Salient point there Dr J. When were these statues put there? I was under the impression that many were put up during the civil rights era, the same period in which the confederate flag saw a resurgence. Are people under the impression that these statues existed in place since the Civil war?

In order to understand what the statues and flag might stand for it’s important to note both when and why they are deployed. They were [and are] deployed to demonstrate a resistance to equal rights legislation.

Was the Civil war truly won and lost? or was it resolved in the form of an armistice. Seeing the confederate flag and swastika together seems the most natural of alliances, for surely the confederacy was the Nazism of it’s time.

One way of looking at environmental determinism is to identify the random nature in which events unfold, [are you listening Mr. Taleb] The falsifiable, deterministic component in relation to human evolution is randomness, shit happens, often unexpectedly. Many other factors may or may not be relevant but we can not say for certain that they are uniquely causal.

If we begin to go down the avenue of determinism, however noble our intentions, [though I fail myself to see any nobility in it] the facts become trimmed to suit the hypothesis. We are bound to find nothing conclusive and likely, inevitably precipitate the stirring up of ill founded and ill informed prejudice.

Whenever we see a writer embarking on such determinism we should first ask why? The supporting information can never be anything more than anecdotal, even if in itself the information may be factually correct. A model is created that cannot be tested, unless you’re prepared to replicate the social and political ‘experiments’ of the 1930’s. We know where that gets us and that’s why some of us are uneasy with the way political and intellectual discourse is going at the moment.

If your an established writer pursuing these avenues and then further disseminate condensed versions of your ideas through the university of twitter you’re indulging in the scholarly equivalent of putting your hand in a fire to see at what temperature skin burns, [Skin in the game Mr Taleb?] You’ve proved that skin can be burnt but what’s the f**king point? It’s a no win game unless your only concern is for self aggrandisement. Wether you are seeking to aggravate or not, aggravation will be the outcome, both for you and the society in which you live.

These things are best left to counterfactual history, where they can remain in the abstract and be discussed relatively, where possible outcomes can be floated rather than present conditions being definitively ascribed to selective facts . determinism is determined to become political science, which is like voodoo but worse.

Ascribing left wing or right wing propaganda to everything is a fruitless task. Everything is nuanced, we know this and always knew this, we can take this into account and form our own conclusions rather than rush to one side or the other. That’s why cross referencing of media is good, read the guardian and the telegraph and try not to agree with either, just test their arguments against what you know and remember that everyone’s wrong most of the time.

It’s not about being either right or wrong, The danger is that of being not even wrong.

Her main abuser has turned out to be Nicholas Nassim Taleb, the Author of ‘The Black Swan’, which predicted the collapse of Freddie Mac / Fanny Mae which precipitated the global financial crash of 2007. For that he gets bragging rights [not that he likes to brag!] but he’s been dining out on it for far too long.

He’s friend and mentor to David Cameron and his ilk. If you read Taleb’s “Anti Fragile’ you’ll see the idealogical roots of the austerity program foisted upon us by the Condervatives.

He’s an interesting writer, heavily influenced by Karl Popper, John Gray, Mandlebrot and Umberto Eco, all good stuff. Twitter is proving to be his downfall though, he’s incredibly vain and ambitious, he seems to be gunning for the space vacated by Milo Yianoppolis and is fast becoming a darling of the alt-right. His hero, Karl Popper, [author of ‘The spell of Plato, an open society and it’s enemies’] will be turning in his grave.

I’ve read a fair bit of his work, he’s always been an arrogant prick but I haven’t let that put me off, though I had noticed that he has a bit of an obsession with race. He’s Lebanese and goes to great lengths to explain how he is ethnically mediterranean / european as opposed to Arab or Persian. He goes on about it so much that It had started to put me off him, his blowing a gasket at the sight of a cartoon of a non white Roman citizen would seem to point to the fact of someone being unsure of their identity, perhaps suffering from a sort of status anxiety.

He has come to epitomise what he despises, He attacks the educated elites though he is one himself, born not so much with a silver spoon in his mouth as a golden shovel, cosseted with privilege, [grandson and nephew to two foreign ministers, mentored as a child by Sorbonne professors etc]

An intelligent man has turned into a right wing troll and by using twitter and his potty mouth as an outlet anything interesting he likely had to say is headed for the dustbin of history. He’s managing to twist critical rationalism into cultural Marxism.

I spend a lot of time there. The best thing about the area is the amount of green space, parks, canals, cycleways, etc. and they all seem to be linked together. Access to almost anywhere by bike is amazing, You can get to Westminster via canal and dedicated cycle path almost without touching a proper road. The river will take you to Canary Wharf or Hertfordshire, the Canal gets you to Islington and there’s a cycleway that takes you as far as London City Airport. N.S.E and W covered, pretty much road free.

As mentioned, you can get to Epping Forrest via the Lee towpath or going north from Wanstead Flats, [theres a 5 mile ribbon of forrest going north towards Epping] and has some nice singletrack.

You can get to the foot of the Kent Downs [Strood / Rochester] in 15 mins from Stratford train station on one of the super fast, frequent, [though expensive] trains. Or 10 mins on the same train to Ebbsfleet where theres a BMX / MTB track and lots of nearby [5 miles] forrest trails.

I dont agree with his politics at all. I don’t like him because he is rude. Though often cited for his manners and general civility, I find his constant retorts in latin condescending, arrogant and disrespectful.

We confuse the concepts of politeness and rudeness in a forelock tugging retreat from democracy. Watching him is like watching a Monty Python sketch but the jokes on us.

ELO. ‘Out of the Blue’ and Blondie ‘Parallel Lines’. 1977 xmas presents

This thread is quite revealing as to the average age of the STW fraternity!

I live in a tower block that was similarly re clad 5 years ago. It’s one of 5 blocks under the same management, the cladding was put up in a similar way to greenfell. i’m hoping the insulation used has a better fire retardency, I’ll be checking that out. I did see them put in rock wool at each level though as a fire break, it will be interesting to see if the rock wool was omitted in GF, the footage suggests this might be an issue as the fire seemed to move uninterrupted theough the cladding betwwe floors, maybe the gap between insulation / rock wool and cladding meant flames leapt too easily past rock wool? or there was no rock wool.

The blocks are far better managed, though not perfect and cut backs saw the intercom system with attendant security guard located 24 hr in an office in one of the blocks removed a couple of months ago.. It occurred to me how having security on site would be very useful in the event of an emergency, improving response times and co-ordination. I’m anticipating that us residents will be pushing for it to be returned asap. I could imagine lots of lives could have been saved in GF and associated blocks had a 24 hr security / cctv operator been based in one of the blocks.

Looking at my block, it’s 12 stories high [the height of a fire ladder], 50 two bedroom flats, 75 residents in all, with 2 lifts and 2 stairs, both separated from each other situated either side of the building.. It’s a slim building, 4 flats wide but only one flat deep. the stairs aren’t central, they are to the edge of the building with large windows on each floor and an open catwalk between each stairs on floors 2, 6, and 10. so in an emergency you’re no more than 2 floors away from a catwalk / alternative escape route.

Gas mains were removed 15 years ago as the council thought it daft to continue pumping gas into tower blocks, they replaced appliances if a tenant was still using gas.

I’ve obviously been planning my escape route and I’m sure some of you reading my description are planning it for me! At GF tower they didn’t have the option of planning an escape route, there’s only one option, a single central staircase, entirely enclosed, [no windows] with up to 24 floors to negotiate in one go rather than the alternative option every 2 floors I have in my block.

Blocks like GF tower need 2 stairs, either to the edge of the building or as external additions. Gas in a tower blocks? ffs. Any block over 12 stories [height of fire ladder] needs a compete rethink in terms of fire safety / fire fighting strategy.

@aracer.
There’s a lot of orange fellas about at the moment….

Murdoch was in the room when [the pasty faced but orange hearted] Gove interviewed Trump, DUP want that other orange chap, Farage bought into brexit talks .

Here’s a lovely coincidence…..

‘In the paper, entitled ‘Northern Ireland the Price of Peace’, Mr Gove wrote that he believed the IRA could have been defeated and the Good Friday Agreement was a capitulation to them by Tony Blair.

Mr Gove also wrote at the time that he believed the SAS and other undercover killers should have been allowed to continue in Ireland and could have defeated the IRA.’

And there’s me thinking that May was bringing Gove back in a belated attempt to appeal to the youth vote.

@aracer

In the same way Murdoch only said he ‘hoped’ Gove would be bought back into the cabinet.

May was accused of taking the electorate for granted, I think she’s now taking a lot of traditional conservative voters for granted. As desperate as they might be to block Corbyn and/or push for brexit, they are not as desperate as May.

She may have crossed a line here, the hypocrisy is stunning and I don’t think even the DM etc can spin this one to their readers, older voters know what the DUP represent and their links to terror, for younger voters there’s google.

Bad Friday Agreement

corbyn now favourite for PM with bookies

according to bloke on ITV

anyone remember Cameron’s advice to Corbyn in Parliament?

“get a suit, put on a tie and learn to sing the national anthem”

I guess 2 out of 3 ‘aint bad.

aracers prediction would be heaven,
jamba’s original prediction would be hell,
junkyard’s prediction would be purgatory,
A 68 majority for May would put us in purgatory, which is better than hell and slightly better than where we are now.

not aimed at you Gorbachul,

I’m just a little wary of any attempt to provide context in relation to this ‘incident’ as Prudhome calls it [thus implying the blame is to be shared] I find this disgusting.

Reza should not have to be put in the position of having to accept an apology or not. Sky’s exploiting this in their spin is revolting.

The op’s post isn’t trolling, it’s satire. I’m guessing that, like me, the op didn’t want to repeat the actual words used by Macron, suffice to say the words he used were as bad as can be, they could only be worse if they were to be said twice, which Macron duly did, thus to confirming it was no slip of the tongue and that his sentiments were heartfelt and absolute.

Utterly deplorable from Macron, Sky and UCI.

YMMV, and if it does, may I suggest Breitbart as a suitable platform to indulge in any whataboutery.

SKKKY

Reading your comment coconut, my mind immediately conjured up an image of the film ‘Wish you were here,’ set in stagnant 1950’s Britain.

The thing is, all that pretentious, situationist ,’the hacienda must be built bollx was actually true.

Over rated or not, can’t compare it to any other club I can think of. Conceived with equal amounts of ambition, imagination, optimism and stupidity. Manchester’s real theater of dreams.

Jimfrandisco, park corner to the lamas would be my second choice, early spring when the bluebells are out,[though you might be going too fast to see them]

Used to ride both regularly on the same loop, Grimms Ditch gets the nod from me as it’s good both ways and formed the beginning and end of most rides,

Remember the feeling of satisfaction closing the gate at the end of the trail followed by a mile pootle along the river to the back door.

Or a pint at the Cross Keys.

I am stuck in a 30 second time loop and I’m on Grimms Ditch near Wallingford in the West Chilterns. A mile of twisty undulating Singletrack on a route that’s been there since the Iron Age.

Not ridden it physically for a few years but it’s where I’m riding in my head whenever I’m thinking about riding.

This thread’s making me nostalgic. Used to get to ride the chilterns allot visiting family in Wallingford. Haven’t got to ride there for 3 or 4 years.

Grimms Ditch is probably my favorite bit of trail ever and probably my most ridden. Riding it is like playing a 2000 year old playstation game. Nothing too technical and no great elevation but so much flow if you can keep the momentum going. The perfect bit of trail to fine tune bike set up.

Update.

I spoke to the cyclist who had stayed with the rider who’d been hit. He told me the female rider in front of him had been hit crossing Chorlton Rd as the car on the inside lane had stopped for her but the car in the outer lane carried on straight into her. It seems she was concussed and cut about the head but no bones brokes. The guy I talked to had stayed with her for the hour, locked her bike up for her and followed the ambulance to the hospital. Well done him.

He said the car couldn’t have seen her, and as far as I know the police aren’t blaming the driver. Technically the marked cycle lane crossing both lanes has no preference to cyclists, though it is painted green with white dashes. As I inferred before, a complete accident waiting to happen as it confuses cyclists and drivers alike at a very busy and fast junction. drivers will often stop for cyclists even though they”re not obliged to, which on a dual carriageway is especially dangerous as the following cars are unlikely to stop………..

Exactly what happened in this case.

Ambulance just left, Cyclist was lying on the road for a hour, Hope they were just being precautionary, looks like they had to get another ambulance with the correct stretcher, one that could be slipped under from both sides.

Hope he/she’s going to be o.k.

Best check the rubber hasn’t split where the valve enters / exits the rim. Had a similar slow leak and realised there was a slight split that began to leak when tightening down the screw on nut.

I put stans in my road / commuter bike inner tubes, [got to use continental or schwalbe with removable valve cores to get latex in.

Definitely get less punctures. When a puncture occurs when riding along, tyre tends to hiss and squirt till pressure drops to 50 psi or so [from 90-100psi] enough to get you home. leave it for a while, preferably with puncture at 6 o’clock position, to allow latex to puddle over hole, then pump up to 90psi before setting off again.

Downsides are that it only works on smaller holes, due to higher pressures than mtb tyre and thinness of tube compared to a tyre.

Valve cores get blocked with dried latex after a while, [though can be easily removed and cleaned.

Sometimes latex curdles up into a solid ball in tube.

Difficult to repair a tube with puncture repair on side of road when tube has latex in as when you re-inflate the latex seems to hinder the rubber cement from working, so best to throw in a new tube and fix punctured tube later, levying to a few hours for the patch to cure properly before re-inflating.

All in all, I reckon I get about a third / quarter of the amount of punctures that I used to. So worth it, though better to carry a spare tube and throw that in rather than trying to fix a latex filled tube in-situ.

low budget, high standards.

no premature ejaculations / explosions, just deflated tyres with a solid puddle of latex in them.

Think I need to get an insulating mat to go on the floor or something.

Froome has been described as the ‘Kenyan born Froome’ from day one by the british media.

Why should he give a toss what the British media / public thinks of him?

Why do we buy into all this patriotic / nationalistic bulls**t, sportspeople have always been motivated by self interest, cyclists especially.

I’m tired of all this ‘plastic brit’ nonsense, it’s all getting a bit UKIP for me.

Enjoy the racing, the politics, the feuds and the tantrums but stop buying the xenophobic dross.

My better half had a cube wsd, found it too compact, great for an hour or two but too cramped for long rides.

5’4″ tall. Now rides a mens iron horse bootleg fs [15′] and a kona kula supreme ht [14′]. 21.5 top tube seems to be the magic number. both 2010 bikes. From 2011 kona added half an inch to the tt so lucky to pick 2010 version half price from chain reaction cycles 18 months back. iron horse no longer in business. Getting a bike with a shorter tt is getting harder every year.

She’s in love with light wheels, [hope sp3/crest] and super narrow saddles funnily enough [125mm]

I’m looking at getting a new hard tail.

Being 6’4″, frame size is of more importance to me than wheel size.

I like the fact that top tubes and wheelbases come out significantly longer on 650b than 26″ frames, so should fit me better.I’d like a 25″ top tube and a 20.5″ seat tube, more 650b frames conform to these dimensions than 26″ frames.

I don’t really want a 29er, although I’m sure others will tell me It would be better for me.

Also, If 29ers are so much more suitable for tall people, why do so many 29ers I’ve liked the look of have 19″ seat tubes. 450mm seat post anyone?

This was a ‘Hit and don’t Run, the guy deliberately knocks the cyclist over, you can hear him rev the engine and push his bar out towards the cyclist just before he hits him.

crikey, if your with cynic-al then that would make a pair of A-HOLES

You’ve got a point there poisonspider,

I’ve been up to Lee Quarry a few times and it’s great to see the local kids on their supermarket specials out enjoying the trails and the pump track rather than sitting at home on playstations. I can’t imagine they’d be doing it if it cost them £4 /hour. some of their bikes probably cost less than that! and some of their skills put me to shame as well!

I’ve got mixed feelings about it really, agree it’s similar to a cinema ticket or [london] exhibition entrance fee.

My better half [who rides as well] lives about 100 yards from the Olympic park, so it costs about the same as a return tube fare up to epping forrest, less than a train ticket or petrol out to the Surrey hills or Kent where we usually so it’s great for us.

Still thinking it’s quite pricey if you’ve got to travel there. especially surprised about it being £4 for kids, not much of a legacy for local youngsters coming from one of the poorest boroughs in the country.

So not that much if you’re used to prancing about on a $2000 ‘steed’ [we fall into that category] .I just feel that this particular situation says more about luxury than legacy.

Also, it seems this price is for an hours riding which seems a bit tight.

Yes, these are the replacement for the beastway trails. drove past them today. Never rode the old trails, [though seen plenty of pics of them] the new ones look like standard trail centre fare, more twisty and technical than before, mini rock gardens etc. not much elevation, though they seem to have designed in as many short-sharp technical climbs as they can. 4.5 miles long they say. looks like a good training loop for hammering, just a little surprised at the pricing and time limit of one hour for that price.

I’m always a bit wary of tyres with loose beads when running tubeless, I’d build up the rim diameter with a strip of electrical tape to give a tighter fit. burping or rolling off the rim is not a good thing, especially on a front tyre.

Had problems mounting a captain 2bliss on mavic ust, impossible till I put a strip of electrical tape on the inside of the rim to increase the diameter went up instantly and popped onto bead lock with a reassuring ‘pop’. doesn’t hold air that well though. it’s on the rear so I’ll run with it for a bit and not run it below 32 psi, though will probably change it soon.

Front is a purgatory and that went up 1st time and holds air.

captain was an older version, [different graphics to the purg]. unused though, so not a stretched bead.

bought a wheels & disk brake package from them 10 years back which they set up for me. All in all there were 4 errors in how they’d set the brakes up, cable fouled rear tyre, one rotor mounted wrong way round, rear brake not spaced properly [old is mount hope mini’s] and something else. All easily rectified but they were my 1st experience of disk brakes so thought I’d get a shop to do it properly!

Well, you live and learn don’t you!

Oh, and they threw away the V brakes and levers they’d taken off that I needed for another bike and didn’t compensate me.

Wheels are still going strong to this day though, and I’m a big bloke who had wrecked a few previously.

Dave Hind for wheels? Yes. Anything else…. No

Thanks all.

Just booked the flights with easyjet. September in Slovakia for me and better half, [best trails ever according to singletrack mag article a couple of years back]. Brother in law decided to have his wedding just over the border in Austria, How considerate of him!