This is something of a first, a STW thread that has actually been some use where people have given good advice. Yes, really 😀
He has decided that he isn’t going for the interview and is going to keep looking for other jobs that won’t use and abuse.
Big thanks to fionap and ewan for your emails, if the jobs don’t come round in the next month or two he will look at internship or temping to get a feel for what he likes/is good at.
Life was much simpler when I was a lad, you opened the yellow pages, wrote to some businesses, two weeks later you had a job.

On my own, remote, quiet, on top of a big hill.

Bottle of red wine glow after

OP, I think most of the people who reply ‘sealskins and shimano goretex’ are the answer, don’t get the ‘oh my god my circulation is so bad and my feet are so cold I want to cry’ thing. I ride with plenty of chaps who moan a bit about cold feet, whereas it properly ruins my rides from december onwards.
I have found for road riding (where it hurts the most), the best solution for me, which makes the rides bareable, is merino socks, overlayed with a plastic bag (sandwich bags fit my feet), normal road shoes and neoprene overshoes. Add to this battery heated insoles that i exchange with the normal insoles. Can get them on ebay for about 20 quid, really made a difference for me.

Tron, I was typing whilst you posted, he is Russell Group and decent a levels, but I think you are right that he has missed this years boat

Cheers mboy, your post has just about put the last nail in a well and truly shut coffin, he won’t be going to enterprise.
Ryder, one or two people have mentioned the temping approach (particularly a great email sent by fionap, very helpful), and I think he is going to look at that if the current round of grad applications are unsuccessful.
I find it a little sad really. 20 years ago if you got gcse 5a*,4a’s and a b, AAB at A level and a good degree at a Russel group uni then the world was at your feet. Seems not so these days.

@ fionap. What line of work are you in if you don’t mind me asking, just sounds like you have some relevant comments about internship which he is more than happy to do. My email is in profile if you wouldn’t mind dropping me a line. Me and Mrs Lad have been in the same jobs for 20 years so we have a lack of awareness about this subject

Thanks fionap, that makes sense. To be honest he is not entirely sure what he wants to do at the moment and it might be an idea not to rush into the first job that comes along.
Anyway, it’s my day off before a weekend of evening shifts, so I’m off up Jeffrey Hill on the bike for a bit before the rain starts 😕

I’m very much of the opinion you work to live and not the other way round, so it does concern me that he will have very little time to himself if he takes this or a similar job. However, the job market would appear to be fairly appalling at the moment so half of me thinks he should go for whatever he can. Easier to get another job if already employed apparently

He got a 2/1 in politics from Newcastle, so whilst not medicine I would have thought it a reasonably good qualification.
Unknown, it is Enterprise. They have reviews as being a good graduate employer, but from what you say it might be worth giving them a wide berth.
If anyone needs a well presented, articulate ex grammar school bod he is willing to move out of the north west for employment (and I would be extremely grateful if someone could get him to move out :wink:)

Ahh, not a euphemism then

Wife cried her eyes out when we dropped the eldest off at Newcastle uni. I felt a strange warm glow that we had got him to this point where his independant existence began.

The bugger is back home now looking for a graduate job

I’ve had tendinitis for years. About 10 years ago I went to Salford uni podiatry dept. You act as a bit of a guinea pig for the students, and after filming me running they built me some inserts which stopped my ankle moving inwards on foot strike, cured it instantly. I do still get it from time to time but nowhere near as bad as it was. Might be worth a try.

As the great ape says, there is no harm in writing a very well worded, apologetic letter to the station sergeant, it may pay dividends.

General rule with motorway patrols is they don’t particularly care if you are doing less than 80. There was a 10% plus 2 in lancs on normal roads and we never booked anyone below 40 as a rule, that may have changed with the advent of speed vans though. If it was a traffic car they may well have had a calibrated device, however most patrol cars just have their own speedos which are just as accurate as yours. The officers will have had to do a calibration run over a measured mile and document it in notebooks if they didn’t use a device in the car.

Me and the 14 yr old are really enjoying Peaky Blinders. Well shot, acted, written and with Jack White thrown in as the soundtrack. Hoorah!

I’ll have a bag of gravel ta. Very quick Jamie, quite impressive.

The tone of this thread seems to have changed somewhat whilst I have been watching ‘Crossing England in a Punt’. Jamie, are you a false prophet?

The police made a decision a few years ago not to pursue car thieves per se, as the resulting possible outcome of the death of the thief or an innocent bystander was far from proportionate.
I find it quite disappointing that some on here think the death of another person is deserved because he stole a bit of metal worth about 30 quid

Well said JY, the flippancy is breathtaking sometimes

Little Chef at Stavely,ummmm

Just reminded me to watch it, got it on series link. University Challenge and buttons, giggling already.

Monsters Inc was always my favourite from when my kids were little. These days they won’t be out of bed for another hour or two

In really wet weather my sealskins used to not only restrict blood flow but also fill with water like a balloon. Bloody awful things, my feet got so cold it was like torture. I now use my summer road shoes with neoprene overs and Maplin heated insoles. Still get cold feet but it is more bearable than before. Aahh the curse of bad circulation.

Just finished a previous recommendation from on here, Child 44, and it was excellent.

Currently reading The Reapers by John Connolly, it is one of his Charlie Parker detective series, they have a touch of the supernatural to them and I find that they are better written than your average detective mass sale stuff.

What’s wrong with the camo ones Ton. I bought mine a few years back after seeing a fetching pic of your good self in some on here

High St. Bloody awful day

Just the punchline to this one;

‘Pardon me boss, is that the cat that chewed your new shoes’

Full joke;

The Romans, in an effort to keep up with the speedier Egyptian boats, build a super long Long Boat with hundreds of slaves to row it.
On it’s maiden voyage, the Roman captain stands at the rear of the ship, but there is a problem because the slaves at the front are so far away they can’t hear the beat of the bong at the back of the ship which gives them the rhythm to row to.
The Captain is not to be defeated by this and he gets a much larger bong, but the slaves still can’t here it.
The captain decides to move the bong to the middle of the ship but it is so heavy they can’t move it. He orders a slave to be killed, they place the bong on his chest and start to drag it to the middle of the ship.
At this point a general turns up and asks the captain what on earth they are doing.
‘We’re dragging a bong on the chest of a slave and the sun is in the sky’

Both punchlines need to be sung 😀

Martin, i ride the Bowland routes fairly regularly and a lot of it is b/w, but there are some cheeky bits in there, (particularly the footpath that drops off Salter Fell and takes you down to Whitendale,a brilliant few miles when dry and never seen a walker there). If cheeky isn’t your thing there is a great route from Chipping that takes in some big hills, all on b/w

56mph down the less steep side of pendle hill. didn’t feel any faster than the normal early 40’s that are fairly routine around these parts.
Fellow cyclist at work asked me what i would have done if one of the many sheep on this bit of road had wandered onto the tarmac. Haven’t been above 40 since then.

Gisburn has been developed quite a bit in that time and has a good variety of trails

Eldest (now 21),when picking him up from nursery the teacher came out to speak to us. She said they had had a quiz and he volunteered the answer to ‘what are cuticles’. He answered ‘ they are the things that hang down when daddy puts his leg on the bath to dry himself’. Luckily teacher was a friend of ours.

Youngest (now 14), on his first night out of hospital we had a powercut (which was quite common at the time in Ribchester if anyone knows the village). We went to change his nappy by candle light on our new settee, and as I expertly used one hand to lift his feet up and slide clean nappy under, he fanned a spray of green shit all over me, settee and nearby dog. It was a laugh or cry moment.

Aww, i’ve just got this 😀

A friend of mine at work has a labrador that had problems with its joints and the vet recommended glucosamine capsules but charged an absolute fortune for them. The company my wife works for sells the capsules considerably cheaper and she told me they had numerous customers who bought them for their dogs as it was the same ingredients to the ones the vets sell only a lot cheaper.
My friend now gives his lab glucosamine and the joints are a lot better. Now I know labs are intelligent but I don’t think they get the placebo effect 😉
Could just be coincidence I suppose.

An old, red, faded wtb saddle with silver duck tape covering the rip. Comfy on my carbon fibre Whyte.

Possibly the sound of the wife snoring upstairs so i get a bit of ‘me’ time downstairs 😀

I thought it was pretty much accepted now that flojo was doping.

If you go down the rocky shoot you talked of, come out on the fire road and turn left. Follow that for half a mile or so and when the fire road swings right, carry straight on the narrower path. After a few hundred yards there is the option to turn right and follow singletrack back to the fire road or head straight on into the woods, again eventually coming out on the track.
However, if you look carefully there is a path here that drops left off the fell that will bring you out on the Chaighley rd. It is mentally steep and fantasticly enjoyable, check your break pads are healthy and see if you can make the bottom without screaming. 😀
Only downside is that you have to ride up Birdy Brow to get back to the woods.

Why did the baker have brown fingers?

He kneeded a poo.

Just bought a dog from a blacksmith. As soon as we got home he made a bolt for the door.

The fact that I have enough self esteem not to spend my evenings trawling through the meaningless, pointless, internet ramblings of people I have never met . Doh!!

[Whoever invented Leatherette chairs will have a soecial circle reserved for them in my personal hell. Whilst there they will be repeatedly teabagged by my sweaty undercarriage.]

Ohh, that made me giggle.