They’re not ash, difficult to tell without the whole branch could be Beech or Elm, if the trunk of the tree has a smooth bark, the type folk carve their initials in easily then it’s beech, elm has a rough trunk.

Significant don’t you think that there’s not a dissenting voice suggesting the system as it is is just fine.

I’m not so sure about compulsory voting, that smacks of votes being paid for, although it could be argued there’s an element of that already with the Taxi services and alleged postal vote fixing by certain ethical groups, then there’s Gerrymandering and even now the boundary fixing.

I live in a hopeless constituency, we had to rely on the MP for another constituency to make our protests against the devastation the Channel Tunnel wrought on our community and Port from which it never recovered, including the removal of the Town name from signposts, our MP was a Thatcher toady wannabe called Michael Howard who didn’t want to rock the boat. My every vote has been wasted, so PR might have helped, but not the watered down hotch potch they voted out last time.

But even so, how can a population so disenfranchised, ever make itself heard without resorting to strife. Short of a total strike by everyone or refusal to pay tax unless certain terms are met, but that would take some organisation and a cohesive plan and set of demands.

ernie_lynch – Member
igrf – Member
The Mongomery is more leftywaffle

I really like how right-wingers on STW often try to turn the most into obscure issues into a left verses right thing

Leader of UKIP Nigel Farage is not a lefty, in fact he is more right wing than the Tory Party, he calls Boris Island “simply insane”. Quote :

” I wouldn’t like to travel from an airport, let alone work there, which is in the vicinity of a deadly sunken ship from World War Two”

Boris Island airport in the Thames Estuary airport is simply insane

Yes, this is to complicated to explain and I don’t think I can continue to do it in an ironic tenor so I’m going to fold, Nigel Farage is of course the total voice of reason, but sadly even he isn’t going to stop Boris and he probably sees Boris as the biggest threat to UKIP for the Tory right anyway, but you’re right, er no I didn’t mean right, I meant correct, I give in, I’ve no wish to argue with a left wing big hitter and risk a ban.

Oh dear oh dear ken

The Mongomery is more leftywaffle, it’s been there since WW2 and if it goes up Southend will get a headache and anyway Boris has probably already thought of it, or should I say the Engineers who are advising him have will have thought of it.

There are five possible locations for Boris Island some of which might not even notice Montgomery going up.

So Boris hasn’t forgotten anything, he probably doesn’t even know the Montgomery is there any more than he has a clue where his island will end up, that’s his charm, he doesn’t need to know, he just needs to be there for nice decent God fearing right wing folk to appreciate as he’s creating jobs for their children for the future. 😉

ernie_lynch – Member
he gave us Boris Bikes
Ken Livingstone gave us “Boris Bikes”.

Or perhaps you would like to credit Johnson for giving us the London Olympics too, if everything which has happened on his watch is down to him ?

Ken Who? Oh are you talking about Red Ken, isn’t he the anti semite that used to do something in that Lunnon?

Sorry it was Boris, I read it in the Sun, oh and it was Boris’s Olympics as well, the papers said so, so it must be true.

No, they love Boris, the papers that is and so does the bread knife and lots of other bread knives, who er vote and will vote when it comes to the time, lovely cuddly Boris he’ll put paid to all those horrid lefty liberal pinko’s 😆

Price point is generally a term indicating product pricing parameters for marketing reasons, in bikes £799 say might be a price point you try and hit. Some might try with a cheap frame and better components, others might try with a better quality frame and cheap components, but the key is the target price point of £799 that the market demands as the point at which it will purchase a Mountain bike with the assumption it will perform to a given standard.

Right now there is a battle to bring a well specc’d road bike in at £999 and if it could have a carbon frame at the £999 price point with a dealer margin…

Price point is also used in setting £99 rather than £100 to seem psychologically less than a three figure price point

£76.27 would not be regarded as a suitable price point.

Does that explain for you ok?

Well I hope he gets to be Tory leader, I might even vote for them again, since my party is lead by a Godless Philandering Hypocrite who reneged on almost every pledge our lot made and the other idiot Cable don’t even get me started.

At least with the Tories you used to know where you were, we voted Labour and got Mrs Blair whispering in her husbands one ear and Gordon Brown shouting in the other side the result was more disasterous for most of us than ever the Tories could have been and you really think anyone will have them back with that **** at the helm or Mrs Balls if Ed manages to shoe horn her into the leadership.

Fact is, it’s a pretty dire choice between any of them right now, so it might as well be one who makes us smile now and again and hey he gave us Boris Bikes, he rides without a Jag following behind with his papers, doesn’t care that he looks stupid (I view that as a quality along with the silly hair.) He’s been described as Churchillian, another publicity seeking narcissist in his day. I hope Boris is a wolf in sheeps clothing, his airport idea, would be ideal, keep the flight paths over the water, more jobs for North Kent and Poland, nothing you lefties can say to change my mind sorry, Boris is on the way, better get used to it. 😉

I wish there were more politicians like Boris, in that they’ve actually worked in the real world. It says a lot about society, that we’d rather be lead by boring, lying, cheating scum than someone who cheers you up, is very bright, classically educated, and has a wry wit.

Hi, I don’t feel I’ve been here long enough myself to say welcome, but welcome anyway, what do you ride and where, I wish there was a sticky thread where folk did that, so you could get to know who rides what and where.

As to how you get on, my advice, don’t go near Religious,or Political threads and if a thread gets at all interesting it’ll get closed anyway, the place is going through an enforced ‘being nice’ phase, I think they’re trying to please the ad men.

And just as you get to like someone because they’re funny or lively, they ‘disappear’ sometimes never to return or when they do, it’s a bit like…

If you really want to piss off the locals, get yourself a stand up paddle board and catch the wave before it gets to the line up..

The actual surfing bit is fun, but it doesn’t last long and the rest of the time you need to be quite fit, fit enough to paddle out through the break, fit enough to hold your breath for what can seem like ages as you go through the rinse cycle and fit enough to paddle fast enough to catch the ride, which is all about timing.

So right now? get down the swimming baths and pile in a few lengths, test yourself under water oh and upside down, do a few underwater somersaults to simulate what the waves do to you, if you can find a couple of mates to beat you up whilst your down there you’ll get the picture..

As i said, surfing is quite fun, the rest of it can be tedious and very energetic, get as fit as you can.

The Wolfpack rides out.

hora – Member
igrf, why?

Because it was the two things that did it for me. (except the calling Jedi a ‘pussy’ bit, that was ironic license)

oh and I do sell them as well just to declare an interest here er coverts that is

This is worth money.

Can’t say I’d pay money for anything Japanese and use the word classic in the same breath.

This on the other hand…

+1 for snowboarding on a good powder day, nothing beats the silence, the sun dancing rainbows in the crystals as they kiss your cheeks, you’re alone in the trees making fresh tracks in five foot powder then you burst into a clearing, a girl looks round a little lost, ‘hey G, isn’t this cool, wanna come and ride that bowl? We can hike that ridge and drop in over there….

Go and see the Jedi fella, ask for the mojo restoration ‘special,’ the one where you call him a pussy just before he leads you into his XC course.

That’ll fix it.

Better than buying a new Covert.

But buy one anyway. 😉

Give the needle a clean..

Don’t stick your helmet light on top of the helmet, One you look like a dork, Two you’ll lose it to low branches, wear it front and side universal soldier style, or like me have one on either side, main and back up, helmet light is the most important light.

Other than that enjoy, I’ve had some of my most fun rides, nightmare scenarios (careering downhill, rounding a bend and running into a sea of ‘eyes’ then getting trampled by sheep.

Having to pull the dog out of a snow covered lake just as my batteries failed, then realising I’m alone, no phone (always travel with iphone now) no lights and not entirely sure which was the quickest way out and to the pub, but saved by my back up light.

Nightriding is a total blast, took the new dog out for it’s first night ride last night, it got stuck in some mud, never a dull moment, nothing like a night ride to turn a drama into a mini crisis, I love it.

stumpy01 – Member
igrf – Google ‘Smiths Electric Vehicles’.
Purely electric, so not quite the same as you mention, but commercial electric vehicles, nonetheless.

Thanks for that link, really interesting, they’re a bit big for us, we use T4/T5 size vehicles, but it’s good to see somebody making the effort, as you can tell, i had no idea.

As to vested interest, a university study in a country predominantly financed by oil?

Obligatory ‘ooh aren’t they cute’ photo, they ain’t, they are complete b’stards and I am one of anagallis_arvenisis’s idiots (one who can put a phrase or sentence together without appearing to be drunk)and they are poorly behaved, the elder b’stard now educating the younger in new ways of b’stardness that up until now we couldn’t have imagined possible in mess creation, this very lunchtime they’d totally shredded this lovely piece of carpet Mrs iGRF had put in their beds because it is becoming cold.

So does this make electric bikes unecological, surely producing electricity from coal is on the wane anyway.

We’re just about to launch an electric bike, in conjunction with SRAM, based on a Townie, it’s quite cool, the SRAM unit is very unobtrusive and spare batteries for recharge would considerably lengthen it’s 30 mile range for commuting, I’d always thought they were knaf until I tried it, now I think they’re great.

I’d also been a great fan of electric cars, wish they had commercial vehicle options, the thought of a Van or Truck with huge batteries, solar on the roof plus a small diesel generator driven hybrid system seems excellent, they just seem to be dragging their heels with the whole electric thing.

“They” whilst I’m in full rant, should have thought about standardising batteries so they can be exchanged fully charged at fuel stations and the whole range thing goes out the window, solar could also be used to charge them at way stations.

Makes me mad all this anti electric bollox from vested interest groups.

Sorry, rant ends.

We’ve just done this, had made the unfortunate selection of a Doberman in the mistaken idea he would turn out to be an excellent trail dog – big mistake, long story cut short, came back from a long trip got ambushed into another puppy, this time a dobie cross jack russell (because they colour match and go with the furniture), so that now leaves the three of us battling it out at the foot of igrf towers food chain.
It has calmed the older dog down a bit as an upside, the downside we have another year of puppy destruction and house training.. nightmare, even better, a couple of weeks after we got them, they (the wimmen of the house) fecked off on holiday leaving the wolfpack to fend for itself..

Don’t remember and tbh I never counted, all I know is God or Karma rewarded me with 4 daughters as a reprisal for my abuse of other mens daughters.. 🙁

avdave2 – Member
Wolf Hall – brilliant

Thanks for that, I might give that a glance next, looks interesting, having dropped history at O level I seem to have an inexhaustable appetite for historical novels, hence Cornwell, he does spice them up with a bit of popularist blood, guts and shield wall action, but you do get the gist of what went on during the period.

mefty – Member
I don’t know anyone who switched to Apple then went back unless forced by work constraints.
I stopped using Apples in 1993 after 6 years use, it was very good but didn’t have the software I needed.

I could fully understand anyone giving up Apple in ’93, I guess that was the Gil Amelio period, horrible beige boxes that did nothing particularly well, not sure when it was but they did have a half decent docking laptop with a track ball and the motorola chip they were using I think was technically still ahead of whatever ’86 series pc’s were running, I can’t remember it was a long time and lots of techy changes since then, it wasn’t until the Blueberry iMac that they really turned the corner, wish I’d bought shares back then.

Another funny story as a coincidence, I recently met the former owner of computer warehouse who was the biggest Mac dealer back then, he’s just entered the bike business, has bought Velorution in London and is getting into electric bikes, small world Macusers from back then.

kennyp – Member
igrf and surfer……thanks for the replies. I’ve spoken to someone who has an i-Pad so am going to have a play about with it.

When you say it’s “not a good input device”, what exactly are you meaning

We bought her a bluetooth case/keyboard combination which sorts the input issues out, the iPad just becomes a screen, it cost about 60 quid, there are a couple of types with varying keyboards.

I’ve been a committed Mac person for thirty years, and have always found their stuff reliable, innovative and intuitive, have never been one for manuals, I don’t know anyone who switched to Apple then went back unless forced by work constraints.

jedi – Member
igf, you are too kind dude

I wasn’t calling you a ‘kid’ you’re *middle aged dude, sorry as my mrs might say, you need to start to think about taking it easy.. 😆

* they do think folk are going to live to 112 😉

37? Honestly 37 you’re still a kid, I had hair down to my shoulders at 37, we rode down mountains on hard everything, no front or rear, no room int shoebox for suspension… 37 ha kids today don’t know they’re born..
soft lads all of em 😉

messiah – Member
I calm down if Im tired or not feeling it
This^

If I’m riding well and feeling great I’m unstoppable… but there are days and rides when I know to take the easy lines and cruise.

I try not to let loose the ego and bravado when riding in a group as that’s when things can go badly wrong.

This is also good advice.

The answer to your question is never, do what I did at 63, go see that jedi fella, do it before you get married. He, within one pass will highlight silly little quirks you have and at the end of the day, your confidence will have returned.
Now, you folk are really lucky to have a guy like this coaching, you can trust me when I say over the thirty odd years I’ve been messing around the various ‘extreme’ sports as you call them these days, going back to ATB in the early ’80’s, windsurfing, snowboarding, kitesurfing etc & knowing most of the ‘guru’s and high level trainers personally, I can honestly say I’ve never come across an individual so gifted in the ability to help others, he doesn’t even realise it himself, just go there and see for yourself.

Good luck with the wedding, good age to do it, but don’t knuckle under, the secret of a long marriage is for both of you to keep an interest and continue to pursue it, even when the kids come along. One thing for me, never a year has gone by I haven’t regularly ridden my bike off road in my 27 year to date sentence, it is the one constant in my life, and to think I’d be doing the stupid stuff I’m now doing thanks to Jedi, at my age, doesn’t bear thinking about in the ‘when are you going to grow up’ discussions we inevitably have from time to time.

kennyp – Member
The iPad version of Excel is pretty much unusable to anyone other than a diehard Apple fan who would be prepared to overlook any shortcomings and perceive them as features. The Word processor is better but the tablet format is never going to be conducive to real data or text input.
Can I ask why? We’re at the stage we need to replace our household computers and are thinking of going down the Apple route, but aren’t hugely knowledgeable on the subject. We’re looking for a straightforward word processor, straightforward spreadsheet, systems that are reliable and easy to use, good for browsing the web and with good back up facilities. We’re thinking of going the whole Apple-hog ie i-Phones, i-Pad etc. Smart move or dumb?

Nothing wrong with an Apple PC or laptop, the question originally asked was about the iPad and its use as a homework device which is questionable and depends very much on the schools own IT system and demands, they tend to be PC based and for a long time didn’t acknowledge or support Macs. Nowadays the two platforms are pretty easy to swap files between Office programmes (with the exception maybe of the MS Access database which shouldn’t be a problem).
So, if you have a desktop or laptop Mac, then it would make perfect sense to go the whole hog and get ipad & iphones, since they sync together very easily and you can swap files between them all.

Kent; just got suckered into Sky broadband, big mistake.

Not that BT was much better.

We go to Waitrose, we’ve petitioned to have metal and tattoo detectors fitted at the door to keep the riff raff out, if only someone could invent a Northern Monkey detector…

MacDonalds never let the kids eat there.
RyanAir, it’s an air born cattle truck.
Lidll
Daily Express, Torygraph and Grauniad because they are just so obvious.
Meridian news because Fred Dineage is a cock.
Decathlon it’s french and they rip small brands off.
Volvo because their drivers kill more m/cyclists
Salamon because they banned snowboarding from a mountain they owned then came back to cash in later.
Crundens the greengrocers because old woman Crunden tried to get my favourite trail dog put down.

No 4 daughter got through last year using one, we bought a bluetooth keyboard case and it went O.K. but beware late night skyping with classmates.

This year however ‘they’ the school insisted on a proper PC laptop for GCSE year (she’s coming up 16 soon) there are local network based programmes she’s supposed to integrate with don’t ask me what or why they’re a bit behind the times and haven’t spotted the cloud just yet.

So, it depends I guess on how old he is, there are ‘office’ style apps, that can be swapped with a desktop and there is google drive, and iCloud, but the distraction factor of it being a gaming device can’t be ignored, nor the movie downloads, I bet she’s upstairs on it right now doing something she shouldn’t be…

nealglover – Member

I said it (sarcastically)

Hmm is that allowed now? I thought the use of excess sarcasm and irony had been banned?

Because STW was in the process of being sold, so all disruptive elements had to be eliminated, sssh conspiracy theory 😉

rudebwoy – Member
I’m a bit disappointed that you didn’t use “fish fingerer”.
Or is that too much?
have you ever seen skate for sale ?

you will know why certain parts are removed

We once had a guy apply for a job as a skate(board) rep, who had been traumatised by ‘discovering’ a workmate sexually abusing a skate.

Couldn’t fail to hire him with that qualification.

nealglover – Member
So your mate who “worked in the personal protection business” told you Diana was going to be killed then ?

So it must have been pretty common knowledge among people who worked in that industry at the time I would imagine.

And yet nobody credible has ever come forward with any Actual Evidence ?

They are all so tight lipped and reliable that “they” could just let everyone in the trade know, safe in the knowledge that it would never get out.

(Even though your mate just decided to let it slip a few weeks beforehand, and then later said “no mate, I never said anything like that” when he suddenly remembered he shouldn’t have really said anything ?)

Seems plausible enough

I don’t recall saying it was plausible, I said I had my doubts. We’re talking conspiracy theory here, if it were fact we wouldn’t be discussing it, it is a theory one can’t help subscribing to given that prior warning, followed by the controversy of the delay in hospitalisation, the missing white punto and death of witnesses, the flash in the tunnel, the premature embalming, the high concentration of carbon monoxide in the chauffeurs blood sample etc etc..
Which makes the death by ‘accident’ actually more implausible, but hey, who cares, it’s just a conspiracy theory.