Today I’m mainly barefoot, trying to toughen up my man feet. Yesterday I disgraced myself by being forced to mince in pain on the shingle beach where once upon a time I could walk with impunity.

Blokes car.

wwaswas – Member
I’m booked in for next Friday with the 2nd Brighton lot. Looking forward to it but a bit nervous too.

What bike to be jedi’d on – 29er hardtail or FS Fat Bike?

Take something with 26″ wheels then act really surprised when you see his 650b setup, then tut tut and say how surprised you were he’s sold out. 😉

So without TV I look to the trusty press for coverage..

“America’s Cup 2017: Sir David Ainslie and Great Britain endure mixed bag on first day” – Daily Express

Who followed it with “Sir David Ainslie’s crew made a strong statement in their pursuit of the America’s Cup today in their first race..”

You couldn’t write it never mind make it up, no doubt another product of meejia studies at Bognor University for the terminally retarded.

I think it’s pathetic the BBC are not showing it. Can’t find 115 either.

Get out on the water, the sea preferably, in a boat, board, kayak, SUP doesn’t matter which, as far from shore as you dare.

Dog rider here also, they’re the most reliable company you can keep. Every day, twice a day, constant biking companions, two of them.

Valuable bikes that could be seized to pay the debt, hah. Pivot Cycles, Bernard just a bit dozy.

chakaping – Member
The Beatles- ground breaking and changed music
The Rolling Stones- nice white middle class lads doing black music
True to an extent, but the Stones wrote much better tunes.

Maybe a bit later but they initially broke with covers and remember the Beatles pre dated the stones by a couple of years and in the sixties a year was a long time. The Beatles were playing Hamburg before the Stones were even formed. Love me Do hit the charts in 62, the year the Stones got together.
After the initial success of “Beatlemania” in 1963 record companies began clamouring for Groups and it became easier for all those that followed to get a deal. So, love em or hate them or as most of us did enjoy them as background music, don’t deny what they did for others, they were key.

Can you drive after the op, given it’s only the one eye?

Have a little problem, turns out the bread knife is away the day of the appointment, so getting back might be an issue, will I be like Boris the Blade from Snatch with the hood over his head, ‘reaching & stepping’ his way into the car park?

DezB – Member
Sergeant Pepper’s… which was a predictable, of-its-time,

Well, I was 3 years old, so can’t comment on that with the same authority, but that goes against everything I’ve ever read about it.

Well I was nineteen and can tell you, predictable was the last thing you could have said, I’d honestly like whoever said that to give an example of some other 1967 album that in any way was similar.

Junkyard – lazarus
Some of us know quite a lot about music, and still consider the Beatles to have been purveyors of throw-away pop
yet here we are 50 years after they split still discussing the throw away pop* with the musically informed

The thing is, it’s easy to use terms like ‘throw away pop’ now fifty years on, but at the time we were a naive and largely unsophisticated audience, I had no idea why for instance Norwegian wood should be especially good, but those lyrics, at that time… Sorry, not throw away at all. True when I look back it was all in black and white, colour didn’t come until Sgt Pepper, but by then they had already been so prolific and cheered up very austere times and set the bar way above chuck away pop.

funkmasterp – Member
The thing that irks me about the Beatles is that they appear to get credit for an entire decade (and more) of music. There were other bands from the same period that were as good as and in some cases much better than the Beatles. Units sold does not equate to greatness, it’s just a sign of popularity and making your music accessible to the widest possible audience. It’s not the way all artists choose to do it though.

If you were ‘there’ they were indeed a bit of a girlie group and blokes needed to be ‘cool’ and like other edgy bands, The Stones, Cream, The Who, Jimmy Hendrix they all had followings, but the truth is as musicians which all these guys were, they all had mutual respect. The Beatles were pretty much gone by the seventies when things really got into gear, but their work with lots of other musicians (George Harrison and Ravi Shankar springs immediately to mind) their production and studio work with George Martin, just laid the ground for everything to come. Brian Wilson Pet Sounds would never have come to pass without the Beatles, they just spurred everyone else on to greater effort.
It was such an amazing period to live through and just a reminder something you youngsters tend to forget, my Original Copy of Sgt Pepper (I’ve still got it) is MONO, stereo only really arrived in 67-68 I’ll never forget the moment I first heard the different sounds coming from separate speakers…

I don’t get why Roxy Music are not in the Rock n Roll Hall of fame, now they were a group who were innovative and changed things.

Oh yeah I’m based in Kent.

Gods own County, near which town? 😉

I don’t get putting dog poo in a bag anywhere other than in towns and suburbs, what was wrong with good old stick and flick, under the hedge, hedges are natures dustbin, designed exactly with dog poo disposal in mind.

nickc – Member
Are you anywhere near Knottingly. I might be able to arrange for you to come and see some Ops.

They are pretty routine operations that take about 20 mins all told.

Thanks for the offer, but I really couldn’t, I have to leave the room when Holby City comes on, I’m such a wuss when it comes to watching stuff like that and now the thought of the needles going into my eyeball.. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhh there I said it, someone is going to stick needles in my eyeball.Ugh I know I’m going to die.

esselgruntfuttock – Member
I had my left eye done about 5 years ago. It’s a pain free doddle of an op that takes about 2 minutes.
Just a pity I still can’t see bog all through it without glasses.

They’re telling me I’ve got a choice, I can go for proper long distance vision, but I’d have to wear reading glasses, or I can have this lense which will mimic my normal myopic prescription since I’ve worn glasses all my adult life it’ll be a bit weird, not taking them off to read things as I had been doing up until recently when just before Christmas the sight in my right eye deteriorated at every point of focus and I couldn’t see much close up with the other. It’s a ball ache riding and a nightmare sailing (I race dinghies these days and can’t see the marks) so I guess I have to go through with it but can’t decide what to do about the prescription if it’ll end up as good as everyone says it will. Or I become Jack Sparrow.

There’s an Open Source version of photoshop but I can’t for the life of me remember what it’s called, I’ve got it here somewhere, maybe I’ll be back with an Edit.

Found it, GIMP it’s called.

Where in the South East?

Agree on trying to keep up a routine, I ‘retired’ a few years ago and after two weeks nearly went mental, so rekindled a business to keep an interest in something to continue the use of the grey matter (and to fend off SWMBO desire to turn me into a lacky).

An Orange Gringo from the early nineties, surely a collectors item now.

Various items of now ‘unfashionable ‘brown’ furniture, Victorian Diningg Table and Chairs, Baby Grand Piano, Georgian Silver Candlesticks all worth lots once upon a time, now, nothing.

Yes, but tend to do it whilst still in my wetsuit in communal showers. 😉

It’s an incredibly interesting discussion this, watching dogmatic views, with no credibility given to the inquiring mind of the young. I grew up and was exposed continually to all that, I also experienced some very dubious teachings of Physics which I doubted at the time, as I doubted everything as a youngster. My view was then how could anything written by folk who believed the flat earth began and ended around the Mediterranean know anything?

That Bible is as clear as day to anyone with a brain a political device with which to control society and vest power within whoever is decreed by it’s “God” to be the ruler, we are even today controlled by that belief, our armed forces fight for God Queen and country, most of them know, like politics, government, and the law that it is bullshit.
It is ironic however that no such similar discussion dare take place over the validity of the Koran, presumably because to do so invites death, or worse a ban.

Faith without evidence, why is that different from say Einsteins belief in molecules when at the time there was no evidence he must have had faith that there were in order to continue seeking proof.

The belief that Light contains Photons which must contain matter, I reason is not true, it’s my opinion, I cannot prove it, doesn’t stop me thinking about it and maybe one day like my general views on the composition of light we’ll know the answer to, then the Museums of what used to be believed will educate kids in much the same way that Creationist museums are what some other people used to believe, No doubt there will be kids visiting them,who will know by instinct and reason, that it’s all bollox, just the same as there are people who believe 650bs are fine on mountain bikes. The truth is it takes all sorts, and not many of them have a clue, because by and large as a species we are pretty stupid, hypocritical, manipulative and need constant re-assurance that we’re better now than we were then, whilst others use that as a means with which to rule and become empowered.

There endeth the ‘we should live and let live’ sermon and as for ‘belief’ there are only two things to believe in, The Force and Karma both of which can be proved over a lifetime of experience.

I don’t get why anyone would want to live and work in that Lunnon (been there today horrible noisy crowded place).

Went up to that Lunnon today, to move a daughter, she took us to what must be the noisiest restaurant I think I’ve ever been in, mostly loads of women of multiple languages chattering and having to speak louder and louder, lots of them talking over each other. I have exactly the same problem as the OP I expect it’s surfers ear, lots of us that spend hours on the water have it, so I’ve never done much about it, but today it was almost painful so I downloaded this noise app to my phone, it registered 94 decibels.
Then I checked the noise in the workplace recommendations, as you do when you’re bored and used to work in a business with machinery and they would come round and check, the result, their staff are at risk at that level, 2 hours is the recommended limit it seems. I insisted we eat up get the bill and leave once I’d managed to make myself heard. Handy little free app, can recommend it, not a lot they can do I guess at the restaurant, Lunnon’s like that horrid noisy place full up with, well just about everyone I guess all trying to be heard over the others, steer clear is my best advice and lip read when necessary.

matt_outandabout – Member
Have you any idea just how much tax we’ve contributed in our lives?

Have you an idea how much it costs to run NHS, schools, police, defence, transport, social care, housing, garden bridges etc?
Judging by the fact we have torn through all our gas and oil, sold off every utility and resource we could, borrowed way more than we could comfortably afford and *still* need to cut back hard, we spent a shed load more than your taxes.

I regurgitate this for all who would make this a generation ‘war against pensioners’ and in a way I understand those who have never experienced politicians other than Thatcher,Blair,Brown, Cameron etc would think, but the fact is we generated the money, it was your generation that squandered it. Our generation don’t squander money, we don’t waste it the way it is these days.

It wasn’t us that decided to pay nearly 2500 council officials over £150,000, it wasn’t us that decided to privatise the NHS with private finance initiatives that would cost it a fortune for ever after, it wasn’t us that decided to introduce student debt to University Graduates rather than have them do the jobs in the summer fruit picking that all these immigrants you moan about do, the point is, you all have so much more that needs paying for and it is your turn to step up to the plate and get taxed at the level we were in the sixties, no, I don’t suppose you even remember at what level that was, all our poor pop stars had to leave the country, google the Beatles ‘Taxman’ recording of the Heath Wilson years, three day weeks, rubbish piled high, shitty cars, shitty industrial relations, it’s in your history books now, but we had to live with it all, so lets have less of the soak the boomers, you lot haven’t even begun to experience the sort of ‘austerity’ that we endured.

Run it through the mains? You get these two plugs that you just plug twisted pair into and the ethernet runs across them, no wires, no holes, my Mrs wouldn’t let me rig a network but this seems to work just fine.

I’ve got a couple of these one next to the broadband router the other connected to a hub, it works fine. I have another pair running sky in a bedroom.

As long as they are on the same ring main it works just like a cat five ethernet network, easy, no holes, not a lot of money.

deadlydarcy – Member
Well, you don’t sound at all grumpy about everything.

Anyway, how are you planning to vote?

Well there’s a thing, at the start of all this for the 2nd timein my life, I was going to vote fascist Tory and hate myself for it, but I had my reasons, but now, no I just won’t vote, I’m in one of those seats where my vote will make no difference anyway, it never has, not since the hey days of the Lib Dems when they very nearly got in locally, but in truth, ‘grumpy’ yeah I guess that sums it up perfectly it’s an age thing, you get that way, as everything you’re used to crumbles away.

igm – Member
Well if I’m honest, I do feel it’s about time the baby boomers started paying their way.

We still are,fifty years after starting our first job, pensions taxed to the hilt, those of us lucky to have a pension that is, after that bastard Brown raided the pension pot, then you lot **** up the banking system and left us to earn nothing from our savings.

Have you any idea just how much tax we’ve contributed in our lives?It would make your eyes water, the only thing that gives me a warm feeling as Crown green beckons, is that with any luck the mess you eighties Thatchers generation greed is good mob have created may cause you to have to work into your nineties to clear the debt burden this screwed up mess of a country is lumbered with.

BruceWee – Member
Do you need reminding what we baby boomers went through for the likes of you?
You mean like a fully funded NHS, free university education, the prospect of actually getting on the property ladder, stable employment…

Life must have been hell.

Our NHS didn’t have computers by the side of every bed and several on each ward and we didn’t have cures for everything our excesses have brought about. Nor did we all eat ourselves into clinical obesity such that special Ambulances had to be built with cranes to haul us in and out of our houses, after the state pays for the wall to be removed.
We didn’t get to go to University that was for the Rich, we had to get a job at mill, walking 15 miles each way, nor were we lucky enough to have a bike to get on. We had to pay for us pencils and protractors no whip around amongst rich parents to upgrade the white boards and have a tablet for every student.

We had ration books until we were 8 and rickets, polio, TB and all manner of bullets to dodge, our mums and dads had just fought and lots had died in a war. There were no credit cards, we had to save every penny for the 10% deposit we had to have for a house it took five years to save for. Then we had no colour tellys until we were twenty and no stereo, no phones, no sky, no plasma telly none of the other must have shit you all seem to think you’re entitled to AND a new gaff.

And our footballers had to have proper jobs to have to work in even after they won the world cup.

You lot have no idea and yes sign me up for that suicide booth, not for one moment would I want to ask anything off you and your state.

binners – Member
I just want to sit and luxuriate in the howls of outrage from the true blue, Brexit voting boomers that a tory… A TORY leader hasn’t suitably genuflected at their triple-locked, ring-fenced final salary alter

Didn’t realise you drank in the Brit, my local, are you that beardy 29er riding hipster cracking on about ‘Remaining’ we had to tell to piss off and pointed at our sign?

Do you need reminding what we baby boomers went through for the likes of you? 😉

If ever a party could throw an election this is how to do it. Almost their entire base is made up of better off Pensioners, many who are independent types not wanting to call on the state for anything and many might even prefer a trip to Switzerland than care at the hands of the state. Certainly they won’t want anything they might wish to hand down to their children depleted by that state, this is a very stupid move.

Certainly not a price I want to pay just to have her handle Brexit negotiations.

spacemonkey – Member
It’s Guy Ritchie. What does one expect.

Great entertainment and a supply of one liners that will last me for the next ten years.

The Lib Dems are an irrelevance, I wasted votes on them all my life not realising they were just a haven for PPE graduates looking for a job, with no convictions other than getting on the political gravy train, culminating in that total waste of space Clegg.

As to could they? Unlikely and if any of the thinking I hear, if they re ran the referendum, 68% now want out as a result of all the threats and coercion coming from Brussels.

So no, my opinion is not, they are just a wasted vote more now than ever before.

avdave2 – Member
Years and years of talking to dishonest,evasive,corrupt, self serving lying bastards could make anyone a little sceptical, even sneering.

This.

Age does tend to bring with it more intolerance, but there does seem to be a pervasive attitude amongst the wannabe Paxman modern day journos, of borderline rudeness just for the sake of it.

mahalo – Member
what is the crack with em? we hired a couple on holiday last year and was bored after 5 minutes! but later on the week we saw a paddle board race and those guys were rapido!!

It’s a marmite sport, in truth if you can do something else well, don’t bother, but if you have no other sport that gets you on the water, then why not? They are what you put in, they have some value in waves, particularly small waves that short boarders wouldn’t look at and then it’s an easy entry into surfing. They pick up a wave further out which pisses folk in the line up off so steer clear of proper surfers who will practise localism if you drop in on them, particularly on a SUP. As an access to canals and waterways they are similar to kayaks except you stand up and paddle with just one end which seems stupid to me if you’re going down canals and rivers why not just sit and use both ends, it’s a fad and affectation of the moment imv They exercise core muscles so have some relevance as such, racers also tend to be super fit, many ex windsurfers and windsurfing businesses and brands pretty much run the industry and there is currently a battle between various organisation for the role and gravy train of governing body.

thisisnotaspoon – Member
Mostly i’d just be up and down the Thames and just fancy a change from the kayak
If you already have a kayak and a way of transporting it, and likely to use it a fair amount, then may as well get a solid touring/racing board?

My only experence is watching the the SUP’ers at the Isle of Sheppy race, and I thought the sailors had a hard time of it!

Ha I had to actually go and talk to the guy that won that one year, I told him I thought he was mental but well done anyway, they left at oh christ hundred hours and finished after us and we’d taken a fair few hours getting beasted as the wind blew up.

gavtheoldskater – Member
proper surfing
i would’nt call it ‘proper’ surfing, more ‘assisted’.

100% agree, I was trying to be polite about it, the most pointless pursuit ever invented is my considered opinion.

Other than compulsorily sending folk to fat camp or charging them to use the NHS, I can’t really see an answer and anyway you’d have all sorts of issues, a pal of mine got told technically he was obese. I swear to God he was barely 85 kgs at 5’11” height, he was flabbergasted, spent ages considering it, then went back to the surgery and questioned it once more, it turned out the stupid nurse had made an error, but think of the consequences had that involved a mandatory penalty. The irony he’d gone to the doctors for referral for depression counselling.

A UK company Red Paddle is the market leader in iSUPs they are quite complex internally with drop stitching connecting the deck to the base which enables the inflation to create a near closed cell effect of universal stiffness. Pricing is denoted by the number of drop stitch rows (you can just make these out on the decks some (cheaper) are just linear and the more expensive have a cross pattern, the more expensive have triple layer outer and side protection and will last longer and permit greater inflation pressure which provides stiffness. Fanatic are quite good as are RRD and other former windsurfing brands.

Inflatables are convenient to store and transport but for purist use like proper surfing in waves, or performance racing etc then solid boards are better and usually more expensive.

Hope this helps