>The Princess Alice, Holborn.

I *think* you mean the Princess Louise – intact/restored Victorian place with lots or original tiles and reinstated screens ?

Juan – have a look at fancyapint.com and look for those rated as 4-5 pinters (that includes quite a few of those listed above)

The Salisbury in St Martins Lane nr Leicester Square
http://www.fancyapint.com/area/00486.php
is both a decent pub and an interesting one

Put one of these about halfway up:

– very effective at keeping the squirrels off.
Best to site the whole lot in the middle of the lawn (or open area) if possible – some birds will hunt around for dropped seed under the feeders and you need to give 'em a chance to spot cats.

We've also put out a tray under a mesh cage:
http://www.birdfood.co.uk/product_details.php?area_id=2&group_id=16&nav_id=35&prd_id=1038
– the small mesh version keeps out all but the smallest squirrels and starlings and lets smaller ground-feeding birds in. (I think bluetits tends to prefer suspended seed feeders tho')

We've never had much luck with peanuts – tho' curiously our neighbours do.

We didn't used to have trouble with (urban) pigeons – ie rock doves – till the council put some more netting under a local bridge, then we were inundated with te bloody things – they'd happily sit on the roof all day waiting to see some food appear. Whereas most of the other bigger birds will land, pick up what they want then fly off. Only thing that seems to discourage pigeons – or prevent 'em hogging it – is put food out late night, for early morning, and when approaching dusk, 'cos they seem to be lazy buggers.

We've alway got a couple of collar doves nesting nearby – they're quite entertaining, they get to the point that if there's no food out they'll start wandering round the patio as it to remind us. (And I'm sure we've had several different pairs in the last 4 years).

One thing with the whole seed (tho' I agree it's more of a pain getting it in the lawn) – it does tend to be a fair bit cheaper than the kernels.

>snapped the bolt

Yer supposed to take the slack out with it, not torque it to death 😉

(I'd go for a Hed doctor, btw…)

>driver shouldn't expect a cyclist/vehicle
>The driver may have been doing 0.1mph and looking as carefully as humanly possible

If the traffic's stopped that's *exactly* what a driver should be looking out for, and you could argue that if he hasn't got good visibility he should stay where he is. The fact the cylist is just over the white line is irrelevant, he could equally have just been inside it and it wouldn't have made any material difference .( FWIW when I cross the road between vehicles I make damn sure there's not a cyclist or motorcycle approaching – tho' I'd also be a bit more cautious about edging past a lorry I can't see past for that matter.)

(I'll qualify that a little – a mate was found liable for having pulled out of a sideroad into the main carriageway, sitting there and then being hit by another vehicle on that cariageway – it was deemed he should have reversed back over the line to keep it clear.)

I've been a bit slack of late…ok, the last 4 years 😮 – but BOBMBC do several assorted rides there during the week (starting from Crowthorne, actually)

I'm not aware there's any dogging in the Lookout carpark either 😉

Is it also a matter of the devil you know ?
I'm sure there's generally better riding up there (come to think of it, I've ridden up there m'self), one thing London has in it's favour is you can get over to Wales/west country etc (assuming you want to). The Chilterns/N downs are nearby – it's not like living in Essex 😉

I've lived down here since '88 and can't see us moving – we live about 10 mins or so drive from Cobham (Walton-On-Thames), before that we were in Surbiton (a better choice than Kingston IMO – later last train, faster train service, slightly cheaper housing – and less traffic of a weekend..and still in the travelcard zones and on the night bus route).
Given the choice I'd probably live in the surrey hills ie between Guildford/Dorking (we almost bought a place in Godalming a few years back), but unless you're in a town you may to drive to get anywhere bigger (bit of a statement of the obvious..), if you want to get into London it adds a fair bit to travel costs

T'other thing that swings it for me is I see quite a few bands over the year – other than mebbe the midlands, no-where else quite competes.

Ignore the 'it's a sh*thole' comments – it is what it is – and what you make of it. There's areas I would't touch with a bargepole but London's so big you can forget 'em.

>middle aged?

Hey, I resemble that remark :p

>lots of self build camper van info albeit for vw but the basics are the same.

Also http://www.brick-yard.co.uk/forum/

Park tools bog roll holder ?

ISTR there was somewhere on the box over the summer with the same problem (tho' it was a country house with a pretty big garden) – badgers were making a heck of a mess. I think their solution – given that enclosing it was impractical, even if it did work – was to put more interesting food out for the badgers.
(Ah, just spotted daisyduke's post – peanuts sound familiar).

Foxes and squirrels occasionally have a go at our lawn, but it's normally just in isolated spots – tho' annoyingly the little beggars tend to go back to the same place.

B*gger bib knickers – when it's chilly just go for bib longs and have done with it – peel the whole lot off and yer legs are pretty damn clean – which is handy if you've got to get in a car without a hose-down.
Forget the baggies, waste of time IMO.
(Then again, I R XC jeyboy..)

Roubaix-stylee top (or thermal top under s/s jersey) with roubaix bib longs (Lusso stuff's good) normally do me for most UK weather from about 15 degrees down to freezing, and I don't bother with a jacket unless it's chucking it down). Any warmer than that and lycra tights with bib shorts (or shorts+braces) helps keep my rubbishy knees a little warmer – and also have the dirt peel-off advantage 🙂

I *have* tried on bib knickers once – but found the elastic sufficiently tight that I felt like my calves were gonna drop off/explode – wouldn't have helped the varicose veins much either 😮 But I'm sure they're not all like that.

>little old

Old, but not little, if it's the laptop drive-based one 😉 I've got the 60G version here in my drawer that I keep updated, still a decent bit of kit if a bit bulky ! Mostly use the credit-card sized, more recent Zen. (and I would still be using my old Muvo^2 if some pikey hasn't lifted it when I was in the gym – or at least, that's my theory…)

It may sound obvious, but you need to find out what's causing the damp, rather than treating the symtoms like using sealers, paint etc – they'll just prevent the wall breathing properly. If it isn't condensation, it may be something like a leaky downpipe or knackered pointing. Or if you're on the ground floor, mebbe a bridged damp course or one that's too low and/or you're getting water splash up above it.

(FWIW Victorian/Edwardian buildings or earlier should use lime mortar rather mortar using Portland cement, it's softer and more breathable. For the same reason stonework's supposed to use lime mortar)

>Sweeping generalisation i know but, with a man

And I suspect the reason for that in many cases is that the bloke expects his missus to handle that end of things !

>so if you need to send a digital signal in a particular time frame

Statically that was correct, but if the whole lot's in spec then it's so statistically low as to be insignificant.

Tho' that's not how hdmi operates. Looking at the spec (I've a pdf of it here) it uses BCH for error correction on audio and control channels, and there's an additional level of coding for error reduction at the transmit/receive level.

There's some encoding done on the video stream data, but that doesn't appear to be for error reduction.

There *are* two categories of cable performance specified, called (funnily enough) Category 1 (data clock up to 340MHz) and Category 2(data clock up to 74.25MHz) – without looking further I'm guessing the latter relates more to NTSC/PAL (ie standard definition video) than anything else. That may be worth checking for on any cable you buy – tho' I don't know how/if they're marked up as that.

For compliant, read 'guaranteed to work as specified'. The spec specifies cable, connecter, transmit and receive performance, if everything is in spec it should work as intended
It doesn't mean non-compliant cables *won't* work, but a short run will probably work, but the same quality may be utter pants in a long cable length. I can't see a specied length in the spec, but it does specify attenuation and the two go hand-in-hand to a degree (the spec also covers cable equalisation where used). (Ah – funkynick's covered that bit…)

As a generalisation, there's lots of different error correction methods or ways to provide more robust transmission, they may work better in some circumstances than others.
Eg a cd – a scratch *along* an arc it will handly very badly, whereas a radial scratch it'll handle fine bacuse of the way the error correction's done.

>ah, phase ? That doesn't really make sense for impulse signals which are synthesised from numerous
Actually it does. What looks like a nice rising edge at the source may look really grotty at the receiving end depending on what the cable's attenuation/frequency and phase/frequency characteristics are.

>strange frond face thingy at the end

That was an Ood – fwiw I dunno the significance either. First time they appeared were as a kinda slave race quite some time back during Tennant's run, ISTR they've appeared again but I kinda remember much about it.
Ah, wiki here:
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Ood

I've an '03 P7 – I've gone back to using the original non-qr clamp 'cos even the original shim/post were sufficiently sloppy that a qr clamp with nylon bearing material in the clamp I could never tighten enough – eventually it wrecked the clamp. Gawd knows what they reamed the thing with, feels like there's more ripples than you'd find on yer average Ann Summers product…

I'd go up a size on the shim diameter (or down a size on the inside diameter) if possible – if it all fits together by hand there shouldn't be a problem.

FWIW the specs for the last several years are on the orange website…

>3% palm oil (I know, I know; think of the rain forests)

If you can get the Meridian stuff (usually Holland & Barrett) – that's purely nuts – ie the oil is too – works out a lot cheaper that the smaller jars of wholenut/organic stuff. They often stock it in 1Kg containers – in theory there's both smooth and crunchy but I can only find the latter. I've tried grinding up the crunchy in a pestle n mortar..it works but it's hard work…

My favourite is on buttered pikelets/crumpets 🙂

>It's not off limits though is it, she's chosen not to go there

Well, it is if she feels intimidated by the way people ride there.
Similarly, in my Close there's several retired/semi-retired people whose wives are scared of cycling what are relatively safe* local roads 'cos of cars skimming their handlebars – they often ride on the pavement.
(*having said that, one of our posties lost his lower leg recently after a lorry sandwiched him against some parked cars outside a parade of shops…)

Equally having some idiot passing closely at speed on a bike is gonna be intimidating – do you trust that they're gonna hit you ? – and why should you ?
Not mention what wouldn't bother someone when they're 20 probably will when they're 50. Get hit by some knob-jockey on a bike and the injury's gonna take longer to heal (if at all)

>Or just simply, 'amusing'.

Words fail me…

Have a look at the satellite view on google maps wrt the following.

As mentioned, there's the Littleworth Common cut-through – along Littleworth Rd/Arbrook Lane (pretty quiet iirc). From there you can cut south towards that cleared section this sits either side of the A244 just north of the A3 – there's a crossing point marked there for horseriders.

Cross the A244 and continue along that clearing, the path continues west and slightly south rising up a banking (you can see it clearly on the sat. image). That turns south to reach the footbridge over the A3 (the first one west of the A244/A3 junction). You can pretty much carry on south from there, after that my recollection's a bit hazy but you'll cross Sandy Lane and carry one southish whichever way you need to. The spot just NW of Oxshot station is a big clearance on the hillside (station's the low end) – there's fast run down the hill to the west of that, or a flight of wooden steps to the east side.
The sandy coloured area nr the junction of Sandy Lane and Warren Lane is a big sandy-ish bombholes kinda thing (rooty 'round one side), south of that (going towards that hillside clearing) are – or used to be a few years ago – some jumps.
There's a few pleasant (tho' not awfully exciting) little routes 'round there but I'm blowed if I can remember quite where they are.

BTW – there was a load of tree clearance scheduled in that general area, so what's shown on the satellite image may well not be there now.

If you haven't got it taxed and don't get it SORNed, at some point you'll get a fine for doing neither – I forgot to SORN the motorbike once and it took 'em about 6 months for a fine to arrive – annoyingly just before I was about to tax the damn thing.

I realise it keeps lumps of scrap off the road – but I find the kept-on-the-road+taxed thing a bit cheeky in the case where they aren't. If you've got the space (effectively £) to keep a car off road then you can SORN it. If you haven't you can't – ie if you can't afford to tax/run the car, you've got to sell it to remain within the law, despite the fact that you've no intention of running it.

>and there is an awful lot to do wrong

when I first started doing it, our instructor had some of us doing straight leg raises over the head. Fast fwd about 4 years and she almost has a fit when I started doing 'em in class, and swears blind she'd never have taught it…forgetful lass 😉

>lot of emphasis on relaxing and laying about a lot between exercises

Get a new instructor 😉

I've been doing pilates for something like 8 or 9 years I guess – been going to classes all that time too, tho' my gym has an intermediate/advanced group and the instructor that runs it introduces new stuff from time to time. Several of the other attendees have got there through having back trouble – in fact, as our instructor did. She was in quite a bad car accident many years ago (already a fitness instructor) and reckons before she started Pilates the prognosis wasn't great…

You ought to at least get something like 8 or 10 sessions under your belt to get the breathing/posioning correct, that'll probably cover you for most of the basic moves too. Tho' there's several versions of most things according to flexibility/strength, and a good instructor ought to introduce the more challenging variations accordingly.

Nowadays you'll often seen general gym exercise that have kinda borrwed from Pilates – (which in turn borrows from yoga, etc.)
FWIW Joseph Pilates devised it to rehabilite soldiers – it's used a lot by dancers too. You'll only ever see the matwork exercises in gyms, but there's a machine element to it too :

http://pilates.about.com/od/pilatesequipment/ig/Large-Pilates-Equipment-Pics/

You'll only see that in purpose built studios – tho' you may notice a distinct similarity in function with some stuff that appears on shopping channels 😉

There's a few simple bits of equipment we use – a foam roller (put under/along your spine for some exercises – it destabilises you so you have to work your core harder), a latex band (sounds silly but there's a few things it adds extra resistance to, or helps support), and more recently a small inflatable ball (eg adds inner thigh work to other exercises)

It's quite funny that it's got such a 'girlie' image – pick the right level and it's pretty **** hard. (Pick the right class and the view in front can be…err…not unpleasant 😉 )

As a few people have said, even if you do stuff at honme it's worth going back periodically to make sure you're not getting bad habits and to picks up new variations.

I can dig out a few book recommendations if yer like, tho' some exercises vary a bit between different 'schools/methods'.
You can still get Joseph Pilates books as a two-in-one reprint, tho' some of it makes amusing reading…not quite 'don't do that, it'll make you go blind' but close. Not very useful as a exercise source tho', kinda assumes you can do all the exercises well already, iyswim.

>neutral spine position

Pretty much what he said, the natural curve that your lower spine should have.

I'd be inclined to see a physio at least once to get a diagnosis, at least then you'll know what the problem is.

I've a recurring problem in my neck which sounds a little similar, from riding a roadbike. One day I was too tense, the muscles in the back of the neck went into spasm and pretty much stayed like that for a month. Result – month long, hangover-like tension headache.
Now it's occured once, it now recurs very easily if I'm not careful (so the road bike got sold). Recently had another bout – took a month before I worked out which area to massage (seems to be a different one to before) – so spent a month on ibuprofen which sometimes helped, sometimes didn't.

Some early expert opinion could save you some long term grief – and they'll give you some appropriate stretches to do, too.

(FWIW, long term my vote would be learn pilates – I've been doing it for about 8 yrs and it's a good complement to other exercise and will help core strength/flexibility a lot)

BTW – some local heat might help relax the area and loosen it up (rereading it sounds like the muscles are still in too much tension)

>Better spec .. less money

Better because…?

The OP's spec (or that of the Dells) has a significantly better graphics subsystem – 512M dedicated, whereas the acer gfx mem. will be shared with the cpu
http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Radeon-HD-3200.9591.0.html
– if he's likely to do much gameplaying then the 4570 stands a better chance of running some of the more recent games at a decent framerate.

Regarding the processor – not sure how much difference, the T6400 has a 2M cache compared to the 1M of the Turion so it may well be quicker on some benchmarks/tasks.
Ah, *some* info here:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html

-would seem to indicate the T6400's faster.
In performance order I *think* it's:
1) the more expensive dell
2) the OP's suggested machine (TrueLifeSystem Color: a Dell then ?)
3) the cheaper dell
4) the acer

bruneep – unless anyone's got any better suggestions/reasons not to, I'd be inclined to go with the one you suggested first – disc drive's a bit smaller, but tbh 400G is pretty damn big anyway. You can get a 500G external usb drive for 50-60 quid (and in a years time you'll probably get a 1Terabyte drive for the same)

BTW – most manufacturers will sell you a warranty extension separate to the purchase of the machine, it's worth checking the manufacturers UK website, it'll probably have the pricing shown and may be cheaper than whoever's selling it. (hmm…not sure how that works with Dells). Might not be relevant, John Lewis give you a standard 2yr warranty anyway (tho' amusingly on Acers, it's 130-140 quid to extend it to 3 years with JL, but it's more like 95 quid to extend from 1 year to 3, warranty bought from Acer).

Since windows 7 has arrived, some manufacturers are offering a cheap upgrade to it (one of either toshiba or acer is offering it for about 30 quid).

I ought to add, of course – depends what you want to run on it – the only thing that's likely to give machine much stress is stuff like engineering or CAD(drawing) apps, or the more recent 3d games.

>and personal annecdotal evidence based on observation of a relatively large group of friends would suggest you're wrong

And like another poster, I have several friends (not to mention their friends) that would indicate he's right – none of 'em have any mental health issues.

Coffeeking – ISTR you've science/engineering background. Anecdotal evidence is worth buggerall – the sample size it too small for it to have any statistical significance. As you said, 'fairly hefty pot useage'. That's probably just what you'd expect from the statistics – ie for the majority of users there's no problem – and probably less risk than with alcohol in terms of related behavior..ever seen anyone stoned get in a fight? Wrt mental health hurses – I suspect that pales into insignificance compared to the average friday or sat at an A&E.

I can't be bothered to read the rest of the thread in detail, but Ton/Teagirl: the problem is we've outgrown our niche. Every species has one – or place, if not niche, and there's a balance between them and other species. In the case of mankind we're actually *too* good at exploiting our environment, at the cost to both that environment and its other inhabitants.

>Global overpopulation is the problem
Partly, not completely. Bear in mind the minority of the world's population (ie the developed world) use by far the majority of the worlds resources.

>First one lasted 12 years. Super bit of kit.

The cartridges don't, ours went drippy after 3-4 years, ~60 quid (parts)+ labour to replace (helpfully our predecessors installed two of 'em, and they both need doing..)

FWIW danish oil on the front door (pitch pine) of our last place just got more and more oxidised (I guess) till it was dark, patchy and needed to be cleaned off again. Might be different on oak but I'd want to be very convinced before trying it.

ISTR the Woking has a good range of dodgy clientelle to go with it 😉
Surbiton and Walton seem to be ok for beer too.

FWIW – if you're a CAMRA member you should have a bunch of 'spoon 50p off tokens…officially supposed to be one per visit but the bunch in Lord Moon Of The Mall didn't seem to be sufficiently on the ball to notice (or care), I managed to get throught quite a few on thursday 🙂

>real alefestivals at spoons always just seem to be a selection of off beers that taste pretty much the same.

Dunno 'bout that, a bunch of us at work go to one nr Trafalgar Square every year, and the beers been fine.

Can't vouch for Lusso shorts, but the Roubaix bib longs are ace – I've got a few pairs, the oldest must be 10yrs old and still quite decent nick considering how much wear they've had – tho' possibly a slightly different fabric. The newer pair came complete with a 'woman, this is my best bit of kit so please look at the washing instructions' label stitched inside – or some such wording 😉

Now I could well be talking rubbish, but my OH employs designers/design agencies, and I'm pretty sure she'd expect the CV and a portfolio of work to be two separate things.

In any case, in the event that a CV's gone though an agency there's a good chance they'll have rewritten/messed with the thing – at minimum they'll have taken out the contact details.

The general form for CVs has changed a little over the years, but well-formatted, readable and concise are still relevant.

If you're anywhere nr Ipswich, this bloke's supposed to be pretty good at getting things healing quickly – I believe a lot of motorcycle racers use him:
http://www.physioclinic.net/index.html

Mine was a really silly incident. I was riding between the bottom of a DH course in Les Gets and the pavement – just some grassy runoff, a bit off camber. Feathering the back brake – breaks away, slides over the camber. I let go of bike, SPD doesn't release. Arse.

That afternoon while I'm sitting on the cafe nursing my (thinking sprained, but swelling) ankle, mate borrows the bike (I'd hired it). I sit watching him and 4 others descending 4x course…his helmet disappears – he'd got over a double and hit the second. Bust collarbone!
Fortunately this was on the sat, flying home the following day…
I'm walking in 6 weeks, 5 or 6 months later my mate has to have his collarbone pinned 'cos it ain't knitting, unlucky bugger 🙁
(By comparison, I bust a collar bone some years before and was cycling to the physio by the third week)

Yo 🙂

Correct bottom bracket size ? Enough cable's being pulled through ?

There should only be a few mm clearance between the outer rig and cage (viewed from the side) – subject to it not hitting the chainstay (as I found with a mech on one frame)

Otherwise – as mentioned, yaw wrt the frame.

>Has anyone had an experience with Aircasts?

Yup – spiral fracture of the fibula some years back – mebbe I was lucky with that, I think there's quite a bit of surface area to help it knit together. Can't remember the exact details but wasn't supposed to walk on it for 4 weeks but could put weight on after the first week or two (the tibia's weight-bearing). I think then another week or two walking with the cast on, so about 6 in total.

The ankle was a bit stiff for a while and probably took a few years to regain most of it's original flexibility.
Don't be too shocked by how skinny your calf will get, it'll soon come back up to size – I wound up riding one of the spinning class bikes one-footed for a while to help build it back up.

>Someone should tell the aircraft industry then, they spend a fortune on preventing it oxidising.

Do they just paint everything then ?

Another vote for the Sam Smith's pubs above – the Princess Louise is a *particularly* good example of Victorian tilework, and they've more recently reinstated glass/timberwork screens as they would have been when it was built.

Have a look on http://www.fancyapint.com too – you can look up pubs by rating/station/tube/name/area – and it's got objective reviews (unlike beerintheevening.com, which has customer submitted reviews which are are bit unreliable)

If it's only a couple of keys not working, and the thing works otherwise, it's almost certainly just the keyboard switches – as mentioned, try letting it dry out. I'd be inclined *not* to spray it with anything else until it's had a few days to dry, then maybe some switch cleaner (eg from Maplin), and then *only* on the keys that are giving you grief.