I hope you picked up all its poo, and put it on a lead when other walkers appeared.

I picked up an audiolab 8000a for less than £100.

Won’t do much better than that imho. A step up from the old budget amp favourites like Rotel 820’s, Mission Cyrus ect. Closer to Naim Nait’2s.

An unloved economic buy is the Linn Intek? For £100 its a cracking amp, but wasn’t good enough at the £400 price point 10-15 years ago to win many purchasers.

My only issue, is that natural expression between people largely comes in the form of body language, as well as spoken words.

If someone wishes to communicate with me, in an open honest fasion, I expect to see their body language, so that I can judge if what I am being told is correct. I know telephone communications fall into this, but you cant turn your back on technology, and I also have a right to put a phone down.

With that, should someone wish to interact with me, in a way I cannot judge the veracity of their actions, then I, finding that behaviour socially rude, reserve the right to ignore the person who does not do me the courtesey of being willing to interact with me in anopen honest way.

Wear your burka by all means, you have that freedom, but don’t expect me to respect you for it. Thats my freedom of expression. I wont offend you, as manners are important, andI also realise the responsibility of my right not to offend, with my freedom to chose who and how I interact.

Coming soon, the Pete Townsend relic guitar.

Its a Rickenbacker with its neck snapped off.

LBS can be run by enthusiasts, and can be helpful in a way mail order will never be. And if you live 2 mins from it, frankly its a lot mroe convenient.

for example, I wandered in to C&N Cycles Redhill a few weeks ago (shameless plug) as a bewildered 40 yo witha bmx 1pc crank and a nut I couldnt remove, having tried with a hammer and screwdriver for hours.

Chap took it, used the tool – 10 secs work. But worth ££ to me, as I simply couldnt do it myself. I stood there for a sec, waiting to be charged, and then it became aparent that I wasn’t going to be charged…. so I bought a couple of inner tubes I didn’t need at that moment, but might do, simply to reward the kindness and effort….

Wouldnt have got that mail order, and thats exactly why if you can, you should get on good terms with your lbs.

If its personal injury, just follow everyone else. Issue, always, and out of Birkenhead or Liverpool County Court where the most rotten, pne eyed and pro claimant judges feed insurance claims to the circling sharks.

Ask for what you want, with no reference to the rules, and you’ll be amazed what you get there. I guess 20% of all p.i. is issued out of there.

No need for the CPR when the dice are so heavilly stacked in your favour and its conveniently ignored if it doesnt suit the claimant.

Bitter? Never….

If you like beer, most of the Kolsch lagers are very good indeed.

Generally light flowery fresh tasting, and served in modest sized glasses, particularly good unless you have never tried a decent lager and have bludgeouned your buds on carling tin tasting muck.

Hugo Boss designed the uniforms for the SS.

At the risk of “trolling”, who are “positive action in housing” anyway?

This email comes form someone advertising in the sig line about “positive housing”.

What is “positive” housing? I am familiar with the concept of “positive”, in that say one man lives in a sub standard house, one has no home, and helping the one with no home first is “positive”, but these days, “positive” has its own “discriminatory” tone, and is used as a nice byword for “discrimination” in itself.

I’d hate to make the quantum leap that someone who discriminates, is against people who discriminate. However you allocate scarce resource like housing, someone loses out. Someone is “discriminated” against.

I can’t see me ever on my own affording a home in the south east where I live, the rent kills me on a monthly basis, but theres no rush to help me. Indeed, as a propertion of my outgoings, given council tax discounts of only 25%, and that I am funding education and other things I will not use, I am “discriminated” against myself for my marital status. Of course in the real world, firstly kids lives do need to be safeguarded and I am sensible enough to recognise that todays education funds tomorrows pension (but by the time I claim my state pension, they probably wont exist, or be so small that they’re essentially worthless)

But it seems No ones being very “positive” to me these days.

I know its not local, but a lot of the retro bmx boys use this chap :

http://www.radbmx.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=56789.0

Given these guys can be nuts about their bikes, and that the bikes are older and may have had hard lives, + the chap is happy for his work to be photo’ed and posted, might be worth a look.

How about the right to a citizens arrest and compulsory hand amputation for people who pick chilled items up in supermarkets and on deciding they don’t really want them, instead of putting them back where they took them, insist on ruining them by putting them in the freezer, or on an non refrigerated store.

And compulsory holiday flights to the north pole and a fortnight in an ice hotel, naked for those imbeciles who have to hold open the glass fronted freezers often for several minutes at a time, to decide what they want to buy, rather than, er looking through the glass, or removing one time for inspection and shutting the door.

I don’t know about the new ones, but I used to find Oranges measure short.

A 17 inch Orange p7 is about a 16 Kona, Specialised, and 15.5 Marin (well,they were when I was trying out bikes years ago).

I am 5’6ish with a roughly 30 inch inside leg. I’d not want bigger than 17, but it gives me plenty of stand over height. As an odd shape I also ride a 50cm Bianchi racer, where as convention would put me on a 52 or 54 cm ride.

I think p7’s are reasonably long in the top tube, compared to others, so thats something to bear in mind.

Best thing is to try a couple in all honesty.

Well, I like it. Very retro.

I can see AP’s point, that he’s stumping up the cash to start with, but realistically is there any differecne between the emplyee taking a kids bike, and taking a bike for himself, in so far as the company is concerned? No – the result is the same, the scheme is still operative and the cost the same. No one looses. Its not quite a “victimless crime”, as I struggle to see where the “crime” is.

I don’t use my bike for 50% of journeys. If I did, I’d have no bloody energy at work! And it rains far too often, and we have no shower or changing facilties.

Accidents happen. Your child didn’t mean to damamge the vehicle and owning up impresses me with his maturity. Not saying you “reward” but as long as its clear that he knows it was entirely the right thing to do then well done.

And I woek in a claims dept for a big insurer. I never see repair invoices as little as £200 these days. The paint, spraying and drying times + materials are going to be almost that much. I know it sounds a lot, bur really it isn’t.

However, i’d offer him a cash in lieu – say £197 less 15% vat (dont pay vat unless he presents you with an invoice, its illegal to pay it until its incurred)and less say 10% for profit on the job. Say £150, get a recepit, and if its repaired, a copy satisfaction note, so he can’t come after you for a new mystery stratch in a few weeks. The recepits so he can’t claim against your household/pbublic liability policy if you have one, in the future.

I know this threads full of people taking the Pi$$, but I think Simon’s stance is nice. Except for the tapping with the broom.. I mean….

Birds are still creatures, that suffer hunger and fear, and our higher level of intenigence allow us empathy that other mammals don’t. It may end up part of the future food chain of some other bird or mammal, but at least not intervening keeps nature in kilter.

Why kill or be beastly to an animal if it doesn’t deserve it. And yes, I am a veggie. I don’t mind people eating meat, I don’t view it as abhorrant or un natural,but frankly putting a captive bolt gun to a calfs head and yanking out the spinal cord is something I couldn’t ever bring myself to do, in present society terms. (Perhaps if I were starving/desert Island that might all change). If I am not prepared to do so, then who am I to ask others to do that?

See, if we were Italians, with their casual attitude to tax and government, no one would bat an eyelid.

Its so uniquely english that without being able to “identify any actual target” that HR is suspicious. Does it really, actually matter in the long run who gets the bike from the earner in the family. The end result is 1 less fat kid, 1 more happy employee and one more bike shop with a sale.

Whilst I applaud the intend and scope of the scheme (I have a bike myself) does the original posters position actually, in the scheme of things, where there is still no harm, only benefits all round, matter one jot?

A custom frame is presumably like a custom suit. Designed only to fit *you* and your personal eccentricities.

Any off the shelf frame is simply the designers own compromises welded up to fit a median of potential purchasers according to his/her interpretations of whats important.

When which magazine did a test of interent “custom” shirts, their tester actually found that despuite it being a bit odd in the way it asks for measurements (using biometrics, what ever they are) rather than asking for every inch of arms shoulder, the M&S online shirt designer came out top for value and fit.

The tester oddly enough is built like me, and as I might need an interview suit shortly, mayhave a go myself.

http://www.marksandspencer-madetomeasure.com/ms.asp

To be honest, I’d avoid fall out simply by pointing out what the deeds say, that he is responsible for a fence to one side of his boundary, and you are responsible for the other side.

(This means for example on a semi, that the party wall is prbably the responsiblity of the left hand house. The right hand house probably has responsibility for the right hand wall.

Not sure why the cheeky sod thinks he can just damage property that affects both of you, do nothing, whilst he get on with his “lifestyle choices” and then expect you to pay for them.

What ever is on the deeds, go with that. It’s not unreasonable for him to fix the bit of his fence he’s responsible for. I mean, he’s not expecting you to do his kitchen as well is he? Cheeky sod.

If its aluminium, how about anodising?

I bought my first MTB, an Orange c16 from Rayments off Preston Road.

At the time, i was an absolute alladins cave of cycling. Carrying Cannondale, Orange as well as Specialised and Marin + others,if you were looking to buy a decent bike rather than a Halfords levels bike, they had great choice. Also, desipte the “urban” nature of the shop, they took time and let me try several bikes over a couple of hours til I was happy. I think the chap running was quite a “serious” chap, and could see how some might think they were a but “above themselves” but I never had any issues with them what so ever.

As it was the C16 was so much better than anything else at the money at that time!

You might think this should be normal, but getting trial rides when you walk off the street is in my experience no so easy (although Bikehut in Dorking were good for this recently too!)

In Sharia law women were allowed to own property.

Well, if you’ve been to parts of the world where it is the law, you’d have to say that owning a square of flyblown sand or dry rocky desert is hardly the greatest gift ever…… Its a statment that seems rather less than the sum of its parts…

click

bunch of grown men with kids bikes wondering the very same….

Sheldon Brown has a very handy site.

It’s not a mountain bike…

But was built from ebay – Frame, forks and crank (seized) in a prtty nasty condition, and all other bits sloly accumulated.

Not sure what the relvance of all the other non fmcg comparisons in this thread are about.

We’re talking about a firm, who grew thanks to great marketing, with the pretence of a reasonably green viewpoint, marketing the positive health benefits of their (frankly overpriced) drinks.

You can’t continue to maintain those credientials when associated with an outfit like Coca Cola. Some of the global manoevering and corruption of such a powerful marketing financial outfit is pretty much shooting yourself in the foot. You want to appeal to left wing greenies – dont do businesss with the likes of coca-cola. Stories of how they come down hard on unions in south america, creation of polluted water supplies in poor areas globally, ect ect mean innocent have lost all credibility with their market.

Still look at the brand P&J (Pete and Johnnies). They were a premium growth brand sold alongside Innocent. And then Pepsico bought them. And ran the brand into the ground and have now closed it.

The shame is I quite like the innocent drinks. I do the litle cartons as a portion of fruit after my cycle into work. I shall vote with my feet and work harder to make my own and have a home made one in a bottle instead.

And if I am replicated up and down the country, when premium soft drinks will be one of the marketing lines that go “soft” in a recession, then in 18m there will be no more Innocent. And for all those parents who struggled to get little Johnny to get his veg and fruit in without a fight, thats a shame.

2 types of lid, polycarbonate, which do go off withuv, and should be replaced after as little as a year – typically low value sub £60 elmets worn by scooter boys.

Fibreglass ones have a longer shelf life (check the sticker on the rear – is it blue or green?) but its not the shell you want to be worrying about. If its been indoors, the crucial bit, the liner, made of polystryene and other expanded foams, may be becomming a bit brittle, and its the close fitting of the lid thats so crucial. – The hemet needs a comft but tight fit. If the inner is weak, and moves your head about in the helmet in an accident then its a money saver gone horribly wrong.

Besides, unless things have changed, most agv helmets were pretty cheap and replaceable items at that age.

Given a decent helmet is less than one pair of sports tyres which may last less than 3k on the rear – do you think its a false economy.

bin them, dont sell them, cut the straps out first so no one can “find them” and sell them on.

C&N – friendly.

Also a surprise vote for Bikehut in Dorking. Picked up a Bianchi on a c2w scheme from them. Friendly guys, helpful, bike well set up. What more do you need?

When I was thinking of frame sizes, were happy to let me out on a “surprisingly expensive” bike 3x over my spending limit just to nail down sizes and stuff. When I collected, and asked for a couple of things done to the bike, ie different pedals fitted they did that happilly…..

have a look at hiscox

That’ll certainly mean he gives you the job. I mean, what the customer wants, the customer gets?

How can any house in the third world be worth so much?

Less discarded pornography than you would imagine.

But if you apply one rule, you have to apply it equally and fairly.

Should women be able to have “own gender” groups, clubs and support groups? Or should men be allowed admittance?

I think it is true that men and women dont experience the exact same things or see things in exactly the same way, all the time. Men and women are whilst 99.9% like men, do need to have that remaining percentage catered for.

Ditto, when men get together they can have a tendancy to boorish behaviour. Men behave differently in the company of women. Whilst I might have been able to avail myself of a masonic introduction, I chose not to, and left organisations like Round Table as well simply as my idea of a good evening isn’t one in exclusively male company. However, I see nothing wrong in it in itself and wouldn’t condem others for doing that. I also therefore apply the reverse and would have no issues with clubs or societies that I am barred from on gender terms, as they simply serve needs that I don’t have.

Sure, golf clubs and working mens clubs, are not behaving appropriately in disbarring women, so its hard to draw a line, but on a case by case basis, leave the WI for women.

Equality isn’t the same as recognisisng genuine differences.

Or, spend less on an Orange p7 and use the rest of the cash on some cheap flights somewhere you’d never go for a couple of weekends riding.

The thrill of saying “I’ve been there…” never fades….

The thrill of a new bike is more temporary. Your still spending the money on your hobby, but doing something more active than just having a slightly more expensive bike.