I don't know if this is down to local dealer policy or not or whether because you booked online?

I have had both VW and Audi dealers just give me the keys and let me do my own thing (not Demo cars obviously for road tax reasons). Never been asked for any Id, or driving license and certainly not insurance.

I do everything that hilldodger recommends bar pinging the cables a couple of times.

However, I find it a bit hit and miss in that some times it seems to work perfectly and everything shifts smoothly or it is perfectly fine bar one shift and no amount of fiddling will sort it out.

I find front mechs are a pain without a bike stand or some other method to get the BB near eye level.

I find it hard to believe that the bank would act simply on a received fax. Doesn't sound like the most auditable of transactions. Not an expert mind you.

Could you not find another counsellor who can accommodate you after work?

If you think a few sessions may help then this may give you a little bit of space to see if things improve before needing to raise the issue with work.

I had some small Kefs a long time ago (Coda 7's) they were a good all rounder.

Acoustic Energy AE109s could be had s/h for less than £100. They were a very fine floor stander speaker in their day for their price.

My favourite at work is a Bacon Sarnie – but I think you may be better off with the nuts

I'm not liking this piece and quiet around Heathrow one little bit – but then I work for BA 🙁

Coffeeking – I agree the question is very badly worded. The profit margin is most definitely 4/19 whereas the profit as a percentage of gross turnover is 4/23. Understanding the frame of reference is very important which is highlighted as you say correctly by your fuel example.

I have just has a colleague rejoin my team full time 5 days a week after working 4 days a week for several months. He said how please he was to have a 20% pay rise. I told him he had been diddled and should have been given a 25% pay rise.

I would agree that the second question is badly worded, but in my mind the answer is either 4/19 as per my original post or 4/15.

Einstein may have proved that you can not travel faster than the speed of light but to the very best of my knowledge he never proved you could not make more than 100% profit.

If I buy something for X (my cost price), add an amount Y to provide a consumer selling price of X+Y, then other peoples posts above give profit of Y/(X+Y). This is always less than 1 or 100% and is only asymtopic (sp?) to 1 or 100% as Y approaches infinity. So it would be impossible to ever make more than 100% profit!

This is obviously B*****ks

i make the answer to the second question 4/19 he makes 4p profit for every 19p invested. I will not be going into partnership with any of you guys 😆

I found mine popped out easily by using the QR itself just off centre. Mine had been in for over 3 years.

First paragraph sums me up pretty well and although I have worked in IT for close on 20 years I have very little knowledge of it.

Lime and soda for me.

Like others above I am not teetotal but very rarely have a drink, perhaps 2-3 times a year and even then very little.

I didn't have any specific reasons for giving up per se. Got to an age when it wasn't any fun to go out midweek and have few with work the next day, and at weekends I would rather be out riding than out late and feeling a little bit rough the next day. So there was very little opportunity to drink.

In my experience once the first couple of months were out of the way I never even really thought about having a drink again. I also find that being able to drive wherever I want to be when out socializing it a great benefit.

In terms of health benefits they are probably very subtle. I didn't lose weight and I can't say I was any fitter as a result. Although now if I have a single small bottle of beer 330ml at 5% then I do not sleep that well and can tell I have had drink the following morning.

The FFWD 4R clinchers have an RRP of £900 at the moment. I have a pair that I have barely used, very stiff and do my back in. I much prefer my Kysrium SL Premiums or whatever they are call.

Yeah sorry didn't check the green/red stock box – Doh…

Merlin cycles are selling the 2009 Fulcrum racing 1 for £499.

Not ridden since Xmas. I have had virus after virus each hitting my chest badly and triggering my Asthma. Depressed as **** as well and no matter how many pill I pop nothing is helping a great deal.

I have pretty much got to the point now where I can barely be bothered about biking anymore- serious loss of biking mojo. I even enquired about joining a Golf club last weekend before I need to buy larger trousers!

Jellybaby – I am not a GP so do not take what I have written below as gospel etc and I would suggest that you see your GP again.

Symbicort and Seretide are similar medications, both combine two drugs a corticosteroid to reduce inflamation in the airways and a long acting but slow onset bronchodilator that helps keep the airways relaxed which helps prevent brochoconstriction (reversible narrowing of the airway) say during exercise.

They are both intended for long term regular use to maximise their benefit. Studies have shown that maximal benefits are only realised after use of approaching a year! But in practice it seems more like a few weeks. You will/should notice the effects of the bronchodilator if you just take it when you need it (e.g before exercise) but you will not get any benefit from the steroid. This is consistent with your GP saying just use it before exercise.

However, if you feel your Asthma is not sufficiently controlled then this suggests you need to be taking an inhaled steroid on a regular basis – but you should go back to your GP and ask for their advice . What he/she did in December makes sense. He/she – probably hit you with a strong dose to clear things up and suggested you cut down to see what happened. That said, Asthma is generally a chronic condition.

Re the side effects -the sore throat/croaky voice and shakes should/will resolve themselves in time. When I started on Seretide I felt I was losing my voice and it lasted longer than I expected (given my experiences of other meds) but it did clear up. The shakes should also go away in time – although if they have lasted a few weeks then it is worth discussing this with your GP, it is nothing to worry about, it is a common side effective of the long acting bronchdilator. I think I have read Symbicort is worse that Seretide in this respect but can't be 100% sure about this.

So, you need to go back to your GP and discuss how you feel you are getting on only taking Symbicort topically (as needed) so they can decide the best course of action.

As i said in my earlier post, if you are using the Symbicort before riding to prevent EIA (Exercise Induced Asthma) then you need to be taking it about 1 hour before. BTW the long acting bronchodilator in Symbicort is faster acting than that in Seretide, so an hour should be OK.

FWIW I take two puff of ventolin before exercise, since most of my riding is in the morning, then this is on top of my two puff of Seretide and I am still alive!

Trust this help. Oh and go and see your GP 😆

carbon337 – Member
Seritide 1 puff * twice daily has kept me at bay for the last five or so years. As soon as I stop using it for a few days I'm back on the blue. I get effected by strong smells, nail varnish or anything like that. Does anyone else using seritide have problems with weight gain? I'm on a heavy weight loss plan at the moment but can't seem to shift body fat.

I have also been using Seretide for the last 5 years – don't believe it has any bearing on my weight. Oral steroids will result in weight gain if used over a long period (i.e weeks or months rather than a course for a few days).

I moved to the Big Apple in my early 30's as a single bloke following a bad relationship. Didn't know a soul when I went but I did know that there was a fairly large exPat community where I was working.

Lucrative opportunity? What have you to lose?

I agree with Mrs Flash – it sounds like it could be Depression to me. Frustration, anger, irritability, indecisiveness are all common symptoms of Depression. Some more common in men than women.

For example, low serotonin in men is associated with anger even violence, in women tearfulness etc.

I found this yesterday which I found gave perhaps the most comprehensive description of depression symptoms I have seen.

Depression Symptoms

bikewhisperer – Member
BA code-share with Qantas so you could end up on either. My (Aussie) ex and I had nothing but hassle from Qantas.. Late flights (2x broken planes!), shit communication, high date change fees, arsey check-in staff, broken in-flight entertainment……

Pedant Warning

It is not true that flying with one carrier who codeshares with another then you could end up on either.

Minimum disclosure requirements around codeshare services dictate that the operating carrier (whose metal), Equipment type (ie. aircraft type) and the number of stops must be disclosed to the customer at the point of sale. So you would know whose metal and product you were buying and about to experience.

OP. My personal recommendation would be BA First Class – but not if your travel dates coincide with mine 😆

Loans are unsecured, if we are talking "high street loans", mortgages or not. This may or may not be a factor. I tend to avoid adding to the mortgage unless it is to be invested in the property.

Jellybaby you don't mention whether or not you are taking Ventolin (salbutamol – short acting bronchodilator) before you exercise as well as taking your combination Symbicort turbohaler twice a day.

Symbicort and Seretide are pretty similar in that both contain a steroid (preventer) and long acting bronchodilator (protector).

Even taking these combination inhalers I would recommend taking ventolin before exercise. They say 10 mins before but I would recommend a longer 20 mins or so. It reaches it peak effectiveness after about an hour.

The long acting bronchodilators in seretide and symbicort take nearer to an hour or more before they act. Long acting bronchodilators can be used for exercise induced asthma but the recommendation is to take them 2 hours before which it not always that practical.

Also what is all this with inhaled steroids as a performance enhancer. Even high dosages of inhaled steroids are tiny amounts and even then have very little systemic effects in adults, or have you noticed your balls shrinking 😆

crikey – Member
Hmmmm.
I'm gonna say I'm not 100% convinced that you can rate wheels in terms of sluggishness so accurately…
I've got a few pairs of wheels and I would say 10 psi makes more difference than a wheelset.
If you can tell a difference, fair enough, but I'm not so sure…

I guess these things are subjective and it all comes down to your reference point. The majority of my road miles have been on either Kysrium Elites and then Kysrium ES, Premium SLs etc. Pretty much exclusively on Michelin tyres Kyrilion or Pro 2 depending on season.

Coming at it from a different perspective the only circa £200 wheelset I have been remotely happy with are the Fulcrum Racing 5's. I have had hand built Ultegra on Open Pro, Askium, Equipe and the Eastons. Never got on with any of them all "soft, slow, flex, sluggish", call it what you want.

I am pretty confident that my experiences were not down to tyre pressures – unless different wheels with the same tyre demand different pressures. Also run my pressures at the top end for my weight?

I briefly had a pair of the Kyrium Equipes and thought they were awful. I would say they were the worst road wheels I have ever owned. They were by far the most sluggish wheels I have ever ridden on. They seemed to ride like a much heavier wheelset IMO. I moved them on pretty quickly.

I have owned the Elites and thought they were very good wheels – but they were only £250 when I bought them. As 2tyred says mine also gave up the ghost after a couple of hard winters. But I had owned them from new and ridden circa 18k km on them so that seemed fair enough.

I also had a pair on the Easton Vista SLs which were probably the equivalent of the Easton EA50 SLs they were not that much better than the Equipes IMO. Perhaps to say they were sluggish would be a little unfair but they were a soft ride. Having said that I would have kept them other than the combination of Easton Rims and Michelin tyres was not a great one. I struggled with getting tyres on and off like no other rim.

If your heart is set on factory built have to you looked at the Fulcrum Racing 5's. IMO they ride like a much higher end wheelset. I never had any longevity issues but they were not getting thrashed everyday.

TandemJeremy – Member
Union busting? Letter from acedemics in the Guardian.

I gave up half way through the first paragraph since their conclusion is based on a single statement that is not true.

I used to a long time ago. I did my MSc at Lancaster following a Maths degree. Courses with good reputations in the South are Southampton and Sussex.

If no relevant experience then I would say that an MSc in OR or a closely related discipline is pretty much expected, although I don't really understand why unless courses have changed significantly in what they cover.

Most of the people I worked with moved onto management positions some at the most senior levels in all parts of the business.

Didn't see any triples on yesterday's £1m bike ride on the telly 😆

Too late now – but the latest theory is not to eat on the flight and perhaps for several hours before. The idea is to starve yourself to the point of real hunger. Us "rich westerners" never really get hungry because we eat regularly. Real hunger kicks something off in our bodies and gets our normal circadian cycles back into action.

I was diagnosed about 10 years ago and have been taking 100mcg a day since then. From what I recall I started to feel a lot better pretty quickly, but it was a long time ago, so not 100% sure.

I have never experienced any side effects from the Levothyroxine that I am aware of and I have never had any problems resulting from missing an odd dose etc.

For me free prescriptions are a huge benefit!

Bought both albums this last week. Much prefer the first for it simplicity and freshness.

Suicide pact – that should test whether she's really into you!

I would not answer the question and reply by saying "… to be discussed at interview …"

Soops – as LabWormy stated both his/hers and my algebraic solution are correct – they will both give the same answer.

I can see it is a little confusing as one solution is taking the SQRT of 2/3 of something and another the SQRT of 3/2 of something.

My previous post attempted to explain the difference in the approaches by graphical illustration. If the rectangle has sides of length a and b respectively, where b is greater than a.

Then my approach is equivalent to shrinking the rectangle to a square with sides of length a. This would require a reduction in area by two thirds (2/3) in the OPs example. Whereas LabWormy approach is equivalent to extending the rectangle to create a square with sides of length b. This would require an increase in area of one and a half (3/2).

As LabWormy stated several posts ago. I solved for the shorter side a; whereas he/she solved for the longer side b.

You say "tomato I say tomato"

LabWormy – Member
GJP and I are saying the same thing except he has "a" as the short side and I have "a" as the the long side.

I think we are both correct (but I would say that).

We are both correct. It is quite easy to conceptualize this by simply drawing the rectangle and adding a line in the appropriate place to create a square. Clearly then the length of the short side is equal to the SQRT of two thirds of the area. I am thinking "within the box"

LabWormy, however to conceptualize his/her approach you need to extend the rectangle to make a square and then clearly the length of the long side is equal to the SQRT of one and a half times of the area. LabWormy is thinking "out of the box" 😆

I use the word "clearly" to mean it should be obvious to someone of average intelligence! 😆

See you don't really need any algebra – easiest explained with pictures.

a * b = C the Area
b = 3/2 * a

Thus, a * 3/2 *a = C
and a*a = 2/3*C

Thus a = SQRT(2/3*C)

I thought all Look forks now only worked with integrated headsets and have done for a few years. Easton forks are compatible work with both I believe.

Enigma told me that Reynolds no longer made the Ouzo pro – but that was their favored fork.