From Halloween;

What do you mean by the south east :twisted: Assuming London and its surroundings, there are about 3 times as many people living within the London metro area than the whole of Scotland. It has almost 25% of the UK population, so any federal system would have to allow for the UKs massively skewed population distribution.

Indeed you can agree to disagree with Ben and the actual facts as basically its what you do – form an opinion at odds with reality and then continue to spout it.

The Scottish government seem to agree with Jambalaya.

From GERS;

“Including an illustrative geographic share of North Sea revenue, total public sector revenue is estimated at £54.0 billion (8.6 per cent of UK public sector revenue). This represents £10,100 per person, £400 more than the UK average.”

“Total expenditure for the benefit of Scotland by the Scottish Government, UK Government, and all other parts of the public sector was £66.4 billion. This is equivalent to 9.2 per cent of total UK public sector expenditure, and £12,500 per head.”

Probably when riding into a low sun…

I’m not convinced, unless the light is more powerful than the sun, then the rider will be a shadow, light or no light.

don’t think anybody has come up with an example of where it would be unreasonable to expect a driver to see a cyclist without a rear light though.

Maybe flip the question;

Is there a situation where a rear light would make a cyclist less visible?

My aim when I ride on the road is to get from A to B without being killed, if a light helps in any way then I’m going to use one, no amount of moral high ground helps when you’re squished under a car.

Education “cuts”… Further and higher education is my thing, so, all I can say is take all talk of cuts on this subject with a pinch of salt

Most of the comments so far have not been so specific, they have simply said that education is an area where the SNP have not delivered. This is backed up by the SNP themselves who seem to think they are failing the young people of Scotland with regards to education;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11616847/SNP-admits-failing-to-close-schools-gap-in-eight-years.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-32874215

So explain to me how it does it – I don’t want quotes or WOS links, I want an explanation how the voting system is designed to prevent the SNP “specifically” getting a majority. How does it achieve what you claim it does?

Non of the above quotes explain your proposition that the voting system specifically prevents the SNP getting a majority. My argument isn’t that an AMS based system via (an element of) proportionality make the forming of a majority government unlikely – that is what it is designed to do. It is your very specific statement that the system was design to prevent the SNP getting a majority.

Whilst this is perhaps a sideshow to the original topic, I think it highlights one of the things that the SNP has done very well, they have played a blinder in the PR game of politics, they have used social media very well and along with their stooge in Bath spread a huge amount of misinformation which the electorate has lapped up (with a side helping of confirmation bias).

here’s Sir Malcolm Bruce explaining it:

I think you need to listen to the video again, what he said was that if they stuck with his proposal (AMS via an adjusted single vote) then they wouldn’t have had an SNP majority.

So again, how is the voting system “specifically designed to prevent the SNP getting a majority”?

Remember the Holyrood voting system was specifically designed by Donald Dewar to prevent the SNP getting a majority

Was it? Can you explain how that “specifically” works to “prevent the SNP getting a majority”?

I’ve not run anything more than a marathon, but people who I know who run ultras all do the same thing, run lots and then run some more.

My vote goes to Brakspear Oxford Gold.

Not sure that classes as a ‘least rated beer’ does it? Pretty much everyone seems to like it.

I’ll vote for the 4% becks, nice and cold it’s a good early doors thirst quencher.

Here’s Rosie, only 1/2 spaniel, but she has the look;

Doing what she loves;

And doing as she’s told!

IANAL, but from my understanding the HMRC won’t like the idea of paying travel expenses unless it can be shown that the employee has to live in his current location due to the role. i.e. there doesn’t appear to be any functional reason why the role has to be performed from the employees home, so he is doing so by choice, going into the office will be classed as ‘normal commuting’ so he can’t claim expenses.

This ruling seems to cover a similar situation

People don’t say that they don’t cycle because of helmets – they say they don’t cycle because it’s not safe………….

They didn’t though, none of the people said any of those things, they just couldn’t be bothered. No amount of infrastructure is going to change things for the vast majority of people in the UK, they don’t see bikes as a viable form of transport and prefer the apparently simple option of jumping in the car.

An example; my daughters best friend lives about 1 mile away. Whenever I take her over there the mum always asks if we’ve been on a bike ride, we haven’t, we’ve just used bikes to get from A to B because it’s the most convenient mode of transport. Whenever her friend comes over they bring her by car.

why does the Netherlands not have a significantly greater life expectancy than the UK?

Broodje krokets and Olliebollen! The vast majority of people who ride bikes in Holland are not cyclists in the sense that it is used as a form of exercise, they don’t charge around at aerobic threshold, the pootle along at a similar level of excursion as walking.

Old school advice used to be 1″ smaller than your road bike but the last time I tried roadbikes I was anywhere from a 58cm to 62cm and ‘Medium’ to ‘Large’ so I would definitely try.

A quick poll of the people sat around me at work reveals that the the overwhelming reason for not riding a bike is they “probably should but can’t really be arsed”. Nobody mentioned helmets.

IMO the significant difference between the Dutch and British is mentality, the Dutch see a bicycle as a viable form of transport for short to medium journeys because that’s how they have been brought up, the default mindset is ‘I will use my bike for this journey’. Brits see bikes as toys for lycra clad freaks.

Bee costume lady for me, although I’ve known for quite a while that I was in. I’ll be joining turboferret at the GFA start. Good luck to all of the ballot entrants.

…..certainly suggests it’s still a problem a lot more recently than that.

The linked article has zero evidence that the lead was from fishermen. It is illegal to sell and use lead shot for angling (between 0.06 and 28.35 grams). You can blast as much of any size you like out of a shotgun though!

I think he was in the bit which is a “swan sanctuary” where the swans avoid the risk of digesting lead

Lead shot has been banned (for fishing) since 1986 – so i don’t think that’s the reason.

The good: riding past the 2+ mile queue of cars that sit every morning trying to get past roadworks that are scheduled to be there for another year!

The bad: fixing a puncture just outside a school, and noticing just how many kids were smoking (probably 50:50 fags and weed) on the way in.

Check that; “Settings” – “On Startup” – “Open a specific page or set of pages” is checked.

Click on set pages and make sure that the BBC is set as the only entry.

The strength in depth is a huge factor, look at the number of riders participating in Junior womens world championship downhill,

2013 – 5
2014 – 3
2015 – 9

There is simply nobody coming through who will put any pressure on the established elite riders. Unless the number of riders increases considerably its probably not worth running the category.

It was an awful challenge. Shame because he started the season well.

How did you come you with that 44% stat?

80% of all stats are made up, the other 30% are maths fails?

Not sure about the diffuser plate, don’t really understand why that’s needed with induction as the heat is fully diffused by the pan base?

Induction hobs don’t really turn down, they just fire in shorter bursts as you turn them down. So you could use a diffuser plate as a method to increase the thermal mass of the pan to smooth out the heat delivery, which will reduce the risk of burning. Of course you could just buy cast iron pans which work much better on an induction hob than anything else – or just stir you porridge!

I test rode a Super Six and a TCR and bought the Super Six. The Giant felt dead in comparison, of course it could have been wheels, tyres or any combination of things that I could have tweaked but the Cannondale seemed right for me out of the box.

It happens with custard as well. I think the problem is that the bottom of the pan gets hot really quickly and the porridge (or custard) is too viscous to mix on its own due to convection, so the bottom just gets hotter and hotter until it burns. The simple answer is to stir it.

Most people that I know overfeed their dogs and think a 5 mins walk around the block constitutes enough exercise. Our neighbour told me yesterday morning that I was being cruel making the dog run 14 miles with me, luckily she didn’t see me take the dog out later on in the day for another hour (I was on my bike this time) or I might have received a visit from the RSPCA. The neighbours dog is unsurprisingly a right fatty.

I use gears but based on my 13 mile mainly flat commute I would have thought somewhere around 75″ (50×17/18) is the most used gear for me. Although I pootle rather than try to Strava it everyday.

52×14 is crazy long unless you’re really pushing very hard (faster than 25mph?).

Koen – pronounced coon, is a pretty popular name in Holland. We know a couple, they’ve both had problems in America and we got a few funny looks over here when one visited last week and I did have to explain the situation to one tutting couple in a restaurant.

There is growing opposition to Zwarte Piet, but as mentioned a large proportion of Dutch people think it’s fine. My first Christmas over there we went to the Sinterklaas parade with some friends from Olkahoma, when they first saw the Piets they couldn’t believe it, “they would last 30seconds in Oklahoma before getting shot!” was the final verdict.

The Dutch do seem to use English swear words rather liberally though with zero censorship on TV or Radio, WTF was used during meetings at work fairly regularly – even when speaking in Dutch.

I recently had a spell of 3 or 4 months where I wasn’t running much due to work/travel/moving etc. and when I started running regularly again I convinced myself that I had to take things easy so knocked back the pace on my tempo runs to and every single run seemed to be hard work. After a month of struggling I concentrated on making my tempo runs harder, once I was back to doing 5k at sub 19:00 pace then I felt much better during intervals and long runs.

Taking things easy on the short runs doesn’t help me – I need to do some running at a faster pace to stretch my legs and have a differential between running and jogging. It’s too easy to drop by default into the ‘marathon shuffle’ otherwise, but if you did a Thursday night 8 miler at faster than ½ marathon pace then Sundays run at slower than race pace feels like a jog.

So in direct opposition to most of the advice above, If I was in your position I would be concentrating on getting my existing runs back to my previous paces before adding any significant distance.

My daughter went to an international school for the last 5 years. There are some positives such as mixing with a diverse group of children. There are also a few negatives, the main one being that by the very nature of the school children come and go much more frequently than a ‘normal’ school. Each year approx half of the class would leave and be replaced. It makes it quite difficult to make long lasting friendships.

Did you miss the bit where Froome tore his legs off?

You mean the bit where Froome chipped off the front for 5 seconds to try impress his girlfriend? Who knows whether he would have made anything stick. Look at yesterdays stage; there were plenty of occasions where rivals got quick gaps over Froome but couldn’t make it stick.

A few years ago I did 3 months of working in the Netherlands while my wife and daughter stayed in the UK – it was rubbish, delays on flights etc. meant I never got home before 10pm on a Friday and had to leave around lunchtime on Sunday.

Recently did it the other way around and commuted for 2 months back to the UK while they were in NL, it was rubbish as well.

From my experience – it’s rubbish!

It’s a long walk to get his truck back.

I’ve noticed myself using “Can i get” quite a lot and hate it, probably spent too much time with Americans. I did ask them about it once and apparently “please may I have” can be seen as a bit pissy over there.

My pet hate is “axed” as in “I axed you a question”

If you’re looking for a day to kill in the Amsterdam area I suggest either Volendam or Giethoorn. In Amsterdam itself my daughter loved Nemo and she also enjoyed Anne Frank (she was 7 or 8 when she went)

She also loved Efteling but preferred the winter season ‘cos you can skate.

Our has eaten all of the poo mentioned. There’s one area I used to walk here where she would eat soil, only one area and it was really dark coloured soil with white bits in it.
Shes demolished countless sandwiches, any food thats dropped will be consumed before it hits the floor. She ripped open a load of Christmas presents one year which contained some nice chocolates (which meant an emergency trip to the vest and a puking dog on Christmas day)
Probably the worst was when she found a tray of chicken portions ready for a BBQ, she must have eaten 5 or 6, but the worst thing was finding the chicken drumsticks she had hidden for later, the one in the bed under my pillow was quite bad!

We’ve just moved back to the UK and signed up with BT. OK it’s only been 3 weeks but I would agree with “BT are excellent”. The stuff arrived when they said it would, and when I plugged it in it all worked, the download speed is what it I signed up for and I don’t get any dropouts. And it’s massively cheaper than an equivalent package in Holland.

I’ve been really impressed with the mobile connectivity, where I am (Oxford) I can walk down the street and be connected to WIFI almost constantly.