Bontrager xr4 team TLR looks like a good all round choice, not as light as Schwalbe or mountain king supersonics though

they are on ebay and have since go up 150 quid to £270 so i doubt i'll go for it

Nissan Figaro! I wanted one after I passed and they were 2k now they're 3-5k. All micra parts so easy to run.
EDIT : seems the going dealer rate is more like 6.5k (for the naff colours)

£25 p/h for a bike mechanic? That's graduate salary!

Kerry is really nice with lots to keep the kids interested. Fantastic beaches with cystal water. Blarney castle is good fun as is Dingle bay.

Dumfriesshire has the highest density of trail centres with easy bike rental of quality bikes and lots of well maintained and feature packed trails so that might be best if you're planning to get a few days easy riding in. However there are some amazing trails in the Scottish mountains which wouldn't be as easy but would certainly be more memorable. Try Torridon for some classic Scottish scenery and enjoyable trails.

Chatel in the Alps? Trips to beautiful Annecy with its lake beaches, park d'adventure just over the border (like go-ape) lovely walks and obviously great riding without the lung busting climbs with the chairlifts

I found Sky HD to be very underwhelming in terms of the difference in picture quality. It's better but not so much better that it makes the expense worthwhile. However I was suprised that normal tv looks a lot better on this screen than on a normal screen (was expecting the opposite)

Yuck, green plus red is not sexy IMO. Stick with black, white, silver or maybe gold. Possibly Purple if you're going for a 'the joker' look but that would be pretty niche.

Isn't there a trick of putting a bit of diesel in the engine oil which helps loosen baked on gunk over a period of time? There are all the additives you can try but many don't do anything the best value one is what is currently called 'desiel power ecomax' (seems to have a new name/forumla every year). EGR clean is a good idea you'd be supprised how clogged up they can get, in many cars you can just bypass it entirely. Also renewal and upgrade of air filter and replacement of oil and oil filter should help. You should be able to fix any problem yourself bar injector servicing, saving many pennies.
Other than servicing check;
fuel pump functioning,injectors all working, ecu not flooded, egr not blocked, air filter not blocked, mass air flow sensor not degraded,cam sensor not degraded.

Don't buy a dslr unless you know you NEED it. I though I needed one and regretted it as they're just so chunky especially with lenses and accesories. The compacts of today will take comprabale quality pictures unless you use the slr on manual and know exactly what ypou are doing with metering, exposure white balance etc. The compacts have the same processors as there dslr brethren just inferior optics.
My recomendation would be a powershot s90 or g11. I have an s80 which is about 4 years old and I don't know any compact camera I've used since that takes better pictures. My 20d did take some nicer ones but was so dependant on which lens was used.
try dpreview.com for some exhasutive reviews from experts not some ill-informed consumer magazine.

What about 2008/2009 manitou minutes? Seem to get decent reviews despite their questionable peddigree, stiffer and lighter than pikes by many accounts. But they're only 140mm. Hardly any decent 150mm trail forks out there except the '10 revs and dt swiss jobs both of which cost large pennies. Maybe some float 36s?
Edit. +1 for maverick DUCs. Easily self serviced and nice and light/stiff but need 24mm hub

Another Morzine fan here, infact I've been daydreaming about going back ever since my last run on the Pleney! Our group was only there for one week and I feel we barely touched to top of the ice berg with how many trails there are but even so I never for one minute got bored.
Definately consider a brake upgrade as they will take some abuse and obviously bring another set of pads. As far as XCing goes there are some beautiful singletrack runs without any crazy buisness and often pass through woods and meadows, it's all very lovely.

+1 for taking your own or buying a second hand dh bike and flogging it after. The hire charges are ridiculous. I looked at it for this summer and all I could afford was a kona fire mountain for about £50 a day.
Don't feel you need a DH bike though if you have a decent 130mm bike it will see you fine on the pleney and most other stuff but some of the less well maintained routes have terrible braking bumps so it's nice to have a few more inches. 13 of us traveled with bikes to Morzine this summer and no problems!

fox van 32 r might be worth a look. Light for a coil fork though not as stiff as others.

When my dad had his liver chopped out for cancer treatment(the person to have most liver removed and still survive ever!) there was a nice big surgical tube left in there for a while. He just thought if someone's saved your life it's not very nice to sue them for something you'd never noticed.

M&S are pretty good for off the peg. There are a few companies that do really good value made to measure/ semi-bespoke suits now at around the £300 mark. Much better than paying triple that for a label that says savile row, or for some fashion suit. I've a gieves and hawkes, a hackett and a T.M Lewin and there's hardly any difference between them in terms of quality/fit.

My friends had a 70mph de-biking. Only broke one grip and blew the tyres. Not bad! I'm not a fan of roof mounts but I guess most problems are user error as they couldn't be sold otherwise.

even the basic modes are as light or lighter than the top end shimano stuff for a fraction of the price. I find they disengage a bit too easy in the rough and tumble but I guess swapping the cleats over would solve this. I learned to use spds with candys and didn't really have any problems except that they really 'loosen up' takes maybe a quater of the effort to unclip now than it did when they were fresh.
I'm not really a big beliver in the whole platform thing because if your foot comes our or you unclip for a dabby bit flat plastic on flat plastic isn't going to give any real grip. The mallet might be a better choice for this reason.

I nearly bought a second hand frame earlier this year and researched it quite a lot and from what I've read it would be a great substitue and probably more enjoyable than both bikes. it will probably be the same weight or evenlighter than the trance (definatelky so if it's an older trance). However if it's a newvwer reign it won't be that much lighter and both are effiecnt climbers so you might not notice an improvment there either. Downhill the reigh would probably have it but the zesty usually impresses with it's ability above and beyond it's remit.
I doubt you'll regret your desicision but it might be worth looking at the spicy if you really enjoy pushing your reign.
I was looking for a bike that would be great fun at the trail centres and I could take to the portes du soliel and have a blast on. The zesty ticked my boxes but for regular light dh use the reign or spicy would perhaps be better

I always found motocross to be a bit redneck/chavvy where as MTB has a wider gamut of coolness. I'm 20 and when I was 14 all the cool types read MBUK (when it was still a bit of a lads mag) and played Tony Hawks and watched skateboarding and BMX. No one cared for Motocross. I think skateboarding and snowboarding are always going to be coolest but MTB is getting cooler all the time and just as Peaty et al made it cool for my age group the Athertons are appealing to the younger audience again.

Never too far from a trail centre when you want some instant gratification riding.

MBUK gave it a 7, controversial! It looks a lot better than most posts and is super cheap but slightly heavy (279g for 27.2 x 330mm)and lacks micro adjustment though is very secure.- That's the general gist.
as far as I see it's a good post at less than half the cost of a Thomson while having 90% of the 'performance' of a Thomson.

I don't think it was right to execute him for many of the already mentioned reasons. I'd just like to say that the number of deaths caused by the heroin are to some extent irrelevent, if you abuse heroin you pay the price, these people are not victims on the most part, unless they are physically being forced to take the drug. I really cannot see any argument other than 'it's against the law' as to why a drug smuggler should be executed whilst tobacco is still so widely used (it's a massive problem in China). Both drugs kill people, the production of both drugs is complicit with abuse of 'workforce' and both generate a lot of money for a few people.
I'm not a fan of laws for laws sake, if something is wrong and is not parralelled by a legal practice then fine, but a kangaroo court scentencing a person of questionable sanity to death for seems so contadictory compared to the problem of tobaco use/abuse in China.

I borrowed them from my girlyfriend and was impressed with how comfy they are, I think their ubiquitousness speaks volumes for their value/performance.

Have to say the hype is ridiculous, so rather cynically, I'm expecting to be vastly dissapointed.

If only people would read the IPCC report rather than spurting random crap.

I used to work in reatil fraudfor the halifax. Basically aslong as it isn't PIN verified you'll get your money back. It's the vendors responsibility tyo endurr payments are legitamate and rhe only sure fire way is using PIN or a bank's dedicated online service. And if fraud occurs the bank jjust nicks the money of the vendor. Apologies fopr spelling I'm very drunk due to all my Uni work being finished til Feb and having a night ourt with tyhe cycling club wootenany.

I could do a curly wurly no problem

Actually all you neomalthusians out there are worng about the too many people thing. If we wee all veggies and didn't drive hummers we could support 40 billion

'Growth' and consumerism rather than health, happiness and equality. Cause of both.

and those smart enough to join me

Erm. I assume your definition of smart enough to be quite low considering your grasp of both the language of "these lands" and general grasp of reality. Surely by trying to segregate yourself from what you describe as a fecked up world, you acheive nothing but hermitage? If you have so many ideas on how to improve the world hy not do something more costructive than spending hours seeking attention from a load of middle aged men?(No disrespect)
You are also eternally asking people to give reasons for their arguments, why don't you back up your frankly idiotic rebukes with some substance and set an example.

It's the logrus!

IMHO there was nothing memorable about Mabie, it reminded me of Grizedale / Marin Trail.

Yeah, Grizedale is seriously outclassed now.

Not really rideable from Todmorden. It's nearer stackheads, through Bacup

Unless you're looking for great handling I'd reccomend some of the french diesels citroen, renault or peugeout they should run 250k no problem and often less than £50 to tax and cheap to insure whilst being very economical. The berlingo is a fantastic car if you need lots of luggae space and a versatile car.
You could get an older golf or focus and it would be nicer to drive/ less quirky looking but ultimately less practical, less reliable, more expensive to tax and insure and less economical.

If there are any more propehts/frames (or similar) going I'll be happy to snap one up!

20 – tax-dodging student at St Andrews

Freeride in my view is red bull rampage etc or riding on set peices rather than a course e.g. a big drop, stairs, big gaps, urban stuff. As you say it's not doing AM riding on a overly burly bike.

It looks like scafolding get a lapierre instead.