I quite liked it but I was only there for 3 nights

still, better than Manchester* ;-) Or Bradford

*MOT

well I'm serious. Next thing you'll be asking is "how many pairs of socks do you have?"

c'mon, it's Sunday morning, we can do better than this ;-)

haven't a clue. plenty I s'pose. Does it matter?

sadly, brakes, tyres, brake pipes and suspension/steering bushings are all things that wear out and need replacing on a fairly regular basis, just like they do on your bike.

If the car had been serviced on a regular basis, most of these problems should have been identified – and repaired – as you went along, rather than all at once when the next MOT comes around.

You don't have to (and IMO shouldn't) get services done at a main dealer on a 2003 car, but you should get it done at least once a year, even if you don't get anywhere near the service interval. Remember, this is X thousand miles OR once a year, whichever comes first.

Saying that, as the biggest bills of these are likely to be your tyres, brake pads & discs, once they've been done they should last a while – on a FWD car, front tyres should last at least 20k miles, rears double that and then some.

The oil leaks are a different story. When was the timing belt last changed? What's the mileage now?

BTW this is purely from my own experience in 20 years driving; I'm not a mechanic.

singing no

drumming yes. except there are no video clips, so you'll have to make do with audio

http://www.myspace.com/….

actually I won't, as this thread is not about me

you seemed to be more or less in tune as far as I could tell; shame about the backing singers ;-)

still, there's a reason I chose to hit things at the back of the room rather than sing at the front…

red card every time. She has no place in "soccer"

The clue is in the name…

I spent 2 weeks in Canada last summer. Couldn't use my Natwest debit cards anywhere as the delightful bank seemed to think Canada was a hotbed of credit/Debit card fraud.

That may well be the case but I'm simply going on my own experience. One more week and I won't have to worry about it ever again..

Fingers well & truly burnt

And no I didn't buy it as a buy-to-let. It was my home once

distress

well it's certainly distressing, but I think the word is "distraint"

anyway, by the time it gets to this point, you're better off cutting your losses & getting the buggers out ASAP.

Then you have to look at the damage they may have done, either deliberately or simply through being dirty bastards who don't give a shit because it's not their house & they can just move out when they f*cking well feel like it

The last dirty bastard who rented my house left it in such a state that I had to:
a) rip out all the carpets
b) rip out the kitchen
c) rip off all the wallpaper
d) get a professional cleaning company in to clean up the rest of his mess

and after I'd done all that it STILL wasn't fit to let again. So think on, next time you moan about landlords keeping your deposit "for a bit of cleaning"

I still haven't been able to let the property again. It's going through an auction sale right now, completion due on 1st April (yeh, I know)

it depends how quickly they want you out.

Some companies want you to work your notice, and only offer the statutory minimum, but may offer more if you opt for voluntary redundancy.

First time I was made redundant I'd been there less than 2 years so wasn't technically entitled to anything. They offered me (I think) 4 weeks in lieu of notice, plus any holiday I hadn't taken up to that point, tax free. The 'risk' date was 21st August, I was told on the 1st. "You don't need to come back in if you don't want to". Too right, you think I'm driving an 85 mile round trip for nothing

Effectively I got three weeks paid holiday, one month's salary for the month I'd already worked, plus another month tax free. Wasn't a bad payoff considering how long I'd been there.
I started a new job on 1st September, but knew about it before the "end date", so I never even signed on.

Footnote to this is the job I started on 1st September, I left on the 27th October to start the job I'm in now.

8 years = 8 weeks. plus notice if they want you out of the building

I like em too. £25-£30 for a pair of basic Shimano SPD pedals. And maybe another £50 (at the very least) for proper cycle shoes unless you get lucky with the Aldi sales. Not bad shoes, if you don't mind vented & no laces, for less than half the price of Shimano ones

but yeah, find somewhere soft & wide to practice on, you WILL fall over sideways. Do NOT try your first ride on SPDs in traffic, as you WILL fall under a bus

How the hell can you let it go on for so long. Has soon as they went into arrears I would have told them that I would be taking it out of the deposit then they would be out on the length of the deposit, out of the door

yeah but you can't do that these days. There are these things called "laws" that protect the tenant more than they protect the landlord.

it's often two months down the line before you're even aware there's a problem – especially if they've been regular timely payers up to that point – and you're in month three. Then you give the minimum notice, which on an assured short term tenancy is two months from the anniversary date after the original six months are up. So before you know it 5 or even 6 months have gone by.

Only then can you get the courts involved, and that can take anything upwards of two to three months.

no, the days of ruthless landlords turfing tenants out without so much of a by your leave went along with the Jacobite rebellion, I'm afraid

But I would also challenge the letting agent if there is one. To whom had the council been paying the housing benefit beforehand?

But on the other hand, I had a tenant who was always flakey about paying his rent. Came to a head in september one year when he was 3 months behind & not responding to phone calls, letters or visits from the letting agent.

Served the required notice, after which he was still there, so we applied to the court for a possession order.

He was gone by the April of the following year. And what a pigsty he'd left.

Cut your losses & serve notice. If she's not gone by the end of the notice period then you can start court proceedings. As she's a single mum that may slow things down.

In the meantime get onto the council ASAP & get them to switch payments to you

Bailiffs won't want to know until the court issues a possession order and anything else is probably illegal

I'm sorry, my tongue was so far in my cheek there that nobody noticed. :roll:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbsuAbTTsV8&feature=related

sadly stolen by the Wendies / England fans

of course they do

but they don't eat quiche

there's also a "cash" limit, which seems to be permanent. Say you have a 4k limit, you'll have a 2k cash limit. As far as I can figure out, as soon as you've taken 2k out of cash machines, that's it, no more cash. ever.

of course I'm probably wrong, but that's the way it seems to me

and also of course, who in their right mind will take cash out of an ATM on their credit card when there's a cash handling charge that you don't pay if you buy goods with the very same card. Unless of course you happen to be visiting Canada & your debit cards don't work in the ATMs because your bank once upon a time heard of a possible debit card scam originating from (allegedly) Toronto. ooh no, that would never happen would it?

bitter, moi?

I do remember seeing what looked like a SAM missile on a launcher truck near Sunderland quite recently

last time I went down the A1, the Lightning near Newark was still there – maybe a year ago. You should be able to see it from the East Coast Mainline too, as it's very close to the A1 at that point

it's a startling resemblance so if you recognise it, yes you probably do
;-)

I like that, I think I'll keep it :-)

Bingley area has the best local riding in the Airevalley IMO.

it's alright. Baildon's better ;-)

only joking, Bingley area has some fantastic trails – apart from the one with the arsey horsey landowner on Harden Moor, which is a poor trail anyway, IMO

I did a similar commute – Baildon to Haslingden in the Rossendale valley – probably the same route as far as Rose Grove. Colne was a bit of a bottleneck but otherwise a nice run

Keighley is not very nice. Outlying areas are but if you have kids you might want to consider where the schools are.

bump – 3 hours to go!

come on down folks, four live acts for free, talk about value for money

6pm-10pm tonight

Justin Sullivan

song – Green & Grey. although JS only wrote the words. Music by the late & much missed Robert Heaton

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aaLr1FLgj0

this one was newsworthy because he was British.

correction – newsworthy in Britain. I bet it didn't even make the back page of the Sidney Autotrader*

*insert any random non-british newspaper here

Slow news week.

I have no DJ. Never have had, never intend to, nor ever the need for one.

I'm 45 now & the only event I've ever been to where one was required, I was playing so it wasn't required of me ;-)

Suit – can you still get double breasted suit jackets? the Demob look?

mine was nowt special. 21st was a good one though

I got it in Canada last year. flight left Manchester in the morning, 8-9 hours in the air but still only 1pm when we arrived. Didn't manage to make it through to a normal time that evening. But ended up getting up at 5am local time.

Mrs_drummer never quite got into the local time zones the whole 2 weeks we were there.

Coming back should've been worse with an overnight flight but I managed to make it through to a normal time in the evening. Still felt strange for a couple of days though

cool, nice one

there's another two coming up in April/May but I'll publicise those nearer the time. Hopefully we'll have some new material on the myspace page by then too

BTW you can buy these songs on download from Amazon, iTunes, and AmazingTunes – http://www.amazingtunes.com/users/thewickeffect.

Or hard copy from us at the gig :-)

Our own songs – http://www.myspace.com/wickeffect

oh yeah. and while i'm on a roll:

prawns. fishy flavoured worms – no ta
shellfish – snot flavoured rubber grommets – no ta

hazelnuts. I nearly forgot about these buggers. They are the devil's droppings. and why do they insist on putting them in chocolate spread? do I look like a frakking squirrel?

thank you Mars for making the Topic bar extinct so the little b**tards don't pop up in a box of Heroes anymore

I'm not a big Susan so I don't have any hand cream – 17

I use Beconase nasal spray. Mine seems to run from April to early July, so I'll be starting with the stuff very soon.

two squirts up each nostril morning & night once the season starts, and after about 2 weeks I get no symptoms at all; after about a month I can then take it down to 1 squirt up each nostril in the morning only. Come the end of July I can stop using it altogether

Best thing I ever found for hayfever, for me anyway

Salad cream
Coleslaw
Raw tomatoes
Raw cheese
Mushrooms
Offal
Sushi
Raw onions

But strangely, cooked tomatoes, onions, cheese are fine

When I did mine in may 2006, including messing up the tendons & ligaments in my ankle, it went like this:

May 2006 – fracture dislocation of left ankle/fibula
+4 days – on crutches
July – cast off, limping. Went on holiday to Cannes without crutches. Still limping due to stiff ankle
Sept – physio. 1 session later, no limp
Oct – back on bike, flat pedals. End of physio