then the UK can screw French farming in the process, bedlam on the continent and a resurgence in UK farming, they are many positives to this.
If we were a drain in the EU they’d have probably cut us loose already but they know the billions we pump into the corrupt project, the security we provide at the Russian border and how our imports support continental farmers….stuff them, threaten to take it all back, no ridiculous ‘divorce’ settlement (i mean really that tells you everything you need to know about the circus that is Brussels) and lets see resurgent British agriculture, trade deals with emerging Asian, Brazilian and Indian economies without EU interference and just get on with things.
The doom mongers are becoming really boring, like the worst stuck record, I look forward to Brexit working, the EU realising they can’t impose any fines/divorce settlements on a country that isn’t part of their little club anymore and doesn’t fall under their jurisdiction and the inevitable stamping of feet that will follow.
The EU is showing its true vindictive colours at the moment and I for one can’t wait to leave.
I spent time in Australia a few years ago and felt I had more in common with those guys and girls then the French, Germans and Spanish etc over the channel.

Nope, On One stuff is cheap, my complete ready to race YT is 2k on the nose.
Bird frames are good value….ditto Ragley, Nukeproof etc….but yeah if you’re gonna limit yourself to boutique brands like Yeti I suppose things do seem expensive.

Brechfa and Nant Y Arian are both good, Nant is maybe too West for you being just outside Aberystwyth but Brechfa is vast and accessible from lots of points.

So you’d put more effort into resus of a 10yo than you would a 62yo?

Happens already and it’s not my call/policy.
At the service I work for all paed cardiac arrests are conveyed to hospital…..adults are worked on for 20mins and if they show no signs of life in that time the resus stops and the patient is ROLE’d (recognition of life extinct), relatives and police informed and we leave….the NHS is inherently ageist, again human nature, don’t shoot the messenger.

And for those concerned about my employment status, I dont work for LAS and didn’t attend the terrorist incident so don’t know what I’d have done but I’ve spoken with colleagues over the years who’ve simply gone through the motions on patients who have been wife beaters, sex offenders etc….until the job gets taken over by robots it will forever be.

Lol at the thread, the only thing wrong about Blackman’s situation was some plank filming it.
He humanely killed a mortally injured enemy instead of tying up a Medivac chopper, good call.

I work as a paramedic, just to give some of the more holier than thou, detached from reality posters on this thread an idea of what goes on in front line services:

Do you think the medics sent to treat the terrorist in London the other day put the same amount of effort into resusitating him as they would on a typical cardiac arrest call to a private residence where the ‘patient’ hasn’t just killed several people?
You’re very naive if you think police, medics, army etc don’t tailor their efforts according to the situation or the arsehole they’re treating.

That’s human nature and unless you’ve been there, well….

Was there yesterday on my Trance, the start of Sheepskull at the moment is nasty as you said, the roots are horrendous, genuinely technical DH stuff despite the small hill it’s on.

The jump line (launch pad?) was epic yesterday in the dry, corkscrew was good but the best stuff is after the access road halfway down.
It’s where GBU and the other ‘three dot’ runs start, properly steep heart in mouth drop in chutes etc, off camber root sections and multiple 12-18 inch drops to catch you out if you’re not concentrating all the way down.

I love the place, uplift is fast and always waiting at the bottom, the cafe and Wi-Fi is good, the kit shop excellent (picked up a 2.5 650b Hillbilly for £35 despite only ever seeing them online for £50)….personally I think it’s far more challenging than BPW, only Antur compares but if you’re coming from the South Antur is a pain in the arse, from Reading FoD is ideal and your Capra is perfect, just switch to flats for next time!

I love the place, ok it’s short and doesn’t have the signage of places like Antur and BPW but it’s more natural and I genuinely think it’s more of a challenge especially in the wet.
Put it this way, at BPW I often feel like a passenger riding a roller coaster, fun but gets samey quickly, at FoD I find you have to concentrate both on following the trail and not falling off….loads of off camber stuff and roots to catch you out.
Go for an aggressive front tyre if nothing else and you should have a hoot.

Brilliant.

(Love that video anyway but that’s a great job)

The usual mix of shoes, cushions, beds, toys etc but the funniest one:

We briefly lived at a place with no hard division between our property and next door, just a hedge. Our two Jack Russells could easily get through and would frequently stray into next doors garden, the people who lived there were very patient and never kicked up a fuss.
One lovely summer day our door is open and the dogs are coming and going freely, next door have their doors open and we could smell the unmistakable loveliness of a roast dinner in progress.
Unfortunately so could the dogs.
A short while later the larger of the two Jacks arrives home dragging a freshly roasted leg of lamb with him, I can only assume that while next door left the meat to rest/stand that the dog had committed the heist.
Next door never mentioned it and neither did we, like I said, they were patient people.