If it was considered racist and politically incorrect in the 1940’s can you imagine how people in 2013 would react?

They’d barely be able to cope. Heads would be exploding. Daily Mail would go into outrage overdrive.

Top Gear can’t even suggest that Mexicans are lazy as a bit of a joke without everyone pretending to be unbelievably offended.

And who knew Amy McDonald was so popular (but exceedingly dull)

She’s the human iPad!

😀

iPad’s are a bit ‘Ford Mondeo’ really – pretty good at what they do, but awfully common 😀

Whether you like it or not, faith/religion has played a major part inh shaping world and national history, and still is.

I don’t see how you can teach history without including the massive Christian/Muslim/Buddhist/other influences. They’re not mutually exclusive from a lot of historical events.

I took a monkey into my nearby primary school the other morning, and when I went to collect it at 3:15 it had become a 6 year old boy fluent in two languages, an aptitude for maths and not too bad at football.

So, evolution in primary schools does work.

He didn’t care too much about history though.

we were willing to spend more on the Navy than others

we probably had little choice, being an island 😀

it was either ships, or swimming

Anything else is just make believe

Yes, of course it is 🙄

😀

evolution should be compulsory in every school

“Right kids, we’re going to spend the next hour evolving!”

Oh goody, another creation/evolution bun-fight 😀

So overall it actually won’t matter in the slightest if you have v-brake on the front and disc on the rear.

You’ll just adapt to the differences and you’ll soon be braking normally/correctly without even thinking about it.

Talk about making a mountain out of a mole-hill 😀

I’d agree it’s worth leaving extra length on the steerer initially so that you can fiddle about with the height until you’re satisfied.

If you still find the bars are too high, it is not unheard of to fit an angled stem upside down so that it drops rather than rises.

I’ve never come across a particularly wide flat bar, but this doesn’t mean they don’t ecist.

Whoever wrote that Telegraph report obviously struggled to find enough information to reach the minimum word count.

Almost 30% of the report is rabitting on about Atkinson’s appearance on Top Gear – what on earth has that got to do with the actual ‘story’ ??!?!?!

More importantly, why did the reporter decide to include the acronym “PIEDs”, with the full name in brackets, if neither were referred to again through the entire rest of the article?

a new form of PIEDs (performance and image enhancing drugs) known as

driving to such beauty spots creates far greater environmental damage than throwing away a banana skin .. Yet I imagine not that many would be willing to give up such recreational pleasures. So blethering on about a few banana skins is really just pissing in the wind.

You need to become more “STW” 😀

There is an almost identical issue whereby we unquestioningly spend £15k on a car, £2-£3k on an mtb & associated paraphanalia, £70 on a tank of petrol, drive for hours and hours … then strop like little children when the car park costs a mere £3.50 🙄

“WOW” things that didn’t make me go “WOW”?

In general, anything man-made.
That big brown pylon in Paris for example.

Nature is infinitely more “WOW”-worthy.

Marriage clearly predates Christianity by some distance

The term ‘wife’ is first used in Genesis 2.
The first time marriage is talked about is in Genesis 34.

Which are both quite a while before ‘Christianity’ was first used to label the faith/religion popularised by Jesus Christ.

The marriage stuff mentioned BC is (Biblically/religiously speaking) from God, and is therefore the same ‘marriage’ that Christianity goes on about. So it’s not something hijacked by Christianity.

😀

Anyhow, this isn’t really the point of the thread …

I find the thought of him completely disappearing without trace slighty comical

Into a water filled hole at least 3ft deep? Maybe we just have a different sense of humour

It’s all going to be ok, it’s allowed to be funny because it didn’t actually happen ..

What would you have done?

I thought it was mandatory in the UK to go become massively faux-outraged, head immediately to Daily Mail HQ and claim the minor, easily-resolved (non-)incident gave you and your son cancer and that you intend to sue anyone remotely implicated?

😀

Or, start a Facebook campaign – these are the ultimate way of immediately resolving every problem and issue known to man. And you don’t even need to get off your arse and actually do anything.

nominative determinism

is that a poncy phrase to mean ‘coincidence’ or somesuch?

😀

work 40 hours a week ?!??!?!?!

Get lost. 5×7 is sufficient.

I have the option of doing 4×8.75, but I prefer the extra time flexibility in the evenings rather than a day ‘off’.

I also work flexible hours (not flexitime where you can bank time), so to an extent I can work as short or long a day as I want, if needs be, within reason (i.e. no adverse impact on the business).

Don’t wear a replica TDF Yellow Jersey – if the interviewer is a keen roadie this would make him massively angry because you didn’t earn it.

Nice of him to insult an entire generation of future pop-stars and footballers

I’ve always assumed the name on the ticket needed to match the name on the passport. Just an asssumption though.

I’d check with the airline.

First MTB-style bike was a Diamond Back Sorrento in 1992 (?)

First what I’d call ‘proper’ MTB was a 1996 GT Backwoods

My line manager at work invariably starts his sentences with ‘So’ all the way through our team meetings.

I think it’s his alternative to ‘Um’ or ‘Erm’ when he’s formulating what to say.

Doesn’t do it in normal conversation though, just when spouting in meetings.

Also addresses his team as ‘Men’ in emails (i.e. “Well done, men” after some good results are published). After which point I can’t help reading them in Captain Mainwaring’s voice.

From my experience, the people I’ve met who have been adamantly anti-children have also been the most selfish/self-obsessed people I’ve known.

These two things are probably connected.

Is my observation. Only a tiny sample out of a global population of 7 billion of course. And my observation hasn’t been peer reviewed and displayed as a pie chart, so according to STW rules it must be immediately rejected without question. 😀

I would have looked like a right peado at Soft play, Legoland and the Santa Special steam train without them, and it was brilliant fun!

Finally, we’ve reached the real nub of having kids – they give you an excuse to return to behaving like one 😀 rather than becoming old and boring 😉

If you want to save money on petrol stop using the car for the 60% of journeys that could be undertaken by another method of transport.

I do this, by getting Tesco to deliver my shopping rather than drive the 6 miles to the store and back. Saves me money by not buying things I didn’t intend to whilst browsing the aisles 😀

The price of many things is more than I would like it to be but that is just life. Fuel is really no different to other comodities.

No different other than being more of a necessity than many other commodities.

It’s a lot more difficult to reduce your fuel consumption/reliance than to stop buying all the other expensive so-called ‘essential’ items we insist on having these days.

Plus, you can’t get 2nd hand petrol on the classifieds, whereas most other things in life you can get hold of very cheap or for free.

Nothing missing in our lives that we feel a child would fulfill.

I don’t think people have children just to fill a ‘void’ in their life … 🙄

I sometimes detest other people’s kids

Children are like farts – you don’t mind your own, but you don’t really want to smell anyone elses .. (or something like that)

😀

Ah, another one of those reviews written by someone trying to be ironic/funny … I thought the Mr Men one’s were quite good, better than this guy anyway.

I understand the need to tax fuel. But what I don’t understand is how the US manages on substantially less. Their price at the pump is less than half what we pay.

Ah, if only it were so simple …

Lifer does have a point of course – people are well known for needing a bit of ‘encouragement’ to change their habits/lifestyle … and the most effective (easiest to apply) form of ‘encouragement’ is usually to club them half to death with a massive tax stick 🙂

Fuel, alcohol and cigarettes … the three easy targets for generating revenue.

Easy money for our glorious coalition 😀

Cynical? Moi?

😉

there are so many things I’d like to do I just feel will never happen if we have kids

Conversely, there would be many equally fulfilling things you’ll do instead, and you may still get to do the things you’d like to do at some point …

I’m quite happy with my life as it is generally

So was I. But I met hrh, got maried, we’ve 2 kids … I’m still just as happy.

We don’t earn huge amounts either and mates who earn more but have kids seem to struggle at times

Have kids, will struggle at times. That’s just the way it is for most people I think. You make adjustments, re-prioritise and somehow it all works out.

(Although it goes without saying that it’d be irresponsible to have kids knowing full well you really couldn’t afford to support.)

Dammit. Why can’t they massively tax stuff that I don’t use.

😀

This is also the reason I don’t recycle – because it’s akin to turning up at an earthquake with a dust pan and brush.

🙄

I just don’t think they have maturity to use Facebook for what it is

There are a lot of adults who don’t seem to have the maturity to use Faceache, never mind kids 🙂

*Or be attention starved nobbers

Over 90% of Facebook activity is just people after attention.

I don’t have any Facebooks, but my wife uses it almost obsessively. Judging by what her ‘friends’ post up it’s all just copying and pasting links to random stuff in the interwebs.

Very rarely an original thought of their own, just “here’s a random picture I thought was cute/funny”, that all their friends then feel obliged to ‘like’ so that they feel justified in their sense of humour.

Although I believe ‘liking’ a Facebook group is now the internationally recognised way of guaranteeing the resolution of all global plights and injustices, with the added bonus that nobody needs to physcially get off their arse and actually do something about anything.

So footlaps assuming Attenborough is correct, which is more important: the environment or first world state pensions?

long term (as in, more than a few human lifetimes), arguably the envt.

short term, maybe state pensions.

therefore, seeing as humans are incapable of looking at the long-term impact of anything, we’ll all prioritise pensions because we want a (relatively) nice easy quick-fix.

How may people could place Mali on a map a week ago? And how many are now experts!!

I think you’ll find STWers are all already experts on absolutely everything …

Trains that run on time without delays

These have been invented.

Unfortutely they’re operated and maintained by humans, who are massively fallible and often massively inept 😀

Chelsea Tractor’s seem to be purchased by those poor people suffering from the delusion that other people notice/care what they drive, thus they are a hugely important lifestyle/fashion statement.

In reality, people mostly secretly think you’re an idiot if you have one.

It can’t be envy/jealousy – why would anyone be envious of being a massive idiot?

It’s a good thing that the Dock Master was one of the ‘older’ generation … if he’d been under 25 he’d have been too busy tweeting about it and filming it all on his iPhone …