Enter the sport/open cat and just do it for fun rather than trying to win your age cat. As a mid pack rider in both CX and XC I’m only there to make up the numbers, enjoy myself and act a temporary unpredictable moving obstacle to the leaders..

This. I’m very much a back of the pack rider in the Gorrick races, to me it is a fun day out which provides motivation to push myself harder than I would otherwise. But you can race and not worry about the results, just take pride in your public service of giving the “middle of the pack” riders someone to beat.

Half seriously, try letting yourself go for a year and get really fat. Lower your standards. It makes it much easier to enjoy riding for the benefit it brings you, rather than chasing a target which becomes unattainable as you age.

I have a very new laptop and still had to install a driver. I have a lifeline dongle from the crc sale and the Garmin driver worked great.

Surely an online banking download would be a much easier way to do this anyway?

Has anyone found a pod recycler/crusher thing that works will for the XXL pods? I bought the Dualit EcoPress but it’s only meant for regular-sized pods and not the XXL ones – it does them, not doesn’t always extract all (or even most) of the coffee and occasionally buggers it up completely.

I had exactly the same problem, I found that stabbing an “x” into the flat bit of the big pod with a knife will help it burst when pushed inside out, and then it works pretty well.

I also get the analogy between EVs and white goods. EVs are brilliant in a lot of ways and make loads of sense, but they are boring.

It’s like steam trains. No sensible train operator would choose to build a steam train when electric trains exist, but watching a steam train go past is inherently enchanting, unlike a a generic electric train.

I stopped watching regularly long ago but enjoyed this one and am glad they had one last adventure.

Done as a couple, not with kids. You’ll want to rent a 4×4 and drive/camp. It will be an amazing adventure, but the distances are vast and the roads are mostly unpaved. It will be a lot of time crammed in a car if you want to cover Etosha-Swakopmund-Sossusvlei-Luderitz.

Why Namibia? Other places in Africa are less sparse and might make for easier travelling. There are some incredible landscapes, but a whole lot of sand in between.

Got this and it is great, thanks for the PSA.

Question from a pod machine newbie. What is the difference between pods which are recommended for ristretto/espresso/lungo? Is it just blends or roasts which someone deems more suitable for a given drink type? Ground size?

If I make a lungo from a ristretto pod, will I die? Will it be disgusting? Will I not notice?

To answer the OP, I would also abolish stamp duty, which just seems silly (why should moving house be taxed?) but replace it with some form of significant annual tax related to property size which can be adjusted by number of people living there. So a family of 4 people living in a 2 bed house pay peanuts, a couple who own 3 large houses pay loads. There would be some form of credit/rebate against this for people who recently paid stamp duty. I haven’t figured out how rented property would be treated.

because they still want to encourage people to save for their retirement so they’re not dependent on the government during their latter years.

If someone has enough income that they are currently able to put away £60k (gross) per year, surely it is on them if they blow it all and end up living off the state pension in old age? Why would it matter if they did?

Why do people with that sort of income need tax breaks to encourage them to save?

I don’t think that’s likely – £20k is not a huge amount to save in a pension, especially when it’s taxed on the way out 20k in is the equivilent of £30k per annum out – which is less than a lot of final salary pensions (ie its less than a teacher might expect to get, if they work a full career full time)

It isn’t a huge amount, but it feels like enough. Why should the government continue to offer large tax breaks beyond that point? If you can afford to save more for retirement then you are still welcome to do so by sticking it in savings/investments, but you don’t need to keep getting the tax break on the extra money.

Unfortunately final salary pensions are a bit of an irrelevant benchmark nowadays.

Is that what happens for most people though? Given that most don’t pay higher rate tax.

Fair point. I guess I am living in the past where the state pension was way below the personal allowance and it allowed pension income to be largely tax-free for most. It felt fair if the rate you save on pension contributions is 20% higher than what you will pay on later income (so a highly simplistic world where higher rate taxpayers generally retire and pay standard rate on pensions, standard rate taxpayers retire on pensions below personal allowance).

Pensions are generally a bit of a mess all around really. Not how anyone would set things up if starting from scratch.

Things like pension tax reform seem reasonable though – a huge number of people are saving 40% on their contributions for future income that will probably be taxed at 20%, which seems a little unfair.

Surely that isn’t the unfair bit? If people only saved 20% tax on their contributions, but expect to pay 20% when they receive the pension as income, then a pension becomes nearly pointless? Might as well not have a pension, take the money, pay the tax and stick it into savings*.

The unfair thing is that the government incentivises high earners to put away a whopping £60k per year, which is a massive and unnecessary amount. I think the increase from 40k to 60k last year was just a bodge to keep doctors working, but I expect and would agree with the annual pension allowance being slashed to say £20k.

*Yes ok there is a small difference in that the individual gets the investment returns on the 20%

I have a bugbear about our sneering at the USA and their gun laws in the name of “freedom” coupled with very tenuous mumbling about being occasionally useful for safety. We scoff at the huge number of pointless deaths over there resulting directly to availability of guns.

The usual arguments in favour of not having mandatory speed limiters for cars are “freedom” and very tenuous mumbling about being occasionally useful for safety. We seem to accept road deaths as just one of those things that happen.

(I realise that plenty of car accidents are caused by reasons other than speeding, and that in good conditions, motorway speed limits should be increased)

If it is anything like my work scheme, you get an extra £25 too. So I always get the minimum voucher of £100 each year, which gives me £125 of credit to spend in the January sales for commuting gear and it only cost me £60.

From the BBC:

On Wednesday evening, Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Honcharenko said the Ukrainian army had established control over the Sudzha gas hub – a major gas facility involved in the transit of natural gas from Russia to the EU via Ukraine, which has continued despite the war. It is the only point of entry for Russian gas into the EU.

I expect Ukraine wouldn’t want to upset Europe by blowing it up, but maybe that’s a bargaining chip.

Time to fix an energy tariff?

A 5 year old golf which has never given you a problem so far is more likely to be reliable than a brand new car.

It has proven itself to not be a lemon, and still has masses of life left before age will lead to unreliability.

Lovely to see Andy Murray jumping about with joy, even if it is only round 1, definite clip for the montage reel there.

Worst. Stealth ad. Ever. You need to work on sales technique.

I did once have a bike which mysteriously weighed more than the sum of it’s parts.

Not standard equipment for rowing, but the speed differences between manufacturers is small and there is no alignment with particular nations as far as I know (unlike UK track cycling). If you are good enough to race at the Olympics, you’ll have a queue of marketing guys keen to lend you a boat.

Can we have another go at knighting Danny Boyle? This is making me realise what a good job he did.

at least the smurf was kept dry under the klosh

You can even see the mood change here. We were a proper bunch of sneering miserable gits until the rings got forged and flew into the air during page 4 and we decided it was alright.

Then by page 5 once the queen had jumped out the helicopter it was the best thing ever.

Danny Boyle risking embarrassing the nation… the opening ceremony thread

I totally agree with the nostalgia of 2012, when despite all the negativity in the run up, the whole country was won over after the opening ceremony and it seemed like a “where were you when” moment. Honestly feels like the peak of UK national pride during my lifetime, downhill since.

For a nice recap, I enjoy Charlie Brooker’s summary starting from 26:40 here:

It’s absolutely horrifying. To say that Trump has the wind in his sails is an enormous understatement, he is running away with it. I don’t see how anyone, let alone Biden has a chance given the momentum Trump has built up.

What is the mood in Blue states? Are they not basically panicking?

Anything that diminishes the overbearing global dominance and influence of the United States is a good thing imo.

This is really interesting, I see where you are coming from but commentators like Peter Zeihan make a strong case for the opposite, the USA currently does an enormous amount to facilitate free trade around the world, and if it becomes more isolationist then it would hurt every else (very dependent) a lot more than it would hurt the USA (who are self-sufficient in food, energy, and basically most things).

Pretty clear cut, TBH. If you stay there will be trouble, but if you leave it will be double.

Might be a much smaller pool of people willing to replace Biden now too. Even if a miracle occurs and they win, it won’t be a comfortable existence.

Are we the better team?

I think we might be the better team.

This is strange.

The UK is an outlier now in a western world drifting further and further right.

We were perhaps an early mover but really not an outlier any more, if anything we have drifted less than most.

Anyone else get a slight feeling that Alaistair Campbell and Nadine Dorries dont like each other?

Channel 4 need to do that thing where they turn off the mics of people who are not suppoosed to be talking.

Or just tell Nadine to get out.

10:10pm and Mad Nad is already kicking off

I’m on channel 4, they sure have a broad spectrum of pundits across good, bad and ugly. Might even get an in-studio punch up with a bit of luck.

To be fair, the last 20 mins has been decent from England. And the goal was a fun one.

Chilli

Frisky

Muffin

Trixie

Indy

Judo

Wendy

And today will be just a little bit shorter as we head back towards winter

True, but take some comfort in the fact that sunset is still getting later for a couple of days yet…

I’d be mega dubious. What is her reason for wanting to help in a child center? If she wants to do good for the world, it would likely be better for her to got to Bali and spend money having fun and try to put the equivalent money into the local economy. Maybe donate a little to a good cause so they can pay a local to work at the child center.

Wealthy untrained westerners walking into kids lives and then out again a few weeks later doesn’t really help anyone much, no matter how well intentioned.

It looks nice, but isn’t it just an alloy version of the carbon Epic? (Which can also be had with sids for £2.7k)

What you describe is similar to something that happens to me regularly if head out in cold weather in the morning and ride straight up a big hill without a warm up first. I get dizzy and nauseous and see stars and have to stop and sit down for a while. Remember it happening since I was a teenager when I first started doing heavy exercise. All is fine if I start off slow and take my time building up intensity. Is that normal? Could it be that?

Actually, Obama might be a good shout if you are thinking famous rather than being very current at this specific moment. First black president, very active on the world stage, very recognisable. Not in the news much these days but his profile has stuck.