So TJ, what do you do if someone you’re riding with falls off and injures themselves? Give them a pep talk about how non-dangerous biking is whilst pointing out the bone poking out through their calf is just a scratch?

Anyway – it doesn’t really matter. I only checked the thread to see if someone had drowned whilst riding Swinley.

Pootergeist?

They’ve started turning more easily now. I guess they were just a bit stiff.

Hmmmm, I guess I just need to push harder with the allen key. I was reluctant to force it.

Thanks 🙂

Ernie – you’re referring to the word, not using the word. Hence the use of quotes.

I have a current card – how do I now make a p appear next to my name?

There is enough misery in the world without plying on further misery with the incorrect application of your and you’re.

You should have put “your” and “you’re” in quotes.

I blame modern technology for all of these problems. The younger generation are encouraged to use short cuts in communication by SMS, Twitter etc.

Bring back the cane in school!

Crikey – you’re thinking of the Sly Stallone remake surely?

The original is Caine classic. Top watch.

Whilst Mr Molgrips suggestion is very tempting. I’d just Like to suggest gravy. Nothing fancy. Just Bisto gravy. Thick.

Decree Absolute

I once ran through a dead deer on my bike (it was hiding under some bracken). It was very rotten and some of it went in my mouth.

I was quite sick. And it made my bike smell. And the deer was still dead.

Does that help TSY?

If the mortgage is in her name you need to prove you contributed to the repayments for the house.

If you can’t then it’s a civil case and hope for the best – BUT – it can be very expensive to bring a claim against someone for this. If you’ve no proof you ever contributed to the mortgage then the likelihood of winning is slim.

If you’re looking for a small amount (under 20k) I’d not bother as the costs could easily be this high.

Speak from experience. F-witted ex sued me for half the equity on MY house when I threw her out. I ended up settling as the amount she was after was about half what the potential costs would have been to defend the case. I reckon I’d probably have won – just wanted to get rid of her and not take the chance.

Go see a solicitor (but remember they’ll be eager to earn money so may not advise you what is best for you…..).

Why did the baker have brown hands?

Becuase he needed a pooh…..

Thanks for the encouragement.

You didn’t ask for encouragement…..

Playing a ukulele well isn’t easy – this is where people go wrong. Stalking some bird on a platform is easy enough, but anything that makes the most of these instruments isn’t.

Have a gander at this :-

There’s a barebones tab version of this on ukulelehunt.com that is a nice place to start with something more than just strumming.

It’s easier to learn the guitar first – it’s quite hard going from Ukelele as a first instrument to guitar.

Ukelelehunt.com has some good specific tab.

Other than that, do what most people do. Buy one, try and play “somewhere over the rainbow”, get bored, sell it.

AllPosters do them.

Or, John Lewis (ahem) are selling re-printed old vinyl sleeves and frames (although the frames are pretty pricey). You even get the CD thrown in.

Would you actually want the people in TreeMagnets picture making strategic decisions about how this country will operate?

We need educated people running the shop. And, it’s a FACT of life, educated people tend to do better than non-educated people – and, as such, tend to have more of the trappings of middle/upper class.

The thought of letting a bunch of leisure wear, scratch card and fag addicts run the country when they seemingly need Jeremy Kyle to tell them how to talk to their own children is worrying.

Personally – I don’t think the working class (or below) should even be allowed to vote.

Manic Miner has to be one of the ALL time great games.

Many, many an hour was spent trying to finish that sodding game.

I wouldn’t mind having a go at something like this. Does anyone have any other details? I’ve had a look on the web but can’t seem to find anything that actually describes the event……

I’m guessing it’s ride down something in a timed manner and then have a set amount of time to transition either back up the hill or off to another downwards section? Is it just a one day race?

Good luck! And heal fast.

I had lots of knee problems when I was younger (less old….). I always came back riding better and stronger to be honest. I think my legs quite liked having a few months rest.

Slightly off topic but I’ve two tales of woe:-

First one was when I worked in a small unit in Milton Keynes. It was a posh office, staffed by scientists and doctors. Went off to the gents one day and found, in the only trap, a log the size of a telegraph pole, neatly encrusted with sweetcorn. It really was massive.

It was so disturbing I went and got another colleague to come and look at it just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

Between us we worked out whos it must have been, and it’s fair to say we could not look that individual in the eye again.

Second one was riding in the Alps. I was pottering down the GR5 towards Les Linderets and stopped after a rocky outcrop. I just fancied a breather and to admire the view.

After a few seconds I smell something bad and look around. There’s a reet fat lass taking a dump on the side of the trail – obscured by the rocks I’d just ridden past.

I said hello, sniggered, and road off.

Whose money was it?

If it was all yours than I’d say be honest and tell her you’d rather spend it on a bike.

If you jointly saved it your a selfish knob who will shortly be wishing he’d never been born.

If it was all (or even mainly) hers – can I have your bike?

Waiting on a black maxle too 🙁

I’ve also been reliably informed it’ll be this week though 🙂

Looks good to me. I’ve always been a fan of Ikea 🙂

I think you made that up!

I may have done 🙄

Sainsburys is “ok” to be honest – although the one in Welwyn Garden City seems to be staffed entirely by gods special people…….

I know that shop well Terry.

I stopped buying food in there after finally getting fed up of finding drool on all of my bakery goods.

(I inherited all my pants, unfortunately mostly from my Auntie Vi)

You wear your dead Aunts unmentionables?

Well, I guess the argument for generationally gifted items was made earlier. Make sure you buff up the gusset with Mr Sheen once a week and they’ll be perfect for your offspring in the years to come.

we have several items of furniture from charity shops

CANCEL ALL MY MEETINGS

Phil is now my counselling priority.

Tell me all about it Phil, don’t hold back the tears……

Molgrips – I’m not looking down on you at all. I do understand that people have different budgets. It’s just the argument that Ikea is somehow the essence of style that annoys me.

As for cushions – where do I begin. I have no issue in saying I’m a grown man – yet I faff constantly over fabrics for throw cushions and pillows on beds and sofas.

Middle age has really released my inner campness.

As for Laura Ashley – let’s not go there…….

You’re aversion and colourful descriptions of your fellow humans is distasteful.

Thank you 🙂

I do try.

So you’ve been to more than one then! (placeS = plural)

Yes – I was dragged into the Wembley one years ago by my fat and vacuous ex (there’s a funny anecdote about that visit involving some flowers and a brothel….). And then I was dragged into the Milton Keynes one last year by my current OH who wanted to buy candles.

Neither (plural) were good experiences.

Why would anyone want to go to such ghastly placeS[/u] to buy awful furniture?

Rewski – leave my mother out of this!

You have neighbours? Oh you poor soul

Thank you SharkBait – it’s nice that someone understands.

When the leaves are off the trees it gets worse – in the far distance I can see a house that has a VAN parked outside!!!!!! (and NO, it’s not a JL van)

No my grandad made it with mahogany and other wood he nicked from the shipyard where he was a fitter . One of the doors on the sideboard is branded with “door 3 deck c” my stool used to be a door on the RMS Aquitania.

You’re celebrating his theiving ways!

My word – you don’t deserve Ikea………

…and you are one of them by buying into the John Lewis [life]style

Style and Style Statements are two different things……

My house is painted in Farrow and Ball, Estate finish paints. That is style.

My neighbours house is painted in B&Q cheap slop and has nasty, huge patterned wall-paper on one wall in each room. That is a style statement.

Total cost would be about the same – but mine will still look good in five years when this trend for statements dies out.

Imagine being as ugly as Eamon Holmes (and I’m sure some of you can) and deciding to sew testicles to your forehead just so you’d be noticed. This is what you’re doing to your homes when you put tat in them.

Did I mention at one point I had a lounge with concrete floor, DFS sofas and Ti bike and … a skip on the driveway. How cool does that make me

Do you live in Bracknell? The most DFSish of all the towns in England?

Our furniture has been in the family for three generations.

Did they buy it from JL?

It is as if they don’t realise that it can just be bought ‘off the shelf’ from John Lewis’s

But at least it would be a nice shelf……..

Wait, someone is getting all high horsey because they bought something from John Lewis? Isn’t that a bit like being smug because your Mondeo is a Ghia?

My Mondeo is a Ghia!

I’ve got an idea – if I bring my collection of plastic and Ti bikes inside my home, you know to sit amongst my DFS sofas, does it make it ‘tasteful’ ?

Oh my word, No.

Bikes belong in the man cave – not the house. Although I wouldn’t put it past Carol Smiley to suggest such a thing on Changing Rooms.

But you do make a fair point.

People are, increasingly, prone to making design statements in their houses – things like feature walls. Ikea love this thinking as it allows them to sell utterly tasteless rubbish.

Sticking a bike to your wall – or just standing it next to your lovely DFS sofa (I do hope it’s a leatherette reclining, corner unit, with a lifespan one year less than the credit agreement you’ve not started paying off yet?) is a similar statement.

The people of this land are becoming more and more obsessed with style statements – its just a terrible shame that so few have real style. We are slowly turning into a mobile home park in the states……

(well, when I say we – I mean you lot really).

You may want to look up the word investment, I doubt JL office furniture is going to make you much money in the future.

Don’t play with words you don’t understand yourself……

If I choose, just for example, to pay £200 for a bookshelf from JL instead of £50 from Ikea, knowing that my JL bookcase will be solidly made, last longer, still look good in ten years, and have been designed with enough thought to ensure it won’t go out of style, then I may long term save money – by not constantly changing my furniture to either suit my mood, fashion, or simply becuase its now broken.

The latter part of that is the Ikea model. Sell cheap knowing you’ll be back for more in a few years.

In the end you may as well have ponied up the money and brought something nicer to begin with.