I think the only option left if you want to buy new is Panasonic?

Can’t comment on how easy to use they are now. The one I had about a decade ago was ok

If there are many slides with ‘interesting’ compositions , it could be  worth getting a slide viewer and making an initial cull before sending to a lab?

Kev’s cars have come on a bit

True, but that BMW is so ugly

As someone interested in design I am surprised that he chose it, although it may be a loaner

Oh dear. Second race a little closer but…

7-0 a possibility

So that’s a no then. Fascinating

The pen is amazing. Shows how far behind I am now with the capabilities of 3D-printing having been away from regular access to the technology for 14 years. Presumably the printer isn’t one in general hobbyist’s reach?

When I was working at a 6th Form College in Surrey, I was walking past one of the ‘temporary’ art classrooms that housed the sculpture course ( part of A level art ) I saw a student who was probably 16 sitting outside on a stool, cutting out a shape in plywood with a jigsaw. He had the timber balanced across his open legs and was cutting towards himself, and as the board was covering his limbs he couldn’t see them. The art teacher who was in the classroom seemed surprised that I didn’t think this was very safe. The upside was the kid wasn’t hurt, the downside was that I then had to spend a couple of hours in my own time to train the teacher in the safe use of hand held power tools….

We have fttc and as it is a very long way from us we get an average of 12-15 mbps. It vary rarely causes any problems for us but we don’t stream any video other than IPlayer and occasionally the ITV and CH4 catchup services.

Gigaclear have installed the infrastructure for fttp but the horror tales of the local installation teams cockups have meant that we are in no rush to ‘upgrade’ anytime soon in light of the above. At some point we might need to I guess and I am tempted to install conduit from the box to where I want it myself to avoid said installation damage

Edit: The other problem with getting Gigaclear is that as you are then obliged to use them or one of their ‘partners’ for the foreseeable future you are trapped into their pricing structure without any leverage at contract renewal time unlike fttc

Why have they designed it to make its wheels look so tiny and out of proportion

Perhaps because the fashion for huge wheels is coming to an end (hopefully). They are so vulnerable and almost always ruin the ride comfort.

Oh and while they are at it they can stop selling black wheels as well.

That Mrs. Brown’s boys is considered superior to Ghosts by those who voted for the NTA awards.

My dog would just eat bread if she had her way.

The only thing that we have found that our dog won’t eat is lettuce using the scientific method of watching what gets hoovered up if dropped on the floor by accident. Whilst out walking his current favourites are crab apples and blackberries.

No one buy performance cars to drive slowly.

Thus is not entirely true, whilst many might do there are some  who buy them for other reasons. I have a car that would be considered a performance vehicle but I stick to speed limits and I don’t close pass cyclists or any other user of the roads. I’ve never had even so much as a parking ticket in 43 years of driving. The reason I bought mine was I wanted a petrol four wheel drive manual gearbox car that wasn’t a SUV for my particular circumstances. At the time that rather limited my choice ( it’s even more limited now). It’s comfortable, practical and very relaxing to drive.
I am sure some would argue that I am simply self justifying what many would regard as an irrational purchase and there almost certainly an element of that. But not everyone who has a powerful car ignores rule 1.

And 8000rpm is addictive – I’ll miss that engine!

I know what you mean. In 1996-8 I had a 1994 Civic Vti saloon, 1600 cc 158 hp no torque to speak of but the VTEC transition to the hot cam at 6000 rpm was lovely. But 4000rpm at 70 on the motorway got a bit tiring after a while. It was sold to a guy locally who kept it till it was scrapped in 2017 with 145000 miles on the clock.

There even appears to be one for sale. Seems expensive though

https://www.parkers.co.uk/honda/civic/saloon/16i-vti-4d/for-sale/usedcfs-878744563259194/

I think they must have evolved some kind of don’t evangelise on your own doorstep exchange scheme over the years

My brother lived about 10 doors down from a Kingdom Hall in Oxford. You used to see them coming out on their way to knock on doors but they never ever did it along their own street

Fascinating, looks like a similar process to that used by Morgan when I visited the factory in the 1990’s, although there was some use of laminated sections there

The Manhatten PVR is only 280 mm wide and a Sony DVD player 230mm, so might they fit side by side ?

I was walking our retriever a few years back when he was attacked by two ridgebacks who had him on the floor snarling and snapping in his face. He was on the lead, the others were not. I did the same as you and tried to separate them but luckily neither my dog or I were bitten. It was an intimidation act I think- if they had wanted to hurt us neither I or their owner could have stopped them.

It shook both of us up and I had the same ‘ they haven’t done that before’ from the owner. He is someone whom I know vaguely and  it was about 100m from where he lives. He was extremely apologetic and assured me that he would keep them on the lead in future and for months afterwards I did see him keep his promise. I phoned the police and had someone call back who asked if I wanted to take the matter further. Perhaps foolishly I said no but it was put on record that the incident happened so that if someone else had a problem he couldn’t say the same again.

TLDR: I would inform the police even if you don’t want the incident to be taken further.

I can’t help with a current unit but about 10 years ago I had a Panasonic DVD recorder with twin tuners. It was easy to use and set up but failed in its warranty period. The replacement also failed after a further couple of years. Both times seemed to be issues with the hard drive interface with the DVD read/writing section. So based on an old model I would be wary of Panasonic.

Mother talking to her two young boys in Winchester Cathedral, explaining that William Rufus’ grave is one of the oldest things in the building.

” What, even older than you mum?”

My nephew graduated with a maths with physics degree from Bristol. He now works for a company working in cyber security for banks. He has tried to explain to me what he does which seems mostly related to developing software.

Clarkson was the host of a popular television show called ‘Top Gear’

Some say he’s a bit of a twerp, but I don’t really know

standard insult from the likes of J Clarkson, R Littlejohn, P Morgan et al since at least the 90s, and probably before.

who?

They also publish a weekly article by Adrian Chiles that is so brain-dead and banal that it would insult the intelligence of most inanimate objects

True, but balanced by the brilliance of Tim Dowling,

The higher areas of Yosemite may still be snow bound at Easter even though it is late next year, the valley should be ok. Ditto for Sequoia NP although that is well worth visiting if you can get up there.

On the other hand it’s a good time to visit Death Valley if you want to go that far south.

Went to CA in April in the mid 90’s and it was really good but some places in the high country were closed and the weather at the coast was misty and cool. Having said that seeing the Golden Gate emerging from the fog was one of the visual highlights

Getting to a small loch in Wester Ross that I have visited most years since 1989 with my brother. It is one of the most beautiful places I know and demands an effort to get there. It fills both of us with joy, the place, the company the memories of previous visits.

We changed from gas to induction and wouldn’t go back for the reasons well explained above. The only advantage that our old gas hob had was that we could still cook  or boil water if there was a power cut, of which we seem to be quite prone for some reason although lately they have been short duration ones.I bought a cheap gas 2 burner stove for those occasions a couple of years ago.

I was going to mention school staff rooms.

Quite literally a puff of smoke would be released when the door was opened.

I started teaching in 1984, none of the three schools that I taught in allowed smoking in the staff room, each had a separate room for those that smoked to keep them away from the students. Perhaps I was lucky

I have found the past five pages on this thread quite interesting because of the vehemence of the positions it has engendered. I just can’t get that worked up about it either way.

I have never smoked, not even a single drag. None of my family smoke and few of my friends beyond a ‘social fag’. I admit that the ban on smoking in enclosed spaces was a huge relief for me as I hate the smell of the cigarettes and the people who smoke them. I definitely started frequenting my local more often( but certainly not daily) when the ban came in.
I was not brought up in a culture of going to the pub, my father or his friends very rarely went to one. He is 92 and I have never ever seen him drunk or even close to it. He enjoys  a social drink still, but a nice red is his thing rather than beer. so I didn’t go into pubs until I was 18 at university and hadn’t been brought up to equate drinking with having fun.

So to me the concept that the pub is the hub of one’s social life doesn’t ring true because I was never brought up in it. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy going to pubs and used to go once every week but for a number of  reasons I haven’t been regularly for the past five years or so and tbh I can live without it. So some might argue that my opinion isn’t important as I am not invested in that social scene. But….
On the occasions that I have had meals in beer gardens I would move if someone lit up near me, but to be honest that was not very often as most people who smoke seem to be considerate in my experience. So a ban is not  likely to alter my behaviour but it might just change others. It may be a good thing in the long run but getting there is problematic.
I do think it’s going to be very difficult to enforce any ban without the cooperation of the people who run the pubs and how likely that will be must depend on their clientele.

Stop that pigeon.

Heinz, eaten cold of course.

A9, i don’t ever enjoy that road, the average speed cameras just seem like a tacked on ‘safety’ feature, but in all my time using it, the A9 has always been a nightmare for dangerous overtaking (not helped by slow moving vehicles now)

I guess that I have been lucky, my experience of the A9 is that since the combined use of average speed cameras and allowing the 38t trucks to do 50mph on the single carriageway sections came it it’s a much more relaxed drive between Perth and Inverness and the average speeds are actually higher than before. But I do tend to time my journeys to avoid the really busy times.

A friend of mine has a garmin satnav ( the built in one in his car is crap) that knows where some fixed average speed cameras are e.g. on  the A9, and provides a running average between each camera on the screen.

I have never understood the attraction to Oasis or their music, but this will give plenty of people a chance to see them which will hopefully be good. Seems like at least one of them needs a bit of cash so I really do hope that they  will make an effort to be as good as they can be now rather than just go through the motions.

Also running is really boring

I would walk, as I very rarely see a runner who looks happy whilst doing it yet most walkers are cheerful if you stop for a chat.

Barn owl in Maple

I Found some photos

I am the one in the Hong Kong Teeshirt with the grin. The skipper is the one behind my right shoulder hanging onto the backstay keeping a very close eye on what I was doing… don’t blame him!

Off topic a bit, but I have been aboard two America’s Cup challengers and helmed one of them for two or more hours. Not modern ones though. I went on board Endeavour when she was in a mud berth on the Medina river above Cowes before her restoration. The size of her was mind boggling to an impressionable teenager. I sailed in Gretel, the first Australian 12 metre, in the Whitsunday Islands in 1995. At the time she was doing day charter work and I spent a full day. The highlight was helming on a shy spinnaker reach- she was so well balanced.

Mostly digging up the garden ;)

our previous retriever Rosie was a digger…. It was always in places where you didn’t really need yet another hole

Llanstephan has a lovely setting, As does Goodrich.

Sorry to go a bit off topic but..

I am trying to pluck up the courage to go to the antipodes this winter.

Do it. I spent four months in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji as part of a round the world trip on my own as a slightly better off than average  backpacker in 1995. I was in my early thirties. It was the best experience of my life, and Australia, New Zealand,  Western Canada  and western  US were the best parts of it. I went everywhere by bus in Aus and NZ- spending 36hrs on a bus between Alice Springs and Townsville certainly gave a better idea of the distances involved and at the time how sparse some of the outback towns were. I was concerned that I would get lonely as a natural introvert, but in fact I met so many interesting people and learned to be more outgoing so it was a real benefit.
Fiji is a place to visit if you aren’t afraid to splash the cash, on a budget it was the biggest disappointment of my whole trip.
my only regret was not staying longer and visiting the east coast of Canada but after six and a half months away I was ready to go home and was running out of cash. I should have put some on a credit card and stayed longer.

I had always wanted to see the Great Barrier Reef and to have a go at scuba diving. I combined both in  1995 and it was better than I had ever expected. I gained a PADI open water certificate and then did further dives in Australia and Fiji. None were as good as the first few dives on remote reefs and then I dived the Yongala.
I haven’t done any diving since.

Saw sharks on every one of my first 8 open water dives, turtles, a grouper the size of a small car( well it was nicknamed the Volkswagen).

As to things I would want to do, a flight in a Spitfire, visit the east coast of Canada amongst others