Mackem – Member
Does it really matter?

I refer the honourable gentleman to:

first thought is of course “how much money should she put in the invoice?”

There have been some strong opinions published on ‘Photos for free’ in the world of online cycling journalism on this very site, wondered if the same principles held fast for the little people.

Saltash (small town across the river from plymouth, home of excellent railway bridge) has a waitrose and an lidl about 100 yeards from each other. If you are local you will soon begin to recognise the very posh cars that pull out of one supermarket to go directly across the rundabout to the other.

current employer only 5 years old, but plenty of chopping up and TUPE involved -most of us worked for a much much older employer and are still in the same posts sat at same desks as we were before current company even ever thought about.

More excitingly, when I was a lot younger I very briefly worked for the Gendarmerie Nationale, which wikipedia tells me is only 2 years younger than the Revolution. But much older still if you consider that the first gendarmes were TUPE’d over from the Marshalcy which started somewhere in the 1100’s…

there were a load on bbc4 last night too.

must admit I am a bit of a nerd for covers (as in knowing that they are, and then going back and listening to the original), but in my teens plenty slipped me by. (home taping, no liner notes etc I am sure!) Eg I used to think ‘waiting for the man’ was one of Bauhaus’ worse songs before I realised. And ‘Blinded by the light’ I thought was by Manfred Mann rather than The Boss the year before.

At work the other day, the ‘non-cover’ of Forever Young by Dylan and ‘Forever Young’ by Alphaville came up. Yes they are different.

I think its gone 650b now, but there was recently a 29″ kona explosif with 44mm headtube and slidng dropouts that was well nice. A mate had one in raw laquered steel finish.

will say one last thing, its very easy to make this about Jeremy Hunt. But fundamentally, deep down, I think we need to squarely lay the blame at David Cameron. He has stood by and ensured that ultimately the NHS he claimed to want to protect has been systematically destroyed since being elected by attacking the very staff that sweat blood and tears trying to protect it, work for it and love it.

Oh yes. There is a lot of hate on social media for Jeremy Hunt, as if he is the sole architect of this nonsense. I see him more as an expendable asset to the bigger process. As soon as his reputation becomes too toxic he will be replaced just as Lansley was before him. Or Gove for that matter. In terms of putting someone in post to brazenly spin, lie and obfuscate through the drama, (which was always going to be a drama whoever was the secretary of state for health, lets not think that any of this would be all that different under any conservative minister) then in crude and cynical political terms, (rather than the interests of the taxpayers or patients I mean) Hunt is doing his job just fine.

Politically it is just great for the conservatives to be able to blame this shitstorm on Hunt rather than on the party and their financial backers as a whole.

“7 day NHS” :evil:

in music technology: ‘workflow’. If it does what you want when you want it to, and plays nicely with other little electronic boxes, then that’s great. if it doesn’t, then before you put it on sale, invest some more time in development and put it out there when its really ready you chumps.

in musical instruments: ‘crafted in’. “made in” is good enough for something built mostly by machines and hand finished in a western country, somehow the fact that it was made in the far east requires a different verb to describe the same process.

will crc start price drop, and stop charging different prices for different sizes and colours of the same product?

very sad. As per above, he was a good bloke, friendly and fast to buy from. I also learned a bit (and bodged my own bearing presses and pullers) from his ‘how to’ videos.

top bits fit avid and formula brakes too. and rockshox x-loc hydraulic lockout which is a bit like a reverb button iirc. NB brakes and reverb/x-loc use rather different fluids iirc so best not to use same for both different systems unless you are sure they are properly cleaned out and dried.

A 22uF capacitor

yep. Some people also add a resistor (i forget which value) parallel to it as well, but yeah it keeps the treble up as you roll off the volume. Curious, as my much older much cheaper plywood, toploading 90’s japanese squier tele with ceramics and tiny pots even had one from new.

slight tangent: I have the same guitar as in edukator’s video. It is just stupidly good for the money and the name/country of manufacture on the headstock. Treble bleed and compensated saddles ftw.

OP yours looks lush too.

old story, but I couldn’t help hearing the voice and melodic, artful use of lanuage of Cletus’ wife from the Simpsons when Palin was speaking/shouting in support of Trump the other day.

Also, even older story but I reliase there is a lot of love for the Princess Bride on here it seems: have we done this one?
Mandy Patinkin on Cruz missing the point about Inigo Montoya

“I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it’s over, I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life.”

we’ve got a whirlpool fridge/freezer which is four house moves and 20 years old.

yep go with the ambulance chasers in this case.

Mrs was recently in similar-sounding accident (lights, hi vis, daylight, t-boned on roundabout) but with less serious injuries than you, and when she rang the driver’s insurance, the person on the phone tried to wriggle out of all sorts by sounding plausible and concerned but reassuring her that this and that was OK -she smelt a rat and took advice from our local cycle campaign group who told her they were (of course!) minimising their losses, so she got a claims company involved. Since then she’s had fantastic private physio, helmet replaced and bike fixed for free and i believe her employer is also claiming from them for the day off sick she took.
I guess ordinarily this is lust like what your own motor insurance would do if you were in injured in a car on or a motorbike and not at fault, so i use the term ‘ambulance chasers’ in a more gentle/lighthearted way than I do when i am the (metaphorical -actually I am a nurse) ambulance driver.

ninfan – Member

I think that the biggest clue comes form the fact that so many of the people who are saying “out” would be a disaster are the same people who, a few years ago, were telling us that it would be a disaster if we didn’t join the Euro…

That guy that interprets opinion polls who didn’t come out of GE 2015 looking quite as much of a plonker as the others was on R4 yesterday morning pointing out amongst other things that graduates seem more in favour of staying in. Similar observations and exciting graph content 3/4 of the way down here:

Telegraph linkyhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12086589/EU-referendum-Who-in-Britain-wants-to-leave-and-who-wants-to-remain.html

Selfishly, I am worried about ttip and what would happen long term to my job and employers (health), but also about future trade agreements and workers/trade union legislation from a far right government who already act like they won by a landslide. Even under the EU we have somehow managed to have some of the ‘worst’ trade union legislation in europe (‘worst’ if you are a member of or work for a trade union I mean btw).

Also selfishly I have dual nationality so if UK is out, there is nothing stopping me asserting my right to live, work, claim benefits and enjoy the securities of Europe whatever happens and however silly it gets in future.

I fear that however maturely we debate it on here, for most of the public it will boil down to a couple easily soundbitten and fairly unrepresentative points. Also I predict that the motivation to get out of the house and physically put a vote in will be far higher amongst the ‘out’ side than the ‘in’ or ‘oh I suppose we should stay in’ side, or/and that the supposed ‘shy tory’ phenomenom will reporoduce itself with ‘shy euroskeptics’ and opinion polls will predct a lower ‘out’ vote than we will actually get on the day.

From debate on here as much as anything else I am leaning towards ‘in’, pending Cameron’s ‘deal’ of course -and looking forward to the possibility of agreeing with CMD and a few of the big hitterz on here for once.

One of my mates put 165mm cranks on his trail bike and then his wife fell pregnant.
Just sayin’.

Oh and yes keep them.

I get shadowed quite a lot, (students/trainees). Makes you question what you are doing and why, and you spend longer getting stuff done coz you are explaining it as you go, but then if your shadow is there long enough they help you with paperwork/computer work, (current one is excellent) and hey, I learnt loads of cool things shadowing people when I was training, so good to put the karma back into the system.
Perhaps it’s a lazy public servant thing, but I don’t give stw a second thought when I am at work. :P

What route and TOC?

Proceeds of bike crowdfunder are going to charidee and he is buying the exorbitantly priced Raleigh criterium (you could get half a plate at a conservative fundraising dinner, a second hand fork or ck hubs for that!) as a birthday present to himself in May. Reported in a gentle and unspectacular way today by a broadsheet you never seem to post links to Jamby.

Nb plenty of nuclear submarines with no nuclear warheads already exist in a choice of navies. I realise that wasn’t what you meant but fully expect rw media to make the exact same mistake on the front pages tomorrow. What would be different would be to actually own and/or 100% have our own authority to launch them.

T4 2.5tdi swb caravelle as only car and daily drive here. Its probably quite a lot thirstier than a little car and takes ages to warm up in the winter so probably terrible on fuel if your commute and journeys are short. As long as a biggish estate but easier to park because of the driving position and big mirrors. Nice enough driving position and less like a van to drive than a transit etc. Also suprised to observe that it is actually narrower than the ridiculous honda softroader that usually parks behind me at work. 6 feet tall, but I don’t think there is a single multistorey in plymouth that is too low for that: i think there is one in exeter i can’t get into but thats the only place i wanted to but couldn’t park it in 5 years i have had it.

Vw ‘tax’ is worse in the surfy south west in my experience. Some servicing on t4 is easy and cheap to do but some is pretty huge and definitely a garage not d.i.y. job (cam belt and steering rack for example. Galvanised, which means t4’s are far less rotten (if rotting at all) compared to vans of similar age and the 2.5 diesel is good for 250k+ easily if looked after properly, which also partly explains the silly prices compared to similar age/mileage vans. These days lots more vans are galvanised and better engines so i don’t see the same difference in reliabiility and rot in t5’s versus similar age vito, vivaro etc though.

Roland, Korg, Nord and Novation.

Or indeed Fender, Gibson, PRS and Rickenbacker. \m/

But yes, delighted to see Watford back up there. Only waited 30 years!

You think that the.job of an MP is evangelism rather than representing the will of the electorate?

…what a strange question. I am not sure you understood the post. Besides, if it was just about representing the will of the electorate we would only have one party, shirley?

Iirc the trick is either to be on the same side on enough issues with enough people to get elected (see renationalsation of railways and other mad loony left ideas that absolutely no one is interested in), or alternatively convince the electorate to vote for policies that don’t actually improve their own personal lives because they believe in a bigger picture or purpse. Lefty parties have been doing this with rich edcuated people and righty parties have been doing this with poor uneducated people for quite some time.

chestercopperpot – Member

What were we thinking there are loads of places a lot worse than here, who knew?

What an ungrateful bunch of whiners we are we’ve never had it so good.

I seem to remember that it was indeed the OP who replied just that to me when on a thread a while back when i was moaning about the apparent race towards second-world ‘democracy’ prevailing under this and previous 2 governments.

Images not playing on tablet today.

But i got an Electro Harmonix Stereo Electric Mistress (guitar effects pedal: gilmour/summers/cobain in a little metal box) in the post today.

This thread is like one of those links that people you don’t really know that well but are somehow facebook friend post up:
“he posted up a thread on stw about a classifieds sale, but no one expected what would happen next….” [\i]

wtf was he doing “training” on a promenade.

Are we reading too much into the reporter’s use of the word ‘training’?

Also says he was in a group of 10. So was this a group of 10 unfit inexperienced cyclists, on a path appropriate to their skills and experience at the time, getting ready for a rather gently paced charity c2c, or was it an experienced (and I suppose in that case irresponsible) chain gang tearing along at >25mph? Given the photo if him nit in Lycra and not on a carbon TT bike (and that criminal mudguard!!) my gut feeling is probably not as slow and wobbly as first possibility, but far closer to that one than the second…

That would be so cool. :D

Tough opening this thread I am somewhat disappointed that the story isn’t that one lucky superstacompnents black friday customer gets to go for a razz with Neil. I met him once. Nice enough bloke, but in fairness probably easier to keep up with then Yanto Barker.

So, they’re riding on a footpath….

Since 2007 its been a cycle path too.

If it makes any of you feel any better, i am a cultural heretic (or whatever the opposite is to cultural conservatism), and i thought about the importance of shaking up politics via whoever challenged the nonsense of westminster and the conservative-lite that was the labour party recently, so politically I took a bit of a lurch to the right to get to supporting the not-all-that-radically-lefty-at-all Corbyn.

As ‘just’ a mental health nurse by trade, even I knew from my first year of training lord knows how many years ago that the complications and early warning signs leading to stillbirth often occur (and could/should) be detectable several days before birth. Meaning that ‘all those’ stillbirths at the weekend might be equaly or probably more likely down to mistakes and failings that happened on tuesday or wednesday.

And then with reference to this latest nonsense story, the head of the royal college of obstetricians came on radio four the day before yesterday and said just the same thing 8)

The ‘nurses in nhs vs total on the rigister’ figure is completely meaningless. nurses work in lots of places besides nhs acute hospitals and trusts. Our model of moving people out of acute hospitals into care homes or with specialist home nursing input supports this, and supports the moving of thise contracts of employment out of nhs trusts. This doesn’t mean we don’t need them, they are just being paid by a different organisation. Our local primary care trust is now a social enterprise with nhs logos at the top of its letters but none of the nurses there are now in your figures. Same goes for the whole of childrens services in devon (virgin). You doubtless have a large group of nurses close to you, dear stw reader who have recently been tuped out of the nhs, contributing to this meaningless number and also the wealth of private sector jobs ‘created’ in 2010-15.

Its great nursing is a degree subject nowadays. Workload for students of any health and social care profession undergrad course is vastly different compared to any other undergrad course. Of course its possible to do part time work on top of this but i found this much easier on my BA where i had 2/5 as much teaching time, similar workload for coursework, twelve weeks off just for summer (as opposed to eight weeks off whole year) and all without between six and nine months of full time unpaid work placement. They simply do not compare! I believe the same is true for most other AHP training now and also social work. If its a race to the bottom, lets make all undergrad courses regardless of subject have this workload and lifestyle! If its not, perhaps we should consider funding for all training for courses for specific professions.

It is foolish when the chancellor complains about how much nhs trusts are spending on agency fees, to introduce something that will so obviously have an impact on numbers entering training in 2017/18 and impact on where they want to work at the end of it with student loans to start paying off. Anynone would think he is not thinking about the recruitment in the nhs in 2020/21, as if it will be someone else’s problem;)

Also you forget the positive impact nurse training has had on social mobility. I realise that is a dirty word on this forum but the numbers of graduates in general from poor backgrounds or who are not fresh out of school and have children is made up of a disproprtionatly high number of nurses. …and they often make far better newly qualified nurses than people who have come into it straight from school. Loans not bursaries will impact on this too.

The long term economic plan.

Fit the home builder, apart from the cost, the advantage of the roger mission diy wheel jig is that you go on ‘relative’ measurments. You need a dishing tool and in the end I bought a proper one but then the rest of the straight/round measurments are done by eye. This then means as long as the wheel spins (doesn’t even need to be perfectly aligned with the stand itself although it helps if it is fairly straight in the stand) then you can have it just hanging in the ‘dropouts’ with an Allen key or skewer rather than tying yourself in knots with fittings or adapters for different hub spacings and axle ‘standards’. His book explains this far better than I can, but it also means I have easily built up on all sorts of hubs including 150×12 rear and maverick front hubs, and only something as big as 29er rim with a tyre still on doesn’t fit in it if you want a quick spin to check if it’s the rim or the tyre that’s wobbly.

As above, if you start with a new straight rim and the spokes ‘in tune’ (I ping them early in the build for even starting tensions) then follow careful tension-true-stress relief cycles, the spokes will end up very evenly tensioned at the end. Pinging them for pitch as you do the intermittent trying is a good way to keep them that way: if a spoke you want to tighten is already higher pitch than its same-side neighbours then consider loosening the opposite side adjacent spokes too.

Other top tip as well as oiling spoke threads and nipple beds/eyelets (up cycle your used fork oil for this job) is to put a drop in between where spokes cross each other. Less pinging and easier to ‘stress relieve’ compared to clean but dry spokes.

I suppose what we need are some private members bills on gun licencing, outdoor access/fight to roam and curbing the power of trade unions (even more!), then wheel an mp out to kill them on a Friday afternoon -then see how ninfan feels about filibustering. I have a sense that he is against too much unconnected bitty legislation and favours the ‘creative’ use of our constitution to manage this, but unclear from two answers now whether he would actually support the abolition of private members bills rather than address the misuse of parliamentary time (by both masses of bills and also fillibustering) in order to achieve this.

Personally I think private members bills are something to be held on to. Under a political system that favours single party government it is already near impossible for ‘minority’ mp’s (if you can call the snp ‘minority’ nowadays but really I am thinking the even smaller parties) elected with enormous support locally to put forward legislation. The issue of complex or messy over-legislating can be dealt with elsewhere and by other means -figures suggest that the mess of laws (and on this I agree with ninfan, it was a bit of a mess) under Blair actually had little to do with private members bills -the successful ones actually halved under Blair compared to the previous two periods of government.

under Blair it was, quite literally, several new new laws every day and has continued pretty much unchecked since then –

Yet putting aside the total number of pieces of legislation, the actual number of private bills successful under thatcher and major was usually double if not more per year/session than under blair afterwards: i wonder where else these ‘several new laws a day’ were coming from? And should private members bills be cut because of pebbledashing legislation elsewhere in the political week?

Parliament.uk website us unclear how many members bills were debated/started but not made law however, so i can’t see wherther the huge drop in private members bills made law under blair vs the conservative governments before was against a background of there being too many bills introduced or too few, or something else entirely.

Interesting also to wonder how many laws would have been more ‘officially’ supported by governments had they not been able to be put in more quietly as whips or handout bills. Would we still have had the following and if not how much later and in what form?

(shamelessly lifted from wiki):

Abortion Act 1967
Adoption Act 1964,
Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965,
Charter Trustees Act 1986,
Law Reform (Year and a Day Rule) Act 1996,
Knives Act 1997,
British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1997,
Mental Health (Discrimination) Act 2003
Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003
Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004
Sustainable Communities Act 2006

Ninfan, again: what do you think in general of private members bills?

Ninfan where do you stand in general on private members bills then?

[professional hat on]
Psychiatry drug trials are particularly hard to measure.

There are pages and pages of arguments out there just discussing the repiability or validity of the measures and rating scales used to quantify symptoms of mental ill health, so that is rather muddy waters before you even start looking for yr trial cohort or doing your baseline measurments!

Then there is the subjectivity of the patient’s own experience and that of the person assessing them if symptoms are examined by interview or observation. Consider the people who agree to double blind trials and also the people who get enthusiastic about researching or carrying them out.

Then there are so many biological or social variables in mental wellbeing which have nothing to do with drugs or indeed placebo drugs.

Then there are trials that just get “buried” or more publicly rubbished because the outcome was not what the ‘sponsor’ wanted. (I forget if its naomi klein’s book or ben goldacre but there are a couple recent of examples of this)

So from a cost and public helath point of view, much of mental health work is done on the basis of ‘more likely’ and ‘less likely’ that actually the cost to society by days off sick or off school, hours spent in specialist inpatient or outpatient care and the relatively low impact of side effects makes it worth a try in many cases. And in many cases you have very little to lose as a patient by trying pills either as a main treatment or an adjunct to talking therapies.

That said, most of my patients [childrens mental health] are not on meds at all and will never be because there is not enough (shaky or otherwise) evidence to suggest they will help at all.

[professional hat off again]

At that price, +1 for a controller you can link to ipad or computer.
Garageband is an easy way in. I have it on my phone to mess about with and even on a crappy iphone speaker, the quality of some of the instrument sounds is really rather good compared to a large plasticky keyboard from toys-r-us. Midi controller gets you a better ‘feeling’ keyboard for the money and the flexibility of whatever program/app you use.