probably my favourite holiday ever was about 20 years ago when me and the now wife flew to Chicago, had 4 days there, got on Amtrak train down to Memphis for a few days then continued on that train track to New Orleans – great, leisurely way to trundle through nearly 1000 miles , from memory it was about 20 hours on train (Memphis was about half way) – the trains there are far more comfortable than what you get in UK

At the time there were no direct flights back to UK from New Orleans so we got a connecting flight to Cleveland and spent a night there (utter dump, best avoided)

If I was to do trip again would probably hire a car and go back via Texas (e.g. Houston, Austin, Dallas) but that might be too much for even 3 weeks

I didn’t really rate Washington DC when I visited on a separate holiday, a day would have sufficed there.

used a couple of cheap 2nd hand perspex fish tanks off ebay to display some of my daughter’s  lego, but you will struggle to get the size you actually need

This might be good  for sellers but not so good for buyers -e.g. I spot a bargain on ebay and someone on here flags it up to people who wouldn’t have seen it otherwise and thus they drive the price up or buy it themselves

leftfield suggestion – Chislehurst Caves, 30mins on train from London Bridge, fascinating history

and yes, from my username you’ll probably guess I’m a fan of The Hold Steady and will be at the first 2 nights at Electric Ballroom

After getting a loft conversion 18 months ago that massively reduced our storage space up there to a small alcove along the front has resolved most of our hoarding issues, although still have more to get rid of. My number one bugbear is Christmas and Halloween decorations, the latter should disappear now the kids are older but there are 9 large storage boxes of xmas decs, usually only about half the contents get displayed each year but my wife refuses to condense these and often sneakily picks up more every year, it takes up 50% of our remaining loft alcove storage.

stopped buying/listening/going to see Morrissey when the penny finally dropped with me that he really was an indefensible bigoted Little Englander.

Used to love PJ Harvey but my interest started to wane when she stopped playing guitar and wailing like a banshee and decided she was some kind of real “artist” but her pro-fox hunting stance really put me off.

we have Japanese toilets at work, they are always the most sought after of cubicles but they seem to be forever needing to be repaired so put me off getting one at home

ordered a pair of 29” V3s tuesday night and delivered on friday morning by DPD. Absolute bargain

it’s a Tory ploy to get Extinction Rebellion to stop disrupting the M25 and London area and relocate them all to Cumbria.

See that’s where you’ve gone wrong, you’re digging a pond when you’re supposed to kinda dig the awkward silences

very good Northwind, a Hold Steady lyric for those not familiar with their work

Digging a pond – during first lockdown I replaced a sandpit I made for the kids with a small pond, decided to go bigger and have a 15ft x 8ft x 4ft deep pond in same location in corner of garden. Had to cut down a 25ft holly tree so getting rid of the roots of that was a nightmare, we also back onto woodland and I keep hitting other roots, the soil is really stoney too and is a very solid crust after about 2 feet. This is all being done by hand as can’t get mechanical digger into garden. Massively underestimated how much soil I’d need to get rid of too so size and depth of planned pond is getting smaller by the day. Hoping to get it all dug before winter sets in, only able to do about half a day every weekend and then complete it in early spring, hopefully by which time the Thames Water hosepipe ban will be over. Surprised there isn’t gym equipment that replicates effort and motions of digging as it is bloody hard work

near Green Park/St James
Red Lion in Crown Passage

Golden Lion on King St

Blue Posts on Bennet St

Chequers on Duke St (where you will often see Stephen Fry walk past as he lives near it)

Soho

Old Coffee House on Beak St

tried anything like this? remember a lad at school had to use something similar to stop him biting his nails

https://www.superdrug.com/Make-Up/Nails/Nail-Care/Nail-Strengthener/Superdrug-Anti-Biting-Nail-Coat/p/807059?singleResultSearchPage=true

we’ve stayed at Oasis Sa Tanca apartments in Cala Llonga several times, is a bar/restaurant on ground floor and several others in walking distance – really nice part of island. Family friendly but not rammed with kids as most of apartments are one bedroomed

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g642208-d555867-Reviews-Apartmentos_Oasis_Sa_Tanca-Santa_Eulalia_del_Rio_Ibiza_Balearic_Islands.html

top 5 in no particular order

The Queen is Dead
Barbarism begins at home
what difference does it make
How soon is now
Please please please let me get what I want

multiple storage places was way to go for me

Asgard – 3 most expensive bikes
8×12 shed – 2 cheap bikes, wife and kids bikes & gardening stuff
Keter plastic storage box for kids scooters, footballs etc

Plain ones from Gap website – often on offer, surprisingly wash and last longer than M&S ones

been a few times but not mountain biking – last time was 2017 at Eurocamp near Bardolino which was excellent, kids were 5 and 7, nice pool and right on the lake front, about a mile along path to Bardolino itself, hired a bike which I used to pootle up and down lake and to pick up shopping at big supermarket there. Lake Garda is a great place to go

https://www.eurocamp.co.uk/campsites/lakegarda/il036-serenella/ataglance.html

looks really good for £699, if I didn’t have a rigid Inbred 29er already I’d get one.

Train Wifi – always crap

was in the area today and walked past it on way to Charing Cross with my 10 year old daughter, lots of utter bellends, crowd seemed to be about 70% female and several groups of them on the fringes of the protest were hurling abuse at passersby wearing masks for being “sheep c*nts”, one with a megaphone was even chanting it at a petrified elderly couple – I asked a group of Police nearby whether they deemed that acceptable but they just shrugged their shoulders. Hopefully the next variant just kills morons like these

I collect classic Space Lego from when I was a kid in late 1970s/early 1980s, my kids like Harry Potter and Star Wars lego and it’s not often I see many new lego releases that I really want for myself until I saw the Seinfeld Lego, hopefully they will sell the minifigures separately.

https://www.lego.com/en-gb/product/seinfeld-21328?ef_id=EAIaIQobChMIov-m4Y758QIVj77tCh0j6gGeEAAYASAAEgLWe_D_BwE:G:s&s_kwcid=AL!933!3!534674155678!p!!g!!lego%20seinfeld&cmp=KAC-INI-GOOGEU-GO-GB-EN-RE-PS-BUY-CREATE-IDEAS-SHOP-BP-BM-RN-SEINFELD

binners
Full Member

Just be grateful nobody has used the ‘S’ word yet 😉

Solskjær?

If you aren’t in a rush I’d look at getting the Sonder Camino Ti instead, yes it’s a few hundred dearer (or much cheaper than a Tempest if you have a “cycle to work” scheme as Planet X don’t take them) but the Sonder Camino gets a 10 year guarantee whilst Planet X only offer 2 years, and fixing Ti frames is not cheap.

Look after my bills are a waste of space, as it seems are the companies that they select from and you can also get better deals from other companies not signed up to Look after my bills.
My last switch in Aug 2020 got messed up and they refused to assist when People’s Energy carried on billing me for gas despite emailing me to acknowledge I had moved to Avro, they aren’t in any hurry to repay me of my overpayment of approx £500 despite numerous emails and harassing them on social media and they provide no way of contacting them by phone. They always ignored my meter readings and just took a grossly inflated estimate by direct debit monthly.

Avro were similarly ignoring estimates but have finally agreed to return the overpayment of approx £400 and reduce the direct debit estimated amount.

It was all a great deal simpler before the Tories privatised the energy market

Schwalbe Marathon are a good choice but I preferred Schwalbe Century which were lighter, faster rolling and had no issues with punctures and only £12.99 each

https://www.wiggle.co.uk/schwalbe-century-road-tyre-k-guard?lang=en&curr=GBP&dest=1&sku=105916464&kpid=105916464&utm_source=google&utm_term=&utm_campaign=Shopping+-+All+Products&utm_medium=base&gclid=EAIaIQobChMInMup–6-7wIViJ7tCh2JSg6iEAQYASABEgJbLfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

other than reading, writing and basic maths so much useless rubbish gets taught at secondary schools that will be no use to vast majority of people, would be handy if they taught far more useful stuff that most people will at some point need to know, like mortgages, pensions, wiring a plug, changing a fuse, fixing a puncture on a car etc etc

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever -Sideways to New Italy
Alex Henry Foster and the Long Shadows – Windows In The Sky
Eels – Earth To Dora
Matt Berninger – Serpentine Prison
Doves – Universal Want
Bob Mould – Blue Hearts
Wire – Mind Hive
Wire- 10:20

I saw a bloke with what appeared to be a cube of foam approx 30cm x30cm with a hole on it that he put on the end of his handlebars to lean against his campervan, so it’s not just the OP who is anal about these things

https://www.universalcycles.com/images//products/large/103419.jpg

Gorilla Monsoon in Root Beer

Orbea MX are worth a look – we’ve had 2 in different sizes for my daughters and can’t fault them for quality or value

Also had a Dawes Lottie which was much nicer than the ones Halfords sell for half the price that appear to be made of lead and cheese

https://www.bikebasesouthend.co.uk/index.php?CATEGORY=4&SUB=4&THISPAGE=1&RADIOSORT=4&PICFILE=1852&STKNR=1852&STRH=2856&ORDN=2632&RNZ=816542

Impressed by Specialized Hotrock we had too.

It will be a steel or Titanium Gravel bike, can’t make my mind up at moment

These ones that just hang from top of doors

https://www.tredz.co.uk/.Gear-Up-Off-The-Door-Single-Bike-Vertical-Rack_35533.htm

singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/bbc-to-make-jimmy-savile-drama/#post-11430774

is Jimmy Savile bikes cockney rhyming slang for Gravel bikes?

New Surly Straggler – might opt for this if I can just get a frameset in “Chlorine Blue” as not keen on SRAM APEX and Avid BB7s

https://surlybikes.com/bikes/straggler

I’m in a similar dilemma, currently torn between a Surly Straggler, Genesis Croix de Fer or a titanium Planet X Tempest. Understand that a new Surly Straggler is about to be announced so waiting for that

thanks @jameso – seems a gap in the market for a steel Arkose type bike to add to the Pinnacle range, if you could design,produce and have this in the stores by about April next year that would be great, no pressure ;-)

@jameso – is Evans likely to stock the Croix de Fer?

with the cycle to work scheme I’d probably have gone for the Croix De Fer 30, without it I might downgrade it to a CDF 20, hoping to see them in the flesh first.

Really like Genesis steel bikes, well thought out and functional, love my Genesis High Latitude

I don’t live in one but I agonised over whether to buy one or not as that house was perfect in every other respect .. then I thought to myself “if it’s causing me to think twice, how difficult will it be to sell if I decide to move“ and I also discovered several others buyers had been dissuaded by the underpinning and it had been on the market for far longer than estate agent had told us.