ooo, i know about this one

we made the punge and use bumgenius one size reusable nappies. Can’t say we did extensive research but the magazines seem to the like them and the STW equivalent for mums and babies do too. Theyv’e got a polyester outer and a felt-like liner with a pouch for the towelling insert. They come with two sizes of liner and adjust with prestuds to cope with a growing child. We’ve got about 18 and you need that many so that you only wash them every 3 days.

If you hunt around you can get them for about £13-14 as i recall. And also some local authorities will give you a non means tested free cheque of about £40 to claim against the cost of the nappies.

Upsides to real nappies is they hold more solids in my opinion, but don’t hide smells as well.

When darling daughter fills one you do have to shake out the contents into the toilet and store them in a bucket which means you get a bit more intimate with your babies poo than with disposables but since having a a child my squeamish threshold has gone way up. Once you get into a routine of washing (and tumbledrying)every 3rd night you dont notice too much and they are much nicer things to use (and lets face it every mountain biker covets nice things).

The niceness of them has been the key thing for us. With the need to flush the contents away and the need to wash them if you want to be green they certainly not a free lunch when it comes to environmental impact (but water and electricity are two things you can source more sustainably if you really want to whereas disposables can only go to landfill) but they are so much nicer to use as an object. Like using a real mountainbike for a ride as opposed to a 60 quid supermaket special.

that is all.

The industrial revolution but not the boring stuff you learn at school about spinning jennies but the fact that whole cities like manchester appeared in 30 years flat, were the prototypes of the shanty towns of the third world today, where in living memory people had seen life expectancy quality of life decline, where our whole society of consumerism to fill an emotional and spiritual hole took root, and (hard to believe the way history and politics panned out subsequently across the world) where the now sleepy centre-right Britain was a hot bed of communism and workers movements.

good question and having ridden fixed a bit I still don’t know the answer.

i picked up a cheap fixed wheel to stick on an old racer to dip my toe in the water and was deeply underwhelmed. Its like singlespeed really. Like someone further up said, no zen experience, just single speed but perhaps slightly easier to get over the deadspot at the top of the cranks when going up a hill. Oh and possibly the odd lovely brief moment when you see something up ahead, say red light, and instead of reaching for the brake you just pedal slower and drift to a halt.

Track racing looks fun, but i think despite rather than because its fixed.

ha ha, i sometimes wonder if a only cycle to manage my eating habit.

i have made bread in the past by hand but it tends to be a winter-sunday-nothing-better-to-do activity rather something i want to do every other day when spar is calling.