It’s a tough balancing act, on the one hand if you come across as too serious people don’t want to know you, but if you are frivolous you untick a lot of boxes in the dating stakes.
I think @scotroutes makes an interesting point, I’ve known friends who’ve very suddenly grown up on having kids (whereas perhaps too many people do not).

The thing is, I do actually want to be more mature in terms of finding a middle-ground – my problem is I’m either very serious/too mature or childish/juvenile jokes/desire to elicit laughter.
I’m thinking wearing a suit on a sunday is a good place to start…or even buying a suit in the first place.

I once sat next to Elton John on the 804 near London Heathrow. He’d forgotten to put his glasses on that morning and thought it was the Concorde. I didn’t want to spoil his day so left him to it.

Titanic.
The start, the middle, and the ending.

Re evidence it’s bad for you, some doctors are starting to review previous case studies where vaping could have been a factor, I expect it will take a while to review it all and I think it is sensible for people to stop vaping in the meantime; interesting article on Bloomberg about the lack of joined-up research

the argument that big tobacco is lobbying behind this seems unlikely given they’ve invested heavily in the vaping sector anyway.

A lot of people on twitter are outraged at prospective vaping bans…but it is a young industry and no one seems to be able to categorically say at this point that vaping is largely safe.

@kryton I probably hold the record for long haul madness. Each year for 3 years I’ve had to fly out to Japan and back to meet some execs in a room to sign a piece of paper then fly back again.
This year I’m hoping I can just stay at home.

Yep that is it.

Yeah the kiwis would put 20 plus points past that England performance. Very fragmented and sloppy passing but the forwards should get England to the quarter finals.
The NZ vs SA game yesterday was a completely different level of rugby, sublime.
Ireland may get a semi-final position but don’t have enough to win it. Be interesting to see if the French can put a run together.

Will keep on happening, although things like brexit are having an effect, why would you bother with a package company when you can do it all online independently. I’m surprised so many have lasted this long.

Interesting debate re trading and climate change. Some argue economic activity/growth has to remain at a certain level in order to create the investment to then go into things like renewables, e.g. a lot of this investment disappeared after the financial crisis, especially the government subsidies which were dependent on tax revenue. Also in terms of product development, to make new products like e-bikes go mainstream you tend to need a fairly affluent market to buy the products and enable the R and D revenue to then lower the costs over time and go mainstream.
The trade is bad argument also can be used in a perverse way for keeping poor countries poor as they tend to consume less.
I think however there has to be a fundamental paradigm shift away from materialism over the long term, a less is more culture/simple life culture, but depressingly I see no signs of this happening – if it is to be adopted, I fear it will be under crisis conditions of ecological and/or economic collapse.

Noisiness. Like the people near where I live, it’s as if they are allergic to quiet, especially on a sunny day like today.
So far I’ve heard:
– next door neighbour revving up his motorbike (he never uses it) for half an hour,
– two doors away neighbour decides to hit something in his garden with a big stick for an hour
– other next door neighbour decides to go out in the garden and have a shouting match with his daughter for 15 minutes
– went to a coffee shop for a break from it, two ladies walk in and have a conversation at the top of their voices about their kids for 20 minutes!
Yes, I appreciate I am turning into Victor Medrew! I’ve invested in a pair of noise cancelling headphones like the builders use on site.

My two pence worth:
Modern western societies are relatively unhappy, as they define happiness as a future state/event, e.g. buying that new car, taking that once in a lifetime trip, in other words happiness is thought of as external.
It’s a cliche but many less “developed” countries have a better attitude and do not necessarily define happiness as external, the unhappiness that does exist is mainly related to economic and political insecurity.
So modern western societies need to learn to be less materialistic, whilst poorer countries need to be supported and helped to improve their internal economic and political security.
The people who are most content in my experience practice a very simple rule, that altruistic behaviour is its own reward.
My own unhappiness is based on the fact that the solution is fairly obvious, societies need to be more generous and individuals need to be less self-obsessed, but I don’t see any leadership out there willing to adopt it; instead it looks like we are returning to the old animal instincts and reverting to tribal responses, whereas we need global joined up thinking. There is a super writer called Pitirim Sorokin who predicted pretty much all our contemporary problems many years back; he said humankind has to learn creative altruism, and even set up a centre to study creative altruism, but no-one really knows about him now.

@weeksy, an MT-10 would do nicely.
When I was recovering in hospital a month ago, there was a chap in the birth opposite me, knee shattered in 28 pieces apparently, reading a motorbike magazine.

Wow, that Triumph! In Spain too – the best of both worlds.
I shouldn’t be looking at this thread, as I’ve made numerous promises to various people I will not buy a new motorbike..but buying Yahama Tshirts off ebay doesn’t really scratch the itch.

My local bike shop had an ebike weekend, they clearly think it is the future of the industry. I think it is all good, it will bring more people into cycling especially older people, get cars off roads, I’m hoping once my knee problems are resolved I will get back on my local trails on my pedal power bike, but if the worse comes to the worse I would get an e-bike to reignite my love affair with the trails.
But this would be a sad affair personally because I’m at heart a rider who likes all aspects of riding including climbing – I love climbing short technical sections it gives me as big a buzz as descending, having to control the bike whilst pushed to your physical limit. It wouldn’t be the same for me if that was taken away.
However, if my first ever bike was an ebike – which is what will happen for alot of youngsters in the future – I’m not sure I would ever use a pedal bike, it would just seem odd in the same way someone who learns in an automatic car wouldn’t change to a manual.
I really do think it is a massive game changer in terms of mass transportation (self driving cars will revolutionise longer distance travel; scooters I’m not too sure about) and the governments/councils have to look at building the cycling infrastructure as they are already doing as mentioned above in places like the netherlands.

A lot of software development companies will knock you up a prototype for cash, but you may be better off finding a technical co-founder.
YCombinator has a useful free online programme called Startup School.
Their motto is Make something people want.

ebikes aren’t just going to transform mountain biking, they will transform transportation in general. lots of focus on self-driving cars and scooters, but ebikes will be the first major shift to electric power in terms of mass transportation.

@rayban, good points, I’m not too jaded at the moment, interesting idea – pick the country I would like to live in, then filter the internet dating accordingly!
New Zealand (an ambitious one at my age though, and probably too far away) or Ireland (although the weather is worse than here) are top of the list so far. I’m half irish so never felt completely at home in (southern) england anyhow.

I got into mountain bikes to get away from motorbikes, seems like the flow is now turning in the other direction.
It really depends on what level of motocross you are aiming for, I raced for a short period in my early 20s, it is incredibly physically taxing, back then I was fit so the recovery was ok, not sure I could race anywhere near that 19 years later as you to be both strong and very supple.

@rayban My ex was italian, and the last relationship I had was with a moldovan. I’ve also had short term relationships with women from turkey and poland.
The issue with dating non-British partners is in the event of having children, do you stay in the uk or will she want to move back to her mother country. Ive known a couple of people who married foreign women, agreed they would stay in the uk, but then that all changes when the kids come along.
I think the best time to meet someone is in your early to mid-20s, most of my friends did this, then the law of diminishing returns sets in.
I’ve completely derailed this thread, so to make up:
Pretty much everyone annoys me.

@philjunior, what app was that? Ive tried match and okcupid so far, thanks

Re internet dating, I think it really messes up the whole coupling thing. It only really works for top 20% of men in terms of attractiveness and/or status.
I used to work with someone who was admittedly in that percentile and he would have a date (sometimes more) any day of the week he wanted. He would “pump and dump” then move onto the next one…not even leaving crumbs for the poor washed up dogs like me!

Being single, and trying to find a relationship, I am incredibly confused by the world of dating.
My approach so far has been to just get to know people in real life; but this hasn’t really worked, as if I find myself liking someone I am mainly “friendzoned”. That’s fair enough, but I can’t get my head around this new thing called Dating anonymous strangers.
I’m no looker, with a leg disability, all of which I’m very honest and open about, and I’ve had some replies, agreements to meet for a coffee, and then…complete silence. It gets annoying as it is like a part-time job just sending messages to get any replies.
I think I’m going to give up!

Swinley is just a lot of fun. I used to ride there a lot when I was at my fittest but having a guide who could string the trails together made all the difference. All year round too, I think it keeps dryer than a lot of places in that neck of the woods, Aston Hill was the worst for mud IME.

That’s a shame, only consolation is the breakdown happened this side of the tunnel I guess. It’s rare for fairly new vehicles to just go bonk these days. Have you worked out a plan B as yet – I’d be tempted to just do something spur of the moment rather than go back to work, as that would be depressing.

Love raw onion, problem is it repeats on me for a good 24 hours.

That would be taking on far too much for myself, but there are people who can keep lots of plates spinning and not necessarily burn out – you could well be one of them.
Time management will be key, and iron discipline in devising and sticking to work schedules.
But your priority should be family time, everything else other than your job is optional. I hardly saw my parents growing up as they worked so hard, it’s the one thing I would change if I could go back. (not saying this is the case with you)

I noticed nobody reprimanded the political comment “That’s Tory Britain for you”, but as soon as a non-left wing political comment is posted, it is branded nauseating.

The government’s insidious politicisation of the police force, begun under New Labour, and escalated by Theresa May, has left it fundamentally unable to protect is own, whilst self-designated minority groups have effectively been granted diplomatic immunity.

The police arrested 10 people under a murder investigation, now they are calling it a “tragic incident” – I fear politics is playing a role here and that this brave officer’s family will not get the justice they deserve. I hope I’m wrong.

Re the questioning of the “I don’t get hangovers” populace, I’m not so sure they are either still drunk or liars. I have met a few people who simply do not get hangovers – at any age; and there is quite a bit of genetics research to support that they do exist, although they are not very common.
But as above, such a condition would seem to be a curse, in the same way that there is a genetic condition in which certain people don’t feel any pain, but they die young as they haven’t learnt about basic hazards, which we only learn through experiencing pain.

@Drac, alcohol has at least given us the gift of Rab C Nesbitt.

@gobuchal and @davros, yes that’s increasingly my thinking, that it is a curse overall.
A former lecturer of mine recently died – admittedly he was in his 70s – and he’d drunk three bottles of wine a day since his 20s, quite amazing he lasted so long. He also said he rarely got hangovers.

Aye age plays a massive role, I get drunk on less and the hangovers get worse, indeed when I was young I can’t recall suffering particularly unless I’d hit the top shelf. But even then, I wouldn’t be able to get up at 7am, and go do a full days work in the office without hitting a very hard wall at some point. I think there is a genetic component to hangovers.

OP, out of interest what were the previous knee surgeries?
People are having knee replacements earlier on, partial knee replacements are proving quite popular too and the results coming in from an oxford uni study into their effectiveness are very promising. A lot of people I know say they regret not having a knee replacement earlier on in life.
There’s also new technology coming along to help regrow cartilage but that may still be 10 years off from coming to market.
You are doing the right thing by staying active in the meantime. Are you using painkillers during the gym sessions?

Unsure whose having the bigger Moment, HK or TJ.

They should have windmilled in, all your Eastern Martial Arts skills would have meant nothing in the face of The Windmill.

I’d say the best time for many people was the 1980s, but a lot of the wealth created was phantom and the optimism didn’t last.
Things are still getting better but it isn’t very obvious, but some of the healthcare technology coming along has the potential to alleviate a lot of regular human suffering. There are some major things which need to change, specifically about how much we consume, our culture is too materialistic.
The main thing we lack is hope.

Both overrated except in certain defined cases, both money spinners from cuts to the nhs. Ive not been impressed by the standards of physios in general, and I’ve seen many, so I don’t know how good the certification is in the first place.

I went to a rough school and sometimes you had to have the odd fight otherwise you would get picked on by the resident psychos who’d been expelled from other schools. But such fights can get out of control. The best way to get rid of aggression is rugby I think.
Btw I think the op is being tongue in cheek!