What a child does or does not do at some point in the future does not obviate a parents responsibilities.

So we should punish children because their parents don’t make them a healthy lunch, or feed them properly at home?

Again a safety net for those who need it but not for those who can afford it.

So far fewer kids take school meals, including fewer of those who are eligible for free school meals (possibly because all their mates aren’t having school lunches or something). So the current situation is worse at providing a safety net for those who need it. And the kids who need it were the ones who benefited most from this.

The position on what is provided for kids at schools and what is brought in is essentially arbitrary. Most people would assume that books were provided in schools, but on the face of it, there is no real reason why books (essential for learning) are provided, when food (essential for learning) isn’t. There’s no reason parents who can afford to shouldn’t pay for their kid’s reading books. Basically there isn’t a real moral reason for parents to pay for some things and not for others, it is just how society happens to have evolved.

So personally I think we should just treat this as the same as any other spending on educational or health interventions; rather than take some kind of moral stance on the rights and wrongs of giving people food, we should look at the improvement in outcomes from it versus the cost, and judge it on that. Looking at the study, it at least rules out the obvious ‘make the safety net a little bit bigger’ approach to free school meals, leaving you with two choices, keep the current approach, or free meals for all, depending on whether you think the learning improvements in the pilot studies suggest that it is worthwhile to spend that amount of money.

If kids who’s parents are on benefits/out of work/low income get free meals already but there is a section of kids who’s parents struggle for genuine reasons why not just relax the free school meal criteria rather than include everyone? Or would that cost more to implement ? Bit like what they did for child allowance you have to opt in if you meet the criteria.

Cos they tried that in their pilot studies and it didn’t work.

You can read the report on it here (search for the executive summary)
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/184047/DFE-RR227.pdf

This is electioneering at its worst, the Lib Dems trying to buy Middle Class votes.

To be fair to the Lib Dems, this isn’t electioneering at its worst, this is evidence based policy being actually quite good.

The story behind it is:

The (previous) government, commissioned pilot schemes, where they trialled universal free school dinners.

The result of the pilot schemes was that kids did better at school. And that the effect was greatest amongst poor kids, even those who would previously have had access to free school meals, so it possibly can help reduce inequalities between poorer and richer kids which is nice too.

You can read all about it here (search for the executive summary)
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/184047/DFE-RR227.pdf

They say that as an educational intervention, it offers better value for money than some directly educational things like the ‘every child a reader’ program.

Essentially, the underlying aim is the same as if they’d said “we’ll spend x amount of money on buying some books for every school”, it’s just that because it is a free lunch, people get up in arms about it.

Balance 1st do them – short finger kiddimoto ones and long finger strider ones.

http://www.balance1st.co.uk/kiddimoto-gloves

The Strider ones were fine for a 2 year old, so quite small.

I’d rather take the risk and take the stuff. IT wont kill me if it is largely snake oil whereas doing nowt will be detrimental…

That was roughly the idea that people had in the past when they took large doses of vitamin C, supplemented with vitamin E etc.

But it is rubbish, because it is not that these things are either snake oil that does nothing or positive; there are three possibilities what they do to your body can be either a)positive, b)nothing, or c)negative.

For example, in the case of vitamin supplements and particularly in the case of large vitamin C doses, they’ve in a few studies shown a correlation to quite increased mortality rates, more cancer, that sort of bad stuff. And the same studies have failed to demonstrate any health benefits.

Worth a read:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/the-vitamin-myth-why-we-think-we-need-supplements/277947/

With the torch, are you using some kind of clamp on mount that holds it high up? I just strap mine into one of the grooves on top of my helmet with small velcro straps. Depends on which direction your helmet grooves go obviously, but it is much lower profile than a mount.

You might also need to get something which does word documents sensibly, which means a Windows PC (or a Mac, but not for that money). Not a chromebook or a tablet. They will edit them, but not always very well, and not always format things exactly the same.

You can buy MS office for 60 quid on a 4 year subscription as a student (think it is called ‘university 365’.

a bunch of menus composed entirely of asda smart price fruit and veg?

A bit back someone did this, and their ‘dirt cheap’ recipe for pasta sauce included “a glass of chianti that was left in the bottle: cost = zero”, along with a load of storecupboard herbs and things at cost = zero.

I’ve heard it all now!! Nothing to do with the supersize fries & burger being consumed along with that “diet” drink of course! It’s pretty obvious that portion/packet size has increased massively in the last 20/30 years or so. eg when I was growing up, if you wanted some crisps, you had a small bag of crisps. There weren’t these massive “sharing” bags you get now (which people seem more than happy to consume on their own!)

No, decreased response to sugar has nothing to do with the supersize fries and burger – although the fact that you can’t get a sugar hit so easily might potentially mean you’re more likely to eat more lovely sweet processed food.

You can read the abstract of the study here,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003193841200193X

It isn’t just portion size although clearly in the USA that is a big issue, hence the battles against ridiculous portions, and the (evil) food industry fighting to keep them. We have changed how foods are made, made them sweeter, created ‘healthy drinks’ full of artificial sweeteners that reduce peoples sugar responses and make them eat more sugary foods in the long term, added more sugar to loads of foods to make them fit our current tastes for more sweet food. All manner of stuff has changed, and it isn’t just about stopping people stuffing their mouths full of food. When even the things sold as ‘diet’ are turning out to be bad for us, you can see how people find it hard to know how to be healthy. Particularly in a world where despite the obvious evidence that eating home cooked food from ingredients is the most healthy thing to do, the vast majority of the ‘information’ we are given about eating relates to purchaseable branded products ie. unhealthy processed foods.

Oh and there’s loads of evidence that one of the key things stopping overweight people exercise is that they don’t like the thought of people seeing them exercise. So people calling other people fat is likely to make them less likely to exercise.

Although I find it hard to understand how complicated it is just not to say nasty things to people just because that is a nasty mean thing to do, not because of any wider societal reasoning.

If being fat was purely to do with lack of self control, then people must have had a hell of a big change in their quantity of self control in the last 20 years. Particularly given the evidence that activity levels haven’t changed anywhere near enough to explain it.

There are so many factors that make it hard for people to lose weight, and some are very counterintuive, like zero calorie diet drinks making you fat (thought to be because the artificial sweetness stops you tasting sugar so well, so you eat more of sweet things) and all that crazy stuff.

If he is still living in it, and wants to give it to you whilst continuing to live in it, he has to pay you a full market rent (and you have to pay income tax on it), otherwise it isn’t really a proper gift and it is still liable for inheritance tax purposes and all that.

Surely if you’re chucking up the next day, you must have eaten something that was off or disagreed with you for some reason. Or you have some kind of tummy bug? Dodgy fish or something. At least I’ve never heard of people chucking up due to exercise a day after the exercise.

Oh, on an unrelated note, 2 gels and a load of squash on an 18 mile 1 hour ride? That’s tons to eat just for an hour. I doubt most people would even bother eating on a 1 hour ride, it’s only an hour without eating.

I have speedo endurance swimming trunks and I can totally recommend them. Only thing I would say is that they are *very* hard wearing – I’ve had mine for 10 years now, and they still look fine on the outside (the white inside is slightly grey though), so I can’t justify replacing them, so make sure you buy a style you’d be happy wearing in 10 years. Mine are proper speedo small trunks, which I’m cool with still, but most people would rather wear jammers nowadays (and jammers are supposed to be very slightly faster too).

Goggles are different for everyone, nothing to do with price or quality of brand, all to do with whether they fit your head.

They also wear out over time if you swim a lot and start to leak. Especially I think if you swim somewhere with sand or gritty mud when you’re getting out. A pain if you buy expensive ones (which don’t appear to last any longer). Most pros use an almost new pair of goggles for any important race. I tend to lose them quicker than I wear them out, I’m a right bugger for losing goggles. I also had a pair eaten by a toddler pretending to be a dog, teeth through the seal = instant ruined goggles. Oh, and the anti fog wears off roughly straight away, so everyone ends up spitting on their goggles before they start a swim, that only really matters outdoors though.

I usually spend between a fiver and a tenner on goggles, because I like a soft fit.

My current pair are arenas, they’ve lasted all summer, and I’ve been swimming an awful lot almost exclusively in rivers or lakes, so I’d rate them.

I also had TYR goggles – I wouldn’t rate them, they have a stupid thin strap, and if the strap breaks they won’t fit a normal replacement, so it’s new goggles time, and otherwise they weren’t that good either, got foggy uppy very quickly. I think I had Zoggs and Speedo before that, they were fine too.

There is also a trend amongst a lot of very good swimmers, particularly pool swimmers, for the swedish style goggle – these are dirt cheap, unpadded, and come as a kit where you tie the nose bridge together just right for you. Some people also file down the edges of the eye cups to make them smooth. Worth a try as they cost next to nothing – eg.these.

Erm the Shoreditch crowd would NOT like that, nor be seen wearing it, certainly not as outdoors wear.

Until the moment one of their trendiest mates buys it, then they’ll all suddenly change their mind as one and take the piss out of anyone who isn’t rocking the zebra crossing outfit!

And I bet that’s a picture from a fashion show, and what will end up in the shops is some stripy shirts which is hardly that shocking is it?

It’s worth checking with Tri UK that they’re looking at the right bike too, when I dealt with them, they were quite disorganised, they might have got them mixed up.

When it was first built up I thought the hub was borked as it was so so so clunky when trying to spin it in your hands (I fact I actually rang up Exposure to enquire about it!). However, once fitted with a QR into the forks it spins fine. If you spin the wheel unweighted in the forks it just get very slightly clunky when slowing down to a stop but once weighted (i.e. in proper riding conditions!) you don’t notice it!

Im seeing the same phrases mentioned here as i did when i bought my rohloff.

The difference between the rohloff and a dynamo, is that in the dynamo, the klunky feeling when not on a wheel is because it likes to be in a particular place relative to the magnets, which means there are 24 or something notches round the wheel; so at some points it is pulling backwards towards the last notch, but at other points it is pulling forwards towards the next notch. When you’re riding with the weight of a wheel and bike to smooth it out, the fact that 50% of the time it is speeding you up very slightly, and 50% of the time it is slowing you down very slightly balances out. Whereas in a Rohloff, that’s drag in the hub.

It’s hard to tell how much drag is in a dynamo hub without doing actual tests, because turning the hub in your hands tells you nothing.

The bearings thing I think is true for most dynamo hubs, on my shimano, it’s supposed to be something to do with how the electricity gets out of the hub, there are some small wires that can get broken.

Also, when do the passes have a chance of being closed by snow – that is worth knowing if you’re relying on any high passes and would have a long way round otherwise.

We did from the top of Lake Maggiore to Bethune in one go, by pretty much the shortest route with the exception of the Gotthard Pass because the tunnel was traffic jammed (which was brilliant – lots of nice snow at the top). That was too much for one day in hindsight, although only one driver which makes a difference I guess.

It’s dirt cheap to stay at Formule type places by the motorway, worth paying the extra 30 quid so you don’t have to do such a silly drive. If I did it again, that’s what I’d do.

The only reason people lived local to work in the past is people couldn’t afford cars

Surely the fact that in many households nowadays two people work, and not usually at the same place makes a big difference too?

Although vast numbers of people do live short distances like 5 miles or less from work and don’t cycle, I don’t know how common it is to actually be not practically able to get to work by anything other than car (I suspect it is a bit biased on here with lots of people in high paid but often high staff turnover IT jobs, where people tend to move jobs quite often and look for jobs within quite a wide radius.

I don’t get the obsession with light weight/rigid kids bikes. My son had a cnoc 16, he managed to snap it, i hate to think how long the 30% lighter one would have lasted. He then had a hotrock 20 that survived 2 seasons in the mountains and got him down stuff that a really good (better) young rider couldn’t do on his rigid bike. The suspension might be “crap” but even 1.5 in takes the sting out of rocky trails.

Surely the vast majority of 3 or 4 year olds aren’t doing rocky downhilling though? Obviously if you’re hardcore enough that you’re breaking bikes something burlier and heavier is probably appropriate, but really, how many 4 year olds ride in the kind of way that they might break their bikes? And being able to pick up your own bike is really nice for them, not to mention that it makes the inevitable walk back carrying the bike when the 3 year old gets tired a bit easier.

Not to mention that if you live somewhere with seasons and uplift and that kind of thing, the ability to ride it up hills may make less difference than in other places.

I actually really like the idea of a dynamo. I just don’t think I’m ready for the hassle.

Dynamo is expensive because you need a new hub or wheel, but if you only need it on one bike, zero hassle.

Fitting is a roughly similar amount of hassle to changing a tyre + putting a light mount for any old light on.

I fitted the front light to my commuter in 2008. No maintenance yet. Compared to expensive and powerful battery lights where I had to charge them most days for a long commute, and even then the battery got older over time, it is night and day.

It’s illegal in pretty much all other European countries, and it is hard to argue that their kids are far worse behaved than UK kids. So there is clearly a way to bring up kids without smacking that (over a population) doesn’t have a detrimental effect on behaviour.

The fact of it being legal here, means that people who do hit their children very regularly (ie. child abusers) may be able to get away with it as long as they don’t bruise or scratch them.

http://www.findlaw.co.uk/law/family/children/parental_advice/500558.html

I don’t have any lighter suggestions I’m afraid.. I just remember feeling quite dejected yesterday as I lifted yunki jr’s £200 Islabike into the car, swiftly followed by his cousin’s £40 bso.

If you look a the numbers, they are surprisingly lighter. All the cheaper ones appear to be at least 50% heavier, like the £240 trek mt60 weighs something like 6kg more than the equivalent £300 Islabikes, the Carrera Blast weights 6-8kg more depending on which weight you believe. The Decathlon ones are roughly the same weight as those two, so probably the closest to Islabikes weight at Decathlon prices is the Decathlon bikes assuming you’re buying new; they aren’t that heavy for kids bikes.

With the even smaller bikes it is just as bad, I did tons of research when buying Rose’s 14″ one and the only one close in weight was the Frog, which was a fiver cheaper. You can pay £150 for a Ridgeback, but even that was 50% heavier.

Oh, you can pickle it too which is nice.

Risotto, roughly this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/5243469/Beetroot-risotto.html

except I’d use vodka instead of the vermouth (and maybe add a shot of vodka at the end if serving it to adults), whack sour cream on top at the end (don’t mix it in, just a blob on each person’s plate) and dill.

Oh, and borscht (beetroot soup, from Eastern Europe), there are tons of recipes for it, I have no idea what was used when we’ve had it. Can be made veggie or with beef stock. Google for a recipe and choose one that sounds nice to you and isn’t super complex.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/apr/07/how-to-cook-perfect-borscht

My lad was alway knackered after water babies. I’d take the pram.

Swimming is a real sleep inducer. I took Rose to swimming in the bike trailer every week from about 8 months, and she *always* slept on the way back. Was very useful, because it was the best part of an hours ride away over some big hills, and meant she wasn’t needing milk or changing or anything so no stopping needed. That was in the special suspended baby sling designed to support a baby from 12 weeks old though, which is obviously designed for them to fall asleep in (and no helmet for that, so no worries about any risks from wearing a heavy helmet).

Not always possible to find out – my mum has a tesco pay as you go phone, she’s had it for some years and always topped up with cash, and when the police picked it up her number as part of an investigation and wanted to find out who owned it, the only way they could find out was by calling all the numbers that it had called out to, and asking them. They couldn’t even find out by calling her as 9 times out of 10 it’d be turned off unless she was expecting a call.

And that was with full access to the customer databases that mobile phone networks have and all that, not just with a quick google,

Is the old one the 30″ one with better resolution than the new one and otherwise similar specs?

Can’t you just drive the old monitor off the new macbook?

If so, it seems like quite a lot of money to spend for slightly tidier cables and a webcam (which the macbook has anyway)?

I suspect that many of the negative influences of TV on kids that we all know for a fact happen are actually a combination of rose-tinted spectacles and the shockingly bad reporting of academic studies* that we’re inflicted with in this country.

I have a slight knowledge of it having read some of the primary academic literature, and there is a lot of evidence that tons and tons of TV might be bad for people, and that it isn’t so good for under 2s. Some kids really are watching quite a lot of TV mind, so the worst cases in the studies really are watching a lot.

It is quite nuanced, but I bet none of the academics doing any of that work let their kids have TVs in their rooms, or let their young kids watch a lot of TV.

One really interesting summary thing I read today – basic summary, paying on facebook / games (aka ‘cognitively active screen time’) may be better for your kids than watching tv. Lots of interesting stuff about screen time and under 5s also.

http://game-flow.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/AJEC-paper-Screen-Time-web.pdf

Also, quite a lot of evidence that increasing TV time may lead to higher likelihood of getting fat (or getting ‘metabolic syndrome’, essentially the same thing), independent of physical activity. Which probably suggests it’s better not to have TV in their room where time is to some extent uncontrolled.
eg:
http://www.ijbnpa.org/content/4/1/26
http://jpubhealth.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/2/153.short

All this stuff is pretty easy to find, you just need to google scholar for it, much of it is publically available – http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=screen+time

It is often worth looking at the names of people when academic studies are reported, and at least googling and reading the abstract to see what the study actually said.

Ours is grade 2 listed, conservation area in a world heritage site. It means things like doors and stuff are more expensive. Insurance is more expensive, but not massively so – find a normal insurer who will cover it (with a massive rebuild cost) – grade 2 is covered by most comparison websites. Mortgage companies are happy as long as someone will insure it.

More of a problem if it’s in a flood risk area, because then you’re combining flood risk insurance with listed building, which makes it a nightmare and hardly anyone will insure.

Long term maintenance things like doing the roof or doors and windows are quite expensive, especially if you have to get odd materials, although that can be the same in just a conservation area.

If you want it to be what it is, I don’t think it’s too bad – you have to accept that you’re not going to be bunging a massive extension on the outside of it, or pebble-dashing the front or whatever, or anything that changes it all that much externally beyond keeping it in nice condition (although with ours, because it is a terrace, people have got permission to do a fair few extensions at the back where it isn’t visible from the road, within quite strict limits though).

It might work, it might not. In theory, it should, but with HDMI in theory is not the same as in practice, which depends on what device is at both ends and the ethernet cable in the middle. Only way you can find out is to buy and try and send it back if it doesn’t work.

Even fancy expensive kit can be hard to get going; we had a *very* expensive HDMI -> cat6 balun pair, going along something ludicrous like a 200m run of paired cat6 cables, which in theory would work even if one cable failed, with a very expensive cinema projector at one end, and that was an absolute pig to get working.

Don’t suppose you can just put the sources in the room and re-run the satellite cable? You’ve got cat5 for any networking you need, and that way all the complications of running video & IR signals a long distance are solved.

On the other hand, you have a house with 4 cat5 cables already installed in the walls, that is pretty handy!

I’ve also seen HDMI over gigabit lan, for if you have an existing network. I think it is quite expensive though (it is lossy compression, but almost certainly unnoticeable if your video is coming from something like a blueray disk or TV).

I was thinking Ambergate too, that’s the obvious place, although I understand one of the more obvious switchbacky trails is a bit sensitive. Or I think there might be one or two somewhere below Black Rocks, but I couldn’t for the life of me direct you to them, I don’t bother with maps and always just follow my nose + some vague memory of where I went on the last ride round there and don’t worry too much about where I’m going.

There are ones which can switch between two sources. I would avoid them personally, can be a nightmare to use – HDMI is designed so that the source and the destination have a little chat about what they will show. Switching two sources can make all that turn into a mess.

Also, whilst I know you can control some features of connected HDMI devices using the TV remote, does that work okay for fancy pants things like SKY+, or do you need something that relays remotes too?

We have a small miele, but I don’t think it is all that.

Slightly better than the pretty much dead Dyson that it replaced, and quieter, but I’m not convinced it was better than a brand new Dyson or any other new hoover for that matter. They are German and fashionable, but it seems rather like they just design a massive very sucky motor, and don’t put much thought into the sucky end bit. Maybe the £300 ones are good, but the <£200 pound ones, I don’t see what the fuss is about, I think it’s mainly a fashion thing.

Croozer here, started at 6 months with the baby sling.

She’s always slept in it loads, in the baby sling up to 12 or 13 months (small baby), then just in the main seat. No worries at all about head wobbling in the baby sling. Without the sling after that, her head goes to the side and rests on the head pillow thing or snuggles down onto her shoulder. Seems pretty much the same as what happens when she sleeps in her car seat. She’s got no helmet on though, that might make a difference if you stick helmets on them. Although thinking about it the one time she went in a bike seat with a helmet on, she did exactly the same after a bit.

Double trailer for only one kid is not the end of the world, we give other kids lifts in ours, she loves doing that, and you can get an awful lot of shopping (pretty much a trolley load) in the boot and the spare seat combined, full camping gear etc.

We left our car unlocked for a week once, and someone nicked the packet of mints from the glove box and nothing else. Which probably says something about our CD collection (or the general undesirability of CDs as a thing to nick nowadays).

At the Macdonald, the soft play costs 4 quid a go or something, even if you’re staying there, isn’t included in the cost of stay, and is right next to the swimming pool, so your kids will see it every time you go swimming, so budget inevitable soft play sessions into your cost. Seems a weird anomaly, it’s like it’s inclusive except for the soft play.

Pool is lovely though.